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Defining Decay Down by David Plotz	" Defining Decay Down", David Plotz, 1999. Defining Decay Down If you haven't visited a dentist in the past few years, first of all, that's gross. (Checkups are every six months, and don't pretend you forgot.) Second, be grateful that you have avoided the "intra-oral camera." As the dentist (or assistant) navigates this horrifying little gadget through the graveyard of your mouth, a color television magnifies the florid pustulance of your gums and the puke-yellow dinge of your smile. A harmless crevice in your silver-mercury amalgam filling looks like Hell's Canyon. The microcracks in your enamel look like a broken window. All this can be fixed, of course, with 10 grand of straightening, filling, sealing, and whitening. "You will agree to anything the second they put that thing in your mouth," says one recent victim of the camera. "You can't believe you are walking around with that, that, that ick in your mouth." The transformation of American dentistry from drill-and-fill to shoot-and-loot is an unlikely business success story of the '90s, a case study in how a profession can work itself out of a job and still prosper. Dentists, after all, are supposed to be extinct by now. While they happily (and profitably) scraped teeth and filled cavities during the '60s and '70s, fluoride was quietly choking off their revenue stream. The percentage of children with cavities fell by half and kept falling. People stopped going to the dentist, because they didn't need to. At the same time, the government funded dental-school construction, spilling new dentists into a saturated market. Many found themselves cleaning teeth for $10 an hour in mall clinics. In 1984, Forbes magazine forecast the end of the profession. Only a few lonely dentists would survive to fill the few remaining cavities, the last vestiges of a once-great civilization on Long Island. Instead, the number of dentists has jumped 20 percent, and the average salary soared from $76,000 in 1987 to $124,000 in 1996. What happened? In part, the oversupply of dentists and the declining demand for fillings forced the profession to change. Dentists had to become nicer and visits less unpleasant. The Marathon Man has been replaced by Dr. Soothe. "People figured out pretty darn quickly that if you were an ass, patients would not come to you," says Dr. William Hartel, a St. Louis dentist. Many dentists' offices let you don virtual reality glasses and watch movies on them. Others offer massage therapy and hot tubs. Does your dentist have a certificate of pain management on her wall? I bet she does. The most important discovery dentists made was the endless vanity of aging baby boomers. "We are dealing now with the boomers who are the runners and the joggers and the dieters, and they are very concerned with how they look," says American Dental Association President Dr. Timothy Rose. Since going to the dentist was no longer a necessary evil, dentists made it an unnecessary pleasure. They allied themselves with the self-improvement movement. "You still go for the needs, for the cavity that has to get filled, but more and more people ... come here to feel better about themselves," says Dr. Stephen Friedman, a Maryland dentist. People used to be happy if they made it to old age with enough choppers to chew. But boomers, lured by media images of the Great American Smile, expect more. According to an ADA poll, the percentage of people who are "very satisfied" with their teeth has dropped from 57 percent to 46 percent in the past decade. Dentists have learned to play on this vanity and anxiety, encouraging dental care that is medically unnecessary but attractive to patients. "It's as if you went to a physician for a treatment for a disease and he said you needed a nose job," says Dr. John Dodes, author of Healthy Teeth: A User's Manual . To flog $500 teeth whitenings and multi-thousand dollar adult orthodontic treatments, dentists run computer simulations of your whitened, straightened teeth. Tooth color is measured on a scale that starts at A1. "My dentist showed me these disgusting color charts and told me, 'You're an A2 now, but by the time you want to get married you are going to be an A4. And no one wants to marry an A4,' " says one woman who got her teeth bleached. Dentists also prod patients to replace perfectly functional gray-metal fillings with tooth-colored plastic ones and to dump their solid gold crowns for white porcelain. Other dentists sell the psychology of tooth appearance. One dentist specializing in porcelain caps advises that male bosses with small teeth seem "weak." Some dentists dress up these cosmetic measures in medical scare talk. A friend of mine just quit a dentist who was pressuring him to whiten his teeth as a "preventive measure." (To prevent what? Yellow teeth?) Many dentists claim, without scientific evidence, that the mercury in amalgam fillings is dangerous. They urge patients to replace the excellent amalgam with plastic fillings at four times the price. Dentists make a killing on bad breath--or "halitosis," as they prefer to call it. Breath clinics have sprouted up all over the country and are heavily advertised on the Web. They terrify patients with a "halimeter," a new gadget that measures a nasty smelling chemical called methyl mercaptan. Armed with the halimeter proof, the dentist then dangles expensive mouthwashes and tongue scrapers in front of the patient. Never mind that you can get the same results for free with careful brushing and basic tongue-scraping. The machine makes the sale. "Now that there is this machine that can document your complaint and can put a number on it, it motivates a patient to actually do something about it. But the treatments available now are the same ones that have been available for 15 years," says Hartel. Entrepreneurial dentists market this elective care with trained aggression. Dental management organizations often require their employees to recite a quasisales script guiding patients toward profitable cosmetics. Ads in the Journal of the American Dental Association and on the Web promote tapes and classes on marketing techniques. One person I know quit his dentist when he spied a pamphlet in the office instructing the dentist in how to get his patients to "trade up" to more expensive treatment. The ADA's annual conference is overflowing with seminars on topics such as "how to move your patients to 'yes.' " The industry calls this technique "treatment acceptance," a marvelous euphemism for parting you from your money. According to the ADA's journal, this year's ADA conference will include an all-day "Treatment Acceptance" seminar "for the dental team that is fed up with patients accepting only what insurance covers or asking for alternative cheaper treatment plans. Involve the entire team in creating the strategies for patients to accept optimum care." This hard sell is critical in dentistry in a way that it isn't in other medicine because of the profession's brutal economics. Dental insurance covers only 44 percent of Americans (compared to more than 80 percent for health insurance), and provides skimpy coverage for those who do have it. As a result, patients pay most dental costs--about 60 percent of them--out of their own pockets. Dental care is just another way to spend discretionary income, competing with a vacation or a new car. Dentists have to make patients want adult orthodontics in a way physicians don't have to make patients want a quadruple bypass. It's tempting to dismiss the whole industry as a scam, particularly when dentists keep coming up with new ailments such as bruxism (teeth grinding), periodontal disease, malocclusion (bad bite), and microcracks. But these ailments are real, and our awareness of them shows how far dentistry has come. A generation ago, dentists filled teeth and cast dentures because that's all they knew. Decay killed so many teeth that fancier problems seldom arose. Since then, researchers have studied bonding, implants, and periodontal disease. Dentists can now make crowns that last forever, bridges that stay anchored, dentures that behave almost like real teeth. A generation ago, implants were a joke. Today's implants, affixed to your jawbone by a titanium screw, can hold for the rest of your life. Scientists have learned how bacteria can build up in gaps in the gum, cause infection, weaken the jawbone, and eventually murder teeth. New research links these periodontal bacteria to heart disease, diabetes, low birth-weight babies, and other nastiness you'd expect from bacteria running wild in the bloodstream. This is why your dentist hectors you to rubber-tip your gums, brush with a superconcentrated fluoride toothpaste, and wear a night guard to control your bruxing (which loosens teeth, opening pockets between teeth and gum, etc.). It's also why your dentist may bully you into gum surgery. It all seems unpleasant and slightly absurd--the night guard is "an excellent form of birth control," as one wearer puts it--but the alternative is losing your teeth at 40, getting dentures, and gumming your food. Dentistry is a hassle now because it works. "If you think back a couple of generations, it was considered inevitable that people would lose their teeth when they reached midlife. Around 40 or 45, you would have your teeth taken out. Periodontal disease was not understood, and decay was rampant. But now teeth are resistant to decay and are lasting a lifetime. I have gone in 18 years from learning how to make dentures and thinking it is OK for people to lose teeth to being appalled if anyone loses teeth. It is a failure," says Dr. Judith Penski, my own fabulous D.C. dentist. Which brings us to the irony of dentistry's comeback: Just as patients love the dental care they should suspect, they resent the care they should appreciate. Aesthetic dentistry is the most profitable segment of the business because it is an easy sell. Put a camera in your mouth and you'll want whiter teeth, too. It is much harder to convince someone to poke her gums every night with a piece of rubber, to sleep with a choking plastic tooth guard, and to undergo four surgeries to fix a gum flap, all for a benefit that is decades away. The very success of dentistry has raised expectations so high that patients now object to any inconvenience. Americans under 60 believe keeping all their teeth is an entitlement: Telling them they need gum surgery to preserve their teeth makes them angry, not grateful--even though those teeth would have been goners 20 years ago. When I surveyed 100 friends and acquaintances about their dental complaints, few bitched about cosmetic dentistry that was foisted on them. They like their whiter, straighter teeth. No, they griped about the medically advisable treatments that their dentists prescribed, especially gum surgeries and mouth guards. Pity the poor dentist who abjures cosmetic dentistry but vigorously protects patients' teeth. Patients don't like periodontal treatment, so they suspect it's a rip-off. This could not be further from the truth. "Dentists are aware of providing what patients want," says Hartel. "I had a woman come in with a terrible toothache. She needed a root canal, but she did not want it. But she did want her teeth bleached, and she paid cash for it." Such is the triumph of American dentists: If they can't sell you what you need, they'll sell you what you want.
Fight Clubbed by David Plotz	" Fight Clubbed", David Plotz, 1999. Fight Clubbed Fight Club , a movie about a fictional organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp, has provoked more than its share of media hand-wringing, particularly diatribes about Hollywood's infatuation with violence and Faludi-esque ruminations about the emasculated American male. Fight Club , however, has not sparked an iota of interest in a real organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp: the Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC's flameout from national sensation to total irrelevance is a tragedy of American sports, a cautionary tale of prudishness, heavy-handed politics, and cultural myopia. UFC began in 1993 as a locker-room fantasy. What would happen if a kickboxer fought a wrestler? A karate champion fought a sumo champion? Promoters built an octagonal chain-link cage, invited eight top martial artists, and set them loose in no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles fights. "There are no rules!" bragged an early press release. Contestants would fight till "knockout, submission, doctor's intervention, or death." UFC allowed, even promoted, all notions of bad sportsmanship: kicking a man when he's down, hitting him in the groin, choking. Four-hundred-pound men were sent into the Octagon to maul guys half their size. Only biting and eye-gouging were forbidden. The gimmick entranced thousands of people (well, men). What happens when a 620-pound sumo champion fights a 200-pound kickboxer? Answer: The kickboxer knocks him silly in 35 seconds. They tuned in for bloodshed--"the damage," as fans like to call it. UFC fights could be horrifying. Tank Abbott, an ill-tempered, 270-pound street fighter, knocks out hapless opponent John Matua in 15 seconds. Then, before the ref can intervene, Abbott belts the unconscious Matua in the head, sending him into a fit, limbs quivering uncontrollably, blood spurting from his mouth. Abbott, naturally, became a cult hero and won a guest spot on Friends . (Matua walked out of the ring.) Soon, UFC was selling out huge arenas and drawing 300,000 pay-per-view subscribers for its quarterly competitions. But a subtle sport was emerging from the gimmicks and carnage. My passion for ultimate fighting (which is also called "extreme" or "no-holds-barred" fighting) began when I saw the finals of UFC IV. Royce Gracie, a 180-pound Brazilian jujitsu specialist, was matched against a 275-pound beast named Dan Severn, one of the top heavyweight wrestlers in the world and a national champion many times over. In 30 seconds, Severn had grabbed Gracie, flung him to the canvas, and mounted him. For the next 15 minutes, Severn pummeled and elbowed and head-butted the smaller man. Gracie's face grew drawn, and he squirmed wildly to avoid Severn's bombardment. Then, all of sudden, Gracie, still lying on his back, saw an opening, wrapped his arms and legs around Severn like a python and choked the giant into submission. UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts. The UFC punctured this. Boxers floundered. Experts in striking martial arts such as karate and tae kwon do, who fancied themselves the world's greatest fighters, found themselves pretzeled by jujitsu masters, who pulled them to the ground and slowly choked or leg-locked them. "UFC immediately debunked a lot of myths of fighting, of boxing, karate, kung fu. It showed the reality of what works in an actual fight," says Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer . Instead of being carnivals of gore, UFC fights looked strangely like ... sex. Almost all fights ended on the ground, one man mounting the other in missionary position, the pair of them wiggling mysteriously along the canvas for five, 10, even 30 minutes. There were few spectacular knockouts. The referee--yes, there was always a referee--stopped many bouts, and in most others, fighters "tapped out," surrendering to mild-looking but agonizing chokes and joint locks. It was not barbarism. It was science. The UFC spawned a new breed of "mixed martial artists." World-class wrestlers learned to kickbox. Champion kickboxers learned to grapple. (The karate experts learned to stay home.) They became, without doubt, the best fighters in the world. (Click for more about the fighters.) Mike Tyson wouldn't last 30 seconds in an ultimate fighting match. When Olympic gold medal wrestler Kevin Jackson came to the UFC, a fighter named Frank Shamrock KO'd him with a submission hold in 16 seconds. Ultimate fighting schools began sprouting up all over the country, replacing the stylized gestures of the Eastern martial arts with techniques that actually work. UFC's promoters predicted that it would supplant boxing as America's martial art. Instead, it fell apart. The collapse began in 1996, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., saw a UFC tape. McCain, a lifelong boxing fan, was horrified at the ground fighting, kicks, and head butts. It was "barbaric," he said. It was "not a sport." He sent letters to all 50 governors asking them to ban ultimate fighting. The outcry against "human cockfighting" became a crusade, and like many crusades, it was founded on misunderstanding. UFC fell victim to cultural determinism about what a fight is. In countries such as Brazil and Japan, where no-holds-barred fighting has a long history, it is popular and uncontroversial. But Americans adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. A fight consists of an exchange of upper-body blows that halts when one fighter falls. Any blood sport can be barbaric, whether it's boxing or wrestling or ultimate fighting. It is impossible to draw a bright line between ultimate fighting and boxing. If anything, ultimate fighting is safer and less cruel than America's blood sport. For example, critics pilloried ultimate fighting because competitors fought with bare knuckles: To a nation accustomed to boxing gloves, this seemed revolting, an invitation to brain damage. But it's just the reverse: The purpose of boxing gloves is not to cushion the head but to shield the knuckles. Without gloves, a boxer would break his hands after a couple of punches to the skull. That's why ultimate fighters won't throw multiple skull punches. As a result, they avoid the concussive head wounds that kill boxers--and the long-term neurological damage that cripples them. Similarly, the chain-link fence surrounding the octagon looks grotesque. Critics have demanded that UFC install ropes instead. But ropes are a major cause of death and injury in boxing: Fighters hyperextend their necks when they are punched against the ropes, because nothing stops their heads from snapping back. The chain-link fence prevents hyperextension. When I tell people I'm an ultimate fighting fan, they invariably respond: "Don't people get killed all the time doing that?" But no one has ever been killed at the UFC--though boxers are killed every year. No one has even been seriously injured at the UFC. On the rare occasions when a bout has ended with a bloody knockout, the loser has always walked out of the ring. But this does not impress boxing fans, who are the most vigorous opponents of extreme fighting. McCain sat ringside at a boxing match where a fighter was killed. When I asked him to explain the moral distinction between boxing and ultimate fighting, he exploded at me, "If you can't see the moral distinction, then we have nothing to talk about!" Then he cut our interview short and stormed out of his office. But logic has not served the UFC well. Where McCain led, a prudish nation followed. George Will opined against UFC. The American Medical Association recommended a ban. New York state outlawed ultimate fighting, as did other states. The Nevada Athletic Commission refused to sanction UFC bouts, barring the UFC from the lucrative casino market. (One public TV station refused a UFC sponsorship ad. The only other organization the station ever rejected was the Ku Klux Klan.) Lawsuits blocked or delayed UFC events all over the country, forcing the promoters to spend millions in legal fees. The UFC was exiled from mega-arenas to ever-smaller venues in ever more out-of-the-way states: Louisiana, Iowa, and Alabama. The match I attended in October 1997 was held in the parking lot of a small Mississippi casino. The cable TV industry struck the fatal blow. In early 1997, McCain became chairman of the commerce committee, which oversees the cable industry. In April 1997, the president of the National Cable Television Association warned that UFC broadcasts could jeopardize the cable industry's influence in Washington. Time Warner, TCI, Request, Cablevision Systems, Viewer's Choice, and other major operators stopped airing UFC events, saying they were too violent for children. Never mind that 1) UFC only aired on pay-per-view, so children could not see it unless their parents paid for it; and 2) the same cable outfits carried boxing matches, R and NC-17 movies, and professional wrestling shows far more violent than UFC. The UFC's "addressable audience"--the potential number of PPV subscribers--shrank from 35 million at its peak to 7.5 million today. "It was a very cheap way for the cable companies to portray themselves as anti-violence. It did not cost them much and it made them look good in Washington," says Carol Klenfner, spokeswoman for UFC's parent company, SEG. The ultimate fighting industry did little to help its own cause. The UFC promoted itself less as a serious sport than as a circus of carnage. Its early ads emphasized extreme fighting's potential for death. UFC folks accused McCain, without any evidence, of opposing the sport as a favor to campaign contributors. Extreme fighting was tarnished when fighters from the other ultimate fighting operation, the now-defunct Battlecade, were arrested for violating Canadian prizefighting laws when they fought on an Indian reservation outside Montreal. In the past two years, an increasingly desperate UFC has been trying to assuage its critics. The competition, which had been gradually adding safety rules since the first fight, imposed even more. It institued rounds and a "10-point must" scoring system. It banned head butts and groin strikes. You can no longer kick a downed man or elbow someone in the back of the head. Fighters are required to wear thin martial arts gloves (a purely cosmetic change). The UFC imposed weight classes, ending the David-and-Goliath mismatches that made early fights so compelling. None of this soothed the cable operators, who have kept UFC off the air. The pay-per-view audience has plunged from 300,000 per show to 15,000. UFC can no longer afford its best fighters: Some are fighting overseas. Others, notably Ken Shamrock (Frank's brother), have become pro wrestlers. Fights have deteriorated. UFC is limping along, but it has been reduced to scheduling events in Japan and Brazil. "Sports fans want to grow with the sport," says former UFC fighter David Beneteau. "They want to recognize the athletes. They want to see the same fighters come back. When you compare UFC now to what it was, the fighters are not the same, the rules are not the same. The fans have no story to follow." Even as it disappears from public view, ultimate fighting is returning to its roots. Away from the scrutiny of the major media, state legislators, and McCain, kids are still learning mixed martial-arts techniques, and small-time promoters are quietly staging events. You can see Kage Kombat competitions at Dancing Waters nightclub in San Pedro, Calif. You can watch the Warrior's Challenge at a small Indian casino outside Sacramento. Texans compete in Houston's Dungal All Styles Fighting Championship. Tribal casinos in Northern Idaho are hosting small Pankration tournaments. The Extreme Fighting Challenge is popular in Iowa. The money is low; the crowds are small; and there's not a TV camera in sight. Ultimate fighting should have become boxing. Instead it has gone underground. It has become Fight Club.
I, Antichrist? by Jeffrey Goldberg	" I, Antichrist?", Jeffrey Goldberg, 1999. I, Antichrist? Early one shiny autumn morning, I got in my car and drove to Lynchburg, Va., in order to find out whether or not I am the Antichrist. You know: the Beast, the Worthless Shepherd, the Little Horn, the Abomination, the linchpin of the Diabolical Trinity. That Antichrist. I had my suspicions. Nowhere on my body could I find the mark of the Beast--666--but I do have a freckle that's shaped like Bermuda. And though I have never been seized by a desire to lead the armies of Satan in a final, bloody confrontation with the forces of God on the plain of Armageddon, I do suffer from aggravated dyspepsia, as well as chronic malaise, conditions that I'm sure afflict the Antichrist. The surest suspicion I had about my pivotal role in Christian eschatology grew from the fact that I am Jewish, male, and alive. These are the qualifications for the job of Antichrist as specified by Lynchburg's most famous preacher, Jerry Falwell, in a speech he made earlier this year. I was actually going to see the Rev. Falwell on a different matter, the future of Jerusalem, but I thought I might just slip this question--the one about me maybe being the Antichrist--into the stream of the interview. Falwell, I guessed, wouldn't be happy to discuss his views on the identity of the Antichrist--he had apologized for the remark but took quite a load of grief for it anyway. As it turned out, though, Falwell was eager to talk about the Antichrist. And, as it also turned out, he didn't really feel bad for saying what he said. In fact, he was more convinced than ever that the Antichrist is a Jew who walks among us. Let me pause for a moment to give three concise reasons why I'm so curious about the identity of the Antichrist: 1) I think I speak for all the approximately 4.5 million adult male Jews in the world when I say that we get a little antsy when Christians start looking at us like we're the devil. This is on account of Christian behavior over the past 2,000 years, by which I mean blood libels and pogroms and inquisitions, those sorts of things. 2) I've always been possessed by the delusional notion that I am to play a major role in world history, so why not a role in the End of Days? And I don't mean the Schwarzenegger movie. 3) Now that we stand on the lip of the millennium, much of the evangelical Christian world is in the grip of Armageddon fever, and, according to the evangelical interpretation of the books of Daniel and Revelation, the Antichrist will make his appearance before Christ makes his, and his is looking kinda imminent. The Antichrist, in this reading, will be a world leader who strikes a peace deal with Israel, only to betray the Jewish state and make war on it, until Jesus comes to the rescue. The thankful Jews, those who are still alive, will then become Christians and live happily ever after. These beliefs, held by tens of millions of Christians are, journalistically speaking, worthy of note. The day before my visit with the Rev. Falwell, I had just finished reading a novelistic treatment of these events, Assassins , which is subtitled Assignment: Jerusalem, Target: Antichrist . Assassins is the sixth book in the "Left Behind" series, "left behind" referring to those unfortunate nonevangelical Christians who are not taken up to heaven in the Rapture--the opening act in God's end days plan--and are forced to contend with the Antichrist's evil reign on Earth. The "Left Behind" series, co-written by Tim LaHaye, the prominent right-wing screwball and husband of Beverly LaHaye, the even more prominent right-wing screwball, and Jerry B. Jenkins, who, his biography states, is the author of 130 books, which is a lot of books for one guy to write, is a phenomenon. Ten million copies of the series have sold already--hundreds in my local PriceClub alone. "Left Behind" is the Harry Potter of the Armageddon set. The notable thing for me about the "Left Behind" series--beside the fact that few in the secular media have noticed that millions of Americans are busy reading books warning about the imminence of one-world government, mass death, and the return of the Messiah, is that all the Jewish characters are Christian. LaHaye and Jenkins are both active participants in the absurd and feverish campaign by some evangelical Christians to redefine Judaism in a way that allows for belief in Jesus. Jews (and again, I feel comfortable speaking for all of us here) find this sort of Christian imperialism just a wee bit offensive. Just imagine if Jews began an official campaign calling Muhammad irrelevant to Islam--can you imagine the fatwas that would produce? But evangelical leaders, who are, in my experience, uniformly kind and generous in their personal relations, can also be terribly obnoxious in their relations with Jews. There is only one road to salvation for Jews, and that road runs through Jesus, LaHaye told me. To his credit, though, LaHaye doesn't believe that the Antichrist will be Jewish. He will be a European gentile, who will kill lots of Jews. "The Jews will be forced to accept the idolatry of the Antichrist or be beheaded," he said. This will take place during the seven-year Tribulation. Jewish suffering, though, is divinely ordained. Even though the Antichrist will not be Jewish, Jews are still capable of great evil and have often been punished for their evil, LaHaye explained. "Some of the greatest evil in the history of the world was concocted in the Jewish mind," LaHaye told me, for reasons that aren't entirely clear--he knew what the name "Goldberg" generally signifies. "Sigmund Freud, Marx, these were Jewish minds that were infected with atheism." I asked LaHaye to tell me more about the Jewish mind. "The Jewish brain also has the capacity for great good," he explained. "God gave the Jews great intelligence. He didn't give them great size or physical power--you don't see too many Jews in the NFL--but he gave them great minds." Of all the evangelical leaders I have interviewed, LaHaye is capable of some of the most anti-Semitic utterances, which is troublesome, because he is also the most popular author in the evangelical world. The Rev. Falwell is smoother than LaHaye. He acknowledges "where the sensitivity comes from," though he shows no understanding of the role the myth of the Antichrist played in the history of anti-Semitism, and he refuses to back away from his opinion that somewhere in Great Neck or West L.A. or Shaker Heights is living Satan's agent. "In my opinion," he told me, "the Antichrist will be a counterfeit of the true Christ, which means that he will be male and Jewish, since Jesus was male and Jewish." I asked him if he understood that such statements strip Jews of their humanity, which is the first step anti-Semites take before they kill them. He responded, "All the Jewish people we do business with on a daily basis, not one has ever got upset over this." It is not Jews who picked this most recent fight, he said, it is supporters of President Clinton. "Billy Graham made the same statement a dozen times last year, but there was no comment about that," Falwell said. "But Billy Graham was not calling for the resignation of the president." Falwell, you'll recall, is no fan of Clinton's; he has even peddled a video accusing the president of murder. Falwell is right: Evangelical preachers are constantly accusing the Jews of harboring the Antichrist. I asked Falwell if he knew the actual identity of the Antichrist. No, he said. "People might say, it's a certain person, it's Henry Kissinger, like that, but the Lord does not let us know that." So there's a chance, then, that I'm the Antichrist? Falwell chuckled a condescending chuckle. "It's almost amusing, that question. Of course not. I know that you're not." Why? "The Antichrist will be a world leader, he'll have supernatural powers," he said. He got me there--I have no supernatural powers. I can't even drive a stick shift. I pressed him further on the identity of the Antichrist, but Falwell wouldn't play. "We'll know the Antichrist when he arrives," he said. Most evangelical leaders, in fact, refuse to publicly guess the name of the Antichrist--though, as Falwell suggests, Kissinger is a perennial favorite, at least among those evangelicals who believe the Antichrist will be Jewish. For most of their history, Christian leaders had been content to ascribe the characteristics of the Antichrist to the Jewish people as a whole. "Ever since the 2 nd century CE, the very beginning of the Antichrist legend, Christians have associated Jews with everything unholy," Andrew Gow, who teaches Christian history at the University of Alberta, told me. In the minds of early Christian leaders, the church was the new Israel; God's covenant with the Jews was obsolete. Therefore, the Jews who remained on Earth were there to serve devilish purposes, Gow explained. There are plenty of evangelical thinkers who differ with Falwell, who believe, like LaHaye, that the Antichrist will be a gentile who rises out of Europe. "The Antichrist is supposed to make a peace treaty with Israel," Ed Hindson, the author of Is the Antichrist Alive and Well? , explained. "Why would a Jew make a peace treaty with a Jewish state?" Hindson suggested that Satan will make the Antichrist the leader of the European Union--the revived Roman Empire, eternal enemy of Israel--though Hindson disputed one popular idea advocated by Monte Judah, an Oklahoma-based prophecy-teacher, that Prince Charles is the Antichrist. "There's no way Prince Charles is the Antichrist," Hindson said. "Satan can do better than that." In his book, Hindson runs through a list of potential candidates. Bill Clinton is there, of course, as well as Saddam Hussein and Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each of his three names. Get it?). Of course, none of these men are gay. "It says in the Bible that the Antichrist will have 'no regard for women,' and so many evangelicals interpret that to mean that he will be a homosexual," Hindson said, though he added that he's not entirely convinced. This idea--the Antichrist as gay--strikes a chord with many evangelicals, just as the idea that the Antichrist is Jewish strikes a chord. I gradually came to see how far-fetched it was to think that I might be the Antichrist. I'm not gay, I'm not famous, I wouldn't know a euro if I found one in my wallet. Then it struck me: Barry Diller is the Antichrist. There's no way to know for sure. But if you wake up one morning to read that Barry Diller is the head of the European Union (and that David Geffen is his deputy), well, remember where you read it first.
It's Time To Keelhaul U-Haul! by Jeffrey Goldberg	" It's Time To Keelhaul U-Haul!", Jeffrey Goldberg, 1999. It's Time To Keelhaul U-Haul! Like all superheroes worthy of the title, the Shopping Avenger has an Achilles' heel. In the case of the Shopping Avenger, his Achilles' heel is not animal, vegetable, or mineral but something less tangible. An explanation: Last week, the magazine you are currently reading forced the Shopping Avenger at gunpoint to read a series of treacle-filled self-help books, and then to . The Shopping Avenger, who can withstand radiation, extreme heat and cold, hail, bear attacks, and Eyes Wide Shut , almost succumbed to terminal jejuneness after reading these books. Except for one thing: One of the books, The Art of Happiness , which collects and simplifies the Dalai Lama's philosophy, got the Shopping Avenger to thinking. This, in a way, is the Shopping Avenger's Achilles' heel: thinking. Perhaps it is wrong, the Shopping Avenger thought, to complain about the petty insults and inconveniences of life in the materialistic '90s. The Shopping Avenger felt that perhaps he should counsel those who write seeking help to meditate, to accept bad service the way one accepts the change of seasons, and to extend a compassionate hand of forgiveness to those who provide poor customer care. But then the Shopping Avenger sat down, and the feeling passed. The Shopping Avenger does not make light of the Dalai Lama or of the notion that there is more to life than the impatient acquisition of material goods. If the Shopping Avenger were not, for a superhero, extremely nonjudgmental--as opposed to his alter ego, who is considered insufferably judgmental by his alter ego's wife--the Shopping Avenger would tell the occasional correspondent to let go of his petty grievance and get a life. But the Shopping Avenger also believes that the Dalai Lama has never tried to rent a truck from U-Haul. If he had tried to rent from U-Haul, he never would have escaped from Tibet. (For the complete back story, see "Shopping Avenger" column and one.) The complaints about U-Haul's nonreservation reservation policy continue to pour in through the electronic mail. One correspondent, B.R., wrote in with this cautionary tale: "Last weekend, I went to San Francisco to help my brother and his family move into their first house. My brother had reserved a moving truck with U-Haul for the big day. I warned my brother about U-Haul's 'not really a reservation per se' policy that I learned from the Shopping Avenger. He didn't believe such a thing would happen to him, so he didn't act on my warning." B.R. continues--as if you don't know what happened already--"I went to U-Haul with my brother to get our 'reserved' truck. The store had many customers standing around looking frustrated. When we got to the front of the line, the clerk informed us that our 'reserved' truck had not yet been returned. We asked if we could rent one of the many trucks sitting idle in the parking lot. The clerk laughed and said the keys to those trucks were lost." B.R. and his chastened brother--the Shopping Avenger is resisting the urge to gloat--went to Ryder. "Ryder had a truck available for us. The gentleman who helped us at Ryder said Ryder prides itself on being everything U-Haul is not." The Shopping Avenger has still not received a call from U-Haul spokeswoman Johna Burke explaining why U-Haul refuses to provide trucks to people who reserve trucks, but the Shopping Avenger is pleased to note that several correspondents have written in over the past month saying that, based on what they have read in this column, they will be taking their business to Ryder or Budget or elsewhere. The Shopping Avenger will undoubtedly return to the sorry state of affairs at U-Haul in the next episode, but now on to this month's airline debacle. Before we begin, though, the Shopping Avenger nearly forgot to announce the winner of last month's contest, in which readers were asked to answer the question, "What's the difference between pests and airlines?" The winner is one Tom Morgan, who wrote, "You can hire someone to kill pests." Tom is the winner of a year's supply of Turtle Wax, and he will receive his prize just as soon as the Shopping Avenger figures out how much Turtle Wax actually constitutes a year's supply. The new contest question: How much Turtle Wax comprises a year's supply of Turtle Wax? This month's airline in the spotlight is Southwest. Loyal readers will recall that last month the Shopping Avenger praised Southwest Airlines for its "sterling" customer service. This brought forth a small number of articulate dissensions. The most articulate, and the most troubling, came from M., who wrote, "Last year, flying from Baltimore to Chicago with my entire family (two really little kids included), we set down at Midway in a rainstorm. And waited for our bags. And waited for bags. And waited for bags." An hour later, M. says, the bags showed up, "soaked through. We took them to baggage services at SW and were faced with the most complicated, unclear, and confusing mechanism for filing a claim we experienced flyers have ever seen." When they arrived at their destination, M. and her family made a terrible discovery, "We discovered that our clothes were soaked through--the top clothes were so wet that the dye had bled through down to the lower levels, destroying lots of other clothes. Obviously, our bags had just been sitting out on the runway in the rain. To this day, I've never heard a thing from SW, despite calls and letters." This, of course, is where Shopping Avenger steps in. Shopping Avenger knows that Southwest is different from the average airline, in that it doesn't go out of its way to infuriate its paying customers (see: ), so I expected a quick and generous resolution to M.'s problem. What I got at first, though, was a load of corporate hoo-ha. "The airline's policy, which is consistent with all contracts of carriage at all airlines, requires that passengers file a report in person for lost or damaged luggage within four hours of arrival at their destination," a Southwest spokeswoman, Linda Rutherford, e-mailed me. "[M.] indicates she called for a few days, but did not file a report in person until April 12--three days later. Southwest, as a courtesy, took her report anyway and asked for follow up information and written inventory of the damage." Rutherford said that M. should have submitted detailed receipts and photographs of the damage in order to make a claim. Harrumph, the Shopping Avenger says. It is a bad hair day at Southwest when its officials defend themselves by comparing their airline to other airlines. I forwarded this message to M., who replied: "Wow. Well, of course I didn't file it at the airport on the 9 th because I didn't know the clothes were ruined at the airport. I didn't know until I opened the baggage at my hotel and saw the ruined stuff. (And it's worth noting that we had already waited for about an hour for our luggage with two little kids and impatient in-laws nipping at our heels.)" She goes on, "I did call that evening ... and was told that that sufficed. This is the first time I've been told that I had to file a complaint in person within four hours. ... When I filed on the 12 th , I was never told that I needed any receipts or photos or other type of documentation. The baggage folks seemed pretty uninterested in all of this. ... They know that the type of 'evidence' they want is impossible to obtain. They also know that on April 9 they screwed up the luggage retrieval and left bags out in the rain a long time." Southwest's response actually served to anger M. more than the original problem. "Before, they had a mildly annoyed but loyal customer (who would have been placated by an apology and thrilled with some modest token of their regret). Now they have a pissed-off customer." Things do look bad for Southwest, don't they? The Shopping Avenger sent M.'s response to Rutherford, who e-mailed back saying she thought the Shopping Avenger was asking for "policy information." The Shopping Avenger e-mailed back again, stressing to Rutherford that the Great Court of Consumer Justice would, if this case were brought to trial, undoubtedly find for the plaintiff (the Shopping Avenger serves as prosecutor, judge, and jury in the Great Court of Consumer Justice--defendants are represented by the president of U-Haul), and that Southwest was precipitously close to feeling the sword of retribution at its neck. But then she came through, provisionally, "Yep, you can be sure if [M.] will call me we will get everything squared away. I'm sorry it's taken this long for her to get someone who can help, but we will take care of it from here." Stay tuned, shoppers, to hear whether Southwest makes good it promise to compensate M. and apologize to her for her troubles. The story of M. reminds the Shopping Avenger of a central truth of consumer service: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Take the case of K., who found himself waiting in vain for Circuit City to repair his television. Televisions break, even 1-year-old televisions, as is the case with K's. But Circuit City, where he bought the television, gave him a terrible runaround. The Shopping Avenger dispatched his sidekick, Tad the Deputy Avenger, to get to the bottom of K.'s story. This is what he found: K. grew concerned, Tad the Deputy Avenger reports, after his television had been in the Circuit City shop for a week. When he called, he was told to "check back next week." When he asked if someone from the store could call him with more information, he was refused. Weeks went by. When K. told one Circuit City employee that he really would like to get his television back, the employee, K. says, asked him, "Don't you have another television in your house?" More than a month later--after hours and hours and hours of telephone calls and days missed at work--K. received his television back. Mistakes happen, but not, Tad the Deputy Avenger found out, at Circuit City. The case, K. was told by a Circuit City official, was "handled perfectly." Another official, Morgan Stewart in public relations, assured Deputy Avenger Tad that "We got to be a big and successful company by treating customers better than the other guy." The Shopping Avenger and his loyal sidekick would like to hear from other Circuit City customers: Does Circuit City, in fact, treat its customers better than the other guy? Stay tuned for answers. And next month, a Shopping Avenger clergy special: TWA screws with a Hasidic rabbi's travel plans, leaving the rabbi's wife crying at the airport. Find out if the Shopping Avenger can save TWA from certain heavenly punishment, in the next episode. Got a consumer score you want settled? Send e-mail to shoppingavenger@slate.com.
My Father's Estate by Ben Stein	" My Father's Estate", Ben Stein, 1999. My Father's Estate A letter from an ill-mannered former high-school classmate of long ago, one of several like it, which I pass on in paraphrase: "I saw that your father had died," she wrote. "He was always so clever about money. Did he leave you a big estate? Did he figure out a way around the estate tax?" It's a rude question, but it has an answer. My sister and I have been going through my father's estate lately with his lawyer, and we're pawing through old, dusty files to find bank account numbers and rules for annuities, so maybe it's a good time to think about what my father, Herbert Stein, left to us. He did indeed leave some money. By the standards we read about in the Wall Street Journal or Sports Illustrated , it was not worthy of much ink. In any event, because of the class-warfare-based death tax, the amount that will be left is vastly less than what he had saved. As an economist, my father was famous for defending taxes as a necessary evil. But even he was staggered, not long before his death, when he considered the taxes on his savings that would go to the Internal Revenue Service. The nest egg is going to be taxed at a federal rate of about 55 percent, after an initial exemption and then a transition amount taxed at around 40 percent (and all that after paying estate expenses). When I think about it, I want to cry. My father and mother lived frugally all their lives. They never had a luxury car. They never flew first-class unless it was on the expense account. They never in their whole lives went on an expensive vacation. When he last went into the hospital, my father was still wearing an old pair of gray wool slacks with a sewed-up hole in them from where my dog ripped them--15 years ago. They never had live-in help. My father washed the dishes after my mother made the meatloaf. My father took the bus whenever he could. His only large expenditure in his and my mom's whole lives was to pay for schools for his children and grandchildren. He never bought bottled, imported water; he said whatever came out of the tap was good enough for him. They still used bargain-basement furniture from before the war for their bedroom furniture and their couch. I never once knew them to order the most expensive thing in a restaurant, and they always took the leftovers home. They made not one penny of it from stock options or golden parachutes. They made it all by depriving themselves in the name of thrift and prudence and preparing for the needs of posterity. To think that this abstemiousness and this display of virtue will primarily benefit the IRS is really just so galling I can hardly stand it. The only possible reason for it is to satisfy some urge of jealousy by people who were less self-disciplined. There are a few material, tangible items that an assessor will have to come in to appraise. There are my father's books, from his days at Williams College and the University of Chicago, many of them still neatly underlined and annotated in his handwriting, which did not change from 1931 until days before his death. Most of them are about economics, but some are poetry. That's another item my father left: his own poetry and his massive prose writings. Very little of it is about anything at all abstruse. There are no formulas and no graphs or charts, except from his very last years. There are many essays about how much he missed my mom when she died, about how much he loved the sights of Washington, about how dismaying it was that there was still so much confusion about basic issues in economics. And there are his satires of haiku about public policy, his takeoffs on Wordsworth and Shakespeare, often composed for a friend's birthday, then sometimes later published. I suppose there will not be much tax on these because my father was hardly a writer for the large audience. Some of them will go to the Nixon Library, and some will be on bookshelves in the (very small and modest) house my wife and I own in Malibu, a place he found beguiling because he had always wanted to live by the ocean and write. And there are his furniture and his clothes, none of which has any value at all except to me because they remind me of him and because, when I stand near them in his closet, I can still smell his smell of hair and skin and leather shoes, the closet smelling a lot like he smelled when he came home from work in 1954 carrying a newspaper that said there could be no more racial segregation in schools. And there are his mementos of Richard Nixon, his White House cufflinks, photos of Camp David, certificates and honorary degrees, and clippings of great events of state. And there are his love letters to and from my mother when they were courting in 1935 and 1936, still tied with light blue ribbon in what was my mother's lingerie drawer, talking about their love triumphing over the dangers of the Depression. I suppose we'll have to place a value on these and have them taxed, too. But these are the trivia of what he left me and my sister. The really valuable estate cannot be touched by the death tax. The man's legacy to his family has almost nothing to do with anything that can be appraised in dollars and cents. The example of loyalty and principle: When he had just taken over as the chairman of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers, he hired a young staff economist named Ron Hoffman (brother of Dustin Hoffman). Almost immediately, John Dean, then White House counsel, came to see my father to tell him that he had to fire Hoffman. Apparently, Ron Hoffman had signed a public anti-war letter. The FBI, or whoever, said that showed he was not loyal and not qualified. My father said that this was a free country, that Ron Hoffman was hired as an economist not as a political flack for RN, and that he would not be fired because he disagreed with some aspect of Nixon policy. After much worrying, Hoffman was allowed to stay--and performed well. My father was loyal, and the IRS cannot impound that legacy. When RN ran into every kind of problem after June of 1972, most of which were unearned and a chunk of which was earned, my father never thought of disavowing him or even distancing himself from Nixon. Even though he had an appointment to the University of Virginia in his pocket, Pop several times extended his stay at the White House to help out with the struggles over inflation and recession, and never once publicly said a word against Nixon. Long after, when Nixon was blasted as an anti-Semite, my father told in print and in person of the Nixon he knew: kind; concerned about all on his staff, regardless of ethnicity; pro-Israel; pro-Jewish in every important cause. My father would never turn his back on a man who had been as conscientious to the cause of peace and as kind to the Stein family as RN had been. "Loyalty." There is no item for it in the inventory of estate assets to be taxed. My father lived his life, especially in the latter years of it, in a haze of appreciation. Whatever small faults he could and did find with America, he endlessly reminded anyone who listened that the best achievement of mankind was America, whose current failings were trivial by historic standards, which was in a constant process of amelioration, and which offered its citizens the best chance in history for a good life. When he did consider the failures of American life in the past, especially institutionalized racism, he did so to note the astonishing progress that had been made in his lifetime. He had no use for those who held up a mirror of fault-finding from the left or the right when he could see in his own era what vast improvements in freedom had been made for blacks, Jews, women, Asians, Hispanics, and every other minority. He appreciated art, especially ballet and opera. He sat for hours in front of the television watching videos of Romeo and Juliet or Les Sylphides or Tosca . He lived to go to the Kennedy Center to see great ballet or opera, and he talked of it endlessly. But he also appreciated art in the form of obscure fountains in front of federal buildings, of the statues of BolÃvar and George Washington and San Martin. He appreciated the intricate moldings on the ceiling of the second floor of the Cosmos Club. He was in awe of the beauty of the mighty Potomac in fall and of the rolling green hunt country around Middleburg and The Plains, Va., in summer. This quality of gratitude for America and for the beauty of life cannot be taxed, at least not so far. He appreciated his friends and did not differentiate between them on the basis of fame or position. He took the words of his longtime pal Murray Foss at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank where he hung his hat for many years, into account; and the words of Mrs. Wiggins, who ran the cafeteria at the AEI; and the thoughts of Alan Greenspan or the head of Goldman, Sachs; and valued them entirely on their merits to him, not on the basis of how much press or money the speaker had. He never once in my lifetime's recall said that any man or woman deserved special respect for riches--in fact, like Adam Smith, he believed that the pleadings of the rich merited special suspicion. He did not believe that my sister or I should devote our lives to the pursuit of money, and by his life set an example to us of pursuing only what was interesting and challenging, not what paid the most. I never knew him to chase a deal or a job (he never in his whole life applied for a job!) for any other reason except that it was of interest to him. He derived more pleasure from speaking to his pals at the book club of the Cosmos Club about John Keats than he did from giving speeches to trade associations that paid him handsomely. My father's stance against seeking money for its own sake--so wildly unsuited to today's age, but so reassuring to his children--cannot be taken by the Treasury. Pop had a way of putting what I thought of as catastrophes into their rightful context. If I was hysterical about losing some scriptwriting job, my father would brush it aside as a basic risk, part of the life I had chosen. If my stocks went down, even dramatically, my father would explain that if I had a roof over my head and enough to eat, I was far, far ahead of the game. Most reassuring, my father would tell me that my family and I could always come to Washington, D.C., and live quietly, keeping him company, for which not a lot of money was required. (My father lived on a fraction of the income from his savings, even allowing for paying for his grandchildren's education.) Once, about 25 years ago, when my boss treated me unfairly, my father said that if it happened again, I should quit and he would take care of me until I found a job. I never needed to do it, but the offer hung in my mind as a last refuge forever. This reassurance--that somehow things will be all right, that there is a lot of ruin in a man, as well as in a nation, to paraphrase his idol, Adam Smith--has become part of me, and I can still summon it up when I am terrified because of a huge quarterly tax payment due or a bad day on the market. Again, the IRS taxes it at zero. My father himself, as far as I know, inherited no money at all from his father. He did inherit a belief that hard work would solve most problems, that spending beyond one's means was a recipe for disaster, that flashy showoff behavior with borrowed money was understandable but foolish. He did inherit enough common sense to tell his son that buying property he would never live in was probably a bad mistake. (He rarely spoke in moral absolutes. He believed instead that humans could and would make individual choices but that there were surely consequences to those choices that could be considered.) He passed these beliefs on to me, although they have become somewhat attenuated by my 20-plus years in the fleshpots of Hollywood. Still, I am one of the only men I know here who has never been drastically short of money (so far), and that I attribute to hearing his rules of prudence. Most of all, my father believed in loving and appreciating those persons close to him. He stayed close to all his pals from the Nixon days (and would not hear personal criticism of Pat Buchanan, who had been a friend and colleague, although he was bewildered by Pat's stands on many issues). He basked in the pleasure of the company of his colleagues and friends at the American Enterprise Institute, which he thought of as one of his three homes--the Cosmos Club and his extremely modest but well-situated apartment at the Watergate were the others. He could form attachments readily. Even in his last days in the hospital, he took a liking to a Ukrainian-born doctor and used to refer to him as "Suvorov," after the Russian general written of glowingly in War and Peace-- which still sits on the table next to his reading chair, with his notes on little pieces of paper in it. He grieved like a banshee when my mother died in 1997 and never really got over the loss of a soul mate of 61 years, who literally dreamed the same dreams he did. Once, he wrote my mother a poem (which he called "Route 29") about the beauty of Route 29 north of Charlottesville, Va., and the pleasure of riding along it with my mom. He filed it away for further work and never touched it again. The day after my mother's death, he found it--with her reply poem telling of how she hoped to never see those hills and those clouds and those cattle with anyone else but Pop. She had written her poem (which she titled "Only You") and put it back in the file without ever telling him. He survived that terrible loss with the help of a beautiful widow, whom he also came to appreciate and live for. He probably spent more time trying to help her with an annuity problem than he ever did on any financial feature of his own life. A simple call from her inviting him to dinner in her kitchen on Kalorama Circle was enough to make his life complete. Even in his hospital bed, hearing my son's voice on the phone could make him smile through the fear and the pain. ("He sounds so sweet when he calls me 'Grandpa,' " my father said, beaming even with tubes in him.) Never once did my sister or I ever ask him for help that he hesitated, let alone declined, to give. Usually this was some research we were too lazy to do, but which he did without any resistance at all. When I was a child and had a chore like leaf raking that I didn't want to do, his simple answer was to say, "Let's do it together. It'll take half as long." I use that with my son almost every day, along with the devotion, and my father's example about his friends from long ago to make my life work. He stayed close with friends from Williams College Class of '35, especially Richard Helms of the CIA. He had lunch with one of his pals from Williams, Johnny Davis, class of '33, who got him a job as a dishwasher at Sigma Chi, days before he went into the hospital. This quality of devotion and the rewards I get from it are worth far more than any stocks or bonds in my father's estate--and cannot be taken away at the marginal rate of 55 percent. Plus, I can pass it on to my son without any generation-skipping surcharge. And he left something else of perhaps even greater value: a good name. Many people quarreled with my father's ideas about taxes or about when to balance the budget. He faced frequent opposition to his belief in a large defense budget. Of course, most of the people he knew disagreed with him about RN. But no one ever questioned that he came by his views honestly, by means of research and analysis and sometimes sentiment, but not for any venal reason or by the process of money changing hands. His reputation for honesty was simply without a speck of question upon it. This good name cannot be taxed at all, at least not right now. My sister and I and our children will have it for as long as we keep it clean. It's priceless, incalculable in value. So, in answer to the query from the forward high-school classmate, "Yes, my father did leave an immense estate, and yes, he did manage to beat the estate tax." The only problem is that I miss him every single minute, and I already had the best parts of the estate without his being gone, so the death part is pure loss.
"Phone Me in Central Park" by McConnell, James V.	""Phone Me in Central Park"", James V. McConnell, 1956. "Phone Me in Central Park" By JAMES McCONNELL There should be an epitaph for every man, big or little, but a really grand and special one for Loner Charlie. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Charles turned over on his side to look at her. She lay quietly in the other bed, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was blonde to perfection, exquisitely shaped, and the rich promise of her body was exposed to his view. "Why?" he thought as he looked at her. "Why did it have to happen like this?" The whole thing was still like a dream to him, and as yet he couldn't decide whether it was a good or a bad dream. A year ago she had been unattainable, a face to conjure with in erotic dreams, far beyond his ken. A year ago she had been a public idol, the most popular actress of the day. And he had been a nobody, full of a nobody's idle hopes and schemes. And now he was lying in the bed next to hers in her swank Manhattan apartment in the most exclusive hotel in town. The unrealness of the situation overwhelmed him. His mind was a picture of confused thoughts. Meanings and answers to his questions slithered out of his reach. "God," he said. It was not an exclamation, nor yet an expletive. It was a mere statement of fact. A thought teased at him. Charles looked at the woman again and decided that she still looked beautiful in spite of the harshness of the room's lighting. He touched buttons by the edge of the bed and the illumination quieted to a soft glow, wrapping her in a radiant halo. Charles smiled wanly and got up. He stood by the bed looking at her. "I could have fallen in love with you once. A year ago, perhaps, or longer. But not now. Not now." He turned away and walked to the window. "Now the world is dead. The whole world is dead." New York lay quietly below him. It was the hour of indecision when day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet attacked in force. The streetlights were already on, making geometric patterns through the dusk of Central Park. Some of the billboards were shining, their relays activated by darkness-sensitized solenoids. A reddish-orange pallor hung from the sky. It had been very pleasant that afternoon. She had given of herself freely, warmly, and Charles had accepted. But then he had known that she would. It was not him, it was the circumstances. Under the circumstances, she would have given herself to any man— "Why did it have to be her—or me? Why should it have to happen to anybody! Why!" She would have given herself to any man— His thoughts beat a rapid crescendo, activating emotions, stimulating sensations of angry rage. He wanted to cry, to weep angry tears of protest. To any man, WHO HAPPENED TO BE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH! Charles picked up a heavy book end off the table and crashed it through the thick pane of window glass. A gust of wind from the outside breezed through the shattered opening, attacking his olfactory patch with the retching smell of decaying flesh. Charles ignored it. Even smells had lost their customary meanings. He felt the rage build up inside again, tearing at his viscera. His stomach clenched up like an angry fist. "But I don't want to be the last man alive!" he shouted. "I don't know what to do! I don't know where to go, how to act! I just don't know—" A paroxysm of sobbing shook his body. Trembling, he dropped to his knees, his head against the cold firmness of the sill, his hands clutched tightly around the jagged edges of the window pane. In spite of the sharp pain that raced through his system, in spite of the bright, warm, red stream that trickled down his face, he knelt by the window for several minutes. " Maybe I'm not the last! " The thought struck him with suddenness, promisingly, edged with swelling comfort to fill his emptiness. Charles got up slowly, noticing for the first time that his fingers were badly cut. He wrapped a handkerchief around them and forgot them. He had to know—he had to find out. As he turned to leave, he noticed again the woman lying in radiant state upon the bed. He walked to her side and leaned over, kissing her gently on the forehead. As he straightened up, his leg caught against her arm, pushing it slightly. The woman's arm slipped from its position and dangled from the edge of the bed like a crazy pendulum. Charles picked it up and folded it across her now cold breasts. He started to pull the sheet over her nude form, then stopped, smiling at his conventionality. After all, it didn't make any difference now. The phonograph was near the door. On sudden impulse he switched it on, turned the volume up full, and in grim jest left it playing Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead on full automatic. The music haunted him down the hall to the elevator that he had to run himself. The lobby was littered with debris, human and otherwise. Charles ignored it. The street that led towards the Bureau of Vital Statistics was a mess of desolate carnage. Charles overlooked it. Shop fronts smashed, stores looted, gyro-cars wrecked, proud buildings defaced. "That was it," he said to himself. "Pride. We called this the 'Proud Era.' Everything was better and bigger and nicer to have. Buildings were taller, men were healthier, most of the problems of humanity seemed licked, or nearly so. It was a time of free power, each small unit of population, each section of town operating on perpetual, ever-lasting, automatic atomic piles. "We were free. We seemed, almost, to have accomplished something. The world was running well. No wonder we called it the 'Proud Era.' Life was fun, just a bowl of cherries, until...." Two years ago the animals had started dying. Strangely enough the rats had gone first, to anybody's notice. Sales of poison dropped, scientific laboratories chained to a perpetual rodent-cycle began to complain bitterly. Then the lovers who hunted out and haunted the lonely lanes through the countryside began to remark that the locusts were late that year. The Southern states joyously reported that mosquito control was working to an unprecedented degree. The largest cotton crop ever was forecast and rumors from Mexico had it that no one had died from scorpion bite in several weeks. A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier. Congress was called into special session, as were all of the national governments around the world. The U.N. met at emergency sessions to cope with the situation. The president of the world-wide Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals committed suicide. Within a year it was obvious to everyone that man was the only animal left on earth. The panic which had begun with the death of the animals was quieted somewhat by the fact that humans seemed immune to the pandemic. But the lakes full of dead fish caused a great stink and residents along the coasts began to move inland. Sales of perfumes and deodorants soared. Then just one year ago, the first human became infected with the strange malady. Within six months, half of the world's population was gone. Less than a month ago no more than a few thousand people remained in New York. And now.... "I've got to find out," Charles told himself. He meant it, of course, but in a sense he was afraid—afraid that his trip to the Bureau might give him an answer he didn't dare listen to. "But I've got to try." He walked on down the bloody street. Before the plague the Bureau of Vital Statistics had been one of man's crowning achievements. Housed as it was in a huge metallic globe of a building, it contained computers which kept exact account of every human on earth. Compulsory registration and the classification of each individual by means of the discrete patterns of his brain waves had accomplished for man what no ordinary census could have. The machine knew who was alive, who was dead, and where everybody was. Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's four billion inhabitants. Four billion names and addresses, compressed into microprint, a tremendous achievement even for the "Proud Era." In all of his life, Charles had never once glanced at The Index. The average person had little necessity to do so since the Bureau information service would answer questions free of charge at any time. Reaching the gigantic building, Charles pushed aside the body of a young man and walked into the main foyer. Passing behind once-guarded doors, he entered the giant computer room and paused in admiration. Only once, before the plague, had he seen the interior of this room. But he still remembered it and he still recalled the powerful emotional experience it had been those many years ago. All children had to have a brain-wave recording made by the Bureau during the first month of their life. And again at the age of 10 each child returned to the Bureau for a recheck. It was for this latter recording that Charles had come to the Bureau some twenty-two years before and a friendly guard had let him peep briefly into the computer room. The impression of intense activity, of organized confusion, of mechanical wonder had remained with him the rest of his life. "So different now," he thought, surveying the room. "Now it's empty, so empty." The machine seemed to reflect the stillness, the very deadness of the world. The silence became unbearable. Charles walked to the master control panel. With newly acquired dexterity he switched the computer screens on and watched them glow to life. All around the world sensitive receiving stations pulsed to activity, sending out searching fingers, hunting for elusive patterns of neutral energy, mapping and tabulating the results. The main computer screen dominated one wall of the room. Other smaller screens clustered around it. On these screens could be graphed the population of any and every part of the globe. An illuminated counter immediately above it would give the numerical strength of the area being sampled while the screen would show population density by individual pinpoints of light that merged to form brightness patterns. "I'll try New York first," he said to himself, knowing that he was a coward, afraid to check the whole world from the start. "I'll start with New York and work up." Charles activated the switches that would flash a schematic map of New York on the screen. "There's bound to be somebody else left here. After all, there were at least twenty of us just a couple of days ago." And one of them, a beautiful woman, had invited him up to her apartment, not because she liked him, but because.... The main screen focused itself, the patterns shifting into a recognizable perceptual image. "Why, it was just yesterday (or was it the day before?) that ten of us, at least, met here to check the figures. There were lots of us alive then." Including the blond young woman who had died just this afternoon.... Charles stopped talking and forced his eyes upwards. Peripheral vision caught first the vague outlines of the lower part of the map. His eyes continued to move, slowly, reluctantly. They caught the over-all relief of Greater New York City—and then concentrated on the single, shining dot at the very heart of the map—and he understood. His eyes stabbed quickly for the counter above the screen. One. He gasped. The counter read one . Charles was by himself, the last person alive in all of New York City. He began to tremble violently. The silence of the room began to press quickly in on him. His frantic fingers searched for the computer controls. New York State. One. The entire United States. One. The western hemisphere, including islands. (Was that a point of light in Brazil? No. Just a ghost image). One. The Pacific area, Asia, Australia, Asia Minor, Russia and the Near East, Africa and then Europe. England! There was a light in England! Someone else still lived! The counter clicked forward. Two! His trembling stopped. He breathed again. "Of course. London was at least as populous as New York City before the plague. It's only logical that—" He stopped. For even as he spoke, the light winked out! The counter clicked again. One. Alone. Alone! Charles screamed. The bottom dropped out from under him! Why? Such a simple question, but in those three letters lay the essence of human nature. Why. The drive of curiosity. Stronger, in a way, than the so-called "basic" drives: hunger, thirst, sex, shelter, warmth, companionship, elimination. Certainly more decisive in the history of the race. Man began to think, to differentiate himself from the other animals, when he first asked the question: "Why?" But thinking about "why" didn't answer the question itself, Charles thought. He looked around him. He was sitting on a bench in Central Park, alone except for a few stray corpses. But the park was fairly free of bodies. "You've got about ten minutes warning," he said to himself. "I guess that most people wanted to die inside of something—inside of anything. Not out in the unprotected open." The silence was like a weight hanging around his neck. Not an insect noise, not the chirp of a bird, not the sound of a car nor the scream of a plane. Not even a breeze to whisper among the leaves, he thought. Civilization equals life equals noise. Silence equals.... Why. His mind kept returning to the question. Of all the people on earth, me. The last. Why me? Average, that's what he was. Height: 5'11". Weight: 165. Age: 32. Status: Married, once upon a time. The Norm, with no significant departures, all down the line. Church member, but not a good one. Could that be it? Could the most normal be the most perfect? Had he led the best of all possible lives? Was that it? Had God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, spared his life, saved him, singled him out because he was most nearly a saint, most nearly Christ-like, most nearly.... Lies—His mind snapped back to reality. He half smiled. Saint? Christ? The Second Coming? He was no saint. Charles sighed. What about—? Chance. That was it! The laws of probability, the bell-shaped curve, normal distribution, rectilinear regression. More people per square foot in New York than elsewhere. The first person who died was from New York, so the last person who gave way to the disease should come from here too. Spin the wheel; throw the dice; toss the coin. So simple to explain by the laws of chance. No need for any underlying assumptions about good and evil, no need for teleological arguments concerning cause and effect. Simply explain it by chance. Somebody had to be the last to go and that was— "No," Charles said, standing up in the quiet of the spring evening. "No, chance won't do it. No man can reckon with chance. The mind rejects such things. There must be something beyond mere accident. There must be!" He sighed slowly. "So now I'm a hermit, whether or not I like it," he said in derision to the gravel path as he walked along it. "A hermit in the midst of a city of millions of—No, I forgot. There aren't any more people, are there?" It was hard to realize, even now. "A hermit, alone—and I haven't even got a cave...." Charles stopped walking suddenly. No cave, he thought. No place to sleep out the long one, no place to rest while time came to change things around and make them for the better. No place to hide. And suddenly it was the most important thing in life to him to find his "cave." It took him almost an hour to find the proper tools, and better than two hours more of hard, nighttime work to get the hole dug to his satisfaction. It took almost three hours to find the right sort of casket, durable but not too heavy for one man to handle. He carted it out to a grassy plot close to the center of the park where the grave was. He let the coffin down slowly into the depression, then piled up loose dirt on the sloping sides of the hole so that the rain would wash it down over him. "I can't very well bury myself," he said. "I guess it will rain after I'm gone." He looked carefully down at the metallic container. Wait now. There was something wrong, something missing. It was—oh, yes, he caught it. It was the stone. There wasn't any stone to go at the head of the grave. "I'll have to fix that." A sheet of metal, bent double, served for the monument proper. A nearby tool shed yielded up a can of paint and a brush. By the glow of one of the streetlights Charles worked out the inscription. "It ought to be something impressive," he thought out loud. "Something fitting the occasion." What did one say on these situations? There was so little chance to practice up for things like this. But it ought to be good, it ought to be proper. "'In this now hallowed corner of the planet Earth—' No. That sounds too ... too...." Make it simple, he thought. And he finally wrote: HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE LAST MAN ON EARTH Yes. That was it. Simple. Let whoever came afterwards figure out the rest. Let them decide. He smiled and finished the painting. Charles was hungry. He got up and started for one of the restaurants near the park. Later on, when there was more time, he'd find a piece of granite and move it to the plot. He could spend his free time carving on it, copying the inscription. He would make it into a real shrine; maybe he would practice up a bit and try to carve a statue to go with the stone. Somehow, though, since things were ready and it didn't make too much difference, it seemed to Charles that he'd probably have a long time to wait. "Maybe it's just a disease, and I'm immune. I was immune to smallpox. The vaccination never took. That's probably it." He smiled. Strange, but now he wanted very much to go on living, alone or not. There were things he could do, ways to keep occupied. He wouldn't mind it so much. But he wanted more and more desperately with each passing second to retain his foothold on the tenuous path of physical existence. The tantalizing thought of "why" puzzled its way back into his mind. But it seemed less pressing now that he had almost come to the conclusion that he would live for a long time. Later, in a few days perhaps, he would think about it. In a little while he'd have plenty of opportunity for hunting down the answer. This seemed good to him, for now he thought he almost had the answer, if there were an answer. He thought he had seen the solution peering out at him from the recesses of his mind, and he didn't like the expression on its face. Better to forget. Charles reached the broad boulevard. There was a large cafe just across from him, its front window caved in by a large truck. He stumbled and almost fell as he stepped from the curb. "Look at me, nervous as a cat." He was trembling noticeably as he started across the street. "I—" He started to say something, to think something. But some hidden part of his mind clamped down, obscuring the thought, rejecting the concept. The tremor turned to a shake before he reached the far curb, and the first burst of wild pain came as he laid his shoulder against the door to the restaurant. This was the way the plague began, but—His mind quickly repressed the idea. It couldn't be the plague. He was immune! Another burst of pulsating, shattering pain crashed through his body, tearing down the defenses of his mind, putting an end of his thoughts of immunity. Colors flared before his eyes, a persistent, irresistible susurrus flooded his ears. He wanted to protest, but there was no one to listen to him. He appealed to every divinity he knew, all the time knowing it would be useless. His body, out of his voluntary control, tried to run off in all directions at once. Charles struggled to end his body's disorganized responses, to channelize all his energy into one direction. His mind came back into action. He set up his goal; everything else seemed irrelevant: he had to get back to the park, to his hermit's cave, to his long, narrow home. He couldn't die until then. Ten minutes. He was allotted ten minutes before the end. It could have been ten years or ten seconds, for now objective time meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of measuring seconds and minutes. It was a matter of forgetting time and measuring space. He concentrated on the grave; he forced his body to become an unwilling machine. While he could, he walked, forcing himself on. When his legs gave way, he crawled. When his knees buckled, he rolled. When his stomach protested, he vomited. It made no difference. Charles refused to think. Machines, especially half-broken machines, do not think; they only work. Sweating, straining, bleeding, retching, he pushed himself towards his goal, trying to add one final touch of grace and custom to the rude irrationalness of it all. His eyes gave out a few feet from the pit. He felt his way towards it. Convulsions shook his body like a cat shakes a captive mouse. He humped his body forward between the seizures, hands outstretched, searching for the grave. And then he was upon it. One arm reached out for grass, and clutched bare space instead. He was home. He gathered energy from his final reservoirs of strength for one final movement that would throw him headlong into the shallow grave. He tensed his muscles, pulled his limbs up under him and started to roll into the hole. Instantly the thought struck him with paralyzing devastation. The answer to it all poked its face out from the recesses of his mind and sapped the last bit of his energy, corroding his nerves and dying muscles. Now he knew, and the knowing was the end of it. He collapsed at the edge of the pit. Only one arm hung loosely down into it, swinging senseless in the air, pointing accusingly at the empty coffin. The world will end, not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with the last man's anguished cry at the unreasonableness of it all. Charles screamed. The large, invisible, ovular being that hung suspended over the Empire State Building rested from its exertion. Soon it was approached by another of its kind. "It is finished?" asked the second. "Yes. Just now. I am resting." "I can feel the emptiness of it." "It was very good. Where were you?" "On the next planet out. No beauty to it at all; no system. How was yours?" "Beautiful," said the first. "It went according to the strictest semantic relationship following the purest mathematical principles. They made it easy for me." "Good." "Well, where to now?" "There's another system about four thoughts away. We're due there soon." "All right. Let's go." "What's that you have there?" "Oh, this?" replied the first. "It's a higher neural order compendium the Things here made up. It's what I used." "You can't take it with you, you know. They don't allow souvenirs." "I know." "Well?" "All right, all right. You're so good, see if you can compute the scatter probability." The first being moved imperceptably and the heavy plastoid binding of the book disappeared. The thousands of pages dropped softly, caught at the wind like hungry sails, separated, and pulled by the fingers of gravity, went their disparate ways. Here a page scuttled into a broken window of the Chrysler Building (read the names: Aabat, Aabbs, Aabbt). Here a page landed upright on the head of one of the library lions and sloughed softly to the ground (read the names: Looman, Loomana, Loomanabsky). Here another page crept in between the cracks of a pier on the riverfront, dropping gently to the caressing eddies of the water (read the names: Smith, Smitha, Smitj). And here two pages danced down into Central Park, pirouetted, promenaded, and finally came to rest against a propped-up piece of metal (read the names: Whit, Whita, Whitacomb). It was not until the dusty morning sun stirred up the breezes that they fluttered down into the shallow hole beneath, unnoticed. The writing on the metal, until then partially obscured by the papers, became legible: HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE LAST MAN ON EARTH— CHARLES J. ZZYZST GO TO HELL!
...After a Few Words... by Garrett, Randall	"...After a Few Words...", Randall Garrett, 1957. ... After a Few Words ... by Seaton McKettrig Illustrated by Summer [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This is a science-fiction story. History is a science; the other part is, as all Americans know, the most fictional field we have today. He settled himself comfortably in his seat, and carefully put the helmet on, pulling it down firmly until it was properly seated. For a moment, he could see nothing. Then his hand moved up and, with a flick of the wrist, lifted the visor. Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying, was the forward part of the column. Far ahead, he knew, were the Knights Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars rode the mailed knights of Brittany and Anjou. These were followed by King Guy of Jerusalem and the host of Poitou. He himself, Sir Robert de Bouain, was riding with the Norman and English troops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his saddle. To his right, he could see the brilliant red-and-gold banner of the lion-hearted Richard of England— gules, in pale three lions passant guardant or . Behind the standard-bearer, his great war horse moving with a steady, measured pace, his coronet of gold on his steel helm gleaming in the glaring desert sun, the lions of England on his firm-held shield, was the King himself. Further behind, the Knights Hospitallers protected the rear, guarding the column of the hosts of Christendom from harassment by the Bedouins. "By our Lady!" came a voice from his left. "Three days out from Acre, and the accursed Saracens still elude us." Sir Robert de Bouain twisted again in his saddle to look at the knight riding alongside him. Sir Gaeton de l'Arc-Tombé sat tall and straight in his saddle, his visor up, his blue eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. Sir Robert's lips formed a smile. "They are not far off, Sir Gaeton. They have been following us. As we march parallel to the seacoast, so they have been marching with us in those hills to the east." "Like the jackals they are," said Sir Gaeton. "They assail us from the rear, and they set up traps in our path ahead. Our spies tell us that the Turks lie ahead of us in countless numbers. And yet, they fear to face us in open battle." "Is it fear, or are they merely gathering their forces?" "Both," said Sir Gaeton flatly. "They fear us, else they would not dally to amass so fearsome a force. If, as our informers tell us, there are uncounted Turks to the fore, and if, as we are aware, our rear is being dogged by the Bedouin and the black horsemen of Egypt, it would seem that Saladin has at hand more than enough to overcome us, were they all truly Christian knights." "Give them time. We must wait for their attack, sir knight. It were foolhardy to attempt to seek them in their own hills, and yet they must stop us. They will attack before we reach Jerusalem, fear not." "We of Gascony fear no heathen Musselman," Sir Gaeton growled. "It's this Hellish heat that is driving me mad." He pointed toward the eastern hills. "The sun is yet low, and already the heat is unbearable." Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. "Perhaps 'twere better to be mad when the assault comes. Madmen fight better than men of cooler blood." He knew that the others were baking inside their heavy armor, although he himself was not too uncomfortable. Sir Gaeton looked at him with a smile that held both irony and respect. "In truth, sir knight, it is apparent that you fear neither men nor heat. Nor is your own blood too cool. True, I ride with your Normans and your English and your King Richard of the Lion's Heart, but I am a Gascon, and have sworn no fealty to him. But to side with the Duke of Burgundy against King Richard—" He gave a short, barking laugh. "I fear no man," he went on, "but if I had to fear one, it would be Richard of England." Sir Robert's voice came like a sword: steely, flat, cold, and sharp. "My lord the King spoke in haste. He has reason to be bitter against Philip of France, as do we all. Philip has deserted the field. He has returned to France in haste, leaving the rest of us to fight the Saracen for the Holy Land leaving only the contingent of his vassal the Duke of Burgundy to remain with us." "Richard of England has never been on the best of terms with Philip Augustus," said Sir Gaeton. "No, and with good cause. But he allowed his anger against Philip to color his judgment when he spoke harshly against the Duke of Burgundy. The Duke is no coward, and Richard Plantagenet well knows it. As I said, he spoke in haste." "And you intervened," said Sir Gaeton. "It was my duty." Sir Robert's voice was stubborn. "Could we have permitted a quarrel to develop between the two finest knights and warleaders in Christendom at this crucial point? The desertion of Philip of France has cost us dearly. Could we permit the desertion of Burgundy, too?" "You did what must be done in honor," the Gascon conceded, "but you have not gained the love of Richard by doing so." Sir Robert felt his jaw set firmly. "My king knows I am loyal." Sir Gaeton said nothing more, but there was a look in his eyes that showed that he felt that Richard of England might even doubt the loyalty of Sir Robert de Bouain. Sir Robert rode on in silence, feeling the movement of the horse beneath him. There was a sudden sound to the rear. Like a wash of the tide from the sea came the sound of Saracen war cries and the clash of steel on steel mingled with the sounds of horses in agony and anger. Sir Robert turned his horse to look. The Negro troops of Saladin's Egyptian contingent were thundering down upon the rear! They clashed with the Hospitallers, slamming in like a rain of heavy stones, too close in for the use of bows. There was only the sword against armor, like the sound of a thousand hammers against a thousand anvils. "Stand fast! Stand fast! Hold them off!" It was the voice of King Richard, sounding like a clarion over the din of battle. Sir Robert felt his horse move, as though it were urging him on toward the battle, but his hand held to the reins, keeping the great charger in check. The King had said "Stand fast!" and this was no time to disobey the orders of Richard. The Saracen troops were coming in from the rear, and the Hospitallers were taking the brunt of the charge. They fought like madmen, but they were slowly being forced back. The Master of the Hospitallers rode to the rear, to the King's standard, which hardly moved in the still desert air, now that the column had stopped moving. The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears. "Stand fast. The King bids you all to stand fast," said the duke, his voice fading as he rode on up the column toward the knights of Poitou and the Knights Templars. The Master of the Hospitallers was speaking in a low, urgent voice to the King: "My lord, we are pressed on by the enemy and in danger of eternal infamy. We are losing our horses, one after the other!" "Good Master," said Richard, "it is you who must sustain their attack. No one can be everywhere at once." The Master of the Hospitallers nodded curtly and charged back into the fray. The King turned to Sir Baldwin de Carreo, who sat ahorse nearby, and pointed toward the eastern hills. "They will come from there, hitting us in the flank; we cannot afford to amass a rearward charge. To do so would be to fall directly into the hands of the Saracen." A voice very close to Sir Robert said: "Richard is right. If we go to the aid of the Hospitallers, we will expose the column to a flank attack." It was Sir Gaeton. "My lord the King," Sir Robert heard his voice say, "is right in all but one thing. If we allow the Egyptians to take us from the rear, there will be no need for Saladin and his Turks to come down on our flank. And the Hospitallers cannot hold for long at this rate. A charge at full gallop would break the Egyptian line and give the Hospitallers breathing time. Are you with me?" "Against the orders of the King?" "The King cannot see everything! There are times when a man must use his own judgment! You said you were afraid of no man. Are you with me?" After a moment's hesitation, Sir Gaeton couched his lance. "I'm with you, sir knight! Live or die, I follow! Strike and strike hard!" "Forward then!" Sir Robert heard himself shouting. "Forward for St. George and for England!" "St. George and England!" the Gascon echoed. Two great war horses began to move ponderously forward toward the battle lines, gaining momentum as they went. Moving in unison, the two knights, their horses now at a fast trot, lowered their lances, picking their Saracen targets with care. Larger and larger loomed the Egyptian cavalrymen as the horses changed pace to a thundering gallop. The Egyptians tried to dodge, as they saw, too late, the approach of the Christian knights. Sir Robert felt the shock against himself and his horse as the steel tip of the long ash lance struck the Saracen horseman in the chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Sir Gaeton, too, had scored. The Saracen, impaled on Sir Robert's lance, shot from the saddle as he died. His lighter armor had hardly impeded the incoming spear-point, and now his body dragged it down as he dropped toward the desert sand. Another Moslem cavalryman was charging in now, swinging his curved saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance. There was nothing else to do but drop the lance and draw his heavy broadsword. His hand grasped it, and it came singing from its scabbard. The Egyptian's curved sword clanged against Sir Robert's helm, setting his head ringing. In return, the knight's broadsword came about in a sweeping arc, and the Egyptian's horse rode on with the rider's headless body. Behind him, Sir Robert heard further cries of "St. George and England!" The Hospitallers, taking heart at the charge, were going in! Behind them came the Count of Champagne, the Earl of Leister, and the Bishop of Beauvais, who carried a great warhammer in order that he might not break Church Law by shedding blood. Sir Robert's own sword rose and fell, cutting and hacking at the enemy. He himself felt a dreamlike detachment, as though he were watching the battle rather than participating in it. But he could see that the Moslems were falling back before the Christian onslaught. And then, quite suddenly, there seemed to be no foeman to swing at. Breathing heavily, Sir Robert sheathed his broadsword. Beside him, Sir Gaeton did the same, saying: "It will be a few minutes before they can regroup, sir knight. We may have routed them completely." "Aye. But King Richard will not approve of my breaking ranks and disobeying orders. I may win the battle and lose my head in the end." "This is no time to worry about the future," said the Gascon. "Rest for a moment and relax, that you may be the stronger later. Here—have an Old Kings ." He had a pack of cigarettes in his gauntleted hand, which he profferred to Sir Robert. There were three cigarettes protruding from it, one slightly farther than the others. Sir Robert's hand reached out and took that one. "Thanks. When the going gets rough, I really enjoy an Old Kings ." He put one end of the cigarette in his mouth and lit the other from the lighter in Sir Gaeton's hand. "Yes, sir," said Sir Gaeton, after lighting his own cigarette, " Old Kings are the greatest. They give a man real, deep-down smoking pleasure." "There's no doubt about it, Old Kings are a man's cigarette." Sir Robert could feel the soothing smoke in his lungs as he inhaled deeply. "That's great. When I want a cigarette, I don't want just any cigarette." "Nor I," agreed the Gascon. " Old Kings is the only real cigarette when you're doing a real man's work." "That's for sure." Sir Robert watched a smoke ring expand in the air. There was a sudden clash of arms off to their left. Sir Robert dropped his cigarette to the ground. "The trouble is that doing a real he-man's work doesn't always allow you to enjoy the fine, rich tobaccos of Old Kings right down to the very end." "No, but you can always light another later," said the Gascon knight. King Richard, on seeing his army moving suddenly toward the harassed rear, had realized the danger and had charged through the Hospitallers to get into the thick of the fray. Now the Turks were charging down from the hills, hitting—not the flank as he had expected, but the rear! Saladin had expected him to hold fast! Sir Robert and Sir Gaeton spurred their chargers toward the flapping banner of England. The fierce warrior-king of England, his mighty sword in hand, was cutting down Turks as though they were grain-stalks, but still the Saracen horde pressed on. More and more of the terrible Turks came boiling down out of the hills, their glittering scimitars swinging. Sir Robert lost all track of time. There was nothing to do but keep his own great broadsword moving, swinging like some gigantic metronome as he hacked down the Moslem foes. And then, suddenly, he found himself surrounded by the Saracens! He was isolated and alone, cut off from the rest of the Christian forces! He glanced quickly around as he slashed another Saracen from pate to breastbone. Where was Sir Gaeton? Where were the others? Where was the red-and-gold banner of Richard? He caught a glimpse of the fluttering banner far to the rear and started to fall back. And then he saw another knight nearby, a huge man who swung his sparkling blade with power and force. On his steel helm gleamed a golden coronet! Richard! And the great king, in spite of his prowess was outnumbered heavily and would, within seconds, be cut down by the Saracen horde! Without hesitation, Sir Robert plunged his horse toward the surrounded monarch, his great blade cutting a path before him. He saw Richard go down, falling from the saddle of his charger, but by that time his own sword was cutting into the screaming Saracens and they had no time to attempt any further mischief to the King. They had their hands full with Sir Robert de Bouain. He did not know how long he fought there, holding his charger motionless over the inert body of the fallen king, hewing down the screaming enemy, but presently he heard the familiar cry of "For St. George and for England" behind him. The Norman and English troops were charging in, bringing with them the banner of England! And then Richard was on his feet, cleaving the air about him with his own broadsword. Its bright edge, besmeared with Saracen blood, was biting viciously into the foe. The Turks began to fall back. Within seconds, the Christian knights were boiling around the embattled pair, forcing the Turks into retreat. And for the second time, Sir Robert found himself with no one to fight. And then a voice was saying: "You have done well this day, sir knight. Richard Plantagenet will not forget." Sir Robert turned in his saddle to face the smiling king. "My lord king, be assured that I would never forget my loyalty to my sovereign and liege lord. My sword and my life are yours whenever you call." King Richard's gauntleted hand grasped his own. "If it please God, I shall never ask your life. An earldom awaits you when we return to England, sir knight." And then the king mounted his horse and was running full gallop after the retreating Saracens. Robert took off his helmet. He blinked for a second to adjust his eyes to the relative dimness of the studio. After the brightness of the desert that the televicarion helmet had projected into his eyes, the studio seemed strangely cavelike. "How'd you like it, Bob?" asked one of the two producers of the show. Robert Bowen nodded briskly and patted the televike helmet. "It was O.K.," he said. "Good show. A little talky at the beginning, and it needs a better fade-out, but the action scenes were fine. The sponsor ought to like it—for a while, at least." "What do you mean, 'for a while'?" Robert Bowen sighed. "If this thing goes on the air the way it is, he'll lose sales." "Why? Commercial not good enough?" " Too good! Man, I've smoked Old Kings , and, believe me, the real thing never tasted as good as that cigarette did in the commercial!"
...And It Comes Out Here by Del Rey, Lester	"...And It Comes Out Here", Lester Del Rey, 1954. ... and it comes out here By LESTER DEL REY Illustrated by DON SIBLEY [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] There is one fact no sane man can quarrel with ... everything has a beginning and an end. But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so! No, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in. You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this. Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will. Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the machine out there too long—until you get used to it, you'll find it's hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years. You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not? And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes—we're the same person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just how you feel; I felt the same way when he—that is, of course, I or we—came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago. Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter. Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two of the same people. You sense things. So I'll simply go ahead talking for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling what happened to me; but he—I—told me what I was going to do, so I might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the same thing in the same words, even if I tried—and I don't intend to try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this. So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me. You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you, and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but you'll want to go along. I'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button, and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section isn't protected, though. You start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button, and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there—in fact, there is no there . You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can guess how things are. You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out, all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening and you don't try it again. Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time. You turn to me, getting used to the idea. "So this is the fourth dimension?" you ask. Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak. "Not exactly," I try to explain. "Maybe it's no dimension—or it might be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent the machine and I don't understand it." "But...." I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have been a time when you did invent the machine—the atomic motor first, then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as I did—and you will—you get further and further from an answer. Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time, apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space. You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't think about that then, either. I'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss. "Where are we getting our air?" you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?" "No place for it to go," I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still. Then the machine stops—at least, the field around us cuts off. You feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the machine, just as I do. I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels comfortable. "I'm staying here," I tell you. "This is like the things they wear in this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune—the one you make on that atomic generator—invested in such a way I can get it on using some identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming back with you." You nod, remembering I've told you about it. "What century is this, anyway?" I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. "As near as I can guess, it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an interstellar civilization." You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor. This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs, and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open. "What about the time machine?" you ask. "Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe." We get in the elevator, and I say "first" to it. It gives out a coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's no feeling of acceleration—some kind of false gravity they use in the future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says "first" back at us. It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. "You go that way. Don't worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum, grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you." You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream. You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later, you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off. You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at them, realizing for the first time that things have changed. Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri. The signs are very quiet and dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains, and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign that announces: Trav:l Biwrou—F:rst-Clas Twrz—Marz, Viins, and x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol snz wixin 60 lyt iirz! But there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get the hang of the spelling they use, though. Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you. Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well, people don't change much. You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might be papers on tapes. "Where can I find the Museum of Science?" "Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. Around you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know. You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface of the walk: Miuzi:m v Syens . There's an arrow pointing and you turn left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the information that it is the museum. You go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other guard. What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather pleasant. "Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice." "Thanks," you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce guards as polite as that. "I—I'm told I should investigate your display of atomic generators." He beams at that. "Of course." The gate is swung to behind you, but obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a lock. "Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though. Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period. Oh—congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our oldest tapes." You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny toward you. "Souvenir," it announces in a well-modulated voice. "This is a typical gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child, press the red button for the number of stones you desire." You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of spaceships—from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with miniature manikins—are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then there is one labeled Wep:nz , filled with everything from a crossbow to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil, marked Fynal Hand Arm . Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big place that bears a sign, Mad:lz v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez . By that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it. You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order, and the latest one, marked 2147—Rincs Dyn*pat: , is about the size of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier, but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically final form. You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation, and full patent application. They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel, producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles, and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added since the original. So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top, plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling, Drop BBs or wire here . Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on each side. "Nice," the guard says over your shoulder. "It finally wore out one of the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever. Like to have me tell you about it?" "Not particularly," you begin, and then realize bad manners might be conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls something out of his pocket and stares at it. "Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba—Centaurian, you know—is arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?" You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge it, either. You work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals—Ehrenhaft or some other principle?—and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect. And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed. Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing. You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be carried. You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact, if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered, after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say. Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing happens, though. You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street. Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see. There's another yell behind you. Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you dart past. The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting heavier at every step. Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop. "You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let me grab you a taxi." Reaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake your head and come up for air. "I—I left my money home," you begin. The cop nods. "Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me." He reaches out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an emergency request. Would you help this gentleman?" The pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. "How far?" You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him. Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming at you both. That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there before you. And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck. "You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications," he says. "They go with the generator—we don't like to have them separated. A good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and we'll pick it up." You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction and heads back to the museum. You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator. There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there. You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were. Then there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in, gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at the original level. You get out—and realize you don't have a light. You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine. You've located it. You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one beside it and you finally decide on that. Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating it. Your finger touches the red button. You'll never know what the shouting was about—whether they finally doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around you and the next button you touch—the one on the board that hasn't been used so far—sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe. It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with some pencil marks over them—"Press these to return to yourself 30 years"—and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't because there is only one of you this time. Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in your own back yard. You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement, land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then, you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic generator and taking it inside. It isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends—all things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals. But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice something. Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again. And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth—minus the replaced wires the guard mentioned—which probably wore out because of the makeshift job you've just done. But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and that the date of the patent application is 1951. It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the future and bring it back to the past—your present—so that it can be put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to yourself.... Who invented what? And who built which? Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one—after some of the worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital letter. But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer. One day you come across an old poem—something about some folks calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be knocking on your own door, thirty years back—or right now, from your view—and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you. But now.... Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left. Let's go.
A Coffin for Jacob by Ludwig, Edward W.	"A Coffin for Jacob", Edward W. Ludwig, 1955. A Coffin for Jacob By EDWARD W. LUDWIG Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] With never a moment to rest, the pursuit through space felt like a game of hounds and hares ... or was it follow the leader? Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him. His fear-borne gaze traveled into the dimly illumined Venusian gin mill. The place was like an evil caldron steaming with a brew whose ingredients had been culled from the back corners of three planets. Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. Here and there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, Martians or Venusians. Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it was the dead man's hand. " Coma esta, senor? " a small voice piped. " Speken die Deutsch? Desirez-vous d'amour? Da? Nyet? " Ben looked down. The speaker was an eager-eyed Martian boy of about ten. He was like a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees. "I'm American," Ben muttered. "Ah, buena ! I speak English tres fine, senor . I have Martian friend, she tres pretty and tres fat. She weigh almost eighty pounds, monsieur . I take you to her, si ?" Ben shook his head. He thought, I don't want your Martian wench. I don't want your opium or your Devil's Egg or your Venusian kali. But if you had a drug that'd bring a dead man to life, I'd buy and pay with my soul. "It is deal, monsieur ? Five dollars or twenty keelis for visit Martian friend. Maybe you like House of Dreams. For House of Dreams—" "I'm not buying." The dirty-faced kid shrugged. "Then I show you to good table,— tres bien . I do not charge you, senor ." The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices. They passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed Earthmen—merchant spacemen. They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed tombstones. Several times, Ben glimpsed the bulky figures of CO 2 -breathing Venusians, the first he'd ever seen. They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape. They stood solitary and motionless, aloof, their green-lidded eyes unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard they were, but the thought sent a fresh rivulet of fear down his spine. Once he spied a white-uniformed officer of Hoover City's Security Police. The man was striding down an aisle, idly tapping his neuro-club against the stone booths. Keep walking , Ben told himself. You look the same as anyone else here. Keep walking. Look straight ahead. The officer passed. Ben breathed easier. "Here we are, monsieur ," piped the Martian boy. "A tres fine table. Close in the shadows." Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows? Frowning, he sat down—he and the dead man. He listened to the lonely rhythms of the four-piece Martian orchestra. The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of their cirillas or crawled over the holes of their flutes like spider legs. Their tune was sad. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and forgotten grandeur. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. He thought, What are they doing here, these Martians? Here, in a smoke-filled room under a metalite dome on a dust-covered world? Couldn't they have played their music on Mars? Or had they, like me, felt the challenge of new worlds? He sobered. It didn't matter. He ordered a whiskey from a Chinese waiter. He wet his lips but did not drink. His gaze wandered over the faces of the Inn's other occupants. You've got to find him , he thought. You've got to find the man with the red beard. It's the only way you can escape the dead man. The dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and about forty and he hated spacemen. His body was buried now—probably in the silent gray wastes outside Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a part of Ben as sight in his eyes. Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips spitting whiskey-slurred curses. Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist thudded into its jaw. More often, the face would be frozen in the whiteness of death. The large eyes would stare. Blood would trickle from a corner of the gaping mouth. You can forget a living man. You can defeat him or submit to him or ignore him, and the matter is over and done. You can't escape from a memory that has burned into your mind. It had begun a week ago in Luna City. The flight from White Sands had been successful. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. He stopped alone in a rocketfront bar for a beer. The man named Cobb plopped his portly and unsteady posterior on the stool next to him. "Spacemen," he muttered, "are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you see's spacemen." He was a neatly dressed civilian. Ben smiled. "If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here." "The name's Cobb." The man hiccoughed. "Spacemen in their white monkey suits. They think they're little tin gods. Betcha you think you're a little tin god." He downed a shot of whiskey. Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, crimson-braided uniform of the Odyssey's junior astrogation officer. He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe. He'd sought long for that key. At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' death in a recent strato-jet crash—he'd spent hours watching the night sky for streaking flame-tails of Moon rockets. At ten, he'd ground his first telescope. At fourteen, he'd converted an abandoned shed on the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his collection of astronomy and rocketry books. At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space. And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the Odyssey —the first ship, it was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps beyond. Cobb was persistent: "Damn fools shoulda known enough to stay on Earth. What the hell good is it, jumpin' from planet to planet?" The guy's drunk , Ben thought. He took his drink and moved three stools down the bar. Cobb followed. "You don't like the truth, eh, kid? You don't like people to call you a sucker." Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and held him there. "Thas what you are—a sucker. You're young now. Wait ten years. You'll be dyin' of radiation rot or a meteor'll get you. Wait and see, sucker!" Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and without warning, it welled up into savage fury. His fist struck the man on the chin. Cobb's eyes gaped in shocked horror. He spun backward. His head cracked sickeningly on the edge of the bar. The sound was like a punctuation mark signaling the end of life. He sank to the floor, eyes glassy, blood tricking down his jaw. Ben knew that he was dead. Then, for a single absurd second, Ben was seized with terror—just as, a moment before, he'd been overwhelmed with anger. He ran. For some twenty minutes, he raced through a dizzying, nightmare world of dark rocketfront alleys and shouting voices and pursuing feet. At last, abruptly, he realized that he was alone and in silence. He saw that he was still on the rocketfront, but in the Tycho-ward side of the city. He huddled in a dark corner of a loading platform and lit a cigarette. A thousand stars—a thousand motionless balls of silver fire—shone above him through Luna City's transparent dome. He was sorry he'd hit Cobb, of course. He was not sorry he'd run. Escaping at least gave him a power of choice, of decision. You can do two things , he thought. You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary manslaughter. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. And then you'd be free. But you'd be through with rockets and space. They don't want new men over thirty-four for officers on rockets or even for third-class jet-men on beat-up freighters—they don't want convicted killers. You'd get the rest of the thrill of conquering space through video and by peeking through electric fences of spaceports. Or— There were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't outlaws. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth. And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. Their headquarters was Venus. Their leader—a subject of popular and fantastic conjecture in the men's audiozines—was rumored to be a red-bearded giant. So , Ben reflected, you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your name. You can wait for a chance to get to Venus. To hell with your duty. You can try to stay in space, even if you exile yourself from Earth. After all, was it right for a single second, a single insignificant second, to destroy a man's life and his dream? He was lucky. He found a tramp freighter whose skipper was on his last flight before retirement. Discipline was lax, investigation of new personnel even more so. Ben Curtis made it to Venus. There was just one flaw in his decision. He hadn't realized that the memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs. But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead voice? Might not the vision of alien worlds and infinite spaceways obscure the dead face? So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant, and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once. "You look for someone, senor ?" He jumped. "Oh. You still here?" " Oui. " The Martian kid grinned, his mouth full of purple teeth. "I keep you company on your first night in Hoover City, n'est-ce-pas ?" "This isn't my first night here," Ben lied. "I've been around a while." "You are spacemen?" Ben threw a fifty-cent credit piece on the table. "Here. Take off, will you?" Spiderlike fingers swept down upon the coin. " Ich danke, senor. You know why city is called Hoover City?" Ben didn't answer. "They say it is because after women come, they want first thing a thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner, monsieur ?" Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy. " Ai-yee , I go. You keep listen to good Martian music." The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness. Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him—reddish balloon faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and occasionally a white, rouged, powdered face. But nowhere was there a face with a red beard. A sense of hopelessness gripped Ben Curtis. Hoover City was but one of a dozen cities of Venus. Each had twenty dives such as this. He needed help. But his picture must have been 'scoped to Venusian visiscreens. A reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The Martian kid, perhaps? Far down the darkened aisle nearest him, his eyes caught a flash of white. He tensed. Like the uniform of a Security Policeman, he thought. His gaze shifted to another aisle and another hint of whiteness. And then he saw another and another and another. Each whiteness became brighter and closer, like shrinking spokes of a wheel with Ben as their focal point. You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known! Light showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded, realized that a broad circle of unshaded globes in the ceiling had been turned on. The light washed away the room's strangeness and its air of brooding wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor. Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away. Ben Curtis twisted his lean body erect. His chair tumbled backward, falling. The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised. A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in Ben's direction. "Curtis!" one of the policemen yelled. "You're covered! Hold it!" Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into which the musicians had disappeared. A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall ahead of him crumbled. He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the mildly stunning neuro-clubs. Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit. Another second , his brain screamed. Just another second— Or would the exits be guarded? He heard the hiss. It hit directly in the small of his back. There was no pain, just a slight pricking sensation, like the shallow jab of a needle. He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of his body. He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have fifteen—maybe twenty—seconds before complete lethargy of mind and body overpowered him. In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice yell, "Turn on the damn lights!" Then a pressure and a coldness were on his left hand. He realized that someone had seized it. A soft feminine voice spoke to him. "You're wounded? They hit you?" "Yes." His thick lips wouldn't let go of the word. "You want to escape—even now?" "Yes." "You may die if you don't give yourself up." "No, no." He tried to stumble toward the exit. "All right then. Not that way. Here, this way." Heavy footsteps thudded toward them. A few yards away, a flashlight flicked on. Hands were guiding him. He was aware of being pushed and pulled. A door closed behind him. The glare of the flashlight faded from his vision—if he still had vision. "You're sure?" the voice persisted. "I'm sure," Ben managed to say. "I have no antidote. You may die." His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection, massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender at once. "Anti ... anti ..." The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced from his throat. "No ... I'm sure ... sure." He didn't hear the answer or anything else. Ben Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to consciousness was an intangible evolution from a world of black nothingness to a dream-like state of awareness. He felt the pressure of hands on his naked arms and shoulders, hands that massaged, manipulated, fought to restore circulation and sensitivity. He knew they were strong hands. Their strength seemed to transfer itself to his own body. For a long time, he tried to open his eyes. His lids felt welded shut. But after a while, they opened. His world of darkness gave way to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered constantly above him—a face, he supposed. He tried to talk. Although his lips moved slightly, the only sound was a deep, staccato grunting. But he heard someone say, "Don't try to talk." It was the same gentle voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. "Don't talk. Just lie still and rest. Everything'll be all right." Everything all right , he thought dimly. There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen mask was clamped over his nose. He felt the heat of electric blankets swathed about his body. Occasionally a tube would be in his mouth and he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach. Always, it seemed, the face was above him, floating in the obscuring mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears: "Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food." Or, "Close your eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better." Better , he'd think. Getting better.... At last, after one of the periods of lethargy, his eyes opened. The mist brightened, then dissolved. He beheld the cracked, unpainted ceiling of a small room, its colorless walls broken with a single, round window. He saw the footboard of his aluminite bed and the outlines of his feet beneath a faded blanket. Finally he saw the face and figure that stood at his side. "You are better?" the kind voice asked. The face was that of a girl probably somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her straight brown hair was combed backward, tight upon her scalp, and drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck. "I—I am better," he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. "I am going to live?" "You will live." He thought for a moment. "How long have I been here?" "Nine days." "You took care of me?" He noted the deep, dark circles beneath her sleep-robbed eyes. She nodded. "You're the one who carried me when I was shot?" "Yes." "Why?" Suddenly he began to cough. Breath came hard. She held the oxygen mask in readiness. He shook his head, not wanting it. "Why?" he asked again. "It would be a long story. Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow." A new thought, cloaked in sudden fear, entered his murky consciousness. "Tell me, will—will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?" He lay back then, panting, exhausted. "You have nothing to worry about," the girl said softly. Her cool hand touched his hot forehead. "Rest. We'll talk later." His eyes closed and breath came easier. He slept. When he next awoke, his gaze turned first to the window. There was light outside, but he had no way of knowing if this was morning, noon or afternoon—or on what planet. He saw no white-domed buildings of Hoover City, no formal lines of green-treed parks, no streams of buzzing gyro-cars. There was only a translucent and infinite whiteness. It was as if the window were set on the edge of the Universe overlooking a solemn, silent and matterless void. The girl entered the room. "Hi," she said, smiling. The dark half-moons under her eyes were less prominent. Her face was relaxed. She increased the pressure in his rubberex pillows and helped him rise to a sitting position. "Where are we?" he asked. "Venus." "We're not in Hoover City?" "No." He looked at her, wondering. "You won't tell me?" "Not yet. Later, perhaps." "Then how did you get me here? How did we escape from the Inn?" She shrugged. "We have friends who can be bribed. A hiding place in the city, the use of a small desert-taxi, a pass to leave the city—these can be had for a price." "You'll tell me your name?" "Maggie." "Why did you save me?" Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Because you're a good astrogator." His own eyes widened. "How did you know that?" She sat on a plain chair beside his bed. "I know everything about you, Lieutenant Curtis." "How did you learn my name? I destroyed all my papers—" "I know that you're twenty-four. Born July 10, 1971. Orphaned at four, you attended Boys Town in the Catskills till you were 19. You graduated from the Academy at White Sands last June with a major in Astrogation. Your rating for the five-year period was 3.8—the second highest in a class of fifty-seven. Your only low mark in the five years was a 3.2 in History of Martian Civilization. Want me to go on?" Fascinated, Ben nodded. "You were accepted as junior astrogation officer aboard the Odyssey . You did well on your flight from Roswell to Luna City. In a barroom fight in Luna City, you struck and killed a man named Arthur Cobb, a pre-fab salesman. You've been charged with second degree murder and escape. A reward of 5,000 credits has been offered for your capture. You came to Hoover City in the hope of finding a renegade group of spacemen who operate beyond Mars. You were looking for them in the Blast Inn." He gaped incredulously, struggling to rise from his pillows. "I—don't get it." "There are ways of finding out what we want to know. As I told you, we have many friends." He fell back into his pillows, breathing hard. She rose quickly. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have told you yet. I felt so happy because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon." "Maggie, you—you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk again." She lowered her gaze. "I hope you'll be able to." "But you don't think I will, do you?" "I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now. Rest." He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture. "Just one more question," he almost whispered. "Yes?" "The man I killed—did he have a wife?" She hesitated. He thought, Damn it, of all the questions, why did I ask that? Finally she said, "He had a wife." "Children?" "Two. I don't know their ages." She left the room. He sank into the softness of his bed. As he turned over on his side, his gaze fell upon an object on a bureau in a far corner of the room. He sat straight up, his chest heaving. The object was a tri-dimensional photo of a rock-faced man in a merchant spaceman's uniform. He was a giant of a man with a neatly trimmed red beard ! Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into restless sleep. Images of faces and echoes of words spun through his brain. The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes accused him. Somewhere were two lost children crying in the night. And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and knees, his legs numb and useless. The crying of the children was a chilling wail in his ears. His head rose and turned to the red-bearded man. His pleading voice screamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed, the giant disappeared, to be replaced by white-booted feet stomping relentlessly toward him. He awoke still screaming.... A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a question already formed in his mind. She came and at once he asked, "Who is the man with the red beard?" She smiled. "I was right then when I gave you that thumbnail biog. You were looking for him, weren't you?" "Who is he?" She sat on the chair beside him. "My husband," she said softly. He began to understand. "And your husband needs an astrogator? That's why you saved me?" "We need all the good men we can get." "Where is he?" She cocked her head in mock suspicion. "Somewhere between Mercury and Pluto. He's building a new base for us—and a home for me. When his ship returns, I'll be going to him." "Why aren't you with him now?" "He said unexplored space is no place for a woman. So I've been studying criminal reports and photos from the Interplanetary Bureau of Investigation and trying to find recruits like yourself. You know how we operate?" He told her the tales he'd heard. She nodded. "There are quite a few of us now—about a thousand—and a dozen ships. Our base used to be here on Venus, down toward the Pole. The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, someone dies." "Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only a temporary base when we have cases like yours. The new base—I might as well tell you it's going to be an asteroid. I won't say which one." "Don't get the idea that we're outlaws. Sure, about half our group is wanted by the Bureau, but we make honest livings. We're just people like yourself and Jacob." "Jacob? Your husband?" She laughed. "Makes you think of a Biblical character, doesn't it? Jacob's anything but that. And just plain 'Jake' reminds one of a grizzled old uranium prospector and he isn't like that, either." She lit a cigarette. "Anyway, the wanted ones stay out beyond the frontiers. Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth—not even to Hoover City—except dead. The others are physical or psycho rejects who couldn't get clearance if they went back to Earth. They know nothing but rocketing and won't give up. They bring in our ships to frontier ports like Hoover City to unload cargo and take on supplies." "Don't the authorities object?" "Not very strongly. The I. B. I. has too many problems right here to search the whole System for a few two-bit crooks. Besides, we carry cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten and all the stuff that's scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. Nobody really cares whether it comes from the asteroids or Hades. If we want to risk our lives mining it, that's our business." She pursed her lips. "But if they guessed how strong we are or that we have friends planted in the I. B. I.—well, things might be different. There probably would be a crackdown." Ben scowled. "What happens if there is a crackdown? And what will you do when Space Corps ships officially reach the asteroids? They can't ignore you then." "Then we move on. We dream up new gimmicks for our crates and take them to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. In time, maybe, we'll be pushed out of the System itself. Maybe it won't be the white-suited boys who'll make that first hop to the stars. It could be us, you know—if we live long enough. But that Asteroid Belt is murder. You can't follow the text-book rules of astrogation out there. You make up your own." Ben stiffened. "And that's why you want me for an astrogator." Maggie rose, her eyes wistful. "If you want to come—and if you get well." She looked at him strangely. "Suppose—" He fought to find the right words. "Suppose I got well and decided not to join Jacob. What would happen to me? Would you let me go?" Her thin face was criss-crossed by emotion—alarm, then bewilderment, then fear. "I don't know. That would be up to Jacob." He lay biting his lip, staring at the photo of Jacob. She touched his hand and it seemed that sadness now dominated the flurry of emotion that had coursed through her. "The only thing that matters, really," she murmured, "is your walking again. We'll try this afternoon. Okay?" "Okay," he said. When she left, his eyes were still turned toward Jacob's photo. He was like two people, he thought. Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single starry-eyed boy out of ten thousand was lucky enough to reach that goal. He remembered a little picture book his mother had given him when she was alive. Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions: "A Space Officer Is Honest" "A Space Officer Is Loyal." "A Space Officer Is Dutiful." Honesty, loyalty, duty. Trite words, but without those concepts, mankind would never have broken away from the planet that held it prisoner for half a million years. Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead, would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago.
A Fall of Glass by Lee, Stanley R.	"A Fall of Glass", Stanley R. Lee, 1965. A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; occasional light showers—but of what? The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, the humidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball in a cloudless blue sky. His pockets were picked eleven times. It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was a masterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was Humphrey Fownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. He was strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses, one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions. But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject to begin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking so deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many people were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum Dome Conditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a bogus postman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In the confusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postman rifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girl happened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got his right and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence. The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time. He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in a heated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied his rear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of the handkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of put and take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea he was playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist, hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings of a celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-light fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass still intrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humidity that was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was this rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight surveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of getting his fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayed and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning them. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled a five-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster of Paris. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight and handedness behind. By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier complete with photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in an orange patrol car parked down the street. Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownes approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and particularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated within the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a social force; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it, Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see that genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own small efforts, rarer. Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable. Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. "Sometimes his house shakes ," Lanfierre said. "House shakes," Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then he stopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. "You heard right. The house shakes ," Lanfierre said, savoring it. MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass of the windshield. "Like from ... side to side ?" he asked in a somewhat patronizing tone of voice. "And up and down." MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orange uniform. "Go on," he said, amused. "It sounds interesting." He tossed the dossier carelessly on the back seat. Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBride couldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBride was a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. He had even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantly absurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It was only with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownes to MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre had seen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimly resounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spoke in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably trite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refused to believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting a vacation. "Why don't you take a vacation?" Lieutenant MacBride suggested. "It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? A zephyr?" "I've heard some." "They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strong winds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there was a house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it would shake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling the whole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing down the avenue." Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. "I'll tell you something else," Lanfierre went on. "The windows all close at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden every single window in the place will drop to its sill." Lanfierre leaned back in the seat, his eyes still on the house. "Sometimes I think there's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as if they all had something important to say but had to close the windows first so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city? And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode into conversation—and that's why the house shakes." MacBride whistled. "No, I don't need a vacation." A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the windshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. "No, you don't need a rest," MacBride said. "You're starting to see flying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in your brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality—" At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed shut. The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound. MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for the ghostly babble of voices to commence. The house began to shake. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The house could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and then they both looked back at the dancing house. "And the water ," Lanfierre said. "The water he uses! He could be the thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a whole family of thirsty and clean kids, and he still wouldn't need all that water." The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pages now in amazement. "Where do you get a guy like this?" he asked. "Did you see what he carries in his pockets?" "And compasses won't work on this street." The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. It expressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and got neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. There was something implacable about his sighs. "He'll be coming out soon," Lanfierre said. "He eats supper next door with a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper at the widow's next door and then the library." MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "The library?" he said. "Is he in with that bunch?" Lanfierre nodded. "Should be very interesting," MacBride said slowly. "I can't wait to see what he's got in there," Lanfierre murmured, watching the house with a consuming interest. They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyes widened as the house danced a new step. Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off his shoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupation of his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn't noticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. He had a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and the high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the house. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watch from outside. He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no room left in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist a draw-pull. Every window slammed shut. "Tight as a kite," he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the closet at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was that right? No, snug as a hug in a rug . He went on, thinking: The old devils. The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion of wheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-saw that went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had a curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from grandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in graceful circles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although there was one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. He watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for seven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. Looking through the window he saw only a garden. Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sun setting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which left the smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid a huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails for two. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched as the moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Doll and the neon roses flashed slowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned on the scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated rose as the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset, an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rose really smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But then, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realistic romantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icy fingers marching up and down your spine? His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read that book on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. "No" meant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and the circumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on this evening. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker, thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking! A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and demolished several of the neon roses. The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steering wheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; he gingerly turned it. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle of winds came to him. He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This was important; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents. The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose and the moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer . He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dear Mrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romantic garden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No. Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway . That might be it. I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn't rather stay over instead of going home.... Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear the shaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connected to wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they made one gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance as high-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening the Studebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sun shot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moon fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day . The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to the Studebaker wheel and shut it off. At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn't the first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down and went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months, about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April. Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest have thirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients! He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. "Men are too perishable," Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. "For all practical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die." "Would you pass the beets, please?" Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. "And don't look at me that way," she said. "I'm not going to marry you and if you want reasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse." The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything passionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry tinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes had never known anyone like her. "You forgot to put salt on the potatoes," she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for her to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. "Do you have any idea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I rob my husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry their bodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace." "As long as there are people," he said philosophically, "there'll be talk." "But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale, I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never so healthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadily worse for him." "I don't seem to mind the air." She threw up her hands. "You'd be the worst of the lot!" She left the table, rustling and tinkling about the room. "I can just hear them. Try some of the asparagus. Five. That's what they'd say. That woman did it again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record." "Really," Fownes protested. "I feel splendid. Never better." He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on his shoulders. "And what about those very elaborate plans you've been making to seduce me?" Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. "Don't you think they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don't always tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, it wasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can't have another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you've gone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar." Fownes put his fork down. "Dear Mrs. Deshazaway," he started to say. "And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes, you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man a question he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wanted to be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask me a few questions. You see, we're both a bit queer." "I hadn't thought of that," Fownes said quietly. "Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman—" "That won't be necessary," Fownes said with unusual force. "With all due respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well state here and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway." "But my dear Mr. Fownes," she said, leaning across the table. "We're lost, you and I." "Not if we could leave the dome," Fownes said quietly. "That's impossible! How?" In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownes leaned across the table and whispered: "Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway? Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly has no control whatever? Where the wind blows across prairies ; or is it the other way around? No matter. How would you like that , Mrs. Deshazaway?" Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on her two hands. "Pray continue," she said. "Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway. And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and is supposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyond the dome." "I see." " And ," Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, "they say that somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight, the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's vernal and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers no longer scintillate." " My. " Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then came back to the table, standing directly over Fownes. "If you can get us outside the dome," she said, "out where a man stays warm long enough for his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ... you may call me Agnes." When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was a look of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt a wistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. It would be such a deliciously insane experience. ("April has thirty days," Fownes mumbled, passing them, "because thirty is the largest number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor with it are primes ." MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier. Lanfierre sighed.) Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to the library several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given over to government publications and censored old books with holes in them. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meet there undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman of eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the books around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into near unintelligibility. "Here's one," she said to him as he entered. " Gulliver's Travels. Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for five days. What do you make of it?" In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surrounded the librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curious illustration. "What's that?" he said. "A twister," she replied quickly. "Now listen to this . Seven years later on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book. What do you make of that ?" "I'd say," Humphrey Fownes said, "that he ... that he recommended it to her, that one day they met in the street and he told her about this book and then they ... they went to the library together and she borrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married." "Hah! They were brother and sister!" the librarian shouted in her parched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twister was unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, like a malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carrying a Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anything to feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlit night, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacket in his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumbling after him: "Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991," as though reading inscriptions on a tombstone. The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaid ladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to other people's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tables looking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. "Where did the old society fail?" the leader was demanding of them. He stood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. He glanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as Humphrey Fownes squeezed into an empty chair. "We live in a dome," the leader said, "for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing that the great technological societies before ours could not invent, notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise?" Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. He waited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggled with this problem in revolutionary dialectics. " A sound foreign policy ," the leader said, aware that no one else had obtained the insight. "If a sound foreign policy can't be created the only alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus the movement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . This is known as self-containment." Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lull in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be arranged for him to get out. "Out?" the leader said, frowning. "Out? Out where?" "Outside the dome." "Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and leave." "And that day I'll await impatiently," Fownes replied with marvelous tact, "because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My future wife and I have to leave now ." "Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country. You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. And dialectically very poor." "Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities of life in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else? Have I left anything out?" The leader sighed. "The gentleman wants to know if he's left anything out," he said to the group. Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. "Tell the man what he's forgotten," the leader said, walking to the far window and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. " A sound foreign policy ," they all said, it being almost too obvious for words. On his way out the librarian shouted at him: " A Tale of a Tub , thirty-five years overdue!" She was calculating the fine as he closed the door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was one block away from his house. It was then that he realized something unusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security police was parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. His house was dancing. It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one's residence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sight that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing it. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing its own independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immense curiosity. The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched as his favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast of cold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. A wild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs, suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofa cushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging an old, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of his ancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toying with his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on his cheeks. He got hit by a shoe. As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played over his face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. "Help!" Lieutenant MacBride called. Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on his dripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in the distance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. " Winds ," he said in a whisper. "What's happening?" MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. " March winds," he said. "What?!" "April showers!" The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emerged from the blackness of the living room. "These are not Optimum Dome Conditions!" the voice wailed. "The temperature is not 59 degrees. The humidity is not 47%!" Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. "Moonlight!" he shouted. "Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two!" He grasped the doorway to keep from being blown out of the house. "Are you going to make it stop or aren't you!" MacBride yelled. "You'll have to tell me what you did first!" "I told him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairs bedroom!" When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his way up the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with a wheel in his hand. "What have I done?" Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. "I'm not sure what's going to come of this," he said to Lanfierre with an astonishing amount of objectivity, "but the entire dome air supply is now coming through my bedroom." The wind screamed. "Is there something I can turn?" Lanfierre asked. "Not any more there isn't." They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them and they quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefully edged out of the house and forced the front door shut. The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the Optimum Dome Conditions of the bright avenue. "I never figured on this ," Lanfierre said, shaking his head. With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house. They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did a wild, elated jig. "What kind of a place is this?" MacBride said, his courage beginning to return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossed it away. "Sure, he was different ," Lanfierre murmured. "I knew that much." When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certain amount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully, standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It was strangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now rose out of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases every which way. " Now what?" MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strange black cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolent top.... Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. He held it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroom with the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identical shape of the illustration. "It's a twister," he said softly. "A Kansas twister!" "What," MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, "what ... is a twister?" The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear of the house toward the side of the dome. "It says here," Fownes shouted over the roaring, "that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twister and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond the confines of everyday living ." MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. "Is there something I can turn?" Lanfierre asked. Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. "Fownes!" MacBride shouted. "This is a direct order! Make it go back!" But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodging mountainous puffs of glass as he went. "Mrs. Deshazaway!" he shouted. "Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway!" The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with the precipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then, emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quickly emptied and then rushed about empty-handed. "Yoo-hoo!" he yelled, running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister. Optimum temperature collapsed. "Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will you marry me? Yoo-hoo!" Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited, dazed. There was quite a large fall of glass.
A Filbert Is a Nut by Raphael, Rick	"A Filbert Is a Nut", Rick Raphael, 1956. Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction November 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. A FILBERT IS A NUT BY RICK RAPHAEL That the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay! Illustrated by Freas Miss Abercrombie, the manual therapist patted the old man on the shoulder. "You're doing just fine, Mr. Lieberman. Show it to me when you have finished." The oldster in the stained convalescent suit gave her a quick, shy smile and went back to his aimless smearing in the finger paints. Miss Abercrombie smoothed her smock down over trim hips and surveyed the other patients working at the long tables in the hospital's arts and crafts shop. Two muscular and bored attendants in spotless whites, lounged beside the locked door and chatted idly about the Dodgers' prospects for the pennant. Through the barred windows of the workshop, rolling green hills were seen, their tree-studded flanks making a pleasant setting for the mental institution. The crafts building was a good mile away from the main buildings of the hospital and the hills blocked the view of the austere complex of buildings that housed the main wards. The therapist strolled down the line of tables, pausing to give a word of advice here, and a suggestion there. She stopped behind a frowning, intense patient, rapidly shaping blobs of clay into odd-sized strips and forms. As he finished each piece, he carefully placed it into a hollow shell hemisphere of clay. "And what are we making today, Mr. Funston?" Miss Abercrombie asked. The flying fingers continued to whip out the bits of shaped clay as the patient ignored the question. He hunched closer to his table as if to draw away from the woman. "We mustn't be antisocial, Mr. Funston," Miss Abercrombie said lightly, but firmly. "You've been coming along famously and you must remember to answer when someone talks to you. Now what are you making? It looks very complicated." She stared professionally at the maze of clay parts. Thaddeus Funston continued to mold the clay bits and put them in place. Without looking up from his bench he muttered a reply. "Atom bomb." A puzzled look crossed the therapist's face. "Pardon me, Mr. Funston. I thought you said an 'atom bomb.'" "Did," Funston murmured. Safely behind the patient's back, Miss Abercrombie smiled ever so slightly. "Why that's very good, Mr. Funston. That shows real creative thought. I'm very pleased." She patted him on the shoulder and moved down the line of patients. A few minutes later, one of the attendants glanced at his watch, stood up and stretched. "All right, fellows," he called out, "time to go back. Put up your things." There was a rustle of paint boxes and papers being shuffled and chairs being moved back. A tall, blond patient with a flowing mustache, put one more dab of paint on his canvas and stood back to survey the meaningless smears. He sighed happily and laid down his palette. At the clay table, Funston feverishly fabricated the last odd-shaped bit of clay and slapped it into place. With a furtive glance around him, he clapped the other half of the clay sphere over the filled hemisphere and then stood up. The patients lined up at the door, waiting for the walk back across the green hills to the main hospital. The attendants made a quick count and then unlocked the door. The group shuffled out into the warm, afternoon sunlight and the door closed behind them. Miss Abercrombie gazed around the cluttered room and picked up her chart book of patient progress. Moving slowly down the line of benches, she made short, precise notes on the day's work accomplished by each patient. At the clay table, she carefully lifted the top half of the clay ball and stared thoughtfully at the jumbled maze of clay strips laced through the lower hemisphere. She placed the lid back in place and jotted lengthily in her chart book. When she had completed her rounds, she slipped out of the smock, tucked the chart book under her arm and left the crafts building for the day. The late afternoon sun felt warm and comfortable as she walked the mile to the main administration building where her car was parked. As she drove out of the hospital grounds, Thaddeus Funston stood at the barred window of his locked ward and stared vacantly over the hills towards the craft shop. He stood there unmoving until a ward attendant came and took his arm an hour later to lead him off to the patients' mess hall. The sun set, darkness fell over the stilled hospital grounds and the ward lights winked out at nine o'clock, leaving just a single light burning in each ward office. A quiet wind sighed over the still-warm hills. At 3:01 a.m., Thaddeus Funston stirred in his sleep and awakened. He sat up in bed and looked around the dark ward. The quiet breathing and occasional snores of thirty other sleeping patients filled the room. Funston turned to the window and stared out across the black hills that sheltered the deserted crafts building. He gave a quick cry, shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his face. The brilliance of a hundred suns glared in the night and threw stark shadows on the walls of the suddenly-illuminated ward. An instant later, the shattering roar and blast of the explosion struck the hospital buildings in a wave of force and the bursting crash of a thousand windows was lost in the fury of the explosion and the wild screams of the frightened and demented patients. It was over in an instant, and a stunned moment later, recessed ceiling lights began flashing on throughout the big institution. Beyond the again-silent hills, a great pillar of smoke, topped by a small mushroom-shaped cloud, rose above the gaping hole that had been the arts and crafts building. Thaddeus Funston took his hands from his face and lay back in his bed with a small, secret smile on his lips. Attendants and nurses scurried through the hospital, seeing how many had been injured in the explosion. None had. The hills had absorbed most of the shock and apart from a welter of broken glass, the damage had been surprisingly slight. The roar and flash of the explosion had lighted and rocked the surrounding countryside. Soon firemen and civil defense disaster units from a half-dozen neighboring communities had gathered at the still-smoking hole that marked the site of the vanished crafts building. Within fifteen minutes, the disaster-trained crews had detected heavy radiation emanating from the crater and there was a scurry of men and equipment back to a safe distance, a few hundred yards away. At 5:30 a.m., a plane landed at a nearby airfield and a platoon of Atomic Energy Commission experts, military intelligence men, four FBI agents and an Army full colonel disembarked. At 5:45 a.m. a cordon was thrown around both the hospital and the blast crater. In Ward 4-C, Thaddeus Funston slept peacefully and happily. "It's impossible and unbelievable," Colonel Thomas Thurgood said for the fifteenth time, later that morning, as he looked around the group of experts gathered in the tent erected on the hill overlooking the crater. "How can an atom bomb go off in a nut house?" "It apparently was a very small bomb, colonel," one of the haggard AEC men offered timidly. "Not over three kilotons." "I don't care if it was the size of a peanut," Thurgood screamed. "How did it get here?" A military intelligence agent spoke up. "If we knew, sir, we wouldn't be standing around here. We don't know, but the fact remains that it WAS an atomic explosion." Thurgood turned wearily to the small, white-haired man at his side. "Let's go over it once more, Dr. Crane. Are you sure you knew everything that was in that building?" Thurgood swept his hand in the general direction of the blast crater. "Colonel, I've told you a dozen times," the hospital administrator said with exasperation, "this was our manual therapy room. We gave our patients art work. It was a means of getting out of their systems, through the use of their hands, some of the frustrations and problems that led them to this hospital. They worked with oil and water paints and clay. If you can make an atomic bomb from vermillion pigments, then Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman." "All I know is that you say this was a crafts building. O.K. So it was," Thurgood sighed. "I also know that an atomic explosion at 3:02 this morning blew it to hell and gone. "And I've got to find out how it happened." Thurgood slumped into a field chair and gazed tiredly up at the little doctor. "Where's that girl you said was in charge of this place?" "We've already called for Miss Abercrombie and she's on her way here now," the doctor snapped. Outside the tent, a small army of military men and AEC technicians moved around the perimeter of the crater, scintillators in hand, examining every tiny scrap that might have been a part of the building at one time. A jeep raced down the road from the hospital and drew up in front of the tent. An armed MP helped Miss Abercrombie from the vehicle. She walked to the edge of the hill and looked down with a stunned expression. "He did make an atom bomb," she cried. Colonel Thurgood, who had snapped from his chair at her words, leaped forward to catch her as she collapsed in a faint. At 4:00 p.m., the argument was still raging in the long, narrow staff room of the hospital administration building. Colonel Thurgood, looking more like a patient every minute, sat on the edge of his chair at the head of a long table and pounded with his fist on the wooden surface, making Miss Abercrombie's chart book bounce with every beat. "It's ridiculous," Thurgood roared. "We'll all be the laughingstocks of the world if this ever gets out. An atomic bomb made out of clay. You are all nuts. You're in the right place, but count me out." At his left, Miss Abercrombie cringed deeper into her chair at the broadside. Down both sides of the long table, psychiatrists, physicists, strategists and radiologists sat in various stages of nerve-shattered weariness. "Miss Abercrombie," one of the physicists spoke up gently, "you say that after the patients had departed the building, you looked again at Funston's work?" The therapist nodded unhappily. "And you say that, to the best of your knowledge," the physicist continued, "there was nothing inside the ball but other pieces of clay." "I'm positive that's all there was in it," Miss Abercrombie cried. There was a renewed buzz of conversation at the table and the senior AEC man present got heads together with the senior intelligence man. They conferred briefly and then the intelligence officer spoke. "That seems to settle it, colonel. We've got to give this Funston another chance to repeat his bomb. But this time under our supervision." Thurgood leaped to his feet, his face purpling. "Are you crazy?" he screamed. "You want to get us all thrown into this filbert factory? Do you know what the newspapers would do to us if they ever got wind of the fact, that for one, tiny fraction of a second, anyone of us here entertained the notion that a paranoidal idiot with the IQ of an ape could make an atomic bomb out of kid's modeling clay? "They'd crucify us, that's what they'd do!" At 8:30 that night, Thaddeus Funston, swathed in an Army officer's greatcoat that concealed the strait jacket binding him and with an officer's cap jammed far down over his face, was hustled out of a small side door of the hospital and into a waiting staff car. A few minutes later, the car pulled into the flying field at the nearby community and drove directly to the military transport plane that stood at the end of the runway with propellers turning. Two military policemen and a brace of staff psychiatrists sworn to secrecy under the National Atomic Secrets Act, bundled Thaddeus aboard the plane. They plopped him into a seat directly in front of Miss Abercrombie and with a roar, the plane raced down the runway and into the night skies. The plane landed the next morning at the AEC's atomic testing grounds in the Nevada desert and two hours later, in a small hot, wooden shack miles up the barren desert wastelands, a cluster of scientists and military men huddled around a small wooden table. There was nothing on the table but a bowl of water and a great lump of modeling clay. While the psychiatrists were taking the strait jacket off Thaddeus in the staff car outside, Colonel Thurgood spoke to the weary Miss Abercrombie. "Now you're positive this is just about the same amount and the same kind of clay he used before?" "I brought it along from the same batch we had in the store room at the hospital," she replied, "and it's the same amount." Thurgood signaled to the doctors and they entered the shack with Thaddeus Funston between them. The colonel nudged Miss Abercrombie. She smiled at Funston. "Now isn't this nice, Mr. Funston," she said. "These nice men have brought us way out here just to see you make another atom bomb like the one you made for me yesterday." A flicker of interest lightened Thaddeus' face. He looked around the shack and then spotted the clay on the table. Without hesitation, he walked to the table and sat down. His fingers began working the damp clay, making first the hollow, half-round shell while the nation's top atomic scientists watched in fascination. His busy fingers flew through the clay, shaping odd, flat bits and clay parts that were dropped almost aimlessly into the open hemisphere in front of him. Miss Abercrombie stood at his shoulder as Thaddeus hunched over the table just as he had done the previous day. From time to time she glanced at her watch. The maze of clay strips grew and as Funston finished shaping the other half hemisphere of clay, she broke the tense silence. "Time to go back now, Mr. Funston. You can work some more tomorrow." She looked at the men and nodded her head. The two psychiatrists went to Thaddeus' side as he put the upper lid of clay carefully in place. Funston stood up and the doctors escorted him from the shack. There was a moment of hushed silence and then pandemonium burst. The experts converged on the clay ball, instruments blossoming from nowhere and cameras clicking. For two hours they studied and gently probed the mass of child's clay and photographed it from every angle. Then they left for the concrete observatory bunker, several miles down range where Thaddeus and the psychiatrists waited inside a ring of stony-faced military policemen. "I told you this whole thing was asinine," Thurgood snarled as the scientific teams trooped into the bunker. Thaddeus Funston stared out over the heads of the MPs through the open door, looking uprange over the heat-shimmering desert. He gave a sudden cry, shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his face. A brilliance a hundred times brighter than the glaring Nevada sun lit the dim interior of the bunker and the pneumatically-operated door slammed shut just before the wave of the blast hit the structure. Six hours and a jet plane trip later, Thaddeus, once again in his strait jacket, sat between his armed escorts in a small room in the Pentagon. Through the window he could see the hurried bustle of traffic over the Potomac and beyond, the domed roof of the Capitol. In the conference room next door, the joint chiefs of staff were closeted with a gray-faced and bone-weary Colonel Thurgood and his baker's dozen of AEC brains. Scraps of the hot and scornful talk drifted across a half-opened transom into the room where Thaddeus Funston sat in a neatly-tied bundle. In the conference room, a red-faced, four-star general cast a chilling glance at the rumpled figure of Colonel Thurgood. "I've listened to some silly stories in my life, colonel," the general said coldly, "but this takes the cake. You come in here with an insane asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit there and tell me that this poor soul has made not one, but two atomic devices out of modeling clay and then has detonated them." The general paused. "Why don't you just tell me, colonel, that he can also make spaceships out of sponge rubber?" the general added bitingly. In the next room, Thaddeus Funston stared out over the sweeping panorama of the Washington landscape. He stared hard. In the distance, a white cloud began billowing up from the base of the Washington Monument, and with an ear-shattering, glass-splintering roar, the great shaft rose majestically from its base and vanished into space on a tail of flame. THE END
A Gift from Earth by Banister, Manly	"A Gift from Earth", Manly Banister, 1950. A Gift From Earth By MANLY BANISTER Illustrated by KOSSIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Except for transportation, it was absolutely free ... but how much would the freight cost? "It is an outrage," said Koltan of the House of Masur, "that the Earthmen land among the Thorabians!" Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, he was in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in his dotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to the Pottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more and he knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldest and Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, their treasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last in the rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. "Behold, my sons," said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. "What are these Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strength and our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen may come and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, the fame and fortune of the House of Masur." "It is a damned imposition," agreed Morvan, ignoring his father's philosophical attitude. "They could have landed just as easily here in Lor." "The Thorabians will lick up the gravy," said Singula, whose mind ran rather to matters of financial aspect, "and leave us the grease." By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen, which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were panting to get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, a very scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. Lubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept his own counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enough for him. He would report when the time was ripe. "Doubtless," said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conference was expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of his elders, "the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in building that ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only means of transport." Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secret conclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it. The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. "When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime, remember your position in the family." Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. "Listen to the boy," said the aged father. "There is more wisdom in his head than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only of the clay." Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned him a beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enough thing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated in their desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and they did. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thought about the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the way of metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he could figure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation of his brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, of course, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe. By and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strange metal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of the city, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all of tile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all the people to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had much too quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much to be desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world of Zur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of all Zurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, in effect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered, for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him a whaling for it. There was also some talk going around about agreements made between the Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard one thing one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less a newspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously, none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any had tried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there is always an "anti" faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowed happily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of ships arrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur was practically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they called "corporations"—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. The object of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zurian city of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it took some time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from the pottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing an aluminum pot at him. "What is that thing?" he asked curiously. "A pot. I bought it at the market." "Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend my substance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, I say!" The pretty young wife laughed at him. "Up to your ears in clay, no wonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmen are selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old clay pots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break when dropped." "What good is it?" asked Zotul, interested. "How will it hold heat, being so light?" "The Earthmen don't cook as we do," she explained patiently. "There is a paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will have to design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on." "Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a new type of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why do you need a whole new stove for one little pot?" "A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltan will have to produce the new stove because all the housewives are buying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthman said so." "He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough go back to cooking with your old ones." "The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are so cheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and you will have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to use them." After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotul stamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that would accommodate the terrestrial pots very well. And Koltan put the model into production. "Orders already are pouring in like mad," he said the next day. "It was wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I am sorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend to do well by us." The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up with the demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than a million had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting the hundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in every land. In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth. One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had ever dreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust of the Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured from it in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on its scanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome by the novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorian language—and learned how to read and write. The remainder of the brothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enough in value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set up telegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent. Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every major city on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyed the instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the business of the House of Masur continued to look up. "As I have always said from the beginning," chortled Director Koltan, "this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, and especially for the House of Masur." "You didn't think so at first," Zotul pointed out, and was immediately sorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for his unthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that their production of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two per cent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stoves greatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; but their business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots from Earth. About this time, plastic utensils—dishes, cups, knives, forks—made their appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with the newfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because for everything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade. What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. They destroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was. The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale of Masur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth. Trembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltan called an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of his senile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old man might still have a little wit left that could be helpful. "Note," Koltan announced in a shaky voice, "that the Earthmen undermine our business," and he read off the figures. "Perhaps," said Zotul, "it is a good thing also, as you said before, and will result in something even better for us." Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantly subsided. "They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferior terrestrial junk," Koltan went on bitterly. "It is only the glamor that sells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of their eyes, we can be ruined." The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the while Father Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they got nowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up. "My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottom of your trouble, but the things of Earth. Think of the telegraph and the newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth. The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of these newspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people are intrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock to buy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, you might also have advertisements of your own." Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertising from the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by the advertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, the brothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, several things had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortal rest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen had procured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of which they found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. What they did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discovered in the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, working under supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oil regions to every major and minor city on Zur. By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the first terrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business in gas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove business was gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gas at a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except the brothers Masur. The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making an energetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmen for a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it and departed from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House of Masur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed that much new building was taking place and wondered what it was. "Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure," said Koltan blackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radio receiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron was loaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and other radio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with the natural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—with commercials. Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time or they would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay. "I think," the governor told them, "that you gentlemen have not paused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to be modern—keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doing all in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing a great, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed in ten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know they are even bringing autos to Zur!" The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of these hitherto unheard-of vehicles. "It only remains," concluded the governor, "to build highways, and the Earthmen are taking care of that." At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselves that they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for houses and street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the new highways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be made yet. Radio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The people bought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highways were constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plants and began to manufacture Portland cement. You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Of course, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for either tile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuff made far better road surfacing. The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom. The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, "I cannot handle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the Merchandising Council." "What is that?" asked Koltan. "It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such as yours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strain in the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal with it. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them." The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers to Zotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to calling him in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview. All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for the purpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, they had to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help. Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicated on their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was not surprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down to make room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, paved with something called "blacktop" and jammed with an array of glittering new automobiles. An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, now that they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul ached with desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them and they were the envied ones of Zur. Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook hands jovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took a better look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individual with genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed in the baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except for an indefinite sense of alienness about him. "Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur," boomed the Earthman, clapping Zotul on the back. "Just tell us your troubles and we'll have you straightened out in no time." All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for this occasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner. Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had been made upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. "Once," he said formally, "the Masur fortune was the greatest in the world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous Kalrab Masur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greater reward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh and bones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how prone is the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, and all because of new things coming from Earth." Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. "Why didn't you come to me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has, we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth—always to do right by the customer." "Divinity witness," Zorin said, "that we ask only compensation for damages." Broderick shook his head. "It is not possible to replace an immense fortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported your trouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Do you own an automobile?" "No." "A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio?" Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. "My wife Lania likes the music," he explained. "I cannot afford the other things." Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford the bargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. "To begin with," he said, "I am going to make you a gift of all these luxuries you do not have." As Zotul made to protest, he cut him off with a wave of his hand. "It is the least we can do for you. Pick a car from the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things delivered and installed in your home." "To receive gifts," said Zotul, "incurs an obligation." "None at all," beamed the Earthman cheerily. "Every item is given to you absolutely free—a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask is that you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not to make profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout the Galaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working out the full program takes time." He chuckled deeply. "We of Earth have a saying about one of our extremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise, but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with the motto, 'Better times with better merchandise.'" The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, it was no more than fair to pay transportation. He said, "How much does the freight cost?" Broderick told him. "It may seem high," said the Earthman, "but remember that Earth is sixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of the merchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, considering the cost of operating an interstellar spaceship." "Impossible," said Zotul drably. "Not I and all my brothers together have so much money any more." "You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer you credit!" "What is that?" asked Zotul skeptically. "It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of the rich," said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of the involutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles that might have had a discouraging effect. On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting. Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. "What must I do to get credit?" "Just sign this paper," said Broderick, "and you become part of our Easy Payment Plan." Zotul drew back. "I have five brothers. If I took all these things for myself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue." "Here." Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. "Have each of your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That is all there is to it." It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotul wrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. "I will talk it over with them," he said. "Give me the total so I will have the figures." The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotul pointed this out politely. "Interest," Broderick explained. "A mere fifteen per cent. After all, you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to be paid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight. This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble." "I see." Zotul puzzled over it sadly. "It is too much," he said. "Our plant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments." "I have a surprise for you," smiled Broderick. "Here is a contract. You will start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certain parts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage local manufacture to help bring prices down." "We haven't the equipment." "We will equip your plant," beamed Broderick. "It will require only a quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrial company." Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman, won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarter interest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth. These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears. The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but the Earthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on the new concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by a terrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn from the crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit. The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges, served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In the winter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, though they had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electric generators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood of electrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason, batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had to buy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age? The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan. They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electric fans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth could possibly sell them. "We will be forty years paying it all off," exulted Zotul, "but meantime we have the things and aren't they worth it?" But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option. The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. The Earthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own because it was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth's unswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded. Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The sets were delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own and maintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earth had them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth, but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes. The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lush business. For the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decade and a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on this backward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise was slow, but it was extremely sure. The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had less money and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but television kept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for the pangs of impoverishment. The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotul designed and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikons were a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and sold them for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy any more, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. "You got us into this," they said, emphasizing their bitterness with fists. "Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have some contracts to continue operating." Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr. Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him. Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hint of toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. "So you can't pay," he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. He looked at Zotul coldly. "It is well you have come to us instead of making it necessary for us to approach you through the courts." "I don't know what you mean," said Zotul. "If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everything attached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they are attached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that—yet. We will only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of your pottery to us." The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think of beating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and was somewhat comforted. "To fail," said Koltan soberly, "is not a Masur attribute. Go to the governor and tell him what we think of this business. The House of Masur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it is time for the government to do something for us." The governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene of confusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application for an interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. It was remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the female terrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian men covetous and Zurian women envious. "The governor will see you," she said sweetly. "He has been expecting you." "Me?" marveled Zotul. She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governor of Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with a friendly smile. "Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again." Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick, the Earthman. "I—I came to see the governor," he said in confusion. Broderick nodded agreeably. "I am the governor and I am well acquainted with your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down." "I don't understand. The Earthmen...." Zotul paused, coloring. "We are about to lose our plant." "You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant away from you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest and richest on Zur, it has taken a long time—the longest of all, in fact." "What do you mean?" "Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We have bought you out." "Our government...." "Your governments belong to us, too," said Broderick. "When they could not pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we took them over, just as we are taking you over." "You mean," exclaimed Zotul, aghast, "that you Earthmen own everything on Zur?" "Even your armies." "But why ?" Broderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stared down moodily into the street. "You don't know what an overcrowded world is like," he said. "A street like this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossible on Earth." "But it's mobbed," protested Zotul. "It gave me a headache." "And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth has made us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The only habitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the least populous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in." "And after that?" Broderick smiled gently. "Zur will grow. Our people will intermarry with yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zurians nor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both." Zotul sat in silent thought. "But you did not have to buy us out. You had the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet could have been yours alone." He stopped in alarm. "Or am I suggesting an idea that didn't occur to you?" "No," said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained with memory. "We know the history of conquest all too well. Our method causes more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better—and more sure—than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job is finished, we can repair the dislocations." "At last I understand what you said about the tortoise." "Slow but sure." Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always, but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zur are equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we had to break down your caste system." Zotul's eyes widened. "And that is why my brothers did not beat me when I failed!" "Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you and your brothers to sign?" "Yes," said Zotul. "I am ready."
A Gleeb for Earth by Schafhauser, Charles	"A Gleeb for Earth", Charles Schafhauser, 1958. A Gleeb for Earth By CHARLES SHAFHAUSER Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because he can do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch with somebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody, everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, "Why didn't you warn us?" I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly to me because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also they might think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my license revoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guests might be down on their luck now and then. What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance of two of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning. Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias, I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters I include here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know. And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside the coat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt the underwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was also the underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out of it and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer were the letters I told you about. Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum that checked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was a real case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame. Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs to his room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him. In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the same suit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest the shirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in the middle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of the mirror. Only the frame! What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes these guys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I read the letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in different handwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says. India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops or maybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he says write to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you have them. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place, the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I never touch junk, not even aspirin. Yours very truly, Ivan Smernda Bombay, India June 8 Mr. Joe Binkle Plaza Ritz Arms New York City Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection, for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I, Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirror gateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with such tremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetus within the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am static and for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universe with fear and trepidation. As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but got no response. What could have diminished your powers of articulate wave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages and returning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsing and surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned the not-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by what the not-world calls "mail" till we meet. For this purpose I must utilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whose inadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you. Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentary reports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasury of facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be free of the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed in your task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when we return again. The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city of Bombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it. Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exact location, for the not-people might have access to the information. I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When it is alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring from the pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrational likeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am among them. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gateway lies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child in order that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix too fast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision. Gezsltrysk, what a task! Farewell till later. Glmpauszn Wichita, Kansas June 13 Dear Joe: Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you, I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there are no terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you in not-language what I had to go through during the first moments of my birth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limited equipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctor came in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternation reigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. What difference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me. As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally, since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother (Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw up their hands and left. I learned the following day that the opposite component of my not-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyance during my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, a bender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born. When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, I made a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36 not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I was standing by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind. He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable of speech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, I produced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. "Poppa," I said. This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords that are now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted sounded low-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must have jarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from the room. They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble something about my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared at the doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth, she fell down heavily. She made a distinct thump on the floor. This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the window and retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched, but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings! I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including the cleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a reply from Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praise indeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats. But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himself and it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping the qualifying preface except where comparisons must be made between this alleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitive mythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these people refer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But we learned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hard time classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to the inevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror of the not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand your not replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What could have happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn Albuquerque, New Mexico June 15 Dear Joe: I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time. My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feeler vibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then I establish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without his knowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes my letter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what he has done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of an individual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, but I fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tell you about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I have accomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind of sleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out. Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ... my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hard time classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquire the stuff needed for the destruction of these people. Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, the impressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioning for me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficient mechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions. It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurried immediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked up and all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. I simply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions was to realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do not let yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here. Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. She wore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention was diverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried from nearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene with an attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I told myself. But they were. I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that you unfortunately do not have—invisibility. I lay there and listened. "He was stark naked," the girl with the sneakers said. A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her. "Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out of this area." "But—" "No more buck-bathing, Lizzy," the officer ordered. "No more speeches in the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Now where is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him." That was it—I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to this oversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressions that assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty, pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. I must feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information I have been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe. What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission is impaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can write you with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn Moscow, Idaho June 17 Dear Joe: I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greet me in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope, pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of five bucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up with the correct variant of the slang term "buck." Is it possible that you are powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live in this inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged in a struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusions of this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have lived a semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this world ripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individual fluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardized by these people. The not-world and our world are like two baskets as you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with the greatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sides are joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrational plane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a world of higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples. While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer, more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selves into ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to force some of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily, causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people call mediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit one of them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I picked them up while examining the "slang" portion of my information catalog which you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimate cause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peace of our world—shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short, get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn Des Moines, Iowa June 19 Dear Joe: Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passages in my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need. Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled here "revolting" are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they are all being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the most important part of my journey—completion of the weapon against the not-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue that day, I assure you. Glmpauszn Boise, Idaho July 15 Dear Joe: A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last. Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed in our catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reed bending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bent indeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is known quaintly in this tongue as a "hooker of red-eye." Ha! I've mastered even the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon me again. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions that constantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself to react exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I am burned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle, I experience a tickle. This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a group of symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon me again. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangely enough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this world came most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thing here, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank and carried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the money to a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the best hotel here in—no, sorry—and stared at it for hours. Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the other about it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another for the love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten or fifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen spare rooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I have failed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports! I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've been studying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics of these people, in the movies. This is the best place to see these people as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and there do homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won't cost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who's writing this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at last learning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, one simply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn Penobscot, Maine July 20 Dear Joe: Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned it in any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came across to this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had a quart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feel wonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into this body and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. Now I can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports today outlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we must finally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experiments yet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation of the inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss his vibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out a blonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She was attracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised is perfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I remember distinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money I had dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration. We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would you believe it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through the money in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerve ends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets these impulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in the adrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of the entire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again the tingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myself quickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and love in this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girl and tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses. This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn, wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he would have a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted. Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. I had not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fell asleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called gin and didn't even notice when the blonde girl left. I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don't I wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive? I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is a gin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'll take him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting up an atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to do is activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation. Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe, you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off the fat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately. Glmpauszn Sacramento, Calif. July 25 Dear Joe: All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letter the morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank a lot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seance things. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we got to the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner and continued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed again because she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had the most frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror these people really are to our world. The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strong psychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but I was too busy with the redhead to notice. Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternal grandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. He concentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form in the room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white, shapeless cascade of light. Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, "Grandma Lucy!" Then I really took notice. Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgftury partially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating in the fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhku was open and his btgrimms were down. Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievable pattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and the redhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as a result of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in these not-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the reality of not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is only half over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling all my powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even become invisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn Florence, Italy September 10 Dear Joe: This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pick closer points of communication soon. I have nothing to report but failure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formula that is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms were filled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds. I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when I realized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reaction that inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave there immediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was not aware of the nature of my activities. I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. I stuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then sauntered into the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the manager I was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his best customer. "But why, sir?" he asked plaintively. I was baffled. What could I tell him? "Don't you like the rooms?" he persisted. "Isn't the service good?" "It's the rooms," I told him. "They're—they're—" "They're what?" he wanted to know. "They're not safe." "Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is...." At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol. "See?" I screamed. "Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up!" He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die. Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think like the not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn Rochester, New York September 25 Dear Joe: I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury's niggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a form of mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that, transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end will be swift and fatal. First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart. Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose. Absolutely nothing. We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bring with me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place of birth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, a large mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowly climb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secure world. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same with me. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world senses falter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. When the gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live. In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queer world will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, can we, Joe? And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll have hgutry before the ghjdksla! Glmpauszn Dear Editor: These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon brain dissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody who knows answer, write to me—Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms—how long is a gleeb?
A Good Year for the Roses? by David Edelstein	"A Good Year for the Roses?", David Edelstein, 1999. A Good Year for the Roses? Early in American Beauty , Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a weary reporter for a media magazine, masturbates in the shower while informing us in voice-over that we're witnessing the highlight of his day. He peers through tired eyes out the window at his manicured suburban tract-house lawn, where his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening)--whose gardening clogs, he points out, are color-coordinated with the handles of her shears--snips roses (American beauties) and twitters about Miracle-Gro to a gay yuppie (Scott Bakula) on the other side of a white picket fence. "I have lost something," says Lester. "I'm not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn't always feel this ... sedated." Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. But the makers of American Beauty are about to give Lester his roses back. At a high-school basketball game, Lester is transfixed by a blonde cheerleader named Angela (Mena Suvari), who is twirling alongside his daughter, Jane (Thora Burch). Ambient noise falls away, the crowd disappears, and there she is, Lester's angel, writhing in slow motion--just for him. She opens her jacket (she's naked underneath) and red rose petals drift out. Later, Lester envisions her on a bed of red petals, then immersed in a bath of red petals. Back in the roses for the first time in years, he's soon pumping iron, smoking pot, and telling off his frigid wife and faceless bosses, convinced that whatever he has lost he's getting back, baby. The movie is convinced, too--which is odd, since the fantasy of an underage cheerleader making a middle-aged man's wilted roses bloom is a tad ... primitive. But American Beauty doesn't feel primitive. It feels lustrously hip and aware, and a lot of critics are making big claims for it. The script, by Alan Ball, a playwright and former sitcom writer, carries an invigorating blast of counterculture righteousness, along with the kind of pithily vicious marital bickering that makes some viewers (especially male) say, "Yeah! Tell that bitch off!" More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. The movie's surface is velvety and immaculate--until the action is abruptly viewed through the video camera of the teen-age voyeur next door (Wes Bentley), and the graininess of the video image (along with the plangent music) suggests how unstable the molecules that constitute our "reality" really are. Mendes can distend the real into the surreal with imperceptible puffs. Aided by his cinematographer, Conrad Hall, and editors, Tariq Anwar and Chris Greenbury, he creates an entrancing vision of the American nuclear family on the verge of a meltdown. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie. But when you stop and smell the roses ... Well, that scent isn't Miracle-Gro. The hairpin turns from farce to melodrama, from satire to bathos, are fresh and deftly navigated, but almost every one of the underlying attitudes is smug and easy: from the corporate flunky named "Brad" to the interchangeable gay neighbors (they're both called "Jim") to the brutally homophobic patriarch next door, an ex-Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) who has reduced his wife (the normally exuberant Allison Janney) to a catatonic mummy and his son, Ricky (Bentley), to a life of subterranean deception. (The colonel's idea of bliss is watching an old Ronald Reagan military picture on television: How's that for subtle?) Lester's wife, Carolyn, is even more stridently caricatured. A real-estate broker who fails to sell a big house (her only potential customers are blank-faced African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and surly lesbians), she wears a mask of perky efficiency and insists on listening to Muzak while she and her husband and daughter eat her "nutritious yet savory" dinners. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of "black comedy." But it's also possible that those ideas have rarely been presented so seductively. Several months ago, Daniel Menaker in Slate in contemporary film in which the protagonist attempts to break through our cultural and technological anesthetization into "the real." That's the theme here, too, and it's extraordinarily potent, at times even heartbreaking. The symbols, however, have been cunningly reversed. In movies like sex, lies, and videotape (1989), the protagonist has to put away the video camera to "get real"; in American Beauty , it's Ricky Fitts, the damaged stoner videomaker next door, who sees beauty where nonartists see only horror or nothingness. In the film's most self-consciously poetic set piece, Ricky shows Lester's dour daughter Jane--in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit--a video of a plastic bag fluttering up, down, and around on invisible currents of wind. Ricky speaks of glimpsing in the bag's trajectory an "entire life behind things"--a "benevolent force" that holds the universe together. The teen-ager, who likes to train his lenses on dead bodies of animals and people, sells wildly expensive marijuana to Lester and somehow passes on this notion of "beauty." By the end, Lester is mouthing the same sentiments and has acquired the same deadpan radiance. That must be some really good shit they're smoking. It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, "Shut up--you're weak--shut up. " Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's "loserness." But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight. But do the filmmakers take them straight? If I read it correctly, the movie is saying that American society is unjust and absurd and loveless--full of people so afraid of seeming ordinary that they lose their capacity to see. It's saying that our only hope is to cultivate a kind of stoned aesthetic detachment whereby even a man with his brains blown out becomes an object of beauty and a signpost to a Higher Power. But to scrutinize a freshly dead body and not ask how it got that way--or if there's anyone nearby with a gun who might want to add to the body count--strikes me as either moronic or insane or both. The kind of detachment the movie is peddling isn't artistic, it isn't life--it's nihilism at its most fatuous. In the end, American Beauty is New Age Nihilism. Kevin Costner is 11 years older than he was as Crash Davis, the over-the-hill minor-league catcher in Bull Durham (1988), but he can still get away with playing a professional ballplayer. He moves and acts like a celebrity jock, and he can make his narcissistic self-containment look as if he's keeping something in reserve--to protect his "instrument," as it were. In For Love of the Game , he's a 40ish Detroit Tigers pitcher having his last hurrah: The team has been sold and the new owners don't necessarily want him back. For about half an hour, it's a great sports movie. Costner stands on the mound shaking off the signals of his longtime catcher (John C. Reilly); he forces himself to tune out the huge Yankee Stadium crowd (the background blurs before our eyes and the sound drops out); and he mutters darkly at a succession of batters, some old nemeses, some old buddies. He also thinks about his Manhattan-based ex-girlfriend (Kelly Preston), who tearfully told him that morning that things were absolutely over and she was moving to London. There's an appealing flashback to how they met (he stopped to fix her car while on the way to Yankee Stadium), then it's back to the game for more nail-biting at bats. But pretty soon the relationship flashbacks start coming thick and fast, and the balance of the movie shifts to whether Kevin can commit to Kelly and Kelly can commit to Kevin or whether his only commitment could ever be to the ball and the diamond and the game. Maybe it's because I'm a baseball nut that I hated to leave the mound. But maybe it's also because the relationships scenes are soft-focus, generic, and woozily drawn-out, whereas the stuff in the stadium is sharply edited and full of texture. The rhythms of the game feel right; the rhythms of the romance feel embarrassingly Harlequin, and the picture drags on for over two hours. I can't believe that the director, Sam Raimi ( The Evil Dead , 1983; last year's A Simple Plan ) thought that all those scenes of Costner and Preston staring into space while the piano plinks would end up in the final cut, but Raimi apparently gave up control of the final cut for the sake of making his first, real mainstream picture. He might as well have stuck his head over the plate and said, "Bean me."
A Pail of Air by Leiber, Fritz	"A Pail of Air", Fritz Leiber, 1950. A Pail of Air By FRITZ LEIBER Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The dark star passed, bringing with it eternal night and turning history into incredible myth in a single generation! Pa had sent me out to get an extra pail of air. I'd just about scooped it full and most of the warmth had leaked from my fingers when I saw the thing. You know, at first I thought it was a young lady. Yes, a beautiful young lady's face all glowing in the dark and looking at me from the fifth floor of the opposite apartment, which hereabouts is the floor just above the white blanket of frozen air. I'd never seen a live young lady before, except in the old magazines—Sis is just a kid and Ma is pretty sick and miserable—and it gave me such a start that I dropped the pail. Who wouldn't, knowing everyone on Earth was dead except Pa and Ma and Sis and you? Even at that, I don't suppose I should have been surprised. We all see things now and then. Ma has some pretty bad ones, to judge from the way she bugs her eyes at nothing and just screams and screams and huddles back against the blankets hanging around the Nest. Pa says it is natural we should react like that sometimes. When I'd recovered the pail and could look again at the opposite apartment, I got an idea of what Ma might be feeling at those times, for I saw it wasn't a young lady at all but simply a light—a tiny light that moved stealthily from window to window, just as if one of the cruel little stars had come down out of the airless sky to investigate why the Earth had gone away from the Sun, and maybe to hunt down something to torment or terrify, now that the Earth didn't have the Sun's protection. I tell you, the thought of it gave me the creeps. I just stood there shaking, and almost froze my feet and did frost my helmet so solid on the inside that I couldn't have seen the light even if it had come out of one of the windows to get me. Then I had the wit to go back inside. Pretty soon I was feeling my familiar way through the thirty or so blankets and rugs Pa has got hung around to slow down the escape of air from the Nest, and I wasn't quite so scared. I began to hear the tick-ticking of the clocks in the Nest and knew I was getting back into air, because there's no sound outside in the vacuum, of course. But my mind was still crawly and uneasy as I pushed through the last blankets—Pa's got them faced with aluminum foil to hold in the heat—and came into the Nest. Let me tell you about the Nest. It's low and snug, just room for the four of us and our things. The floor is covered with thick woolly rugs. Three of the sides are blankets, and the blankets roofing it touch Pa's head. He tells me it's inside a much bigger room, but I've never seen the real walls or ceiling. Against one of the blanket-walls is a big set of shelves, with tools and books and other stuff, and on top of it a whole row of clocks. Pa's very fussy about keeping them wound. He says we must never forget time, and without a sun or moon, that would be easy to do. The fourth wall has blankets all over except around the fireplace, in which there is a fire that must never go out. It keeps us from freezing and does a lot more besides. One of us must always watch it. Some of the clocks are alarm and we can use them to remind us. In the early days there was only Ma to take turns with Pa—I think of that when she gets difficult—but now there's me to help, and Sis too. It's Pa who is the chief guardian of the fire, though. I always think of him that way: a tall man sitting cross-legged, frowning anxiously at the fire, his lined face golden in its light, and every so often carefully placing on it a piece of coal from the big heap beside it. Pa tells me there used to be guardians of the fire sometimes in the very old days—vestal virgins, he calls them—although there was unfrozen air all around then and you didn't really need one. He was sitting just that way now, though he got up quick to take the pail from me and bawl me out for loitering—he'd spotted my frozen helmet right off. That roused Ma and she joined in picking on me. She's always trying to get the load off her feelings, Pa explains. He shut her up pretty fast. Sis let off a couple of silly squeals too. Pa handled the pail of air in a twist of cloth. Now that it was inside the Nest, you could really feel its coldness. It just seemed to suck the heat out of everything. Even the flames cringed away from it as Pa put it down close by the fire. Yet it's that glimmery white stuff in the pail that keeps us alive. It slowly melts and vanishes and refreshes the Nest and feeds the fire. The blankets keep it from escaping too fast. Pa'd like to seal the whole place, but he can't—building's too earthquake-twisted, and besides he has to leave the chimney open for smoke. Pa says air is tiny molecules that fly away like a flash if there isn't something to stop them. We have to watch sharp not to let the air run low. Pa always keeps a big reserve supply of it in buckets behind the first blankets, along with extra coal and cans of food and other things, such as pails of snow to melt for water. We have to go way down to the bottom floor for that stuff, which is a mean trip, and get it through a door to outside. You see, when the Earth got cold, all the water in the air froze first and made a blanket ten feet thick or so everywhere, and then down on top of that dropped the crystals of frozen air, making another white blanket sixty or seventy feet thick maybe. Of course, all the parts of the air didn't freeze and snow down at the same time. First to drop out was the carbon dioxide—when you're shoveling for water, you have to make sure you don't go too high and get any of that stuff mixed in, for it would put you to sleep, maybe for good, and make the fire go out. Next there's the nitrogen, which doesn't count one way or the other, though it's the biggest part of the blanket. On top of that and easy to get at, which is lucky for us, there's the oxygen that keeps us alive. Pa says we live better than kings ever did, breathing pure oxygen, but we're used to it and don't notice. Finally, at the very top, there's a slick of liquid helium, which is funny stuff. All of these gases in neat separate layers. Like a pussy caffay, Pa laughingly says, whatever that is. I was busting to tell them all about what I'd seen, and so as soon as I'd ducked out of my helmet and while I was still climbing out of my suit, I cut loose. Right away Ma got nervous and began making eyes at the entry-slit in the blankets and wringing her hands together—the hand where she'd lost three fingers from frostbite inside the good one, as usual. I could tell that Pa was annoyed at me scaring her and wanted to explain it all away quickly, yet could see I wasn't fooling. "And you watched this light for some time, son?" he asked when I finished. I hadn't said anything about first thinking it was a young lady's face. Somehow that part embarrassed me. "Long enough for it to pass five windows and go to the next floor." "And it didn't look like stray electricity or crawling liquid or starlight focused by a growing crystal, or anything like that?" He wasn't just making up those ideas. Odd things happen in a world that's about as cold as can be, and just when you think matter would be frozen dead, it takes on a strange new life. A slimy stuff comes crawling toward the Nest, just like an animal snuffing for heat—that's the liquid helium. And once, when I was little, a bolt of lightning—not even Pa could figure where it came from—hit the nearby steeple and crawled up and down it for weeks, until the glow finally died. "Not like anything I ever saw," I told him. He stood for a moment frowning. Then, "I'll go out with you, and you show it to me," he said. Ma raised a howl at the idea of being left alone, and Sis joined in, too, but Pa quieted them. We started climbing into our outside clothes—mine had been warming by the fire. Pa made them. They have plastic headpieces that were once big double-duty transparent food cans, but they keep heat and air in and can replace the air for a little while, long enough for our trips for water and coal and food and so on. Ma started moaning again, "I've always known there was something outside there, waiting to get us. I've felt it for years—something that's part of the cold and hates all warmth and wants to destroy the Nest. It's been watching us all this time, and now it's coming after us. It'll get you and then come for me. Don't go, Harry!" Pa had everything on but his helmet. He knelt by the fireplace and reached in and shook the long metal rod that goes up the chimney and knocks off the ice that keeps trying to clog it. Once a week he goes up on the roof to check if it's working all right. That's our worst trip and Pa won't let me make it alone. "Sis," Pa said quietly, "come watch the fire. Keep an eye on the air, too. If it gets low or doesn't seem to be boiling fast enough, fetch another bucket from behind the blanket. But mind your hands. Use the cloth to pick up the bucket." Sis quit helping Ma be frightened and came over and did as she was told. Ma quieted down pretty suddenly, though her eyes were still kind of wild as she watched Pa fix on his helmet tight and pick up a pail and the two of us go out. Pa led the way and I took hold of his belt. It's a funny thing, I'm not afraid to go by myself, but when Pa's along I always want to hold on to him. Habit, I guess, and then there's no denying that this time I was a bit scared. You see, it's this way. We know that everything is dead out there. Pa heard the last radio voices fade away years ago, and had seen some of the last folks die who weren't as lucky or well-protected as us. So we knew that if there was something groping around out there, it couldn't be anything human or friendly. Besides that, there's a feeling that comes with it always being night, cold night. Pa says there used to be some of that feeling even in the old days, but then every morning the Sun would come and chase it away. I have to take his word for that, not ever remembering the Sun as being anything more than a big star. You see, I hadn't been born when the dark star snatched us away from the Sun, and by now it's dragged us out beyond the orbit of the planet Pluto, Pa says, and taking us farther out all the time. I found myself wondering whether there mightn't be something on the dark star that wanted us, and if that was why it had captured the Earth. Just then we came to the end of the corridor and I followed Pa out on the balcony. I don't know what the city looked like in the old days, but now it's beautiful. The starlight lets you see it pretty well—there's quite a bit of light in those steady points speckling the blackness above. (Pa says the stars used to twinkle once, but that was because there was air.) We are on a hill and the shimmery plain drops away from us and then flattens out, cut up into neat squares by the troughs that used to be streets. I sometimes make my mashed potatoes look like it, before I pour on the gravy. Some taller buildings push up out of the feathery plain, topped by rounded caps of air crystals, like the fur hood Ma wears, only whiter. On those buildings you can see the darker squares of windows, underlined by white dashes of air crystals. Some of them are on a slant, for many of the buildings are pretty badly twisted by the quakes and all the rest that happened when the dark star captured the Earth. Here and there a few icicles hang, water icicles from the first days of the cold, other icicles of frozen air that melted on the roofs and dripped and froze again. Sometimes one of those icicles will catch the light of a star and send it to you so brightly you think the star has swooped into the city. That was one of the things Pa had been thinking of when I told him about the light, but I had thought of it myself first and known it wasn't so. He touched his helmet to mine so we could talk easier and he asked me to point out the windows to him. But there wasn't any light moving around inside them now, or anywhere else. To my surprise, Pa didn't bawl me out and tell me I'd been seeing things. He looked all around quite a while after filling his pail, and just as we were going inside he whipped around without warning, as if to take some peeping thing off guard. I could feel it, too. The old peace was gone. There was something lurking out there, watching, waiting, getting ready. Inside, he said to me, touching helmets, "If you see something like that again, son, don't tell the others. Your Ma's sort of nervous these days and we owe her all the feeling of safety we can give her. Once—it was when your sister was born—I was ready to give up and die, but your Mother kept me trying. Another time she kept the fire going a whole week all by herself when I was sick. Nursed me and took care of the two of you, too." "You know that game we sometimes play, sitting in a square in the Nest, tossing a ball around? Courage is like a ball, son. A person can hold it only so long, and then he's got to toss it to someone else. When it's tossed your way, you've got to catch it and hold it tight—and hope there'll be someone else to toss it to when you get tired of being brave." His talking to me that way made me feel grown-up and good. But it didn't wipe away the thing outside from the back of my mind—or the fact that Pa took it seriously. It's hard to hide your feelings about such a thing. When we got back in the Nest and took off our outside clothes, Pa laughed about it all and told them it was nothing and kidded me for having such an imagination, but his words fell flat. He didn't convince Ma and Sis any more than he did me. It looked for a minute like we were all fumbling the courage-ball. Something had to be done, and almost before I knew what I was going to say, I heard myself asking Pa to tell us about the old days, and how it all happened. He sometimes doesn't mind telling that story, and Sis and I sure like to listen to it, and he got my idea. So we were all settled around the fire in a wink, and Ma pushed up some cans to thaw for supper, and Pa began. Before he did, though, I noticed him casually get a hammer from the shelf and lay it down beside him. It was the same old story as always—I think I could recite the main thread of it in my sleep—though Pa always puts in a new detail or two and keeps improving it in spots. He told us how the Earth had been swinging around the Sun ever so steady and warm, and the people on it fixing to make money and wars and have a good time and get power and treat each other right or wrong, when without warning there comes charging out of space this dead star, this burned out sun, and upsets everything. You know, I find it hard to believe in the way those people felt, any more than I can believe in the swarming number of them. Imagine people getting ready for the horrible sort of war they were cooking up. Wanting it even, or at least wishing it were over so as to end their nervousness. As if all folks didn't have to hang together and pool every bit of warmth just to keep alive. And how can they have hoped to end danger, any more than we can hope to end the cold? Sometimes I think Pa exaggerates and makes things out too black. He's cross with us once in a while and was probably cross with all those folks. Still, some of the things I read in the old magazines sound pretty wild. He may be right. The dark star, as Pa went on telling it, rushed in pretty fast and there wasn't much time to get ready. At the beginning they tried to keep it a secret from most people, but then the truth came out, what with the earthquakes and floods—imagine, oceans of unfrozen water!—and people seeing stars blotted out by something on a clear night. First off they thought it would hit the Sun, and then they thought it would hit the Earth. There was even the start of a rush to get to a place called China, because people thought the star would hit on the other side. But then they found it wasn't going to hit either side, but was going to come very close to the Earth. Most of the other planets were on the other side of the Sun and didn't get involved. The Sun and the newcomer fought over the Earth for a little while—pulling it this way and that, like two dogs growling over a bone, Pa described it this time—and then the newcomer won and carried us off. The Sun got a consolation prize, though. At the last minute he managed to hold on to the Moon. That was the time of the monster earthquakes and floods, twenty times worse than anything before. It was also the time of the Big Jerk, as Pa calls it, when all Earth got yanked suddenly, just as Pa has done to me once or twice, grabbing me by the collar to do it, when I've been sitting too far from the fire. You see, the dark star was going through space faster than the Sun, and in the opposite direction, and it had to wrench the world considerably in order to take it away. The Big Jerk didn't last long. It was over as soon as the Earth was settled down in its new orbit around the dark star. But it was pretty terrible while it lasted. Pa says that all sorts of cliffs and buildings toppled, oceans slopped over, swamps and sandy deserts gave great sliding surges that buried nearby lands. Earth was almost jerked out of its atmosphere blanket and the air got so thin in spots that people keeled over and fainted—though of course, at the same time, they were getting knocked down by the Big Jerk and maybe their bones broke or skulls cracked. We've often asked Pa how people acted during that time, whether they were scared or brave or crazy or stunned, or all four, but he's sort of leery of the subject, and he was again tonight. He says he was mostly too busy to notice. You see, Pa and some scientist friends of his had figured out part of what was going to happen—they'd known we'd get captured and our air would freeze—and they'd been working like mad to fix up a place with airtight walls and doors, and insulation against the cold, and big supplies of food and fuel and water and bottled air. But the place got smashed in the last earthquakes and all Pa's friends were killed then and in the Big Jerk. So he had to start over and throw the Nest together quick without any advantages, just using any stuff he could lay his hands on. I guess he's telling pretty much the truth when he says he didn't have any time to keep an eye on how other folks behaved, either then or in the Big Freeze that followed—followed very quick, you know, both because the dark star was pulling us away very fast and because Earth's rotation had been slowed in the tug-of-war, so that the nights were ten old nights long. Still, I've got an idea of some of the things that happened from the frozen folk I've seen, a few of them in other rooms in our building, others clustered around the furnaces in the basements where we go for coal. In one of the rooms, an old man sits stiff in a chair, with an arm and a leg in splints. In another, a man and woman are huddled together in a bed with heaps of covers over them. You can just see their heads peeking out, close together. And in another a beautiful young lady is sitting with a pile of wraps huddled around her, looking hopefully toward the door, as if waiting for someone who never came back with warmth and food. They're all still and stiff as statues, of course, but just like life. Pa showed them to me once in quick winks of his flashlight, when he still had a fair supply of batteries and could afford to waste a little light. They scared me pretty bad and made my heart pound, especially the young lady. Now, with Pa telling his story for the umpteenth time to take our minds off another scare, I got to thinking of the frozen folk again. All of a sudden I got an idea that scared me worse than anything yet. You see, I'd just remembered the face I'd thought I'd seen in the window. I'd forgotten about that on account of trying to hide it from the others. What, I asked myself, if the frozen folk were coming to life? What if they were like the liquid helium that got a new lease on life and started crawling toward the heat just when you thought its molecules ought to freeze solid forever? Or like the electricity that moves endlessly when it's just about as cold as that? What if the ever-growing cold, with the temperature creeping down the last few degrees to the last zero, had mysteriously wakened the frozen folk to life—not warm-blooded life, but something icy and horrible? That was a worse idea than the one about something coming down from the dark star to get us. Or maybe, I thought, both ideas might be true. Something coming down from the dark star and making the frozen folk move, using them to do its work. That would fit with both things I'd seen—the beautiful young lady and the moving, starlike light. The frozen folk with minds from the dark star behind their unwinking eyes, creeping, crawling, snuffing their way, following the heat to the Nest. I tell you, that thought gave me a very bad turn and I wanted very badly to tell the others my fears, but I remembered what Pa had said and clenched my teeth and didn't speak. We were all sitting very still. Even the fire was burning silently. There was just the sound of Pa's voice and the clocks. And then, from beyond the blankets, I thought I heard a tiny noise. My skin tightened all over me. Pa was telling about the early years in the Nest and had come to the place where he philosophizes. "So I asked myself then," he said, "what's the use of going on? What's the use of dragging it out for a few years? Why prolong a doomed existence of hard work and cold and loneliness? The human race is done. The Earth is done. Why not give up, I asked myself—and all of a sudden I got the answer." Again I heard the noise, louder this time, a kind of uncertain, shuffling tread, coming closer. I couldn't breathe. "Life's always been a business of working hard and fighting the cold," Pa was saying. "The earth's always been a lonely place, millions of miles from the next planet. And no matter how long the human race might have lived, the end would have come some night. Those things don't matter. What matters is that life is good. It has a lovely texture, like some rich cloth or fur, or the petals of flowers—you've seen pictures of those, but I can't describe how they feel—or the fire's glow. It makes everything else worth while. And that's as true for the last man as the first." And still the steps kept shuffling closer. It seemed to me that the inmost blanket trembled and bulged a little. Just as if they were burned into my imagination, I kept seeing those peering, frozen eyes. "So right then and there," Pa went on, and now I could tell that he heard the steps, too, and was talking loud so we maybe wouldn't hear them, "right then and there I told myself that I was going on as if we had all eternity ahead of us. I'd have children and teach them all I could. I'd get them to read books. I'd plan for the future, try to enlarge and seal the Nest. I'd do what I could to keep everything beautiful and growing. I'd keep alive my feeling of wonder even at the cold and the dark and the distant stars." But then the blanket actually did move and lift. And there was a bright light somewhere behind it. Pa's voice stopped and his eyes turned to the widening slit and his hand went out until it touched and gripped the handle of the hammer beside him. In through the blanket stepped the beautiful young lady. She stood there looking at us the strangest way, and she carried something bright and unwinking in her hand. And two other faces peered over her shoulders—men's faces, white and staring. Well, my heart couldn't have been stopped for more than four or five beats before I realized she was wearing a suit and helmet like Pa's homemade ones, only fancier, and that the men were, too—and that the frozen folk certainly wouldn't be wearing those. Also, I noticed that the bright thing in her hand was just a kind of flashlight. The silence kept on while I swallowed hard a couple of times, and after that there was all sorts of jabbering and commotion. They were simply people, you see. We hadn't been the only ones to survive; we'd just thought so, for natural enough reasons. These three people had survived, and quite a few others with them. And when we found out how they'd survived, Pa let out the biggest whoop of joy. They were from Los Alamos and they were getting their heat and power from atomic energy. Just using the uranium and plutonium intended for bombs, they had enough to go on for thousands of years. They had a regular little airtight city, with air-locks and all. They even generated electric light and grew plants and animals by it. (At this Pa let out a second whoop, waking Ma from her faint.) But if we were flabbergasted at them, they were double-flabbergasted at us. One of the men kept saying, "But it's impossible, I tell you. You can't maintain an air supply without hermetic sealing. It's simply impossible." That was after he had got his helmet off and was using our air. Meanwhile, the young lady kept looking around at us as if we were saints, and telling us we'd done something amazing, and suddenly she broke down and cried. They'd been scouting around for survivors, but they never expected to find any in a place like this. They had rocket ships at Los Alamos and plenty of chemical fuel. As for liquid oxygen, all you had to do was go out and shovel the air blanket at the top level . So after they'd got things going smoothly at Los Alamos, which had taken years, they'd decided to make some trips to likely places where there might be other survivors. No good trying long-distance radio signals, of course, since there was no atmosphere to carry them around the curve of the Earth. Well, they'd found other colonies at Argonne and Brookhaven and way around the world at Harwell and Tanna Tuva. And now they'd been giving our city a look, not really expecting to find anything. But they had an instrument that noticed the faintest heat waves and it had told them there was something warm down here, so they'd landed to investigate. Of course we hadn't heard them land, since there was no air to carry the sound, and they'd had to investigate around quite a while before finding us. Their instruments had given them a wrong steer and they'd wasted some time in the building across the street. By now, all five adults were talking like sixty. Pa was demonstrating to the men how he worked the fire and got rid of the ice in the chimney and all that. Ma had perked up wonderfully and was showing the young lady her cooking and sewing stuff, and even asking about how the women dressed at Los Alamos. The strangers marveled at everything and praised it to the skies. I could tell from the way they wrinkled their noses that they found the Nest a bit smelly, but they never mentioned that at all and just asked bushels of questions. In fact, there was so much talking and excitement that Pa forgot about things, and it wasn't until they were all getting groggy that he looked and found the air had all boiled away in the pail. He got another bucket of air quick from behind the blankets. Of course that started them all laughing and jabbering again. The newcomers even got a little drunk. They weren't used to so much oxygen. Funny thing, though—I didn't do much talking at all and Sis hung on to Ma all the time and hid her face when anybody looked at her. I felt pretty uncomfortable and disturbed myself, even about the young lady. Glimpsing her outside there, I'd had all sorts of mushy thoughts, but now I was just embarrassed and scared of her, even though she tried to be nice as anything to me. I sort of wished they'd all quit crowding the Nest and let us be alone and get our feelings straightened out. And when the newcomers began to talk about our all going to Los Alamos, as if that were taken for granted, I could see that something of the same feeling struck Pa and Ma, too. Pa got very silent all of a sudden and Ma kept telling the young lady, "But I wouldn't know how to act there and I haven't any clothes." The strangers were puzzled like anything at first, but then they got the idea. As Pa kept saying, "It just doesn't seem right to let this fire go out." Well, the strangers are gone, but they're coming back. It hasn't been decided yet just what will happen. Maybe the Nest will be kept up as what one of the strangers called a "survival school." Or maybe we will join the pioneers who are going to try to establish a new colony at the uranium mines at Great Slave Lake or in the Congo. Of course, now that the strangers are gone, I've been thinking a lot about Los Alamos and those other tremendous colonies. I have a hankering to see them for myself. You ask me, Pa wants to see them, too. He's been getting pretty thoughtful, watching Ma and Sis perk up. "It's different, now that we know others are alive," he explains to me. "Your mother doesn't feel so hopeless any more. Neither do I, for that matter, not having to carry the whole responsibility for keeping the human race going, so to speak. It scares a person." I looked around at the blanket walls and the fire and the pails of air boiling away and Ma and Sis sleeping in the warmth and the flickering light. "It's not going to be easy to leave the Nest," I said, wanting to cry, kind of. "It's so small and there's just the four of us. I get scared at the idea of big places and a lot of strangers." He nodded and put another piece of coal on the fire. Then he looked at the little pile and grinned suddenly and put a couple of handfuls on, just as if it was one of our birthdays or Christmas. "You'll quickly get over that feeling son," he said. "The trouble with the world was that it kept getting smaller and smaller, till it ended with just the Nest. Now it'll be good to have a real huge world again, the way it was in the beginning." I guess he's right. You think the beautiful young lady will wait for me till I grow up? I'll be twenty in only ten years.
A Planet Named Joe by Hunter, Evan	"A Planet Named Joe", Evan Hunter, 1966. A PLANET NAMED JOE By S. A. LOMBINO There were more Joes on Venus than you could shake a ray-gun at. Perhaps there was method in Colonel Walsh's madness—murder-madness—when he ordered Major Polk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Colonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor. For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus. He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as I liked him, and so he decided the job was just right for a Major. At least, that's what he told me. I stood at attention before his desk in the Patrol Station. We were somewhere in Area Two on Earth, takeoff point for any operations in Space II. The duty was fine, and I liked it a lot. Come to think of it, the most I ever did was inspect a few defective tubes every now and then. The rest was gravy, and Colonel Walsh wasn't going to let me get by with gravy. "It will be a simple assignment, Major," he said to me, peering over his fingers. He held them up in front of him like a cathedral. "Yes, sir," I said. "It will involve finding one man, a Venusian native." I wanted to say, "Then why the hell don't you send a green kid on the job? Why me?" Instead, I nodded and watched him playing with his fingers. "The man is a trader of sorts. Rather intelligent." He paused, then added, "For a native, that is." I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there. Which brought to mind an important point. "I always figured Venus was under the jurisdiction of Space III, sir. I thought our activities were confined to Mars." He folded his fingers like a deck of cards and dropped them on his desk as if he were waiting for me to cut. "Mmmm," he said, "yes, that's true. But this is a special job. It so happens this Venusian is the one man who can help us understand just what's happening on Mars." I tried to picture a Venusian understanding Mars and I didn't get very far. "He's had many dealings with the natives there," Walsh explained. "If anyone can tell us the reasons for the revolt, he can." If Walsh really wanted to know the reasons for the revolt, I could give them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called it "revolt." It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt. "And this man is on Venus now?" I asked for confirmation. I'd never been to Venus, being in Space II ever since I'd left the Moon run. It was just like Walsh to ship me off to a strange place. "Yes, Major," he said. "This man is on Venus." At the Academy he had called me Fred. That was before I'd reported him for sleeping on Boiler Watch. He'd goofed off on a pile of uranium that could've, and almost did, blow the barracks sky-high that night. He still thought it was my fault, as if I'd done the wrong thing by reporting him. And now, through the fouled-up machinery that exists in any military organization, he outranked me. "And the man's name, sir?" "Joe." A tight smile played on his face. "Joe what?" I asked. "Just Joe." "Just Joe?" "Yes," Walsh said. "A native, you know. They rarely go in for more than first names. But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like Joe. Among the natives, I mean." "I don't know, sir." "A relatively simple assignment," Walsh said. "Can you tell me anything else about this man? Physical appearance? Personal habits? Anything?" Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. "Well, physically he's like any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He does have a peculiar habit, though." "What's that?" "He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes." I sighed. "Well, it's not very much to go on." "You'll find him," Walsh said, grinning. "I'm sure of it." The trip to Venus came off without a hitch. I did a lot of thinking on that trip. I thought about Mars and the revolt there. And I thought about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that revolt. Ever since Walsh had taken command, ever since he'd started pushing the natives around, there'd been trouble. It was almost as if the whole damned planet had blown up in our faces the moment he took over. Swell guy, Walsh. Venus was hotter than I'd expected it to be. Much too hot for the tunic I was wearing. It smelled, too. A funny smell I couldn't place. Like a mixture of old shoe and after-shave. There were plants everywhere I looked. Big plants and small ones, some blooming with flowers I'd never seen before, and some as bare as cactus. I recognized a blue figure as one of the natives the pilot had told me about. He was tall, looking almost human except that everything about him was elongated. His features, his muscles, everything seemed to have been stretched like a rubber band. I kept expecting him to pop back to normal. Instead, he flashed a double row of brilliant teeth at me. I wondered if he spoke English. "Hey, boy," I called. He ambled over with long-legged strides that closed the distance between us in seconds. "Call me Joe," he said. I dropped my bags and stared at him. Maybe this was going to be a simple assignment after all. "I sure am glad to see you, Joe," I said. "Same here, Toots," he answered. "The guys back in Space II are searching high and low for you," I told him. "You've got the wrong number," he said, and I was a little surprised at his use of Terran idiom. "You are Joe, aren't you? Joe the trader?" "I'm Joe, all right," he said. "Only thing I ever traded, though, was a pocketknife. Got a set of keys for it." "Oh," I said, my voice conveying my disappointment. I sighed and began wondering just how I should go about contacting the Joe I was looking for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately upon arrival. I figured the hell with Captain Bransten. I outranked him anyway, and there wasn't much he could do if I decided to stop for a drink first. "Where's the Officer's Club?" I asked the Venusian. "Are you buying information or are you just curious?" "Can you take me there?" I asked. "Sure thing, Toots." He picked up my bags and started walking up a heavily overgrown path. We'd probably walked for about ten minutes when he dropped my bags and said, "There it is." The Officer's Club was a plasteel hut with window shields that protected it from the heat of the sun. It didn't look too comfortable but I really wanted that drink. I reached into my tunic and slipped the native thirty solars. He stared at the credits curiously and then shrugged his shoulders. "Oh well, you're new here. We'll let it go." He took off then, while I stared after him, wondering just what he'd meant. Had I tipped him too little? I shrugged and looked over at the Officer's Club. From the outside it looked as hot as hell. On the inside it was about two degrees short of that mark. I began to curse Walsh for taking me away from my nice soft job in Space II. There wasn't much inside the club. A few tables and chairs, a dart game and a bar. Behind the bar a tall Venusian lounged. I walked over and asked, "What are you serving, pal?" "Call me Joe," he answered. He caught me off balance. "What?" "Joe," he said again. A faint glimmer of understanding began to penetrate my thick skull. "You wouldn't happen to be Joe the trader? The guy who knows all about Mars, would you?" "I never left home," he said simply. "What are you drinking?" That rat! That dirty, filthy, stinking, unprincipled.... But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like Joe. Among the natives, I mean. Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most contemptible.... "What are you drinking, pal?" the Venusian asked again. "Skip it," I said. "How do I get to the captain's shack?" "Follow your nose, pal. Can't miss it." I started to pick up my bag as another Venusian entered. He waved at the bartender. "Hello, Joe," he said. "How's it going?" "Not so hot, Joe," the bartender replied. I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a great gag. Very funny. Very.... "You Major Polk, sweetheart?" the Venusian who'd just come in asked. "Yes," I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh. "You better get your butt over to the captain's shack," he said. "He's about ready to post you as overdue." "Sure," I said wearily. "Will you take my bags, please?" "Roger," he answered. He picked up the bags and nodded at the bar. "So long, Joe," he said to the bartender. "See you, Joe," the bartender called back. Captain Bransten was a mousey, unimpressive sort of man. He was wearing a tropical tunic, but he still resembled a wilted lily more than he did an officer. "Have a seat, Major," he offered. He reached for a cigarette box on the desk and extended it to me. He coughed in embarrassment when he saw it was empty. Quickly, he pressed a button on his desk and the door popped open. A tall, blue Venusian stepped lithely into the room. "Sir?" the Venusian asked. "We're out of cigarettes, Joe," the Captain said. "Will you get us some, please?" "Sure thing," the Venusian answered. He smiled broadly and closed the door behind him. Another Joe , I thought. Another damned Joe. "They steal them," Captain Bransten said abruptly. "Steal what?" I asked. "Cigarettes. I sometimes think the cigarette is one of the few things they like about Terran culture." So Walsh had taken care of that angle too. He does have a peculiar habit, though. He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes. Cigarettes was the tip I should have given; not solars. "All right," I said, "suppose we start at the beginning." Captain Bransten opened his eyes wide. "Sir?" he asked. "What's with all this Joe business? It may be a very original name but I think its popularity here is a little outstanding." Captain Bransten began to chuckle softly. I personally didn't think it was so funny. I tossed him my withering Superior Officer's gaze and waited for his explanation. "I hadn't realized this was your first time on Venus," he said. "Is there a local hero named Joe?" I asked. "No, no, nothing like that," he assured me. "It's a simple culture, you know. Not nearly as developed as Mars." "I can see that," I said bitingly. "And the natives are only now becoming acquainted with Terran culture. Lots of enlisted men, you know." I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful ancestry more keenly. "It's impossible to tell exactly where it all started, of course," Bransten was saying. I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh sitting back in a nice cozy foam chair back on Earth. "Get to the point, Captain!" I barked. "Easy, sir," Bransten said, turning pale. I could see that the Captain wasn't used to entertaining Majors. "The enlisted men. You know how they are. They'll ask a native to do something and they'll call him Joe. 'Hey, Joe, give me a hand with this.' Or 'Listen, Joe, how'd you like to earn some cigarettes?' Do you follow?" "I follow, all right," I said bitterly. "Well," Bransten went on, "that sort of thing mushrooms. The natives are a simple, almost childish people. It appealed to them—the Joe business, I mean. Now they're all Joe. They like it. That and the cigarettes." He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were personally responsible for Venusian culture. In fact, he looked as if he were responsible for having put Venus in the heavens in the first place. "Do you understand, Major? Just a case of extended idiom, that's all." Just a case of extended idiot , I thought. An idiot on a wild goose chase a hell of a long way from home. "I understand perfectly," I snapped. "Where are my quarters?" Bransten asked a Venusian named Joe to show me my quarters, reminding me that chow was at thirteen hundred. As I was leaving, the first Venusian came back with the cigarettes Bransten had ordered. I could tell by the look on his face that he probably had half a carton stuffed into his pockets. I shrugged and went to change into a tropical tunic. I called Earth right after chow. The Captain assured me that this sort of thing was definitely against regulations, but he submitted when I twinkled my little gold leaf under his nose. Walsh's face appeared on the screen. He was smiling, looking like a fat pussy cat. "What is it, Major?" he asked. "This man Joe," I said. "Can you give me any more on him?" Walsh's grin grew wider. "Why, Major," he said, "you're not having any difficulties, are you?" "None at all," I snapped back. "I just thought I'd be able to find him a lot sooner if...." "Take your time, Major," Walsh beamed. "There's no rush at all." "I thought...." "I'm sure you can do the job," Walsh cut in. "I wouldn't have sent you otherwise." Hell, I was through kidding around. "Look...." "He's somewhere in the jungle, you know," Walsh said. I wanted to ram my fist into the screen, right smack up against those big white teeth. Instead, I cut off the transmission and watched the surprised look on his face as his screen went blank millions of miles away. He blinked at the screen, trying to realize I'd deliberately hung up on him. "Polk!" he shouted, "can you hear me?" I smiled, saw the twisted hatred on his features, and then the screen on my end went blank, too. He's somewhere in the jungle, you know. I thanked Captain Bransten for his hospitality and went back to my quarters. As I saw it, there were two courses for me to follow. One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping the next ship back to Earth. It would also mean disobeying the direct order of a superior officer. It might mean demotion, and it might mean getting bounced out of the Service altogether. Two: I could assume there really was a guy name Joe somewhere in that jungle, a Joe separate and apart from the other Joes on this planet, a trader Joe who knew the Martians well. I could always admit failure, of course, and return empty handed. Mission not accomplished. Or, I might really find a guy who was trader Joe. I made my decision quickly. I wanted to stay in the Service, and besides Walsh may have been on the level for the first time in his life. Maybe there was a Joe here who could help us on Mars. If there was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though. I cursed Walsh again and pushed the buzzer near my bed. A tall Venusian stepped into the room. "Joe?" I asked, just to be sure. "Who else, boss?" he answered. "I'm trying to locate someone," I said. "I'll need a guide to take me into the jungle. Can you get me one?" "It'll cost you, boss," the Venusian said. "How much?" "Two cartons of cigarettes at least." "Who's the guide?" I asked. "How's the price sound?" "Fine, fine," I said impatiently. And the Captain had said they were almost a childish people! "His name is Joe," the Venusian told me. "Best damn guide on the planet. Take you anywhere you want to go, do anything you want to do. Courageous. Doesn't know the meaning of fear. I've known him to...." "Skip it," I said, cutting the promotion short. "Tell him to show up around fifteen hundred with a complete list of what we'll need." The Venusian started to leave. "And Joe," I said, stopping him at the door, "I hope you're not overlooking your commission on the deal." His face broke into a wide grin. "No danger of that, boss," he said. When he was gone I began figuring out a plan of action. Obviously, I'd just have to traipse through the jungle looking for a guy named Joe on a planet where everyone was named Joe. Everybody, at least, but the Captain, the small garrison attached to the Station, and me. I began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed like a silly thing to do, just to get even with a guy for something that had happened years ago. He surely must have realized that I'd be back again, sooner or later. Maybe he had another little junket all set for me. Or maybe he didn't expect me to come back. The thought hadn't occurred to me before this, and I began to consider it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing at the job of keeping Mars in hand, and he probably realized that a few more mistakes on his part would mean the end of his career with Space II. I chuckled as I thought of him isolated in some God-forsaken place like Space V or Space VII. This probably bothered him a lot, too. But what probably bothered him more was the fact that I was next in command. If he were transferred, I'd be in charge of Space II, and I could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh. I tried to figure the thing out sensibly, tried to weigh his good points against his bad. But it all came back to the same thing. A guy who would deliberately go to sleep on Boiler Watch with a ton of uranium ready to blast a barracks to smithereens if it wasn't watched, would deliberately do just about anything. Sending me off on a wild goose chase after a character named Joe may have been a gag. But it may have been something a little grimmer than a gag, and I made up my mind to be extremely careful from here on in. The guide arrived at fifteen hundred on the dot. He was tall, elongated, looked almost like all the other Venusians I'd seen so far. "I understand you need a Grade A guide, sir," he said. "Are you familiar with the jungle?" I asked him. "Born and raised there, sir. Know it like the back of my hand." "Has Joe told you what the payment will be?" "Yes, sir. A carton and a half of cigarettes." I thought about Joe deducting his commission and smiled. "When can we leave?" "Right away, sir. We won't need much really. I've made a list of supplies and I can get them in less than an hour. I suggest you wear light clothing, boots, and a hat." "Will I need a weapon?" He looked at me, his eyes faintly amused. "Why, what for, sir?" "Never mind," I said. "What's your name, by the way?" He lifted his eyebrows, and his eyes widened in his narrow face. He was definitely surprised. "Joe," he said. "Didn't you know?" When we'd been out for a while I discovered why Joe had suggested the boots and the hat. The undergrowth was often sharp and jagged and it would have sliced my legs to ribbons were they not protected by the high boots. The hat kept the strong sun off my head. Joe was an excellent guide and a pleasant companion. He seemed to be enjoying a great romp, seemed to love the jungle and take a secret pleasure in the work he was doing. There were times when I couldn't see three feet ahead of me. He'd stand stock still for a few minutes, his head barely moving, his eyes darting from one plant to another. Then he'd say, "This way," and take off into what looked like more impenetrable jungle invariably to find a little path leading directly to another village. Each village was the same. The natives would come running out of their huts, tall and blue, shouting, "Cigarettes, Joe? Cigarettes?" It took me a while to realize they were addressing me and not my guide. Everybody was Joe. It was one beautiful, happy, joyous round of stinking, hot jungle. And I wasn't getting any nearer my man. Nor had I any idea how I was supposed to find him. I began to feel pretty low about the whole affair. Joe, on the other hand, enjoyed every moment of the trip. In each village he greeted the natives cheerfully, told them stories, swapped gossip and jokes. And when it was time to leave, he would say goodbye to all his friends and we would plunge into the twisted foliage again. His spirits were always high and he never failed to say the right thing that would give a momentary lift to my own depressed state of mind. He would talk for hours on end as we hacked our way through the jungle. "I like Venus," he said once. "I would never leave it." "Have you ever been to Earth?" I asked. "No," Joe replied. "I like Terrans too, you understand. They are good for Venus. And they are fun." "Fun?" I asked, thinking of a particular species of Terran: species Leonard Walsh. "Yes, yes," he said wholeheartedly. "They joke and they laugh and ... well, you know." "I suppose so," I admitted. Joe smiled secretly, and we pushed on. I began to find, more and more, that I had started to talk freely to Joe. In the beginning he had been just my guide. There had been the strained relationship of employer and employee. But as the days lengthened into weeks, the formal atmosphere began to crumble. I found myself telling him all about Earth, about the people there, about my decision to attend the Academy, the rigid tests, the grind, even the Moon run. Joe was a good listener, nodding sympathetically, finding experiences in his own life to parallel my own. And as our relationship progressed from a casual one to a definitely friendly one, Joe seemed more enthusiastic than ever to keep up our grinding pace to find what we were looking for. Once we stopped in a clearing to rest. Joe lounged on the matted greenery, his long body stretched out in front of him, the knife gleaming in his belt. I'd seen him slash his way through thick, tangled vines with that knife, his long, muscular arms powerfully slicing through them like strips of silk. "How far are we from the Station?" I asked. "Three or four Earth weeks," he replied. I sighed wearily. "Where do we go from here?" "There are more villages," he said. "We'll never find him." "Possibly," Joe mused, the smile creeping over his face again. "A wild goose chase. A fool's errand." "We'd better get started," Joe said simply. I got to my feet and we started the march again. Joe was still fresh, a brilliant contrast to me, weary and dejected. Somehow, I had the same feeling I'd had a long time ago on my sixteenth birthday. One of my friends had taken me all over the city, finally dropping me off at my own house where the whole gang was gathered for a surprise party. Joe reminded me of that friend. "There's a village ahead," he said, and the grin on his face was large now, his eyes shining. Something was missing here. Natives. There were no natives rushing out to greet us. No cries of "Cigarettes? Cigarettes?" I caught up with Joe. "What's the story?" I whispered. He shrugged knowingly and continued walking. And then I saw the ship, nose pointing into space, catching the rays of the sun like a great silver bullet. "What...?" I started. "It's all right," Joe said, smiling. The ship looked vaguely familiar. I noticed the crest of Space II near the nose, and a lot of things became clear then. I also saw Walsh standing near one of the huts, a stun gun in his hand. "Hello, Major," he called, almost cheerfully. The gun didn't look cheerful, though. It was pointed at my head. "Fancy meeting you here, Colonel," I said, trying to match his joviality. Somehow it didn't quite come off. Joe was walking beside me, waving at the colonel, beaming all over with happiness. "I see you found your man," Walsh said. I turned rapidly. Joe nodded and kept grinning, a grin that told me he was getting a big kick out of all this. Like a kid playing a game. I faced Walsh again. "Okay, what's it all about, pal?" "Colonel," Walsh corrected me. "You mustn't forget to say Colonel, Major ." He emphasized my rank, and he said it with a sort of ruthless finality. I waited. I could see he was just busting to tell me how clever he'd been. Besides, there wasn't much I could do but wait. Not with Walsh pointing the stun gun at my middle. "We've come a long way since the Academy, haven't we, Major?" "If you mean in miles," I said, looking around at the plants, "we sure have." Walsh grinned a little. "Always the wit," he said drily. And then the smile faded from his lips and his eyes took on a hard lustre. "I'm going to kill you, you know." He said it as if he were saying, "I think it'll rain tomorrow." Joe almost clapped his hands together with glee. He was really enjoying this. Another of those funny Terran games. "You gave me a powerful handicap to overcome," Walsh said. "I suppose I should thank you, really." "You're welcome," I said. "It wasn't easy living down the disgrace you caused me." "It was your own damn fault," I said. "You knew what you were doing when you decided to cork off." Beside me, Joe chuckled a little, enjoying the game immensely. "You didn't have to report me," Walsh said. "No? Maybe I should have forgotten all about it? Maybe I should have nudged you and served you orange juice? So you could do it again sometime and maybe blow up the whole damn Academy!" Walsh was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was barely audible. The heat was oppressive, as if it were concentrated on this little spot in the jungle, focusing all its penetration on a small, unimportant drama. I could hear Joe breathing beside me. "I'm on my way out," Walsh rasped. "Finished, do you understand?" "Good," I said. And I meant it. "This Mars thing. A terrible fix. Terrible." Beside me, a slight frown crossed Joe's face. Apparently he couldn't understand the seriousness of our voices. What had happened to the game, the fun? "You brought the Mars business on yourself," I told Walsh. "There was never any trouble before you took command." "The natives," he practically shouted. "They ... they...." Joe caught his breath sharply, and I wondered what Walsh was going to say about the natives. Apparently he'd realized that Joe was a native. Or maybe Joe's knife had something to do with it. "What about the natives?" I asked. "Nothing," Walsh said. "Nothing." He was silent for a while. "A man of my calibre," he said then, his face grim. "Dealing with savages." He caught himself again and threw a hasty glance at Joe. The perplexed frown had grown heavier on Joe's face. He looked at the colonel in puzzlement.
AI: what's the worst that could happen? by Harry Armstrong	"AI: what's the worst that could happen?", Harry Armstrong, 2017. AI: what's the worst that could happen? The Centre for the Future of Intelligence is seeking to investigate the implications of artificial intelligence for humanity, and make sure humans take advantage of the opportunities while dodging the risks. It launched at the University of Cambridge last October, and is a collaboration between four universities and colleges – Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and Berkeley – backed with a 10-year, £10m grant from the Leverhulme Trust. Because no single discipline is ideally suited to this task, the centre emphasises the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing and collaboration. It is bringing together a diverse community of some of the world's best researchers, philosophers, psychologists, lawyers and computer scientists. Executive director of the centre is Stephen Cave, a writer, philosopher and former diplomat. Harry Armstrong, head of futures at Nesta, which publishes The Long + Short, spoke with Cave about the impact of AI. Their conversation has been edited. Harry Armstrong: Do you see the interdisciplinary nature of the centre as one of its key values and one of the key impacts you hope it will have on the field? Stephen Cave: Thinking about the impact of AI is not something that any one discipline owns or does in any very systematic way. So if academia is going to rise to the challenge and provide thought leadership on this hugely important issue, then we’re going to need to do it by breaking down current disciplinary boundaries and bringing people with very different expertise together. That means bringing together the technologists and the experts at developing these algorithms together with social scientists, philosophers, legal scholars and so forth. I think there are many areas of science where more interdisciplinary engagement would be valuable. Biotech’s another example. In that sense AI isn’t unique, but I think because thinking about AI is still in very early stages, we have an opportunity to shape the way in which we think about it, and build that community. We want to create a space where many different disciplines can come together and develop a shared language, learn from each other’s approaches, and hopefully very quickly move to be able to actually develop new ideas, new conclusions, together. But the first step is learning how to talk to each other. At a recent talk, Naomi Klein said that addressing the challenge of climate change could not have come at a worse time. The current dominant political and economic ideologies, along with growing isolationist sentiment, runs contrary to the bipartisan, collaborative approaches needed to solve global issues like climate change. Do you see the same issues hampering a global effort to respond to the challenges AI raises? Climate change suffers from the problem that the costs are not incurred in any direct way by the industrialists who own the technology and are profiting from it. With AI, that has been the case so far; although not on the same scale. There has been disruption but so far, compared to industrialisation, the impact has been fairly small. That will probably change. AI companies, and in particular the big tech companies, are very concerned that this won't go like climate change, but rather it will go like GMOs: that people will have a gut reaction to this technology as soon as the first great swathe of job losses take hold. People speculate that 50m jobs could be lost in the US if trucking is automated, which is conceivable within 10 years. You could imagine a populist US government therefore simply banning driverless cars. So I think there is anxiety in the tech industry that there could be a serious reaction against this technology at any point. And so my impression is that there is a feeling within these companies that these ethical and social implications need to be taken very seriously, now. And that a broad buy-in by society into some kind of vision of the future in which this technology plays a role is required, if a dangerous – or to them dangerous – counteraction is to be avoided. My personal experience working with these tech companies is that they are concerned for their businesses and genuinely want to do the right thing. Of course there are intellectual challenges and there is money to be made, but equally they are people who don't think when they get up in the morning that they're going to put people out of jobs or bring about the downfall of humanity. As the industry matures it's developing a sense of responsibility. So I think we've got a real opportunity, despite the general climate, and in some ways because of it. There's a great opportunity to bring industry on board to make sure the technology is developed in the right way. One of the dominant narratives around not only AI but technology and automation more generally is that we, as humans, are at the mercy of technological progress. If you try and push against this idea you can be labelled as being anti-progress and stuck in the past. But we do have a lot more control than we give ourselves credit for. For example, routineness and susceptibility to automation are not inevitable features of occupations, job design is hugely important. How do we design jobs? How do we create jobs that allow people to do the kind of work they want to do? There can be a bit of a conflict between being impacted by what's happening and having some sort of control over what we want to happen. Certainly, we encounter technological determinism a lot. And it's understandable. For us as individuals, of course it does feel like it always is happening and we just have to cope. No one individual can do much about it, other than adapt. But that's different when we consider ourselves at a level of a society, as a polis [city state], or as an international community. I think we can shape the way in which technology develops. We have various tools. In any given country, we have regulations. There's a possibility of international regulation. Technology is emerging from a certain legal, political, normative, cultural, and social framework. It's coming from a certain place. And it is shaped by all of those things. And I think the more we understand a technology's relationship with those things, and the more we then consciously try to shape those things, the more we are going to influence the technology. So, for example, developing a culture of responsible innovation. For example, a kind of Hippocratic oath for AI developers. These things are within the realms of what is feasible, and I think will help to shape the future. One of the problems with intervention, generally, is that we cannot control the course of events. We can attempt to, but we don't know how things are going to evolve. The reality is, societies are much too complex for us to be able to shape them in any very specific way, as plenty of ideologies and political movements have found to their cost. There are often unforeseen consequences that can derail a project. I think, nonetheless, there are things we can do. We can try to imagine how things might go very badly wrong, and then work hard to develop systems that will stop that from happening. We can also try collectively to imagine how things could go very right. The kind of society that we actually want to live in that uses this technology. And I'm sure that will be skewed in all sorts of ways, and we might imagine things that seem wonderful and actually have terrible by-products. This conversation cannot be in the hands of any one group. It oughtn't be in the hands of Silicon Valley billionaires alone. They've got their role to play, but this is a conversation we need to be having as widely as possible. The centre is developing some really interesting projects but perhaps one of the most interesting is the discussion of what intelligence might be. Could you go into a bit more detail about the kinds of questions you are trying to explore in this area? You mean kinds of intelligence? Yeah. I think this is very important because historically, we've had an overwhelming tendency to anthropomorphise. We define what intelligence is, historically, as being human-like. And then within that, being like certain humans. And it's taken a very long time for the academic community to accept that there could be such a thing as non-human intelligence at all. We know that crows, for example, who have had a completely different evolutionary history, or octopuses, who have an even more different evolutionary history, might have a kind of intelligence that's very different to ours. That in some ways rivals our own, and so forth. But luckily, we have got to that point in recent years of accepting that we are not the only form of intelligence. But now, AI is challenging that from a different direction. Just as we are accepting that the natural world offers this enormous range of different intelligences, we are at the same time inventing new intelligences that are radically different to humans. And I think, still, this anthropomorphic picture of the kind of humanoid android, the robot, dominates our idea of what AI is too much. And too many people, and the industry as well, talk about human-level artificial intelligence as a goal, or general AI, which basically means like a human. But actually what we're building is nothing like a human. When the first pocket calculator was made, it didn't do maths like a human. It was vastly better. It didn't make the occasional mistake. When we set about creating these artificial agents to solve these problems, because they have a completely different evolutionary history to humans, they solve problems in very different ways. And until now, people have been fairly shy about describing them as intelligent. Or rather, in the history of AIs, we think solving a particular problem would require intelligence. Then we solve it. And then that's no longer intelligence, because we've solved it. Chess is a good example. But the reality is, we are creating a whole new world of different artificial agents. And we need to understand that world. We need to understand all the different ways of being clever, if you like. How you can be extremely sophisticated at some particular rational process, and yet extremely bad at another one in a way that bears no relation to the way humans are on these axes. And this is important, partly because we need to expand our sense of what is intelligent, like we have done with the natural world. Because lots of things follow from saying something is intelligent. Historically, we have a long tradition in Western philosophy of saying those who are intelligent should rule. So if intelligence equates to power, then obviously we need to think about what we mean by intelligence. Who has it and who doesn't. Or how it equates to rights and responsibilities. It certainly is a very ambitious project to create the atlas of intelligence. There was a point I read in something you wrote on our ideas of intelligence that I thought was very interesting. We actually tend to think of intelligence at the societal level when we think about human ability, rather than at the individual level but in the end conflate the two. I think that's a very good point, when we think about our capabilities, we think about what we can achieve as a whole, not individually. But when we talk about AI, we tend to think about that individual piece of technology, or that individual system. So for example if we think about the internet of things and AI, we should discuss intelligence as something encompassed by the whole. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, right now, perhaps it is a product of our anthropomorphising bias. But there is a tendency to see a narrative of AI versus humanity, as if it's one or the other. And yet, obviously, there are risks in this technology long before it acquires any kind of manipulative agency. Robotic technology is dangerous. Or potentially dangerous. But at the same time, most of what we're using technology for is to enhance ourselves, to increase our capacities. And a lot of what AI is going to be doing is augmenting us – we're going to be working as teams, AI-human teams. Where do you think this AI-human conflict, or concept of a conflict, comes from? Do you think that's just a reflection of historical conversations we've had about automation, or do you think it is a deeper fear? I do think it comes both from some biases that might well be innate, such as anthropomorphism, or our human tendency to ascribe agency to other objects, particularly moving ones, is well-established and probably has sound evolutionary roots. If it moves, it's probably wise to start asking yourself questions like, "What is it? What might it want? Where might it be going? Might it be hungry? Do I look like food to it?" I think it makes sense, it's natural for us to think in terms of agency. And when we do, it's natural for us to project our own ways of being and acting. And we, as primates, are profoundly co-operative. But at the same time, we're competitive and murderous. We have a strong sense of in-group versus out-group, which is responsible for both a great deal of cooperation, within the in-group, but also terrible crimes. Murder, rape, pillage, genocide; and they're pointed at the out-group. And so I think it's very natural for us to see AIs in terms of agents. We anthropomorphise them as these kind of android robots. And then we think about, well, you know, are they part of our in-group, or are they some other group? If they're some other group, it's us against them. Who's going to win? Well, let's see. So I think that's very natural, I think that's very human. There is this long tradition, in Western culture in particular, with associating intelligence and dominance and power. It's interesting to speculate about how, and I wish I knew more about it, and I'd like to see more research on this, about how different cultures perceive AI. It's well known that Japan is very accepting of technology and robots, for example. You can think, well, we in the West have long been justifying power relations of a certain kind on the basis that we're 'cleverer'. That's why men get to vote and women don't, or whatever. In a culture where power is not based on intelligence but, say, on a caste system, which is purely hereditary, we’d build an AI, and it would just tune in, drop out, attain enlightenment, just sit in the corner. Or we beg it to come back and help us find enlightenment. It might be that we find a completely different narrative to the one that's dominant in the West. One of the projects the centre is running is looking into what kind of AI breakthroughs may come, when and what the social consequences could be. What do you think the future holds? What are your fears – what do you think could go right and wrong in the short, medium and long term? That's a big question. Certainly I don't lie awake at night worried that robots are going to knock the door down and come in with a machine gun. If the robots take over the world, it won't be by knocking the door down. At the moment, I think it's certainly as big a risk that we have a GMO moment, and there's a powerful reaction against the technology which prevents us from reaping the benefits, which are enormous. I think that's as big a risk as the risks from the technologies themselves. I think one worry that we haven't talked about is that we've become extremely dependent upon this technology. And that we essentially become deskilled. There's an extent to which the history of civilisation is the history of the domestication of the human species sort of by ourselves, and also by our technology, to some extent. And AI certainly allows for that to reach a whole new level. Just think about GPs with diagnostic tools. Even now, my GP consults the computer fairly regularly. But as diagnostic tools get better, what are they going to be doing other than just typing something into the computer and reading out what comes back? At which point, you might as well do away with the GP. But then, who does know about medicine? And so we do need to worry about deskilling and about becoming dependent. And it is entirely possible that you can imagine a society in which we're all sort of prosperous, in a sense. Our basic bodily needs are provided for, perhaps, in a way, to an extent that we've never before even dreamed of. Unprecedented in human history. And yet, we're stripped of any kind of meaningful work. We have no purpose. We're escaping to virtual reality. And then you could imagine all sorts of worrying countercultures or Luddite movements or what have you. I guess that's the kind of scenario that – I haven't sketched it terribly well – but that's the kind of thing that worries me more than missile-toting giant robots. As to utopian, yes, that's interesting. I certainly mentioned a couple of things. One thing that I hope is that this new technological revolution enables us to undo some of the damage of the last one. That's a very utopian thought and not terribly realistic, but we use fossil fuels so incredibly efficiently. The idea that driverless cars that are shared, basically a kind of shared service located off a Brownfield site does away with 95 per cent of all cars, freeing up a huge amount of space in the city to be greener, many fewer cars need to be produced, they would be on the road much less, there'd be fewer traffic jams. It's just one example, but the idea that we can live much more resource-efficiently, because we are living more intelligently through using these tools. And therefore can undo some of the damage of the last Industrial Revolution. That's my main utopian hope, I guess. Vintage toy robot image by josefkubes/Shutterstock This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.
Accidental Death by Baily, Peter	"Accidental Death", Peter Baily, 1972. ACCIDENTAL DEATH BY PETER BAILY The most dangerous of weapons is the one you don't know is loaded. Illustrated by Schoenherr The wind howled out of the northwest, blind with snow and barbed with ice crystals. All the way up the half-mile precipice it fingered and wrenched away at groaning ice-slabs. It screamed over the top, whirled snow in a dervish dance around the hollow there, piled snow into the long furrow plowed ruler-straight through streamlined hummocks of snow. The sun glinted on black rock glazed by ice, chasms and ridges and bridges of ice. It lit the snow slope to a frozen glare, penciled black shadow down the long furrow, and flashed at the furrow's end on a thing of metal and plastics, an artifact thrown down in the dead wilderness. Nothing grew, nothing flew, nothing walked, nothing talked. But the thing in the hollow was stirring in stiff jerks like a snake with its back broken or a clockwork toy running down. When the movements stopped, there was a click and a strange sound began. Thin, scratchy, inaudible more than a yard away, weary but still cocky, there leaked from the shape in the hollow the sound of a human voice. "I've tried my hands and arms and they seem to work," it began. "I've wiggled my toes with entire success. It's well on the cards that I'm all in one piece and not broken up at all, though I don't see how it could happen. Right now I don't feel like struggling up and finding out. I'm fine where I am. I'll just lie here for a while and relax, and get some of the story on tape. This suit's got a built-in recorder, I might as well use it. That way even if I'm not as well as I feel, I'll leave a message. You probably know we're back and wonder what went wrong. "I suppose I'm in a state of shock. That's why I can't seem to get up. Who wouldn't be shocked after luck like that? "I've always been lucky, I guess. Luck got me a place in the Whale . Sure I'm a good astronomer but so are lots of other guys. If I were ten years older, it would have been an honor, being picked for the first long jump in the first starship ever. At my age it was luck. "You'll want to know if the ship worked. Well, she did. Went like a bomb. We got lined up between Earth and Mars, you'll remember, and James pushed the button marked 'Jump'. Took his finger off the button and there we were: Alpha Centauri . Two months later your time, one second later by us. We covered our whole survey assignment like that, smooth as a pint of old and mild which right now I could certainly use. Better yet would be a pint of hot black coffee with sugar in. Failing that, I could even go for a long drink of cold water. There was never anything wrong with the Whale till right at the end and even then I doubt if it was the ship itself that fouled things up. "That was some survey assignment. We astronomers really lived. Wait till you see—but of course you won't. I could weep when I think of those miles of lovely color film, all gone up in smoke. "I'm shocked all right. I never said who I was. Matt Hennessy, from Farside Observatory, back of the Moon, just back from a proving flight cum astronomical survey in the starship Whale . Whoever you are who finds this tape, you're made. Take it to any radio station or newspaper office. You'll find you can name your price and don't take any wooden nickels. "Where had I got to? I'd told you how we happened to find Chang, hadn't I? That's what the natives called it. Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. The odds against finding Chang on a six-sun survey on the first star jump ever must be up in the googols. We certainly were lucky. "The Chang natives aren't very technical—haven't got space travel for instance. They're good astronomers, though. We were able to show them our sun, in their telescopes. In their way, they're a highly civilized people. Look more like cats than people, but they're people all right. If you doubt it, chew these facts over. "One, they learned our language in four weeks. When I say they, I mean a ten-man team of them. "Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale . "Three, they've a great sense of humor. Ran rather to silly practical jokes, but still. Can't say I care for that hot-foot and belly-laugh stuff myself, but tastes differ. "Four, the ten-man language team also learned chess and table tennis. "But why go on? People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat me at chess or table-tennis are people for my money, even if they look like tigers in trousers. "It was funny the way they won all the time at table tennis. They certainly weren't so hot at it. Maybe that ten per cent extra gravity put us off our strokes. As for chess, Svendlov was our champion. He won sometimes. The rest of us seemed to lose whichever Chingsi we played. There again it wasn't so much that they were good. How could they be, in the time? It was more that we all seemed to make silly mistakes when we played them and that's fatal in chess. Of course it's a screwy situation, playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers. Could you have kept your mind on the game? "And don't think I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, who came back with us. Why I disliked him was because he was always trying to get the edge on you. All the time he had to be top. Great sense of humor, of course. I nearly broke my neck on that butter-slide he fixed up in the metal alleyway to the Whale's engine room. Charley laughed fit to bust, everyone laughed, I even laughed myself though doing it hurt me more than the tumble had. Yes, life and soul of the party, old Charley ... "My last sight of the Minnow was a cabin full of dead and dying men, the sweetish stink of burned flesh and the choking reek of scorching insulation, the boat jolting and shuddering and beginning to break up, and in the middle of the flames, still unhurt, was Charley. He was laughing ... "My God, it's dark out here. Wonder how high I am. Must be all of fifty miles, and doing eight hundred miles an hour at least. I'll be doing more than that when I land. What's final velocity for a fifty-mile fall? Same as a fifty thousand mile fall, I suppose; same as escape; twenty-four thousand miles an hour. I'll make a mess ... "That's better. Why didn't I close my eyes before? Those star streaks made me dizzy. I'll make a nice shooting star when I hit air. Come to think of it, I must be deep in air now. Let's take a look. "It's getting lighter. Look at those peaks down there! Like great knives. I don't seem to be falling as fast as I expected though. Almost seem to be floating. Let's switch on the radio and tell the world hello. Hello, earth ... hello, again ... and good-by ... "Sorry about that. I passed out. I don't know what I said, if anything, and the suit recorder has no playback or eraser. What must have happened is that the suit ran out of oxygen, and I lost consciousness due to anoxia. I dreamed I switched on the radio, but I actually switched on the emergency tank, thank the Lord, and that brought me round. "Come to think of it, why not crack the suit and breath fresh air instead of bottled? "No. I'd have to get up to do that. I think I'll just lie here a little bit longer and get properly rested up before I try anything big like standing up. "I was telling about the return journey, wasn't I? The long jump back home, which should have dumped us between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Instead of which, when James took his finger off the button, the mass-detector showed nothing except the noise-level of the universe. "We were out in that no place for a day. We astronomers had to establish our exact position relative to the solar system. The crew had to find out exactly what went wrong. The physicists had to make mystic passes in front of meters and mutter about residual folds in stress-free space. Our task was easy, because we were about half a light-year from the sun. The crew's job was also easy: they found what went wrong in less than half an hour. "It still seems incredible. To program the ship for a star-jump, you merely told it where you were and where you wanted to go. In practical terms, that entailed first a series of exact measurements which had to be translated into the somewhat abstruse co-ordinate system we used based on the topological order of mass-points in the galaxy. Then you cut a tape on the computer and hit the button. Nothing was wrong with the computer. Nothing was wrong with the engines. We'd hit the right button and we'd gone to the place we'd aimed for. All we'd done was aim for the wrong place. It hurts me to tell you this and I'm just attached personnel with no space-flight tradition. In practical terms, one highly trained crew member had punched a wrong pattern of holes on the tape. Another equally skilled had failed to notice this when reading back. A childish error, highly improbable; twice repeated, thus squaring the improbability. Incredible, but that's what happened. "Anyway, we took good care with the next lot of measurements. That's why we were out there so long. They were cross-checked about five times. I got sick so I climbed into a spacesuit and went outside and took some photographs of the Sun which I hoped would help to determine hydrogen density in the outer regions. When I got back everything was ready. We disposed ourselves about the control room and relaxed for all we were worth. We were all praying that this time nothing would go wrong, and all looking forward to seeing Earth again after four months subjective time away, except for Charley, who was still chuckling and shaking his head, and Captain James who was glaring at Charley and obviously wishing human dignity permitted him to tear Charley limb from limb. Then James pressed the button. "Everything twanged like a bowstring. I felt myself turned inside out, passed through a small sieve, and poured back into shape. The entire bow wall-screen was full of Earth. Something was wrong all right, and this time it was much, much worse. We'd come out of the jump about two hundred miles above the Pacific, pointed straight down, traveling at a relative speed of about two thousand miles an hour. "It was a fantastic situation. Here was the Whale , the most powerful ship ever built, which could cover fifty light-years in a subjective time of one second, and it was helpless. For, as of course you know, the star-drive couldn't be used again for at least two hours. "The Whale also had ion rockets of course, the standard deuterium-fusion thing with direct conversion. As again you know, this is good for interplanetary flight because you can run it continuously and it has extremely high exhaust velocity. But in our situation it was no good because it has rather a low thrust. It would have taken more time than we had to deflect us enough to avoid a smash. We had five minutes to abandon ship. "James got us all into the Minnow at a dead run. There was no time to take anything at all except the clothes we stood in. The Minnow was meant for short heavy hops to planets or asteroids. In addition to the ion drive it had emergency atomic rockets, using steam for reaction mass. We thanked God for that when Cazamian canceled our downwards velocity with them in a few seconds. We curved away up over China and from about fifty miles high we saw the Whale hit the Pacific. Six hundred tons of mass at well over two thousand miles an hour make an almighty splash. By now you'll have divers down, but I doubt they'll salvage much you can use. "I wonder why James went down with the ship, as the saying is? Not that it made any difference. It must have broken his heart to know that his lovely ship was getting the chopper. Or did he suspect another human error? "We didn't have time to think about that, or even to get the radio working. The steam rockets blew up. Poor Cazamian was burnt to a crisp. Only thing that saved me was the spacesuit I was still wearing. I snapped the face plate down because the cabin was filling with fumes. I saw Charley coming out of the toilet—that's how he'd escaped—and I saw him beginning to laugh. Then the port side collapsed and I fell out. "I saw the launch spinning away, glowing red against a purplish black sky. I tumbled head over heels towards the huge curved shield of earth fifty miles below. I shut my eyes and that's about all I remember. I don't see how any of us could have survived. I think we're all dead. "I'll have to get up and crack this suit and let some air in. But I can't. I fell fifty miles without a parachute. I'm dead so I can't stand up." There was silence for a while except for the vicious howl of the wind. Then snow began to shift on the ledge. A man crawled stiffly out and came shakily to his feet. He moved slowly around for some time. After about two hours he returned to the hollow, squatted down and switched on the recorder. The voice began again, considerably wearier. "Hello there. I'm in the bleakest wilderness I've ever seen. This place makes the moon look cozy. There's precipice around me every way but one and that's up. So it's up I'll have to go till I find a way to go down. I've been chewing snow to quench my thirst but I could eat a horse. I picked up a short-wave broadcast on my suit but couldn't understand a word. Not English, not French, and there I stick. Listened to it for fifteen minutes just to hear a human voice again. I haven't much hope of reaching anyone with my five milliwatt suit transmitter but I'll keep trying. "Just before I start the climb there are two things I want to get on tape. The first is how I got here. I've remembered something from my military training, when I did some parachute jumps. Terminal velocity for a human body falling through air is about one hundred twenty m.p.h. Falling fifty miles is no worse than falling five hundred feet. You'd be lucky to live through a five hundred foot fall, true, but I've been lucky. The suit is bulky but light and probably slowed my fall. I hit a sixty mile an hour updraft this side of the mountain, skidded downhill through about half a mile of snow and fetched up in a drift. The suit is part worn but still operational. I'm fine. "The second thing I want to say is about the Chingsi, and here it is: watch out for them. Those jokers are dangerous. I'm not telling how because I've got a scientific reputation to watch. You'll have to figure it out for yourselves. Here are the clues: (1) The Chingsi talk and laugh but after all they aren't human. On an alien world a hundred light-years away, why shouldn't alien talents develop? A talent that's so uncertain and rudimentary here that most people don't believe it, might be highly developed out there. (2) The Whale expedition did fine till it found Chang. Then it hit a seam of bad luck. Real stinking bad luck that went on and on till it looks fishy. We lost the ship, we lost the launch, all but one of us lost our lives. We couldn't even win a game of ping-pong. "So what is luck, good or bad? Scientifically speaking, future chance events are by definition chance. They can turn out favorable or not. When a preponderance of chance events has occurred unfavorably, you've got bad luck. It's a fancy name for a lot of chance results that didn't go your way. But the gambler defines it differently. For him, luck refers to the future, and you've got bad luck when future chance events won't go your way. Scientific investigations into this have been inconclusive, but everyone knows that some people are lucky and others aren't. All we've got are hints and glimmers, the fumbling touch of a rudimentary talent. There's the evil eye legend and the Jonah, bad luck bringers. Superstition? Maybe; but ask the insurance companies about accident prones. What's in a name? Call a man unlucky and you're superstitious. Call him accident prone and that's sound business sense. I've said enough. "All the same, search the space-flight records, talk to the actuaries. When a ship is working perfectly and is operated by a hand-picked crew of highly trained men in perfect condition, how often is it wrecked by a series of silly errors happening one after another in defiance of probability? "I'll sign off with two thoughts, one depressing and one cheering. A single Chingsi wrecked our ship and our launch. What could a whole planetful of them do? "On the other hand, a talent that manipulates chance events is bound to be chancy. No matter how highly developed it can't be surefire. The proof is that I've survived to tell the tale." At twenty below zero and fifty miles an hour the wind ravaged the mountain. Peering through his polarized vizor at the white waste and the snow-filled air howling over it, sliding and stumbling with every step on a slope that got gradually steeper and seemed to go on forever, Matt Hennessy began to inch his way up the north face of Mount Everest. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction February 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
All Day September by Kuykendall, Roger	"All Day September", Roger Kuykendall, 1965. ALL DAY SEPTEMBER By ROGER KUYKENDALL Illustrated by van Dongen [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Some men just haven't got good sense. They just can't seem to learn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use trying—when it's time to give up because it's hopeless.... The meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveled through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea. In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded by Evans' tractor. It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine, and volitized upon striking the blades. Portions of the turbine also volitized; idling at eight thousand RPM, it became unstable. The shaft tried to tie itself into a knot, and the blades, damaged and undamaged were spit through the casing. The turbine again reached a stable state, that is, stopped. Permanently stopped. It was two days to sunrise, where Evans stood. It was just before sunset on a spring evening in September in Sydney. The shadow line between day and night could be seen from the Moon to be drifting across Australia. Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after Australia. Evans was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknife geologist, selenologist, rather. His tractor and equipment cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand was paid for. The rest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, which was usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodium from the mines at Potter's dike to Williamson Town, where the rockets landed. When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. Once he followed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while that he had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and a half, and he was lucky to break even. Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site of the first landing on the Moon. Evans was due back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in about sixteen days. When he saw the wrecked turbine, he knew that he wouldn't make it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out to more than a month. His drinking water—kept separate from the water in the reactor—might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was too carefully measured; there was a four-day reserve. By diligent conservation, he might make it last an extra day. Four days reserve—plus one is five—plus sixteen days normal supply equals twenty-one days to live. In seventeen days he might be missed, but in seventeen days it would be dark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not begin for thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late. "Well, man, 'tis a fine spot you're in now," he told himself. "Let's find out how bad it is indeed," he answered. He reached for the light switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was already in the "on" position. "Batteries must be dead," he told himself. "What batteries?" he asked. "There're no batteries in here, the power comes from the generator." "Why isn't the generator working, man?" he asked. He thought this one out carefully. The generator was not turned by the main turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however, came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itself through the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course— "The condenser!" he shouted. He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flashlight. By the light of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers, was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in the boiler. This one had a tank and coils of tubing in the center of a curved reflector that was positioned to radiate the heat of the steam into the cold darkness of space. When the meteor pierced the turbine, the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly freezing the water in the tank. Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closing the shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it would operate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense in the condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, if the pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler. But there was no water in the boiler. Carefully he poured a cup of his drinking water into a pipe that led to the boiler, and resealed the pipe. He pulled on a knob marked "Nuclear Start/Safety Bypass." The water that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, and the steam turned the generator briefly. Evans watched the lights flicker and go out, and he guessed what the trouble was. "The water, man," he said, "there is not enough to melt the ice in the condenser." He opened the pipe again and poured nearly a half-gallon of water into the boiler. It was three days' supply of water, if it had been carefully used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious luxury for a man with a month's supply of water and twenty-one days to live. The generator started again, and the lights came on. They flickered as the boiler pressure began to fail, but the steam had melted some of the ice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function. "Well, man," he breathed, "there's a light to die by." The sun rose on Williamson Town at about the same time it rose on Evans. It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars next to the sun shone as brightly as though there were no sun. They might have appeared to waver slightly, if they were behind outflung corona flares. If they did, no one noticed. No one looked toward the sun without dark filters. When Director McIlroy came into his office, he found it lighted by the rising sun. The light was a hot, brilliant white that seemed to pierce the darkest shadows of the room. He moved to the round window, screening his eyes from the light, and adjusted the polaroid shade to maximum density. The sun became an angry red brown, and the room was dark again. McIlroy decreased the density again until the room was comfortably lighted. The room felt stuffy, so he decided to leave the door to the inner office open. He felt a little guilty about this, because he had ordered that all doors in the survey building should remain closed except when someone was passing through them. This was to allow the air-conditioning system to function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highly improbable meteor damage. McIlroy thought that on the whole, he was disobeying his own orders no more flagrantly than anyone else in the survey. McIlroy had no illusions about his ability to lead men. Or rather, he did have one illusion; he thought that he was completely unfit as a leader. It was true that his strictest orders were disobeyed with cheerful contempt, but it was also true his mildest requests were complied with eagerly and smoothly. Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even he accepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit of suggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders he didn't particularly care to have obeyed. For example, because of an order of his stating that there would be no alcoholic beverages within the survey building, the entire survey was assured of a constant supply of home-made, but passably good liquor. Even McIlroy enjoyed the surreptitious drinking. "Good morning, Mr. McIlroy," said Mrs. Garth, his secretary. Morning to Mrs. Garth was simply the first four hours after waking. "Good morning indeed," answered McIlroy. Morning to him had no meaning at all, but he thought in the strictest sense that it would be morning on the Moon for another week. "Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?" he asked. The solar furnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the sun's heat on anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant. "They went out about an hour ago," she answered, "I suppose that's what they were going to do." "Very good, what's first on the schedule?" "A Mr. Phelps to see you," she said. "How do you do, Mr. Phelps," McIlroy greeted him. "Good afternoon," Mr. Phelps replied. "I'm here representing the Merchants' Bank Association." "Fine," McIlroy said, "I suppose you're here to set up a bank." "That's right, I just got in from Muroc last night, and I've been going over the assets of the Survey Credit Association all morning." "I'll certainly be glad to get them off my hands," McIlroy said. "I hope they're in good order." "There doesn't seem to be any profit," Mr. Phelps said. "That's par for a nonprofit organization," said McIlroy. "But we're amateurs, and we're turning this operation over to professionals. I'm sure it will be to everyone's satisfaction." "I know this seems like a silly question. What day is this?" "Well," said McIlroy, "that's not so silly. I don't know either." "Mrs. Garth," he called, "what day is this?" "Why, September, I think," she answered. "I mean what day ." "I don't know, I'll call the observatory." There was a pause. "They say what day where?" she asked. "Greenwich, I guess, our official time is supposed to be Greenwich Mean Time." There was another pause. "They say it's September fourth, one thirty a.m. " "Well, there you are," laughed McIlroy, "it isn't that time doesn't mean anything here, it just doesn't mean the same thing." Mr. Phelps joined the laughter. "Bankers' hours don't mean much, at any rate," he said. The power crew was having trouble with the solar furnace. Three of the nine banks of mirrors would not respond to the electric controls, and one bank moved so jerkily that it could not be focused, and it threatened to tear several of the mirrors loose. "What happened here?" Spotty Cade, one of the electrical technicians asked his foreman, Cowalczk, over the intercommunications radio. "I've got about a hundred pinholes in the cables out here. It's no wonder they don't work." "Meteor shower," Cowalczk answered, "and that's not half of it. Walker says he's got a half dozen mirrors cracked or pitted, and Hoffman on bank three wants you to replace a servo motor. He says the bearing was hit." "When did it happen?" Cade wanted to know. "Must have been last night, at least two or three days ago. All of 'em too small for Radar to pick up, and not enough for Seismo to get a rumble." "Sounds pretty bad." "Could have been worse," said Cowalczk. "How's that?" "Wasn't anybody out in it." "Hey, Chuck," another technician, Lehman, broke in, "you could maybe get hurt that way." "I doubt it," Cowalczk answered, "most of these were pinhead size, and they wouldn't go through a suit." "It would take a pretty big one to damage a servo bearing," Cade commented. "That could hurt," Cowalczk admitted, "but there was only one of them." "You mean only one hit our gear," Lehman said. "How many missed?" Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Small craters overlapped and touched each other. There was—except in the places that men had obscured them with footprints—not a square foot that didn't contain a crater at least ten inches across, there was not a square inch without its half-inch crater. Nearly all of these had been made millions of years ago, but here and there, the rim of a crater covered part of a footprint, clear evidence that it was a recent one. After the sun rose, Evans returned to the lava cave that he had been exploring when the meteor hit. Inside, he lifted his filter visor, and found that the light reflected from the small ray that peered into the cave door lighted the cave adequately. He tapped loose some white crystals on the cave wall with his geologist's hammer, and put them into a collector's bag. "A few mineral specimens would give us something to think about, man. These crystals," he said, "look a little like zeolites, but that can't be, zeolites need water to form, and there's no water on the Moon." He chipped a number of other crystals loose and put them in bags. One of them he found in a dark crevice had a hexagonal shape that puzzled him. One at a time, back in the tractor, he took the crystals out of the bags and analyzed them as well as he could without using a flame which would waste oxygen. The ones that looked like zeolites were zeolites, all right, or something very much like it. One of the crystals that he thought was quartz turned out to be calcite, and one of the ones that he was sure could be nothing but calcite was actually potassium nitrate. "Well, now," he said, "it's probably the largest natural crystal of potassium nitrate that anyone has ever seen. Man, it's a full inch across." All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon puzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained the unusual hexagonal crystals, and the puzzle resolved itself. There was nothing in the bag but a few drops of water. What he had taken to be a type of rock was ice, frozen in a niche that had never been warmed by the sun. The sun rose to the meridian slowly. It was a week after sunrise. The stars shone coldly, and wheeled in their slow course with the sun. Only Earth remained in the same spot in the black sky. The shadow line crept around until Earth was nearly dark, and then the rim of light appeared on the opposite side. For a while Earth was a dark disk in a thin halo, and then the light came to be a crescent, and the line of dawn began to move around Earth. The continents drifted across the dark disk and into the crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the same time that the sun rose. Nickel Jones was the captain of a supply rocket. He made trips from and to the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and ores out. At this time he was visiting with his old friend McIlroy. "I swear, Mac," said Jones, "another season like this, and I'm going back to mining." "I thought you were doing pretty well," said McIlroy, as he poured two drinks from a bottle of Scotch that Jones had brought him. "Oh, the money I like, but I will say that I'd have more if I didn't have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission." McIlroy had heard all of this before. "How's that?" he asked politely. "You may think it's myself running the ship," Jones started on his tirade, "but it's not. The union it is that says who I can hire. The union it is that says how much I must pay, and how large a crew I need. And then the Commission ..." The word seemed to give Jones an unpleasant taste in his mouth, which he hurriedly rinsed with a sip of Scotch. "The Commission," he continued, making the word sound like an obscenity, "it is that tells me how much I can charge for freight." McIlroy noticed that his friend's glass was empty, and he quietly filled it again. "And then," continued Jones, "if I buy a cargo up here, the Commission it is that says what I'll sell it for. If I had my way, I'd charge only fifty cents a pound for freight instead of the dollar forty that the Commission insists on. That's from here to Earth, of course. There's no profit I could make by cutting rates the other way." "Why not?" asked McIlroy. He knew the answer, but he liked to listen to the slightly Welsh voice of Jones. "Near cost it is now at a dollar forty. But what sense is there in charging the same rate to go either way when it takes about a seventh of the fuel to get from here to Earth as it does to get from there to here?" "What good would it do to charge fifty cents a pound?" asked McIlroy. "The nickel, man, the tons of nickel worth a dollar and a half on Earth, and not worth mining here; the low-grade ores of uranium and vanadium, they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water we haven't got. We could afford to bring more water for more people, and set up more distilling plants if we had the money from the nickel. "Even though I say it who shouldn't, two-eighty a quart is too much to pay for water." Both men fell silent for a while. Then Jones spoke again: "Have you seen our friend Evans lately? The price of chromium has gone up, and I think he could ship some of his ore from Yellow Crater at a profit." "He's out prospecting again. I don't expect to see him until sun-down." "I'll likely see him then. I won't be loaded for another week and a half. Can't you get in touch with him by radio?" "He isn't carrying one. Most of the prospectors don't. They claim that a radio that won't carry beyond the horizon isn't any good, and one that will bounce messages from Earth takes up too much room." "Well, if I don't see him, you let him know about the chromium." "Anything to help another Welshman, is that the idea?" "Well, protection it is that a poor Welshman needs from all the English and Scots. Speaking of which—" "Oh, of course," McIlroy grinned as he refilled the glasses. " Slainte, McIlroy, bach. " [Health, McIlroy, man.] " Slainte mhor, bach. " [Great Health, man.] The sun was halfway to the horizon, and Earth was a crescent in the sky when Evans had quarried all the ice that was available in the cave. The thought grew on him as he worked that this couldn't be the only such cave in the area. There must be several more bubbles in the lava flow. Part of his reasoning proved correct. That is, he found that by chipping, he could locate small bubbles up to an inch in diameter, each one with its droplet of water. The average was about one per cent of the volume of each bubble filled with ice. A quarter of a mile from the tractor, Evans found a promising looking mound of lava. It was rounded on top, and it could easily be the dome of a bubble. Suddenly, Evans noticed that the gauge on the oxygen tank of his suit was reading dangerously near empty. He turned back to his tractor, moving as slowly as he felt safe in doing. Running would use up oxygen too fast. He was halfway there when the pressure warning light went on, and the signal sounded inside his helmet. He turned on his ten-minute reserve supply, and made it to the tractor with about five minutes left. The air purifying apparatus in the suit was not as efficient as the one in the tractor; it wasted oxygen. By using the suit so much, Evans had already shortened his life by several days. He resolved not to leave the tractor again, and reluctantly abandoned his plan to search for a large bubble. The sun stood at half its diameter above the horizon. The shadows of the mountains stretched out to touch the shadows of the other mountains. The dawning line of light covered half of Earth, and Earth turned beneath it. Cowalczk itched under his suit, and the sweat on his face prickled maddeningly because he couldn't reach it through his helmet. He pushed his forehead against the faceplate of his helmet and rubbed off some of the sweat. It didn't help much, and it left a blurred spot in his vision. That annoyed him. "Is everyone clear of the outlet?" he asked. "All clear," he heard Cade report through the intercom. "How come we have to blow the boilers now?" asked Lehman. "Because I say so," Cowalczk shouted, surprised at his outburst and ashamed of it. "Boiler scale," he continued, much calmer. "We've got to clean out the boilers once a year to make sure the tubes in the reactor don't clog up." He squinted through his dark visor at the reactor building, a gray concrete structure a quarter of a mile distant. "It would be pretty bad if they clogged up some night." "Pressure's ten and a half pounds," said Cade. "Right, let her go," said Cowalczk. Cade threw a switch. In the reactor building, a relay closed. A motor started turning, and the worm gear on the motor opened a valve on the boiler. A stream of muddy water gushed into a closed vat. When the vat was about half full, the water began to run nearly clear. An electric eye noted that fact and a light in front of Cade turned on. Cade threw the switch back the other way, and the relay in the reactor building opened. The motor turned and the gears started to close the valve. But a fragment of boiler scale held the valve open. "Valve's stuck," said Cade. "Open it and close it again," said Cowalczk. The sweat on his forehead started to run into his eyes. He banged his hand on his faceplate in an unconscious attempt to wipe it off. He cursed silently, and wiped it off on the inside of his helmet again. This time, two drops ran down the inside of his faceplate. "Still don't work," said Cade. "Keep trying," Cowalczk ordered. "Lehman, get a Geiger counter and come with me, we've got to fix this thing." Lehman and Cowalczk, who were already suited up started across to the reactor building. Cade, who was in the pressurized control room without a suit on, kept working the switch back and forth. There was light that indicated when the valve was open. It was on, and it stayed on, no matter what Cade did. "The vat pressure's too high," Cade said. "Let me know when it reaches six pounds," Cowalczk requested. "Because it'll probably blow at seven." The vat was a light plastic container used only to decant sludge out of the water. It neither needed nor had much strength. "Six now," said Cade. Cowalczk and Lehman stopped halfway to the reactor. The vat bulged and ruptured. A stream of mud gushed out and boiled dry on the face of the Moon. Cowalczk and Lehman rushed forward again. They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor turned the valve back and forth in response to Cade's signals. "What's going on out there?" demanded McIlroy on the intercom. "Scale stuck in the valve," Cowalczk answered. "Are the reactors off?" "Yes. Vat blew. Shut up! Let me work, Mac!" "Sorry," McIlroy said, realizing that this was no time for officials. "Let me know when it's fixed." "Geiger's off scale," Lehman said. "We're probably O.K. in these suits for an hour," Cowalczk answered. "Is there a manual shut-off?" "Not that I know of," Lehman answered. "What about it, Cade?" "I don't think so," Cade said. "I'll get on the blower and rouse out an engineer." "O.K., but keep working that switch." "I checked the line as far as it's safe," said Lehman. "No valve." "O.K.," Cowalczk said. "Listen, Cade, are the injectors still on?" "Yeah. There's still enough heat in these reactors to do some damage. I'll cut 'em in about fifteen minutes." "I've found the trouble," Lehman said. "The worm gear's loose on its shaft. It's slipping every time the valve closes. There's not enough power in it to crush the scale." "Right," Cowalczk said. "Cade, open the valve wide. Lehman, hand me that pipe wrench!" Cowalczk hit the shaft with the back of the pipe wrench, and it broke at the motor bearing. Cowalczk and Lehman fitted the pipe wrench to the gear on the valve, and turned it. "Is the light off?" Cowalczk asked. "No," Cade answered. "Water's stopped. Give us some pressure, we'll see if it holds." "Twenty pounds," Cade answered after a couple of minutes. "Take her up to ... no, wait, it's still leaking," Cowalczk said. "Hold it there, we'll open the valve again." "O.K.," said Cade. "An engineer here says there's no manual cutoff." "Like Hell," said Lehman. Cowalczk and Lehman opened the valve again. Water spurted out, and dwindled as they closed the valve. "What did you do?" asked Cade. "The light went out and came on again." "Check that circuit and see if it works," Cowalczk instructed. There was a pause. "It's O.K.," Cade said. Cowalczk and Lehman opened and closed the valve again. "Light is off now," Cade said. "Good," said Cowalczk, "take the pressure up all the way, and we'll see what happens." "Eight hundred pounds," Cade said, after a short wait. "Good enough," Cowalczk said. "Tell that engineer to hold up a while, he can fix this thing as soon as he gets parts. Come on, Lehman, let's get out of here." "Well, I'm glad that's over," said Cade. "You guys had me worried for a while." "Think we weren't worried?" Lehman asked. "And it's not over." "What?" Cade asked. "Oh, you mean the valve servo you two bashed up?" "No," said Lehman, "I mean the two thousand gallons of water that we lost." "Two thousand?" Cade asked. "We only had seven hundred gallons reserve. How come we can operate now?" "We picked up twelve hundred from the town sewage plant. What with using the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do." "Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again." "You're probably right, at least until the next rocket lands in a couple of weeks." PROSPECTOR FEARED LOST ON MOON IPP Williamson Town, Moon, Sept. 21st. Scientific survey director McIlroy released a statement today that Howard Evans, a prospector is missing and presumed lost. Evans, who was apparently exploring the Moon in search of minerals was due two days ago, but it was presumed that he was merely temporarily delayed. Evans began his exploration on August 25th, and was known to be carrying several days reserve of oxygen and supplies. Director McIlroy has expressed a hope that Evans will be found before his oxygen runs out. Search parties have started from Williamson Town, but telescopic search from Palomar and the new satellite observatory are hindered by the fact that Evans is lost on the part of the Moon which is now dark. Little hope is held for radio contact with the missing man as it is believed he was carrying only short-range, intercommunications equipment. Nevertheless, receivers are ... Captain Nickel Jones was also expressing a hope: "Anyway, Mac," he was saying to McIlroy, "a Welshman knows when his luck's run out. And never a word did he say." "Like as not, you're right," McIlroy replied, "but if I know Evans, he'd never say a word about any forebodings." "Well, happen I might have a bit of Welsh second sight about me, and it tells me that Evans will be found." McIlroy chuckled for the first time in several days. "So that's the reason you didn't take off when you were scheduled," he said. "Well, yes," Jones answered. "I thought that it might happen that a rocket would be needed in the search." The light from Earth lighted the Moon as the Moon had never lighted Earth. The great blue globe of Earth, the only thing larger than the stars, wheeled silently in the sky. As it turned, the shadow of sunset crept across the face that could be seen from the Moon. From full Earth, as you might say, it moved toward last quarter. The rising sun shone into Director McIlroy's office. The hot light formed a circle on the wall opposite the window, and the light became more intense as the sun slowly pulled over the horizon. Mrs. Garth walked into the director's office, and saw the director sleeping with his head cradled in his arms on the desk. She walked softly to the window and adjusted the shade to darken the office. She stood looking at McIlroy for a moment, and when he moved slightly in his sleep, she walked softly out of the office. A few minutes later she was back with a cup of coffee. She placed it in front of the director, and shook his shoulder gently. "Wake up, Mr. McIlroy," she said, "you told me to wake you at sunrise, and there it is, and here's Mr. Phelps." McIlroy woke up slowly. He leaned back in his chair and stretched. His neck was stiff from sleeping in such an awkward position. "'Morning, Mr. Phelps," he said. "Good morning," Phelps answered, dropping tiredly into a chair. "Have some coffee, Mr. Phelps," said Mrs. Garth, handing him a cup. "Any news?" asked McIlroy. "About Evans?" Phelps shook his head slowly. "Palomar called in a few minutes back. Nothing to report and the sun was rising there. Australia will be in position pretty soon. Several observatories there. Then Capetown. There are lots of observatories in Europe, but most of them are clouded over. Anyway the satellite observatory will be in position by the time Europe is." McIlroy was fully awake. He glanced at Phelps and wondered how long it had been since he had slept last. More than that, McIlroy wondered why this banker, who had never met Evans, was losing so much sleep about finding him. It began to dawn on McIlroy that nearly the whole population of Williamson Town was involved, one way or another, in the search. The director turned to ask Phelps about this fact, but the banker was slumped in his chair, fast asleep with his coffee untouched. It was three hours later that McIlroy woke Phelps. "They've found the tractor," McIlroy said. "Good," Phelps mumbled, and then as comprehension came; "That's fine! That's just line! Is Evans—?" "Can't tell yet. They spotted the tractor from the satellite observatory. Captain Jones took off a few minutes ago, and he'll report back as soon as he lands. Hadn't you better get some sleep?" Evans was carrying a block of ice into the tractor when he saw the rocket coming in for a landing. He dropped the block and stood waiting. When the dust settled from around the tail of the rocket, he started to run forward. The air lock opened, and Evans recognized the vacuum suited figure of Nickel Jones. "Evans, man!" said Jones' voice in the intercom. "Alive you are!" "A Welshman takes a lot of killing," Evans answered. Later, in Evans' tractor, he was telling his story: "... And I don't know how long I sat there after I found the water." He looked at the Goldburgian device he had made out of wire and tubing. "Finally I built this thing. These caves were made of lava. They must have been formed by steam some time, because there's a floor of ice in all of 'em. "The idea didn't come all at once, it took a long time for me to remember that water is made out of oxygen and hydrogen. When I remembered that, of course, I remembered that it can be separated with electricity. So I built this thing. "It runs an electric current through water, lets the oxygen loose in the room, and pipes the hydrogen outside. It doesn't work automatically, of course, so I run it about an hour a day. My oxygen level gauge shows how long." "You're a genius, man!" Jones exclaimed. "No," Evans answered, "a Welshman, nothing more." "Well, then," said Jones, "are you ready to start back?" "Back?" "Well, it was to rescue you that I came." "I don't need rescuing, man," Evans said. Jones stared at him blankly. "You might let me have some food," Evans continued. "I'm getting short of that. And you might have someone send out a mechanic with parts to fix my tractor. Then maybe you'll let me use your radio to file my claim." "Claim?" "Sure, man, I've thousands of tons of water here. It's the richest mine on the Moon!" THE END
Ambition by Bade, William L.	"Ambition", William L. Bade, 1966. AMBITION By WILLIAM L. BADE Illustrated by L. WOROMAY [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction October 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] To the men of the future, the scientific goals of today were as incomprehensible as the ancient quest for the Holy Grail! There was a thump. Maitland stirred, came half awake, and opened his eyes. The room was dark except where a broad shaft of moonlight from the open window fell on the foot of his bed. Outside, the residential section of the Reservation slept silently under the pale illumination of the full Moon. He guessed sleepily that it was about three o'clock. What had he heard? He had a definite impression that the sound had come from within the room. It had sounded like someone stumbling into a chair, or— Something moved in the darkness on the other side of the room. Maitland started to sit up and it was as though a thousand volts had shorted his brain.... This time, he awoke more normally. He opened his eyes, looked through the window at a section of azure sky, listened to the singing of birds somewhere outside. A beautiful day. In the middle of the process of stretching his rested muscles, arms extended back, legs tensed, he froze, looking up—for the first time really seeing the ceiling. He turned his head, then rolled off the bed, wide awake. This wasn't his room! The lawn outside wasn't part of the Reservation! Where the labs and the shops should have been, there was deep prairie grass, then a green ocean pushed into waves by the breeze stretching to the horizon. This wasn't the California desert! Down the hill, where the liquid oxygen plant ought to have been, a river wound across the scene, almost hidden beneath its leafy roof of huge ancient trees. Shock contracted Maitland's diaphragm and spread through his body. His breathing quickened. Now he remembered what had happened during the night, the sound in the darkness, the dimly seen figure, and then—what? Blackout.... Where was he? Who had brought him here? For what purpose? He thought he knew the answer to the last of those questions. As a member of the original atomic reaction-motor team, he possessed information that other military powers would very much like to obtain. It was absolutely incredible that anyone had managed to abduct him from the heavily guarded confines of the Reservation, yet someone had done it. How? He pivoted to inspect the room. Even before his eyes could take in the details, he had the impression that there was something wrong about it. To begin with, the style was unfamiliar. There were no straight lines or sharp corners anywhere. The walls were paneled in featureless blue plastic and the doors were smooth surfaces of metal, half ellipses, without knobs. The flowing lines of the chair and table, built apparently from an aluminum alloy, somehow gave the impression of arrested motion. Even after allowances were made for the outlandish design, something about the room still was not right. His eyes returned to the doors, and he moved over to study the nearer one. As he had noticed, there was no knob, but at the right of this one, at about waist level, a push-button projected out of the wall. He pressed it; the door slid aside and disappeared. Maitland glanced in at the disclosed bathroom, then went over to look at the other door. There was no button beside this one, nor any other visible means of causing it to open. Baffled, he turned again and looked at the large open window—and realized what it was that had made the room seem so queer. It did not look like a jail cell. There were no bars.... Striding across the room, he lunged forward to peer out and violently banged his forehead. He staggered back, grimacing with pain, then reached forward cautious fingers and discovered a hard sheet of stuff so transparent that he had not even suspected its presence. Not glass! Glass was never this clear or strong. A plastic, no doubt, but one he hadn't heard of. Security sometimes had disadvantages. He looked out at the peaceful vista of river and prairie. The character of the sunlight seemed to indicate that it was afternoon. He became aware that he was hungry. Where the devil could this place be? And—muscles tightened about his empty stomach—what was in store for him here? He stood trembling, acutely conscious that he was afraid and helpless, until a flicker of motion at the bottom of the hill near the river drew his attention. Pressing his nose against the window, he strained his eyes to see what it was. A man and a woman were coming toward him up the hill. Evidently they had been swimming, for each had a towel; the man's was hung around his neck, and the woman was still drying her bobbed black hair. Maitland speculated on the possibility that this might be Sweden; he didn't know of any other country where public bathing at this time of year was customary. However, that prairie certainly didn't look Scandinavian.... As they came closer, he saw that both of them had dark uniform suntans and showed striking muscular development, like persons who had trained for years with weights. They vanished below his field of view, presumably into the building. He sat down on the edge of the cot and glared helplessly at the floor. About half an hour later, the door he couldn't open slid aside into the wall. The man Maitland had seen outside, now clad in gray trunks and sandals, stood across the threshold looking in at him. Maitland stood up and stared back, conscious suddenly that in his rumpled pajamas he made an unimpressive figure. The fellow looked about forty-five. The first details Maitland noticed were the forehead, which was quite broad, and the calm, clear eyes. The dark hair, white at the temples, was combed back, still damp from swimming. Below, there was a wide mouth and a firm, rounded chin. This man was intelligent, Maitland decided, and extremely sure of himself. Somehow, the face didn't go with the rest of him. The man had the head of a thinker, the body of a trained athlete—an unusual combination. Impassively, the man said, "My name is Swarts. You want to know where you are. I am not going to tell you." He had an accent, European, but otherwise unidentifiable. Possibly German. Maitland opened his mouth to protest, but Swarts went on, "However, you're free to do all the guessing you want." Still there was no suggestion of a smile. "Now, these are the rules. You'll be here for about a week. You'll have three meals a day, served in this room. You will not be allowed to leave it except when accompanied by myself. You will not be harmed in any way, provided you cooperate. And you can forget the silly idea that we want your childish secrets about rocket motors." Maitland's heart jumped. "My reason for bringing you here is altogether different. I want to give you some psychological tests...." "Are you crazy?" Maitland asked quietly. "Do you realize that at this moment one of the greatest hunts in history must be going on? I'll admit I'm baffled as to where we are and how you got me here—but it seems to me that you could have found someone less conspicuous to give your tests to." Briefly, then, Swarts did smile. "They won't find you," he said. "Now, come with me." After that outlandish cell, Swarts' laboratory looked rather commonplace. There was something like a surgical cot in the center, and a bench along one wall supported several electronics cabinets. A couple of them had cathode ray tube screens, and they all presented a normal complement of meters, pilot lights, and switches. Cables from them ran across the ceiling and came to a focus above the high flat cot in the center of the room. "Lie down," Swarts said. When Maitland hesitated, Swarts added, "Understand one thing—the more you cooperate, the easier things will be for you. If necessary, I will use coercion. I can get all my results against your will, if I must. I would prefer not to. Please don't make me." "What's the idea?" Maitland asked. "What is all this?" Swarts hesitated, though not, Maitland astonishedly felt, to evade an answer, but to find the proper words. "You can think of it as a lie detector. These instruments will record your reactions to the tests I give you. That is as much as you need to know. Now lie down." Maitland stood there for a moment, deliberately relaxing his tensed muscles. "Make me." If Swarts was irritated, he didn't show it. "That was the first test," he said. "Let me put it another way. I would appreciate it a lot if you'd lie down on this cot. I would like to test my apparatus." Maitland shook his head stubbornly. "I see," Swarts said. "You want to find out what you're up against." He moved so fast that Maitland couldn't block the blow. It was to the solar plexus, just hard enough to double him up, fighting for breath. He felt an arm under his back, another behind his knees. Then he was on the cot. When he was able to breathe again, there were straps across his chest, hips, knees, ankles, and arms, and Swarts was tightening a clamp that held his head immovable. Presently, a number of tiny electrodes were adhering to his temples and to other portions of his body, and a minute microphone was clinging to the skin over his heart. These devices terminated in cables that hung from the ceiling. A sphygmomanometer sleeve was wrapped tightly around his left upper arm, its rubber tube trailing to a small black box clamped to the frame of the cot. Another cable left the box and joined the others. So—Maitland thought—Swarts could record changes in his skin potential, heartbeat, and blood pressure: the involuntary responses of the body to stimuli. The question was, what were the stimuli to be? "Your name," said Swarts, "is Robert Lee Maitland. You are thirty-four years old. You are an engineer, specialty heat transfer, particularly as applied to rocket motors.... No, Mr. Maitland, I'm not going to question you about your work; just forget about it. Your home town is Madison, Wisconsin...." "You seem to know everything about me," Maitland said defiantly, looking up into the hanging forest of cabling. "Why this recital?" "I do not know everything about you—yet. And I'm testing the equipment, calibrating it to your reactions." He went on, "Your favorite recreations are chess and reading what you term science fiction. Maitland, how would you like to go to the Moon ?" Something eager leaped in Maitland's breast at the abrupt question, and he tried to turn his head. Then he forced himself to relax. "What do you mean?" Swarts was chuckling. "I really hit a semantic push-button there, didn't I? Maitland, I brought you here because you're a man who wants to go to the Moon. I'm interested in finding out why ." In the evening a girl brought Maitland his meal. As the door slid aside, he automatically stood up, and they stared at each other for several seconds. She had the high cheekbones and almond eyes of an Oriental, skin that glowed like gold in the evening light, yet thick coiled braids of blonde hair that glittered like polished brass. Shorts and a sleeveless blouse of some thick, reddish, metallic-looking fabric clung to her body, and over that she was wearing a light, ankle-length cloak of what seemed to be white wool. She was looking at him with palpable curiosity and something like expectancy. Maitland sighed and said, "Hello," then glanced down self-consciously at his wrinkled green pajamas. She smiled, put the tray of food on the table, and swept out, her cloak billowing behind her. Maitland remained standing, staring at the closed door for a minute after she was gone. Later, when he had finished the steak and corn on the cob and shredded carrots, and a feeling of warm well-being was diffusing from his stomach to his extremities, he sat down on the bed to watch the sunset and to think. There were three questions for which he required answers before he could formulate any plan or policy. Where was he? Who was Swarts? What was the purpose of the "tests" he was being given? It was possible, of course, that this was all an elaborate scheme for getting military secrets, despite Swarts' protestations to the contrary. Maitland frowned. This place certainly didn't have the appearance of a military establishment, and so far there had been nothing to suggest the kind of interrogation to be expected from foreign intelligence officers. It might be better to tackle the first question first. He looked at the Sun, a red spheroid already half below the horizon, and tried to think of a region that had this kind of terrain. That prairie out there was unique. Almost anywhere in the world, land like that would be cultivated, not allowed to go to grass. This might be somewhere in Africa.... He shook his head, puzzled. The Sun disappeared and its blood-hued glow began to fade from the sky. Maitland sat there, trying to get hold of the problem from an angle where it wouldn't just slip away. After a while the western sky became a screen of clear luminous blue, a backdrop for a pure white brilliant star. As always at that sight, Maitland felt his worry drain away, leaving an almost mystical sense of peace and an undefinable longing. Venus, the most beautiful of the planets. Maitland kept track of them all in their majestic paths through the constellations, but Venus was his favorite. Time and time again he had watched its steady climb higher and higher in the western sky, its transient rule there as evening star, its progression toward the horizon, and loved it equally in its alter ego of morning star. Venus was an old friend. An old friend.... Something icy settled on the back of his neck, ran down his spine, and diffused into his body. He stared at the planet unbelievingly, fists clenched, forgetting to breathe. Last night Venus hadn't been there. Venus was a morning star just now.... Just now! He realized the truth in that moment. Later, when that jewel of a planet had set and the stars were out, he lay on the bed, still warm with excitement and relief. He didn't have to worry any more about military secrets, or who Swarts was. Those questions were irrelevant now. And now he could accept the psychological tests at their face value; most likely, they were what they purported to be. Only one question of importance remained: What year was this? He grimaced in the darkness, an involuntary muscular expression of jubilation and excitement. The future ! Here was the opportunity for the greatest adventure imaginable to 20th Century man. Somewhere, out there under the stars, there must be grand glittering cities and busy spaceports, roaring gateways to the planets. Somewhere, out there in the night, there must be men who had walked beside the Martian canals and pierced the shining cloud mantle of Venus—somewhere, perhaps, men who had visited the distant luring stars and returned. Surely, a civilization that had developed time travel could reach the stars! And he had a chance to become a part of all that! He could spend his life among the planets, a citizen of deep space, a voyager of the challenging spaceways between the solar worlds. "I'm adaptable," he told himself gleefully. "I can learn fast. There'll be a job for me out there...." If— Suddenly sobered, he rolled over and put his feet on the floor, sat in the darkness thinking. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would have to find a way of breaking down Swarts' reticence. He would have to make the man realize that secrecy wasn't necessary in this case. And if Swarts still wouldn't talk, he would have to find a way of forcing the issue. The fellow had said that he didn't need cooperation to get his results, but— After a while Maitland smiled to himself and went back to bed. He woke in the morning with someone gently shaking his shoulder. He rolled over and looked up at the girl who had brought him his meal the evening before. There was a tray on the table and he sniffed the smell of bacon. The girl smiled at him. She was dressed as before, except that she had discarded the white cloak. As he swung his legs to the floor, she started toward the door, carrying the tray with the dirty dishes from yesterday. He stopped her with the word, "Miss!" She turned, and he thought there was something eager in her face. "Miss, do you speak my language?" "Yes," hesitantly. She lingered too long on the hiss of the last consonant. "Miss," he asked, watching her face intently, "what year is this?" Startlingly, she laughed, a mellow peal of mirth that had nothing forced about it. She turned toward the door again and said over her shoulder, "You will have to ask Swarts about that. I cannot tell you." "Wait! You mean you don't know?" She shook her head. "I cannot tell you." "All right; we'll let it go at that." She grinned at him again as the door slid shut. Swarts came half an hour later, and Maitland began his planned offensive. "What year is this?" Swarts' steely eyes locked with his. "You know what the date is," he stated. "No, I don't. Not since yesterday." "Come on," Swarts said patiently, "let's get going. We have a lot to get through this morning." "I know this isn't 1950. It's probably not even the 20th Century. Venus was a morning star before you brought me here. Now it's an evening star." "Never mind that. Come." Wordlessly, Maitland climbed to his feet, preceded Swarts to the laboratory, lay down and allowed him to fasten the straps and attach the instruments, making no resistance at all. When Swarts started saying a list of words—doubtlessly some sort of semantic reaction test—Maitland began the job of integrating "csc 3 x dx" in his head. It was a calculation which required great concentration and frequent tracing back of steps. After several minutes, he noticed that Swarts had stopped calling words. He opened his eyes to find the other man standing over him, looking somewhat exasperated and a little baffled. "What year is this?" Maitland asked in a conversational tone. "We'll try another series of tests." It took Swarts nearly twenty minutes to set up the new apparatus. He lowered a bulky affair with two cylindrical tubes like the twin stacks of a binocular microscope over Maitland's head, so that the lenses at the ends of the tubes were about half an inch from the engineer's eyes. He attached tiny clamps to Maitland's eyelashes. "These will keep you from holding your eyes shut," he said. "You can blink, but the springs are too strong for you to hold your eyelids down against the tension." He inserted button earphones into Maitland's ears— And then the show began. He was looking at a door in a partly darkened room, and there were footsteps outside, a peremptory knocking. The door flew open, and outlined against the light of the hall, he saw a man with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The man shouted, "Now I've got you, you wife-stealer!" He swung the shotgun around and pulled the trigger. There was a terrible blast of sound and the flash of smokeless powder—then blackness. With a deliberate effort, Maitland unclenched his fists and tried to slow his breathing. Some kind of emotional reaction test—what was the countermove? He closed his eyes, but shortly the muscles around them declared excruciatingly that they couldn't keep that up. Now he was looking at a girl. She.... Maitland gritted his teeth and fought to use his brain; then he had it. He thought of a fat slob of a bully who had beaten him up one day after school. He remembered a talk he had heard by a politician who had all the intelligent social responsibility of a rogue gorilla, but no more. He brooded over the damnable stupidity and short-sightedness of Swarts in standing by his silly rules and not telling him about this new world. Within a minute, he was in an ungovernable rage. His muscles tightened against the restraining straps. He panted, sweat came out on his forehead, and he began to curse. Swarts! How he hated.... The scene was suddenly a flock of sheep spread over a green hillside. There was blood hammering in Maitland's temples. His face felt hot and swollen and he writhed against the restraint of the straps. The scene disappeared, the lenses of the projector retreated from his eyes and Swarts was standing over him, white-lipped. Maitland swore at him for a few seconds, then relaxed and smiled weakly. His head was starting to ache from the effort of blinking. "What year is this?" he asked. "All right," Swarts said. "A.D. 2634." Maitland's smile became a grin. "I really haven't the time to waste talking irrelevancies," Swarts said a while later. "Honestly. Maitland, I'm working against a time limit. If you'll cooperate, I'll tell Ching to answer your questions."' "Ching?" "Ingrid Ching is the girl who has been bringing you your meals." Maitland considered a moment, then nodded. Swarts lowered the projector to his eyes again, and this time the engineer did not resist. That evening, he could hardly wait for her to come. Too excited to sit and watch the sunset, he paced interminably about the room, sometimes whistling nervously, snapping his fingers, sitting down and jittering one leg. After a while he noticed that he was whistling the same theme over and over: a minute's thought identified it as that exuberant mounting phrase which recurs in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He forgot about it and went on whistling. He was picturing himself aboard a ship dropping in toward Mars, making planetfall at Syrtis Major; he was seeing visions of Venus and the awesome beauty of Saturn. In his mind, he circled the Moon, and viewed the Earth as a huge bright globe against the constellations.... Finally the door slid aside and she appeared, carrying the usual tray of food. She smiled at him, making dimples in her golden skin and revealing a perfect set of teeth, and put the tray on the table. "I think you are wonderful," she laughed. "You get everything you want, even from Swarts, and I have not been able to get even a little of what I want from him. I want to travel in time, go back to your 20th Century. And I wanted to talk with you, and he would not let me." She laughed again, hands on her rounded hips. "I have never seen him so irritated as he was this noon." Maitland urged her into the chair and sat down on the edge of the bed. Eagerly he asked, "Why the devil do you want to go to the 20th Century? Believe me, I've been there, and what I've seen of this world looks a lot better." She shrugged. "Swarts says that I want to go back to the Dark Age of Technology because I have not adapted well to modern culture. Myself, I think I have just a romantic nature. Far times and places look more exciting...." "How do you mean—" Maitland wrinkled his brow—"adapt to modern culture? Don't tell me you're from another time!" "Oh, no! But my home is Aresund, a little fishing village at the head of a fiord in what you would call Norway. So far north, we are much behind the times. We live in the old way, from the sea, speak the old tongue." He looked at her golden features, such a felicitous blend of Oriental and European characteristics, and hesitantly asked, "Maybe I shouldn't.... This is a little personal, but ... you don't look altogether like the Norwegians of my time." His fear that she would be offended proved to be completely unjustified. She merely laughed and said, "There has been much history since 1950. Five hundred years ago, Europe was overrun by Pan-Orientals. Today you could not find anywhere a 'pure' European or Asiatic." She giggled. "Swarts' ancestors from your time must be cursing in their graves. His family is Afrikander all the way back, but one of his great-grandfathers was pure-blooded Bantu. His full name is Lassisi Swarts." Maitland wrinkled his brow. "Afrikander?" "The South Africans." Something strange came into her eyes. It might have been awe, or even hatred; he could not tell. "The Pan-Orientals eventually conquered all the world, except for North America—the last remnant of the American World Empire—and southern Africa. The Afrikanders had been partly isolated for several centuries then, and they had developed technology while the rest of the world lost it. They had a tradition of white supremacy, and in addition they were terrified of being encircled." She sighed. "They ruled the next world empire and it was founded on the slaughter of one and a half billion human beings. That went into the history books as the War of Annihilation." "So many? How?" "They were clever with machines, the Afrikanders. They made armies of them. Armies of invincible killing-machines, produced in robot factories from robot-mined ores.... Very clever." She gave a little shudder. "And yet they founded modern civilization," she added. "The grandsons of the technicians who built the Machine Army set up our robot production system, and today no human being has to dirty his hands raising food or manufacturing things. It could never have been done, either, before the population was—reduced to three hundred million." "Then the Afrikanders are still on top? Still the masters?" She shook her head. "There are no more Afrikanders." "Rebellion?" "No. Intermarriage. Racial blending. There was a psychology of guilt behind it. So huge a crime eventually required a proportionate expiation. Afrikaans is still the world language, but there is only one race now. No more masters or slaves." They were both silent for a moment, and then she sighed. "Let us not talk about them any more." "Robot factories and farms," Maitland mused. "What else? What means of transportation? Do you have interstellar flight yet?" "Inter-what?" "Have men visited the stars?" She shook her head, bewildered. "I always thought that would be a tough problem to crack," he agreed. "But tell me about what men are doing in the Solar System. How is life on Mars and Venus, and how long does it take to get to those places?" He waited, expectantly silent, but she only looked puzzled. "I don't understand. Mars? What are Mars?" After several seconds, Maitland swallowed. Something seemed to be the matter with his throat, making it difficult for him to speak. "Surely you have space travel?" She frowned and shook her head. "What does that mean—space travel?" He was gripping the edge of the bed now, glaring at her. "A civilization that could discover time travel and build robot factories wouldn't find it hard to send a ship to Mars!" "A ship ? Oh, you mean something like a vliegvlotter . Why, no, I don't suppose it would be hard. But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?" He was on his feet towering over her, fists clenched. She raised her arms as if to shield her face if he should hit her. "Let's get this perfectly clear," he said, more harshly than he realized. "So far as you know, no one has ever visited the planets, and no one wants to. Is that right?" She nodded apprehensively. "I have never heard of it being done." He sank down on the bed and put his face in his hands. After a while he looked up and said bitterly, "You're looking at a man who would give his life to get to Mars. I thought I would in my time. I was positive I would when I knew I was in your time. And now I know I never will." The cot creaked beside him and he felt a soft arm about his shoulders and fingers delicately stroking his brow. Presently he opened his eyes and looked at her. "I just don't understand," he said. "It seemed obvious to me that whenever men were able to reach the planets, they'd do it." Her pitying eyes were on his face. He hitched himself around so that he was facing her. "I've got to understand. I've got to know why . What happened? Why don't men want the planets any more?" "Honestly," she said, "I did not know they ever had." She hesitated. "Maybe you are asking the wrong question." He furrowed his brow, bewildered now by her. "I mean," she explained, "maybe you should ask why people in the 20th Century did want to go to worlds men are not suited to inhabit." Maitland felt his face become hot. "Men can go anywhere, if they want to bad enough." "But why ?" Despite his sudden irrational anger toward her, Maitland tried to stick to logic. "Living space, for one thing. The only permanent solution to the population problem...." "We have no population problem. A hundred years ago, we realized that the key to social stability is a limited population. Our economic system was built to take care of three hundred million people, and we have held the number at that." "Birth control," Maitland scoffed. "How do you make it work—secret police?" "No. Education. Each of us has the right to two children, and we cherish that right so much that we make every effort to see that those two are the best children we could possibly produce...." She broke off, looking a little self-conscious. "You understand, what I have been saying applies to most of the world. In some places like Aresund, things are different. Backward. I still do not feel that I belong here, although the people of the town have accepted me as one of them." "Even," he said, "granting that you have solved the population problem, there's still the adventure of the thing. Surely, somewhere, there must be men who still feel that.... Ingrid, doesn't it fire something in your blood, the idea of going to Mars—just to go there and see what's there and walk under a new sky and a smaller Sun? Aren't you interested in finding out what the canals are? Or what's under the clouds of Venus? Wouldn't you like to see the rings of Saturn from, a distance of only two hundred thousand miles?" His hands were trembling as he stopped. She shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Go into the past—yes! But go out there? I still cannot see why." "Has the spirit of adventure evaporated from the human race, or what ?" She smiled. "In a room downstairs there is the head of a lion. Swarts killed the beast when he was a young man. He used a spear. And time traveling is the greatest adventure there is. At least, that is the way I feel. Listen, Bob." She laid a hand on his arm. "You grew up in the Age of Technology. Everybody was terribly excited about what could be done with machines—machines to blow up a city all at once, or fly around the world, or take a man to Mars. We have had our fill of—what is the word?—gadgets. Our machines serve us, and so long as they function right, we are satisfied to forget about them. "Because this is the Age of Man . We are terribly interested in what can be done with people. Our scientists, like Swarts, are studying human rather than nuclear reactions. We are much more fascinated by the life and death of cultures than by the expansion or contraction of the Universe. With us, it is the people that are important, not gadgets." Maitland stared at her, his face blank. His mind had just manufactured a discouraging analogy. His present position was like that of an earnest 12th Century crusader, deposited by some freak of nature into the year 1950, trying to find a way of reanimating the anti-Mohammedan movement. What chance would he have? The unfortunate knight would argue in vain that the atomic bomb offered a means of finally destroying the infidel.... Maitland looked up at the girl, who was regarding him silently with troubled eyes. "I think I'd like to be alone for a while," he said.
And Then the Town Took Off by Wilson, Richard	"And Then the Town Took Off", Richard Wilson, 1954. And Then the Town Took Off by RICHARD WILSON ACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y. AND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved For Felicitas K. Wilson THE SIOUX SPACEMAN Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. THE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP The town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth! Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local townspeople, a crackpot professor. But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his days on the smallest—and the nuttiest—planet in the galaxy! I The town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31. A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where Superior had been. Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark, but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then sped off to a telephone. The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to the National Guard. The guard surrounded the area with troops—more than a thousand were needed—to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into the Ohio countryside. The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery shortly after midnight. Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was the witching hour. Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook it and rapped on it, it refused to click. A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit, having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave, relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no people, no houses—no sign of anything except the pit itself. The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret experiments. Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest made bubble gum. A United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November 1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of. Then he saw the church steeple on it. A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern: It said that Superior had seceded from Earth. One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying plaintively: " Cold up here!" Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window, hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen hurried along the tracks. The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, "Why did we stop?" "Somebody flagged us down," the conductor said. "We don't make a station stop at Superior on this run." The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval. The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had given her. Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe that it was more than adequate. If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in his mid-twenties—about her age—lean, tall and straight-shouldered, with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully. But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist. "Will we be here long?" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing. "Can't say," the conductor told him. He let the door close again and went down to the tracks. Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, "Excuse me," and followed the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher. Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even an old red shirt. Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat and riding boots. "You'd go over the edge, I tell you," the old gentleman was saying. "If you don't get this junk off the line," the engineer said, "I'll plow right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?" "Look for yourself," the old man in the white helmet said. "Go ahead. Look." The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. "You look. Humor the old man. Then let's go." The bearded man—he called himself Professor Garet—went off with the fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along the gravel when the fireman stopped. "Okay," he said "where's the edge? I don't see nothing." The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the darkness. "It's another half mile or so," the professor said. "Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night." The old man chuckled. "I'm afraid you have." They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture. "Behold," he said. "Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of the world." True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen. Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close. Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge, not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it. Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio. Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding. "You see what I mean," he said. "You would have gone right over. I believe you would have had a two-mile fall." "Of course you could have stayed aboard the train," the man driving the old Pontiac said, "but I really think you'll be more comfortable at Cavalier." Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the club car, asked, "Cavalier?" "The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you say your name was, miss?" "Jen Jervis," she said. "Geneva Jervis, formally." "Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose." The girl smiled sideways. "We have a nodding acquaintance." Don nodded and grinned. "There's plenty of room in the dormitories," Civek said. "People don't exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier." "Are you connected with the college?" Don asked. "Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the world, hasn't it?" "Overnight," Geneva Jervis said. "If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say is true. I haven't seen the edge myself." "You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning," the mayor said, "if we don't settle back in the meantime." "Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked. "No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then the phone rang and it was Professor Garet." "The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis asked. "Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of Applied Sciences." "Professor of what?" "Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me." "Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory about it?" "He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle." "What's that?" Don asked. "I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist. Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town had flown the coop." "What's the population of Superior?" "Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us for a while." "What do you mean by that?" Jen Jervis asked. "Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?" "Does Superior have an airport?" Don asked. "I've got to get back to—to Earth." It sounded odd to put it that way. "Nope," Civek said. "No airport. No place for a plane to land, either." "Maybe not a plane," Don said, "but a helicopter could land just about anywhere." "No helicopters here, either." "Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning." "Hm," said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the rearview mirror. "I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier. You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor Garet. I've got to see him—excuse me." The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who was frowning. "Are you thinking," he asked, "that Mayor Civek was perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?" "I'm thinking," she said, "that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie another night, then taken a plane to Washington." "Washington?" Don said. "That's where I'm going. I mean where I was going before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington, Miss Jervis?" "I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?" "Not everybody. Me, for instance." "No?" she said. "Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State." He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably close. "Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?" "I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B." Don laughed again. "He sure is." " Mister Cort!" she said, annoyed. "You know as well as I do that S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary." "I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting late." " Places to sleep," she corrected. She looked angry. "Of course," Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. "Come on. Where they put you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of this cuff." He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. "We'll try to make you comfortable," she said. "What a night, eh? The professor is simply beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the cosmolineator blew up." They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white laboratory smock. II Don Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and did what little dressing was necessary. It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist, and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat building, and other people going in random directions. The first were students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct. Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of Superior were up in the air. He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below. The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and gestured to the empty place opposite her. "You're Mr. Cort," she said. "Won't you join me?" "Thanks," he said, unloading his tray. "How did you know?" "The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm Alis—that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e—Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did you escape from jail?" "How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name. Professor Garet's daughter?" "The same," she said. "Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is, I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory." "Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?" Don struggled to manipulate knife and fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case. "Here, let me cut your eggs for you," Alis said. "You'd better order them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and the latter-day alchemist." "I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out of here by then." "How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?" "I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up here." "You were levitated, like everybody else." "You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose." "Scarcely fell , Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers." "I didn't know there were any." "Actually there's only one, the Superior Sentry , a weekly. This is an extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out." She opened her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid. Don blinked at the headline: Town Gets High "Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior," Alis said. Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an apparently grave situation. Residents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line. A Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on investigating.... Don skimmed the rest. "I don't see anything about it being deliberate." Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across to him and said, "It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three, bottom." Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his thanks, and read: Mayor Claims Secession From Earth Mayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as his explanation. The "reasons" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited) colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices. The "explanation" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to set. Don said, "I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark." "He's a doll," Alis said. "He's about the only one in town who stands up to Father." "Does your father claim that he levitated Superior off the face of the Earth?" "Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a science teacher in high school—not in Superior, incidentally—who gave me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them, being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually ever since." "How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?" She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt, emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was. "You may call me Alis," she said. "And I'm nineteen." Don grinned. "Going on?" "Three months past. How old are you , Mr. Cort?" "Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it." "Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go with you to the end of the world." "On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely. "I'll admit to the double entendre ," Alis said. "What I meant—for now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us." "Delighted. But don't you have any classes?" "Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age. On to the brink!" They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard. "What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down there?" "Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What are you going to do?" "What can I do?" the conductor asked. "You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's going to steal your old train." The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did. "You know," Don said, "I was half-asleep last night but before the train stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while." "South Creek," Alis said. "That's right. It's just over there." "Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that Superior's water supply?" Alis shrugged. "All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water. Let's go look at the creek." They found it coursing along between the banks. "Looks just about the same," she said. "That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge." The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight. Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees, with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended. "Where is the water going?" Don asked. "I can't make it out." "Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people." "I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look." "Don't! You'll fall off!" "I'll be careful." He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down. "Chicken," said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too. "I still can't see where the water goes," Don said. He stretched out on his stomach and began to inch forward. "You stay there." Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there, panting, head pressed to the ground. "How do you feel?" Alis asked. "Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look." Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his ankle and held it tight. "Just in case a high wind comes along," she said. "Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go." He lifted his head. "Damn." "What?" "It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?" "I have a compact." She took it out of her bag with her free hand and tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved and had to put his head back on the ground. "Sorry," she said. Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand. He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the end of the creek. "Now I've got it. The water isn't going off the edge!" "It isn't? Then where is it going?" "Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical tunnel, just short of the edge." "Why? How?" "I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming back." He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself off. He returned her compact. "I guess you know where we go next." "The other end of the creek?" "Exactly." South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to go, past South Creek Bridge—which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis said—past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again. But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. "This is new," Alis said. The fence, which had a sign on it, warning—electrified , was semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under the tarp and fence. "Look how it comes in spurts," Alis said. "As if it's being pumped." Smaller print on the sign said: Protecting mouth of South Creek, one of two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is sufficient to kill. It was signed: Vincent Grande, Chief of Police, Hector Civek, Mayor . "What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?" Don asked. "North Lake, maybe," Alis said. "People fish there but nobody's allowed to swim." "Is the lake entirely within the town limits?" "I don't know." "If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder what would happen?" "I know one thing—I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you found out." She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth below and to the west. "It's impressive, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder if that's Indiana way over there?" He patted her hand absent-mindedly. "I wonder if it's west at all. I mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here as it used to down there?" "We could tell by the sun, silly." "Of course," he said, grinning at his stupidity. "And I guess we're not high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great Lakes—or Lake Erie, anyway." They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was gone. "Well," Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, "now we know that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not answers, then transportation." "Transportation?" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. "Why? Don't you like it here?" "If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into clean clothes, you're not going to like me." "You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery." She stopped, still holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. "So kiss me," she said, "before you deteriorate." They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him.
Atom Mystery [Young Atom Detective] by Coombs, Charles Ira	"Atom Mystery [Young Atom Detective]", Charles Ira Coombs, 1954. YOUNG READERS Atom Mystery 11 CHAPTER ONE It was only a dream. Eddie Taylor would like to have finished it, but the bar of morning sunlight poking in under the window shade pried his eyes open. The dream fled. Eddie kicked off the sheet, swung his feet to the floor, and groped under the bed for his tennis shoes. He heard his father’s heavy footsteps in the hallway. They stopped outside of his bedroom door. “You awake, Eddie?” “I’m awake, Dad,” Eddie answered. “Breakfast’s ready. Get washed and dressed.” 12 “Be right there,” Eddie said. Then, remembering the dream, he added, “Oh, Dad, is it all right if I use the Geiger counter today?” Mr. Taylor opened the door. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and still thin-waisted. Eddie found it easy to believe the stories he had heard about his father being an outstanding football player in his time. Even his glasses and the gray hair at his temples didn’t add much age, although Eddie knew it had been eighteen years since his father had played his last game of college football. “You may use the Geiger counter any time you want, Eddie,” Mr. Taylor said, “as long as you take good care of it. You figured out where you can find some uranium ore?” Eddie smiled sheepishly. “I—I had a dream,” he said. “Plain as day. It was out on Cedar Point. I was walking along over some rocks. Suddenly the Geiger counter began clicking like everything.” 13 “Cedar Point?” his father asked. “I’ve never been out there. But, from what I hear, there are plenty of rock formations. Might be worth a try, at that. You never can tell where you might strike some radioactivity.” “Do you believe in dreams, Dad?” “Well, now, that’s a tough question, son. I can’t say that I really do. Still, one clue is as good as another when it comes to hunting uranium ore, I guess. But right now we’d better get out to breakfast before your mother scalps us. Hurry it up.” His father turned and went back down the hallway toward the kitchen. Eddie pulled on his trousers and T shirt and went into the bathroom. He washed hurriedly, knowing that even if he missed a spot or two, he was fairly safe. During the summer months his freckles got so thick and dark that it would take a magnifying glass to detect any small smudges of dirt hiding among them. He plastered some water on his dark-red hair, pushed a comb through it, and shrugged as it snapped back almost to its original position. Oh, well, he had tried. 14 He grinned into the mirror, reached a finger into his mouth, and unhooked the small rubber bands from his tooth braces. He dropped them into the waste basket. He’d put fresh ones in after breakfast. He brushed his teeth carefully, taking particular pains around the metal braces. The tooth-straightening orthodontist had warned him about letting food gather around the metal clamps. It could start cavities. Finished, Eddie went out to breakfast. “Good morning, dear,” his mother greeted him, handing him a plate of eggs. “Hi, Mom,” Eddie said. “Gotta hurry. Big day today.” “So your father says. But I’m afraid your big day will have to start with sorting out and tying up those newspapers and magazines that have been collecting in the garage.” “Aw, Mom—” “Eddie, I asked you to do it three days ago. Remember? And the Goodwill truck comes around today.” “But, Mom—” 15 “No arguments, son,” his father put in calmly but firmly. “School vacation doesn’t mean that your chores around here are on vacation, too. Get at it right away, and you’ll still have time to hunt your uranium. “Well,” Mr. Taylor added, excusing himself from the table, “I’d better be getting over to school. I’m expecting to receive shipment of a new radioisotope today.” The very word excited Eddie. In fact, anything having to do with atomic science excited him. He knew something about isotopes—pronounced eye-suh-tope . You couldn’t have a father who was head of the atomic-science department at Oceanview College without picking up a little knowledge along the way. Eddie knew that a radioisotope was a material which had been “cooked” in an atomic reactor until it was “hot” with radioactivity. When carefully controlled, the radiation stored up in such isotopes was used in many beneficial ways. 16 “Why don’t college professors get summer vacations, too?” Eddie asked. One reason for asking that particular question was to keep from prying deeper into the subject of the radioisotope. Much of his father’s work at Oceanview College was of a secret nature. Eddie had learned not to ask questions about it. His father usually volunteered any information he wanted known, so Eddie stuck to questions which could and would be answered. “We get vacations,” his father said. “But—well, my work is a little different, you know. At the speed atomic science is moving today, we simply can’t afford to waste time. But don’t worry. We’ll take a week or so off before school starts in the fall. Maybe head for the mountains with our tent and sleeping bags.” “And Geiger counter?” Eddie asked eagerly. “Wouldn’t think of leaving it home,” his father said, smiling. “By the way, I put new batteries in it the other day. Take it easy on them. Remember to switch it off when you’re not actually using it.” “I will,” Eddie promised. He had forgotten several times before, weakening the batteries. 17 It took Eddie over an hour to sort out the newspapers and magazines in the garage, tie them in neat bundles, and place them out on the front curb for the Goodwill pickup. By that time the sun was high overhead. It had driven off the coolness which the ocean air had provided during the earlier hours. “Anything else, Mom?” he asked, returning to the house and getting the Geiger counter out of the closet. He edged toward the back door before his mother had much time to think of something more for him to do. “I guess not, dear,” Mrs. Taylor said, smiling over his hasty retreat. “What are you going to do?” “Think I’ll do a little prospecting,” Eddie said. “Where?” “Probably in the hills beyond the college,” Eddie said. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was a little late in the day to go to Cedar Point. The best way to get there was by rowboat across Moon Bay, and that was too long a row to be starting now. Besides, there were plenty of other places around the outskirts of Oceanview where likely looking rock formations invited search with a Geiger counter. 18 “Are you going alone?” his mother asked. “Oh, guess I’ll stop by and see if Teena wants to go,” Eddie answered casually. He tried to make it sound as though he would be doing Teena Ross a big favor. After all, she was only a girl. Eddie didn’t figure a girl would make a very good uranium prospecting partner, but most of the fellows he knew were away at camp, or vacationing with their folks, or something like that. “She’ll enjoy it, I’m sure,” his mother said. “I’ll take Sandy, too,” Eddie said. “He needs the exercise.” “That’s a good idea, dear. Be back in time for an early dinner.” Eddie let Sandy off his chain. The taffy-colored cocker spaniel yipped wildly over his freedom, racing back and forth as Eddie started down the street. 19 Christina Ross—whom everybody called Teena—lived at the far end of the block. Eddie went around to the side door of the light-green stucco house and knocked. “Oh, hi, Eddie,” Teena greeted him, appearing at the screen door. “I was hoping you’d come over.” “Well, I—I just happened to be going by,” Eddie said. “Thought you might want to watch me do a little prospecting with the Geiger counter. But maybe you’re too busy.” That’s how to handle it, Eddie thought. Don’t act anxious. Let Teena be anxious. Then maybe she’ll even offer to bring along a couple of sandwiches or some fruit. “Oh, I’d love to go,” Teena said eagerly, “but I’m just finishing the dishes. Come on in.” “I’m in kind of a hurry.” “I’ll only be a minute.” She pushed the screen door open for him. “I’ll make us some sandwiches.” “Stay here, Sandy,” Eddie said. “Sit.” The dog minded, although he looked a bit rebellious. 20 Eddie went inside and followed Teena to the kitchen. He felt triumphant about the sandwiches. Teena tossed him a dish towel. “You dry them,” she said. “Who, me?” “Why not? You’re in a hurry, aren’t you? I can make the sandwiches while you dry the silverware.” She smiled, putting tiny crinkles in her small, slightly upturned nose. She wore her hair in a pony tail. Even though her hair was blond all year long, it seemed even lighter in the summer. Eddie couldn’t tell whether the sun had faded it, or whether her deep summer tan simply made her hair look lighter by contrast. Maybe both. “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, coming into the kitchen. “Looks like Teena put you to work.” “She always does, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said, pretending great injury. “Don’t know why I keep coming over here.” “I know,” Teena spoke up quickly. “It’s because we’re friends, that’s why.” 21 Eddie knew she was right. They were friends—good friends. They had been ever since Eddie’s family had moved to Oceanview and his father had become head of the college’s atomic-science department. In fact, their parents were close friends, also. Teena’s father was chief engineer for the Acme Aviation Company, one of the coast town’s largest manufacturing concerns. “Well, I’ll be glad to finish them, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross offered. “I know how boys detest doing dishes.” “Oh, I don’t really mind, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said. “Besides, Teena’s making sandwiches to take with us.” “Another prospecting trip?” Teena’s mother glanced at the Geiger counter which Eddie had set carefully on the dinette table. “I still think there must be some uranium around here,” Eddie insisted. “And we can find it if anyone can.” “I agree,” Mrs. Ross said. “But even if you don’t find it, you both seem to enjoy your hikes.” 22 “Oh, yes, it’s fun, Mother,” Teena replied, wrapping wax paper around a sandwich. “Guess I’m ready. I’ve got a bone for Sandy, too.” “Don’t go too far out from town,” Mrs. Ross cautioned, as Eddie picked up the Geiger counter. “And stick near the main roads. You know the rules.” “We sure do, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie assured her. “And we’ll be back early.” They walked past the college campus, and toward the rocky foothills beyond. At various rock mounds and outcroppings, Eddie switched on the Geiger counter. The needle of the dial on the black box wavered slightly. A slow clicking came through the earphones, but Eddie knew these indicated no more than a normal background count. There were slight traces of radioactivity in almost all earth or rocks. It was in the air itself, caused by mysterious and ever-present cosmic rays, so there was always a mild background count when the Geiger counter was turned on; but to mean anything, the needle had to jump far ahead on the gauge, and the clicking through the earphones had to speed up until it sounded almost like bacon frying in a hot skillet. 23 There was none of that today. After they had hiked and searched most of the forenoon, Eddie said, “We might as well call it a day, Teena. Doesn’t seem to be anything out here.” “It’s all right with me,” Teena agreed, plucking foxtails from Sandy’s ears. “Pretty hot, anyway. Let’s eat our sandwiches and go back home.” “All right,” Eddie said. “You know, one of these days I’d like to go out to Cedar Point and scout around. Maybe we’ll find something there.” Then he told Teena about his dream. Teena smiled. “A dream sure isn’t much to go on,” she said, “but they say it’s pretty out on Cedar Point. I’ll go any time you want to, Eddie.” She handed him one of the sandwiches. It was midafternoon by the time they arrived back at Teena’s house. They worked a while on a new jigsaw puzzle Teena had received on a recent birthday. Then Eddie said good-by and went on down the street toward his own home. 24 After putting Sandy on his long chain and filling his water dish, Eddie went in the back door. He put the Geiger counter in the closet and went into the kitchen. “What’s for dinner, Mom?” he asked. Mrs. Taylor turned from the sink. Eddie knew at once, just seeing the expression on his mother’s face, that something was wrong. “Dinner?” his mother said absently. “It’s not quite four o’clock yet, Eddie. Besides, dinner may be a little late today.” “But this morning you said it would be early,” Eddie reminded her, puzzled. “This morning I didn’t know what might happen.” 25 Then Eddie heard the sound of his father’s voice coming from the den. There was a strange urgent tone in it. The door to the den was open. Eddie went through the dining room and glanced into the den. His father sat stiffly behind his homemade desk, talking rapidly into the telephone. Eddie caught only the last few sketchy words. Then his father placed the telephone in its cradle, glanced up, and saw Eddie. If there had been even the slightest doubt in Eddie’s mind about something being wrong, it vanished now. Mr. Taylor looked years older than he had that very morning. Worry lay deep in his eyes. He fumbled thoughtfully with a pencil, turning it end over end on his desk. “Hello, son,” he said. He didn’t even ask whether Eddie had discovered any uranium ore that day. Always before, he had shown genuine interest in Eddie’s prospecting trips. “Dad,” Eddie said anxiously, “what—what’s the matter?” “It shows that much, does it, son?” his father said tiredly. “What’s wrong, Dad?” Eddie prompted. “Or can’t you tell me?” Mr. Taylor leaned back. “Quite a bit’s wrong, Eddie,” he said, “and I guess there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. It’ll be in the evening papers, anyway.” 26 “Evening papers?” “Eddie, you remember me mentioning this morning about that radioisotope shipment I was expecting today?” “I remember,” Eddie said. “Did it come?” “It did—and it didn’t,” his father said. “What does that mean, Dad?” Eddie asked, puzzled. “The delivery truck arrived at the school with it,” his father explained, “but while the driver was inquiring where to put it, the container disappeared.” “Disappeared?” “The radioisotope was stolen, Eddie,” his father said slowly. “Stolen right out from under our noses!” 27 CHAPTER TWO At the moment, Eddie didn’t pry for further information on the theft of the valuable radioactive isotope. His father had plenty on his mind, as it was. The main information was in the evening Globe , which Eddie rushed out to get as soon as he heard it plop onto the front porch. He took the newspaper to his father to read first. After having finished, Mr. Taylor handed the paper to Eddie and leaned back thoughtfully in his chair. 28 “They’ve got it pretty straight, at that,” Mr. Taylor said, “but I’m afraid this is going to stir up quite a bit of trouble.” “It wasn’t your fault, was it, Dad?” Eddie defended. “It was as much mine as anybody’s, son,” his father said. “Probably more so. After all, I am head of the department. I knew about the shipment. That should make it my responsibility to see that it was properly received and placed in our atomic-materials storage vault. But there is little point in trying to place the blame on anyone. I’m willing to accept that part of it. The important thing is that we recover that radioisotope. Not only is it of a secret nature, but it is also dangerously radioactive if improperly handled.” “But—but wasn’t it in a safe container?” Eddie asked. 29 “Of course,” his father said. “There were only two ounces of it in a fifty-pound lead capsule. As long as it remains in that capsule it’s safe. As you know, the lead prevents any radiation from escaping. Out of that capsule, however, those two ounces of radioisotope can be very dangerous.” “Fifty pounds,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “That’s a pretty big thing to steal, isn’t it?” “Not when it’s lead, son,” his father replied. “Not much bigger than a two-quart milk bottle, in fact.” “Even at that, no kid could have taken it,” Eddie said. “Kid?” His father smiled thinly. “We don’t think it was any kid, Eddie. Not by a long shot. The whole thing was carefully planned and carefully carried out. It was not the work of amateurs.” Eddie read the newspaper account. The small truck from Drake Ridge, where one of the country’s newest atomic reactors was located, had arrived earlier than expected at Oceanview College. It had backed up to the receiving dock where all of the college supplies were delivered. Since deliveries during vacation months were few, there was no one on the dock when the truck arrived. A half hour later, when the delivery was expected, there would have been. The truck’s early arrival had caught them unprepared. 30 The driver had left the truck and had gone around the building to the front office. It had taken him less than five minutes to locate the receiving-dock foreman. Together, they had returned through the small warehouse and opened the rear door onto the dock. During that short time someone had pried open the heavy padlock on the delivery truck’s rear door and had stolen the fifty-pound lead capsule containing the radioisotope. Dusty footprints on the pavement around the rear of the truck indicated that two men had carried out the theft. A heavy iron pry bar had been dropped at the rear of the truck after the lock was sprung. It was a common type used by carpenters. There were no fingerprints or other identifying marks on it. The footprints were barely visible and of no help other than to indicate that two men were involved in the crime. 31 “Dad,” Eddie asked, looking up from the paper, “how could anyone carry away something weighing fifty pounds without being noticed?” “Chances are they had their car parked nearby,” his father said. “As you know, there are no fences or gates around Oceanview College. People come and go as they please. As a matter of fact, there are always quite a few automobiles parked around the shipping and receiving building, and parking space is scarce even during summer sessions. Anyone could park and wait there unnoticed. Or they could walk around without attracting any undue attention.” “But, Dad,” Eddie continued, “how would the men know that the delivery truck would arrive a half hour early?” “They wouldn’t,” his father said. “They may have had another plan. The way things worked out, they didn’t need to use it. The early delivery and the business of leaving the truck unguarded for a few minutes probably gave them a better opportunity than they had expected. At least, they took quick advantage of it.” 32 “I don’t see what anyone would want with a radioisotope,” Eddie said. “Maybe they figured there was something else inside of that lead capsule.” “That’s unlikely, son,” Mr. Taylor said. “Believe me, it was no common theft. Nor were the thieves ordinary thieves. That isotope was a new one. A very secret one. Our job at the college was to conduct various tests with it in order to find out exactly how it could best be put to use as a cure for disease, or for sterilizing food, or even as a source of power.” “Power?” Eddie said. “Boy, it must have been a strong isotope.” He knew that the strength of radioisotopes could be controlled largely by the length of time they were allowed to “cook” in an atomic reactor and soak up radioactivity. 33 “We weren’t planning to run a submarine with it,” his father said. “It wasn’t that strong. Still, it doesn’t take so very much radioactivity to make two ounces of an isotope quite powerful—and quite deadly. I only hope whoever stole it knows what he’s doing. However, I’m sure he does.” “You mean he must have been an atomic scientist himself?” Eddie asked. “Let’s just say he—or both of them—have enough training in the subject to know how to handle that isotope safely,” Mr. Taylor said. “But, Dad,” Eddie wondered, “what could they do with it?” “They could study it,” his father explained. “At least, they could send it somewhere to be broken down and studied. Being a new isotope, the formula is of great value.” “What do you mean, send it somewhere?” Eddie asked. “Perhaps to some other country.” “Then—then you mean whoever stole it were spies!” Eddie exclaimed breathlessly. “That’s entirely possible,” his father said. “In fact, it’s the only logical explanation I can think of. People simply don’t go around stealing radioactive isotopes without a mighty important reason.” 34 “Dinner’s ready,” Eddie’s mother called from the kitchen. During dinner Eddie wasn’t sure just what he was eating. The idea of spies stealing atomic materials kept building up in his mind. By the time dessert was finished, he was anxious to talk with someone, yet he knew he shouldn’t bother his father with any more questions. He asked if he could go over and visit with Teena for a while. “Well, you were together most of the day,” his mother said, “but I guess it’s all right. Be back in about an hour, though.” It was a balmy evening. On such evenings, he and Teena sometimes walked along the beach barefoot, collecting sea shells. Today Eddie had no desire to do that. He ran down the block. Teena answered his knock. “Come on in, Eddie,” she invited, seeming surprised to see him. “Mother and I are just finishing dinner.” “Oh, I figured you’d be through by now,” Eddie apologized, following her inside. 35 “Hello, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said, but she didn’t seem as cheerful as usual. “Good evening, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie said. “I—I hope I’m not making a pest of myself.” He looked around for Mr. Ross, but Teena’s father apparently hadn’t arrived home from Acme Aircraft yet. There wasn’t a place set for him at the table, either. “You’re never a pest, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross assured him. “I was going to call your mother in a little while about that newspaper write-up.” “Oh, you read it?” Eddie said. “How could anyone miss it?” Teena said. “Right on the front page.” “I suppose your father is quite concerned over it,” Teena’s mother said. “Oh, yes,” Eddie affirmed. “He was the one who ordered the isotope.” “What’s an isotope?” Teena asked. “I’m not sure I know, either,” Mrs. Ross said. “Maybe we could understand more of what it’s all about if you could explain what a radioisotope is, Eddie.” 36 “Well,” Eddie said slowly, “it’s not easy to explain, but I’ll try. You know how rare uranium is. There’s not nearly enough of it to fill all the needs for radioactive materials. Besides, pure uranium is so powerful and expensive and dangerous to handle that it’s not a very good idea to try using it in its true form. So they build an atomic reactor like the one at Drake Ridge.” “We’ve driven by it,” Mrs. Ross said. “My, it’s a big place.” “I’ll say,” Eddie agreed. “Of course, only one building holds the reactor itself. It’s the biggest building near the center.” “I remember it,” Teena said. “Well, the reactor is about four stories high,” Eddie went on. “They call it a uranium ‘pile.’ It’s made up of hundreds and hundreds of graphite bricks. That’s where they get the name ‘pile’—from brick pile. Anyway, scattered around in between the bricks are small bits of uranium. Uranium atoms are radioactive. That is, they keep splitting up and sending out rays.” “Why do they do that?” Teena asked. 37 “It’s just the way nature made uranium, I guess,” Eddie said. “Most atoms stay in one piece, although they move around lickety-split all of the time. Uranium atoms not only move around, but they break apart. They shoot out little particles called neutrons. These neutrons hit other atoms and split them apart, sending out more neutrons. It’s a regular chain reaction.” “I’ve heard of chain reactions,” Mrs. Ross said. “Well, with all of the splitting up and moving around of the uranium atoms,” Eddie went on, “an awful lot of heat builds up. If they don’t control it—well, you’ve seen pictures of atomic-bomb explosions. That’s a chain reaction out of control.” “Out of control is right,” Teena said. 38 “But the atomic piles control the reaction,” Eddie said. “The graphite bricks keep the splitting-up atoms apart so one neutron won’t go smashing into other atoms unless they want it to. They have ways of controlling it so that only as much radiation builds up as they want. You can even hear the reactor hum as the radioactive rays go tearing through it. But by careful tending, the scientists keep the atomic collisions far enough apart so the thing doesn’t blow up.” “Boy, that sounds dangerous,” Teena said. “Well, they know just how to do it,” Eddie replied. “Aren’t the rays dangerous?” Mrs. Ross asked. “I’ll say they’re dangerous,” Eddie said. “But the whole pile is covered by a shield of concrete about eight feet thick. That keeps the rays from getting out and injuring the workmen.” “Goodness. Eight feet is a lot of cement.” “It takes a lot to stop radioactive atomic particles,” Eddie explained. “Especially the gamma rays. They’re the fastest and most dangerous, and the hardest to stop. Alpha and beta rays are fairly easy to stop. But the gamma rays are regular high-velocity invisible bullets. They’ll go right through a stone wall unless it’s plenty thick. Of course, you can’t see them. Not with even the most powerful microscope in the world.” 39 “I wouldn’t want to work around a place where I might get shot at by—by dangerous rays you can’t even see,” Teena said. “I would,” Eddie said. “Everyone is carefully protected. They see to that. Well, anyway, if all of those uranium atoms were shooting radioactive rays around inside of that pile and doing nothing, there would be an awful lot of energy going to waste. So the atomic scientists take certain elements which aren’t radioactive, but can be made radioactive, and shove small pieces of them into holes drilled in the pile.” “Isn’t that dangerous?” Teena asked. “They don’t shove them in with their bare hands,” Eddie said, trying not to show exasperation. “They use long holders to push the small chunks of material into the holes in the reactor. Then, as those uranium atoms keep splitting up and shooting particles around inside of the pile, some of them smack into the chunks of material, and stick there. Most elements will soak up radiation, just like a sponge soaks up water.” 40 “My, that’s interesting, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’ve seen them do it,” Eddie said proudly, then added, “from behind a protective shield, of course. When the material has soaked up enough radiation, they pull it back out. They say it’s ‘cooked.’” “You mean it’s hot?” Teena asked. “It’s hot,” Eddie said, “but not like if it came out of a stove. By hot, they mean it’s radioactive. If you touched it, or even got near it, you would get burned, but you probably wouldn’t even know it for a while. It would be a radiation burn. That’s a kind of burn you don’t feel, but it destroys your blood cells and tissues, and—well, you’ve had it.” “So that’s what a radioisotope is,” Mrs. Ross said. “It’s like a sponge. Only instead of soaking up water, it soaks up radiation.” 41 “That’s about it,” Eddie said. “My dad says that as more is learned about the ways to use isotopes, the whole world is going to be improved. You’ve heard of radiocobalt for curing cancer. Well, that’s an isotope. They make it by cooking cobalt in an atomic reactor. Oh, there are hundreds of different isotopes. Like I said, isotopes can be made of most of the elements. And there are over a hundred elements. Some soak up a lot of radioactivity, and are strong and dangerous. Others absorb only a little and are pretty safe to use. Depends, too, on how long they let them cook in the reactor.” “What kind was the one stolen from the college today?” Teena asked. “Dad didn’t say exactly,” Eddie answered, “except he did say that if whoever took it didn’t know what he was doing and opened up the lead capsule, it could kill him. Of course, even the mild isotopes are deadly if they’re not handled right.” “My goodness, it is a serious matter, isn’t it?” Mrs. Ross said. 42 Eddie nodded. It was even more serious than its threat of danger to anyone who handled it carelessly. It was a new isotope—a secret isotope. His father hadn’t said whether it had been developed for curing things or for destroying things. But many radioisotopes could do either; it depended on how they were used. Eddie assumed that anyone who would stoop to stealing isotopes more than likely would be interested in their ability to destroy rather than their ability to benefit mankind. “Well, I certainly do hope everything works out all right,” Teena’s mother said. “So do I,” Teena agreed. Eddie glanced at the kitchen clock. “Oh, boy,” he said, “I’d better be heading back home. I didn’t mean to come over here and talk so long.” “Oh, we’re glad you did, Eddie,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’m afraid too few of us know anything about this atom business.” 43 “That’s right, Mrs. Ross,” Eddie agreed. “People should talk more and read more about it. After all, this is an atomic age. We might as well face it. My father says that in horse-and-buggy days everyone knew how to feed a horse and grease a wagon wheel. They knew what was needed to get the work done. But now that atoms are being harnessed to do the work, not many people even bother to find out what an atom is.” Mrs. Ross smiled. “I guess you’re right, Eddie,” she said, “but I wouldn’t quite know how to go about feeding an atom.” “Or greasing one,” Teena added. Eddie laughed. “I sure wouldn’t want the job of trying to feed a herd of them the size of a period,” he said. “Did you know that there are about three million billion atoms of carbon in a single period printed at the end of a sentence. That’s how small atoms are.” “Three million billion is a lot of something,” a man’s voice spoke behind him. “What are we talking about, Eddie?” “Oh, hello, Mr. Ross,” Eddie said, turning around and standing up. “I didn’t hear you come in.” 44 Teena’s father was a medium-sized man with light-brown hair which was getting somewhat thin on top. He was usually quite cheerful and full of fun, but tonight his face seemed unusually drawn and sober. He stepped to the table, leaned over, and gave both Teena and Mrs. Ross a kiss on the cheek. “Eddie was telling us about atoms,” Teena’s mother said. “Did you know there were three million billion of them in a period?” “How many in a comma?” Mr. Ross said to Eddie, then added quickly, “forget it, Eddie. It wasn’t very funny. I—I’m afraid I don’t feel very funny tonight.” “Sit down, dear,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’ll warm your dinner. You didn’t sound very cheerful when you called to say you would be late. How did everything go at the plant today?” “Not so good,” Teena’s father said tiredly. “In fact, not good at all.” Problems. It seemed that everyone had problems, Eddie thought, as he started to leave.
Beach Scene by King, Marshall	"Beach Scene", Marshall King, 1954. BEACH SCENE By MARSHALL KING Illustrated by WOOD [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] It was a fine day at the beach for Purnie's game—but his new friends played very rough! Purnie ran laughing and shouting through the forest until he could run no more. He fell headlong into a patch of blue moss and whooped with delight in having this day free for exploring. He was free to see the ocean at last. When he had caught his breath, he looked back through the forest. No sign of the village; he had left it far behind. Safe from the scrutiny of brothers and parents, there was nothing now to stop him from going to the ocean. This was the moment to stop time. "On your mark!" he shouted to the rippling stream and its orange whirlpools. He glanced furtively from side to side, pretending that some object might try to get a head start. "Get set!" he challenged the thin-winged bees that hovered over the abundant foliage. "Stop!" He shrieked this command upward toward the dense, low-hanging purple clouds that perennially raced across the treetops, making one wonder how tall the trees really were. His eyes took quick inventory. It was exactly as he knew it would be: the milky-orange stream had become motionless and its minute whirlpools had stopped whirling; a nearby bee hung suspended over a paka plant, its transparent wings frozen in position for a downward stroke; and the heavy purple fluid overhead held fast in its manufacture of whorls and nimbi. With everything around him in a state of perfect tableau, Purnie hurried toward the ocean. If only the days weren't so short! he thought. There was so much to see and so little time. It seemed that everyone except him had seen the wonders of the beach country. The stories he had heard from his brothers and their friends had taunted him for as long as he could remember. So many times had he heard these thrilling tales that now, as he ran along, he could clearly picture the wonderland as though he were already there. There would be a rockslide of petrified logs to play on, the ocean itself with waves higher than a house, the comical three-legged tripons who never stopped munching on seaweed, and many kinds of other wonderful creatures found only at the ocean. He bounced through the forest as though the world was reserved this day just for him. And who could say it wasn't? he thought. Wasn't this his fifth birthday? He ran along feeling sorry for four-year-olds, and even for those who were only four and a half, for they were babies and wouldn't dare try slipping away to the ocean alone. But five! "I'll set you free, Mr. Bee—just wait and see!" As he passed one of the many motionless pollen-gathering insects he met on the way, he took care not to brush against it or disturb its interrupted task. When Purnie had stopped time, the bees—like all the other creatures he met—had been arrested in their native activities, and he knew that as soon as he resumed time, everything would pick up where it had left off. When he smelled an acid sweetness that told him the ocean was not far off, his pulse quickened in anticipation. Rather than spoil what was clearly going to be a perfect day, he chose to ignore the fact that he had been forbidden to use time-stopping as a convenience for journeying far from home. He chose to ignore the oft-repeated statement that an hour of time-stopping consumed more energy than a week of foot-racing. He chose to ignore the negative maxim that "small children who stop time without an adult being present, may not live to regret it." He chose, instead, to picture the beaming praise of family and friends when they learned of his brave journey. The journey was long, the clock stood still. He stopped long enough to gather some fruit that grew along the path. It would serve as his lunch during this day of promise. With it under his arm he bounded along a dozen more steps, then stopped abruptly in his tracks. He found himself atop a rocky knoll, overlooking the mighty sea! He was so overpowered by the vista before him that his "Hurrah!" came out as a weak squeak. The ocean lay at the ready, its stilled waves awaiting his command to resume their tidal sweep. The breakers along the shoreline hung in varying stages of disarray, some having already exploded into towering white spray while others were poised in smooth orange curls waiting to start that action. And there were new friends everywhere! Overhead, a flock of spora were frozen in a steep glide, preparatory to a beach landing. Purnie had heard of these playful creatures many times. Today, with his brothers in school, he would have the pets all to himself. Further down the beach was a pair of two-legged animals poised in mid-step, facing the spot where Purnie now stood. Some distance behind them were eight more, each of whom were motionless in a curious pose of interrupted animation. And down in the water, where the ocean ran itself into thin nothingness upon the sand, he saw standing here and there the comical tripons, those three-legged marine buffoons who made handsome careers of munching seaweed. "Hi there!" Purnie called. When he got no reaction, he remembered that he himself was "dead" to the living world: he was still in a zone of time-stopping, on the inside looking out. For him, the world would continue to be a tableau of mannikins until he resumed time. "Hi there!" he called again; but now his mental attitude was that he expected time to resume. It did! Immediately he was surrounded by activity. He heard the roar of the crashing orange breakers, he tasted the dew of acid that floated from the spray, and he saw his new friends continue the actions which he had stopped while back in the forest. He knew, too, that at this moment, in the forest, the little brook picked up its flow where it had left off, the purple clouds resumed their leeward journey up the valley, and the bees continued their pollen-gathering without having missed a single stroke of their delicate wings. The brook, the clouds, and the insects had not been interrupted in the least; their respective tasks had been performed with continuing sureness. It was time itself that Purnie had stopped, not the world around him. He scampered around the rockpile and down the sandy cliff to meet the tripons who, to him, had just come to life. "I can stand on my head!" He set down his lunch and balanced himself bottoms-up while his legs pawed the air in an effort to hold him in position. He knew it was probably the worst head-stand he had ever done, for he felt weak and dizzy. Already time-stopping had left its mark on his strength. But his spirits ran on unchecked. The tripon thought Purnie's feat was superb. It stopped munching long enough to give him a salutory wag of its rump before returning to its repast. Purnie ran from pillar to post, trying to see and do everything at once. He looked around to greet the flock of spora, but they had glided to a spot further along the shore. Then, bouncing up to the first of the two-legged animals, he started to burst forth with his habitual "Hi there!" when he heard them making sounds of their own. "... will be no limit to my operations now, Benson. This planet makes seventeen. Seventeen planets I can claim as my own!" "My, my. Seventeen planets. And tell me, Forbes, just what the hell are you going to do with them—mount them on the wall of your den back in San Diego?" "Hi there, wanna play?" Purnie's invitation got nothing more than startled glance from the animals who quickly returned to their chatter. He scampered up the beach, picked up his lunch, and ran back to them, tagging along at their heels. "I've got my lunch, want some?" "Benson, you'd better tell your men back there to stop gawking at the scenery and get to work. Time is money. I didn't pay for this expedition just to give your flunkies a vacation." The animals stopped so suddenly that Purnie nearly tangled himself in their heels. "All right, Forbes, just hold it a minute. Listen to me. Sure, it's your money that put us here; it's your expedition all the way. But you hired me to get you here with the best crew on earth, and that's just what I've done. My job isn't over yet. I'm responsible for the safety of the men while we're here, and for the safe trip home." "Precisely. And since you're responsible, get 'em working. Tell 'em to bring along the flag. Look at the damn fools back there, playing in the ocean with a three-legged ostrich!" "Good God, man, aren't you human? We've only been on this planet twenty minutes! Naturally they want to look around. They half expected to find wild animals or worse, and here we are surrounded by quaint little creatures that run up to us like we're long-lost brothers. Let the men look around a minute or two before we stake out your claim." "Bah! Bunch of damn children." As Purnie followed along, a leg shot out at him and missed. "Benson, will you get this bug-eyed kangaroo away from me!" Purnie shrieked with joy at this new frolic and promptly stood on his head. In this position he got an upside down view of them walking away. He gave up trying to stay with them. Why did they move so fast, anyway? What was the hurry? As he sat down and began eating his lunch, three more of the creatures came along making excited noises, apparently trying to catch up to the first two. As they passed him, he held out his lunch. "Want some?" No response. Playing held more promise than eating. He left his lunch half eaten and went down to where they had stopped further along the beach. "Captain Benson, sir! Miles has detected strong radiation in the vicinity. He's trying to locate it now." "There you are, Forbes. Your new piece of real estate is going to make you so rich that you can buy your next planet. That'll make eighteen, I believe." "Radiation, bah! We've found low-grade ore on every planet I've discovered so far, and this one'll be no different. Now how about that flag? Let's get it up, Benson. And the cornerstone, and the plaque." "All right, lads. The sooner we get Mr. Forbes's pennant raised and his claim staked out, the sooner we can take time to look around. Lively now!" When the three animals went back to join the rest of their group, the first two resumed walking. Purnie followed along. "Well, Benson, you won't have to look far for materials to use for the base of the flag pole. Look at that rockpile up there. "Can't use them. They're petrified logs. The ones on top are too high to carry down, and if we move those on the bottom, the whole works will slide down on top of us." "Well—that's your problem. Just remember, I want this flag pole to be solid. It's got to stand at least—" "Don't worry, Forbes, we'll get your monument erected. What's this with the flag? There must be more to staking a claim than just putting up a flag." "There is, there is. Much more. I've taken care of all requirements set down by law to make my claim. But the flag? Well, you might say it represents an empire, Benson. The Forbes Empire. On each of my flags is the word FORBES, a symbol of development and progress. Call it sentiment if you will." "Don't worry, I won't. I've seen real-estate flags before." "Damn it all, will you stop referring to this as a real-estate deal? What I'm doing is big, man. Big! This is pioneering." "Of course. And if I'm not mistaken, you've set up a neat little escrow system so that you not only own the planets, but you will virtually own the people who are foolish enough to buy land on them." "I could have your hide for talking to me like this. Damn you, man! It's people like me who pay your way. It's people like me who give your space ships some place to go. It's people like me who pour good money into a chancey job like this, so that people like you can get away from thirteen-story tenement houses. Did you ever think of that?" "I imagine you'll triple your money in six months." When they stopped, Purnie stopped. At first he had been interested in the strange sounds they were making, but as he grew used to them, and as they in turn ignored his presence, he hopped alongside chattering to himself, content to be in their company. He heard more of these sounds coming from behind, and he turned to see the remainder of the group running toward them. "Captain Benson! Here's the flag, sir. And here's Miles with the scintillometer. He says the radiation's getting stronger over this way!" "How about that, Miles?" "This thing's going wild, Captain. It's almost off scale." Purnie saw one of the animals hovering around him with a little box. Thankful for the attention, he stood on his head. "Can you do this?" He was overjoyed at the reaction. They all started making wonderful noises, and he felt most satisfied. "Stand back, Captain! Here's the source right here! This little chuck-walla's hotter than a plutonium pile!" "Let me see that, Miles. Well, I'll be damned! Now what do you suppose—" By now they had formed a widening circle around him, and he was hard put to think of an encore. He gambled on trying a brand new trick: he stood on one leg. "Benson, I must have that animal! Put him in a box." "Now wait a minute, Forbes. Universal Law forbids—" "This is my planet and I am the law. Put him in a box!" "With my crew as witness, I officially protest—" "Good God, what a specimen to take back. Radio-active animals! Why, they can reproduce themselves, of course! There must be thousands of these creatures around here someplace. And to think of those damn fools on Earth with their plutonium piles! Hah! Now I'll have investors flocking to me. How about it, Benson—does pioneering pay off or doesn't it?" "Not so fast. Since this little fellow is radioactive, there may be great danger to the crew—" "Now look here! You had planned to put mineral specimens in a lead box, so what's the difference? Put him in a box." "He'll die." "I have you under contract, Benson! You are responsible to me, and what's more, you are on my property. Put him in a box." Purnie was tired. First the time-stopping, then this. While this day had brought more fun and excitement than he could have hoped for, the strain was beginning to tell. He lay in the center of the circle happily exhausted, hoping that his friends would show him some of their own tricks. He didn't have to wait long. The animals forming the circle stepped back and made way for two others who came through carrying a box. Purnie sat up to watch the show. "Hell, Captain, why don't I just pick him up? Looks like he has no intention of running away." "Better not, Cabot. Even though you're shielded, no telling what powers the little fella has. Play it safe and use the rope." "I swear he knows what we're saying. Look at those eyes." "All right, careful now with that line." "Come on, baby. Here you go. That's a boy!" Purnie took in these sounds with perplexed concern. He sensed the imploring quality of the creature with the rope, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He cocked his head to one side as he wiggled in anticipation. He saw the noose spinning down toward his head, and, before he knew it, he had scooted out of the circle and up the sandy beach. He was surprised at himself for running away. Why had he done it? He wondered. Never before had he felt this fleeting twinge that made him want to protect himself. He watched the animals huddle around the box on the beach, their attention apparently diverted to something else. He wished now that he had not run away; he felt he had lost his chance to join in their fun. "Wait!" He ran over to his half-eaten lunch, picked it up, and ran back into the little crowd. "I've got my lunch, want some?" The party came to life once more. His friends ran this way and that, and at last Purnie knew that the idea was to get him into the box. He picked up the spirit of the tease, and deliberately ran within a few feet of the lead box, then, just as the nearest pursuer was about to push him in, he sidestepped onto safer ground. Then he heard a deafening roar and felt a warm, wet sting in one of his legs. "Forbes, you fool! Put away that gun!" "There you are, boys. It's all in knowing how. Just winged him, that's all. Now pick him up." The pang in his leg was nothing: Purnie's misery lay in his confusion. What had he done wrong? When he saw the noose spinning toward him again, he involuntarily stopped time. He knew better than to use this power carelessly, but his action now was reflex. In that split second following the sharp sting in his leg, his mind had grasped in all directions to find an acceptable course of action. Finding none, it had ordered the stoppage of time. The scene around him became a tableau once more. The noose hung motionless over his head while the rest of the rope snaked its way in transverse waves back to one of the two-legged animals. Purnie dragged himself through the congregation, whimpering from his inability to understand. As he worked his way past one creature after another, he tried at first to not look them in the eye, for he felt sure he had done something wrong. Then he thought that by sneaking a glance at them as he passed, he might see a sign pointing to their purpose. He limped by one who had in his hand a small shiny object that had been emitting smoke from one end; the smoke now billowed in lifeless curls about the animal's head. He hobbled by another who held a small box that had previously made a hissing sound whenever Purnie was near. These things told him nothing. Before starting his climb up the knoll, he passed a tripon which, true to its reputation, was comical even in fright. Startled by the loud explosion, it had jumped four feet into the air before Purnie had stopped time. Now it hung there, its beak stuffed with seaweed and its three legs drawn up into a squatting position. Leaving the assorted statues behind, he limped his way up the knoll, torn between leaving and staying. What an odd place, this ocean country! He wondered why he had not heard more detail about the beach animals. Reaching the top of the bluff, he looked down upon his silent friends with a feeling of deep sorrow. How he wished he were down there playing with them. But he knew at last that theirs was a game he didn't fit into. Now there was nothing left but to resume time and start the long walk home. Even though the short day was nearly over, he knew he didn't dare use time-stopping to get himself home in nothing flat. His fatigued body and clouded mind were strong signals that he had already abused this faculty. When Purnie started time again, the animal with the noose stood in open-mouthed disbelief as the rope fell harmlessly to the sand—on the spot where Purnie had been standing. "My God, he's—he's gone." Then another of the animals, the one with the smoking thing in his hand, ran a few steps toward the noose, stopped and gaped at the rope. "All right, you people, what's going on here? Get him in that box. What did you do with him?" The resumption of time meant nothing at all to those on the beach, for to them time had never stopped. The only thing they could be sure of was that at one moment there had been a fuzzy creature hopping around in front of them, and the next moment he was gone. "Is he invisible, Captain? Where is he?" "Up there, Captain! On those rocks. Isn't that him?" "Well, I'll be damned!" "Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible for this! Now that you've botched it up, I'll bring him down my own way." "Just a minute, Forbes, let me think. There's something about that fuzzy little devil that we should.... Forbes! I warned you about that gun!" Purnie moved across the top of the rockpile for a last look at his friends. His weight on the end of the first log started the slide. Slowly at first, the giant pencils began cascading down the short distance to the sand. Purnie fell back onto solid ground, horrified at the spectacle before him. The agonizing screams of the animals below filled him with hysteria. The boulders caught most of them as they stood ankle-deep in the surf. Others were pinned down on the sand. "I didn't mean it!" Purnie screamed. "I'm sorry! Can't you hear?" He hopped back and forth near the edge of the rise, torn with panic and shame. "Get up! Please get up!" He was horrified by the moans reaching his ears from the beach. "You're getting all wet! Did you hear me? Please get up." He was choked with rage and sorrow. How could he have done this? He wanted his friends to get up and shake themselves off, tell him it was all right. But it was beyond his power to bring it about. The lapping tide threatened to cover those in the orange surf. Purnie worked his way down the hill, imploring them to save themselves. The sounds they made carried a new tone, a desperate foreboding of death. "Rhodes! Cabot! Can you hear me?" "I—I can't move, Captain. My leg, it's.... My God, we're going to drown!" "Look around you, Cabot. Can you see anyone moving?" "The men on the beach are nearly buried, Captain. And the rest of us here in the water—" "Forbes. Can you see Forbes? Maybe he's—" His sounds were cut off by a wavelet gently rolling over his head. Purnie could wait no longer. The tides were all but covering one of the animals, and soon the others would be in the same plight. Disregarding the consequences, he ordered time to stop. Wading down into the surf, he worked a log off one victim, then he tugged the animal up to the sand. Through blinding tears, Purnie worked slowly and carefully. He knew there was no hurry—at least, not as far as his friends' safety was concerned. No matter what their condition of life or death was at this moment, it would stay the same way until he started time again. He made his way deeper into the orange liquid, where a raised hand signalled the location of a submerged body. The hand was clutching a large white banner that was tangled among the logs. Purnie worked the animal free and pulled it ashore. It was the one who had been carrying the shiny object that spit smoke. Scarcely noticing his own injured leg, he ferried one victim after another until there were no more in the surf. Up on the beach, he started unraveling the logs that pinned down the animals caught there. He removed a log from the lap of one, who then remained in a sitting position, his face contorted into a frozen mask of agony and shock. Another, with the weight removed, rolled over like an iron statue into a new position. Purnie whimpered in black misery as he surveyed the chaotic scene before him. At last he could do no more; he felt consciousness slipping away from him. He instinctively knew that if he lost his senses during a period of time-stopping, events would pick up where they had left off ... without him. For Purnie, this would be death. If he had to lose consciousness, he knew he must first resume time. Step by step he plodded up the little hill, pausing every now and then to consider if this were the moment to start time before it was too late. With his energy fast draining away, he reached the top of the knoll, and he turned to look down once more on the group below. Then he knew how much his mind and body had suffered: when he ordered time to resume, nothing happened. His heart sank. He wasn't afraid of death, and he knew that if he died the oceans would roll again and his friends would move about. But he wanted to see them safe. He tried to clear his mind for supreme effort. There was no urging time to start. He knew he couldn't persuade it by bits and pieces, first slowly then full ahead. Time either progressed or it didn't. He had to take one viewpoint or the other. Then, without knowing exactly when it happened, his mind took command.... His friends came to life. The first one he saw stir lay on his stomach and pounded his fists on the beach. A flood of relief settled over Purnie as sounds came from the animal. "What's the matter with me? Somebody tell me! Am I nuts? Miles! Schick! What's happening?" "I'm coming, Rhodes! Heaven help us, man—I saw it, too. We're either crazy or those damn logs are alive!" "It's not the logs. How about us? How'd we get out of the water? Miles, we're both cracking." "I'm telling you, man, it's the logs, or rocks or whatever they are. I was looking right at them. First they're on top of me, then they're piled up over there!" "Damnit, the logs didn't pick us up out of the ocean, did they? Captain Benson!" "Are you men all right?" "Yes sir, but—" "Who saw exactly what happened?" "I'm afraid we're not seeing right, Captain. Those logs—" "I know, I know. Now get hold of yourselves. We've got to round up the others and get out of here while time is on our side." "But what happened, Captain?" "Hell, Rhodes, don't you think I'd like to know? Those logs are so old they're petrified. The whole bunch of us couldn't lift one. It would take super-human energy to move one of those things." "I haven't seen anything super-human. Those ostriches down there are so busy eating seaweed—" "All right, let's bear a hand here with the others. Some of them can't walk. Where's Forbes?" "He's sitting down there in the water, Captain, crying like a baby. Or laughing. I can't tell which." "We'll have to get him. Miles, Schick, come along. Forbes! You all right?" "Ho-ho-ho! Seventeen! Seventeen! Seventeen planets, Benson, and they'll do anything I say! This one's got a mind of its own. Did you see that little trick with the rocks? Ho-ho!" "See if you can find his gun, Schick; he'll either kill himself or one of us. Tie his hands and take him back to the ship. We'll be along shortly." "Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible for this. Hee-hee!" Purnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone? He pulled himself along on his stomach to a position between two rocks, where he could see without being seen. By the light of the twin moons he saw that they were leaving, marching away in groups of two and three, the weak helping the weaker. As they disappeared around the curving shoreline, the voices of the last two, bringing up the rear far behind the others, fell faintly on his ears over the sound of the surf. "Is it possible that we're all crazy, Captain?" "It's possible, but we're not." "I wish I could be sure." "See Forbes up ahead there? What do you think of him?" "I still can't believe it." "He'll never be the same." "Tell me something. What was the most unusual thing you noticed back there?" "You must be kidding, sir. Why, the way those logs were off of us suddenly—" "Yes, of course. But I mean beside that." "Well, I guess I was kind of busy. You know, scared and mixed up." "But didn't you notice our little pop-eyed friend?" "Oh, him. I'm afraid not, Captain. I—I guess I was thinking mostly of myself." "Hmmm. If I could only be sure I saw him. If only someone else saw him too." "I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir." "Well, damn it all, you know that Forbes took a pot shot at him. Got him in the leg. That being the case, why would the fuzzy little devil come back to his tormentors—back to us—when we were trapped under those logs?" "Well, I guess as long as we were trapped, he figured we couldn't do him any more harm.... I'm sorry, that was a stupid answer. I guess I'm still a little shaky." "Forget it. Look, you go ahead to the ship and make ready for take-off. I'll join you in a few minutes. I think I'll go back and look around. You know. Make sure we haven't left anyone." "No need to do that. They're all ahead of us. I've checked." "That's my responsibility, Cabot, not yours. Now go on." As Purnie lay gathering strength for the long trek home, he saw through glazed eyes one of the animals coming back along the beach. When it was nearly directly below him, he could hear it making sounds that by now had become familiar. "Where are you?" Purnie paid little attention to the antics of his friend; he was beyond understanding. He wondered what they would say at home when he returned. "We've made a terrible mistake. We—" The sounds faded in and out on Purnie's ears as the creature turned slowly and called in different directions. He watched the animal walk over to the pile of scattered logs and peer around and under them. "If you're hurt I'd like to help!" The twin moons were high in the sky now, and where their light broke through the swirling clouds a double shadow was cast around the animal. With foggy awareness, Purnie watched the creature shake its head slowly, then walk away in the direction of the others. Purnie's eyes stared, without seeing, at the panorama before him. The beach was deserted now, and his gaze was transfixed on a shimmering white square floating on the ocean. Across it, the last thing Purnie ever saw, was emblazoned the word FORBES.
Big Ancestor by Wallace, F. L. (Floyd L.)	"Big Ancestor", F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace, 1960. BIG ANCESTOR By F. L. WALLACE Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction November 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Man's family tree was awesome enough to give every galactic race an inferiority complex—but then he tried to climb it! In repose, Taphetta the Ribboneer resembled a fancy giant bow on a package. His four flat legs looped out and in, the ends tucked under his wide, thin body, which constituted the knot at the middle. His neck was flat, too, arching out in another loop. Of all his features, only his head had appreciable thickness and it was crowned with a dozen long though narrower ribbons. Taphetta rattled the head fronds together in a surprisingly good imitation of speech. "Yes, I've heard the legend." "It's more than a legend," said Sam Halden, biologist. The reaction was not unexpected—non-humans tended to dismiss the data as convenient speculation and nothing more. "There are at least a hundred kinds of humans, each supposedly originating in strict seclusion on as many widely scattered planets. Obviously there was no contact throughout the ages before space travel— and yet each planetary race can interbreed with a minimum of ten others ! That's more than a legend—one hell of a lot more!" "It is impressive," admitted Taphetta. "But I find it mildly distasteful to consider mating with someone who does not belong to my species." "That's because you're unique," said Halden. "Outside of your own world, there's nothing like your species, except superficially, and that's true of all other creatures, intelligent or not, with the sole exception of mankind. Actually, the four of us here, though it's accidental, very nearly represent the biological spectrum of human development. "Emmer, a Neanderthal type and our archeologist, is around the beginning of the scale. I'm from Earth, near the middle, though on Emmer's side. Meredith, linguist, is on the other side of the middle. And beyond her, toward the far end, is Kelburn, mathematician. There's a corresponding span of fertility. Emmer just misses being able to breed with my kind, but there's a fair chance that I'd be fertile with Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may extend to Kelburn." Taphetta rustled his speech ribbons quizzically. "But I thought it was proved that some humans did originate on one planet, that there was an unbroken line of evolution that could be traced back a billion years." "You're thinking of Earth," said Halden. "Humans require a certain kind of planet. It's reasonable to assume that, if men were set down on a hundred such worlds, they'd seem to fit in with native life-forms on a few of them. That's what happened on Earth; when Man arrived, there was actually a manlike creature there. Naturally our early evolutionists stretched their theories to cover the facts they had. "But there are other worlds in which humans who were there before the Stone Age aren't related to anything else there. We have to conclude that Man didn't originate on any of the planets on which he is now found. Instead, he evolved elsewhere and later was scattered throughout this section of the Milky Way." "And so, to account for the unique race that can interbreed across thousands of light-years, you've brought in the big ancestor," commented Taphetta dryly. "It seems an unnecessary simplification." "Can you think of a better explanation?" asked Kelburn. "Something had to distribute one species so widely and it's not the result of parallel evolution—not when a hundred human races are involved, and only the human race." "I can't think of a better explanation." Taphetta rearranged his ribbons. "Frankly, no one else is much interested in Man's theories about himself." It was easy to understand the attitude. Man was the most numerous though not always the most advanced—Ribboneers had a civilization as high as anything in the known section of the Milky Way, and there were others—and humans were more than a little feared. If they ever got together—but they hadn't except in agreement as to their common origin. Still, Taphetta the Ribboneer was an experienced pilot and could be very useful. A clear statement of their position was essential in helping him make up his mind. "You've heard of the adjacency mating principle?" asked Sam Halden. "Vaguely. Most people have if they've been around men." "We've got new data and are able to interpret it better. The theory is that humans who can mate with each other were once physically close. We've got a list of all our races arranged in sequence. If planetary race F can mate with race E back to A and forward to M, and race G is fertile only back to B, but forward to O, then we assume that whatever their positions are now, at once time G was actually adjacent to F, but was a little further along. When we project back into time those star systems on which humans existed prior to space travel, we get a certain pattern. Kelburn can explain it to you." The normally pink body of the Ribboneer flushed slightly. The color change was almost imperceptible, but it was enough to indicate that he was interested. Kelburn went to the projector. "It would be easier if we knew all the stars in the Milky Way, but though we've explored only a small portion of it, we can reconstruct a fairly accurate representation of the past." He pressed the controls and stars twinkled on the screen. "We're looking down on the plane of the Galaxy. This is one arm of it as it is today and here are the human systems." He pressed another control and, for purposes of identification, certain stars became more brilliant. There was no pattern, merely a scattering of stars. "The whole Milky Way is rotating. And while stars in a given region tend to remain together, there's also a random motion. Here's what happens when we calculate the positions of stars in the past." Flecks of light shifted and flowed across the screen. Kelburn stopped the motion. "Two hundred thousand years ago," he said. There was a pattern of the identified stars. They were spaced at fairly equal intervals along a regular curve, a horseshoe loop that didn't close, though if the ends were extended, the lines would have crossed. Taphetta rustled. "The math is accurate?" "As accurate as it can be with a million-plus body problem." "And that's the hypothetical route of the unknown ancestor?" "To the best of our knowledge," said Kelburn. "And whereas there are humans who are relatively near and not fertile, they can always mate with those they were adjacent to two hundred thousand years ago !" "The adjacency mating principle. I've never seen it demonstrated," murmured Taphetta, flexing his ribbons. "Is that the only era that satisfies the calculations?" "Plus or minus a hundred thousand years, we can still get something that might be the path of a spaceship attempting to cover a representative section of territory," said Kelburn. "However, we have other ways of dating it. On some worlds on which there are no other mammals, we're able to place the first human fossils chronologically. The evidence is sometimes contradictory, but we believe we've got the time right." Taphetta waved a ribbon at the chart. "And you think that where the two ends of the curve cross is your original home?" "We think so," said Kelburn. "We've narrowed it down to several cubic light-years—then. Now it's far more. And, of course, if it were a fast-moving star, it might be completely out of the field of our exploration. But we're certain we've got a good chance of finding it this trip." "It seems I must decide quickly." The Ribboneer glanced out the visionport, where another ship hung motionless in space beside them. "Do you mind if I ask other questions?" "Go ahead," Kelburn invited sardonically. "But if it's not math, you'd better ask Halden. He's the leader of the expedition." Halden flushed; the sarcasm wasn't necessary. It was true that Kelburn was the most advanced human type present, but while there were differences, biological and in the scale of intelligence, it wasn't as great as once was thought. Anyway, non-humans weren't trained in the fine distinctions that men made among themselves. And, higher or lower, he was as good a biologist as the other was a mathematician. And there was the matter of training; he'd been on several expeditions and this was Kelburn's first trip. Damn it, he thought, that rated some respect. The Ribboneer shifted his attention. "Aside from the sudden illness of your pilot, why did you ask for me?" "We didn't. The man became sick and required treatment we can't give him. Luckily, a ship was passing and we hailed it because it's four months to the nearest planet. They consented to take him back and told us that there was a passenger on board who was an experienced pilot. We have men who could do the job in a makeshift fashion, but the region we're heading for, while mapped, is largely unknown. We'd prefer to have an expert—and Ribboneers are famous for their navigational ability." Taphetta crinkled politely at the reference to his skill. "I had other plans, but I can't evade professional obligations, and an emergency such as this should cancel out any previous agreements. Still, what are the incentives?" Sam Halden coughed. "The usual, plus a little extra. We've copied the Ribboneer's standard nature, simplifying it a little and adding a per cent here and there for the crew pilot and scientist's share of the profits from any discoveries we may make." "I'm complimented that you like our contract so well," said Taphetta, "but I really must have our own unsimplified version. If you want me, you'll take my contract. I came prepared." He extended a tightly bound roll that he had kept somewhere on his person. They glanced at one another as Halden took it. "You can read it if you want," offered Taphetta. "But it will take you all day—it's micro-printing. However, you needn't be afraid that I'm defrauding you. It's honored everywhere we go and we go nearly everywhere in this sector—places men have never been." There was no choice if they wanted him, and they did. Besides, the integrity of Ribboneers was not to be questioned. Halden signed. "Good." Taphetta crinkled. "Send it to the ship; they'll forward it for me. And you can tell the ship to go on without me." He rubbed his ribbons together. "Now if you'll get me the charts, I'll examine the region toward which we're heading." Firmon of hydroponics slouched in, a tall man with scanty hair and an equal lack of grace. He seemed to have difficulty in taking his eyes off Meredith, though, since he was a notch or so above her in the mating scale, he shouldn't have been so interested. But his planet had been inexplicably slow in developing and he wasn't completely aware of his place in the human hierarchy. Disdainfully, Meredith adjusted a skirt that, a few inches shorter, wouldn't have been a skirt at all, revealing, while doing so, just how long and beautiful a woman's legs could be. Her people had never given much thought to physical modesty and, with legs like that, it was easy to see why. Muttering something about primitive women, Firmon turned to the biologist. "The pilot doesn't like our air." "Then change it to suit him. He's in charge of the ship and knows more about these things than I do." "More than a man?" Firmon leered at Meredith and, when she failed to smile, added plaintively, "I did try to change it, but he still complains." Halden took a deep breath. "Seems all right to me." "To everybody else, too, but the tapeworm hasn't got lungs. He breathes through a million tubes scattered over his body." It would do no good to explain that Taphetta wasn't a worm, that his evolution had taken a different course, but that he was in no sense less complex than Man. It was a paradox that some biologically higher humans hadn't developed as much as lower races and actually weren't prepared for the multitude of life-forms they'd meet in space. Firmon's reaction was quite typical. "If he asks for cleaner air, it's because his system needs it," said Halden. "Do anything you can to give it to him." "Can't. This is as good as I can get it. Taphetta thought you could do something about it." "Hydroponics is your job. There's nothing I can do." Halden paused thoughtfully. "Is there something wrong with the plants?" "In a way, I guess, and yet not really." "What is it, some kind of toxic condition?" "The plants are healthy enough, but something's chewing them down as fast as they grow." "Insects? There shouldn't be any, but if there are, we've got sprays. Use them." "It's an animal," said Firmon. "We tried poison and got a few, but now they won't touch the stuff. I had electronics rig up some traps. The animals seem to know what they are and we've never caught one that way." Halden glowered at the man. "How long has this been going on?" "About three months. It's not bad; we can keep up with them." It was probably nothing to become alarmed at, but an animal on the ship was a nuisance, doubly so because of their pilot. "Tell me what you know about it," said Halden. "They're little things." Firmon held out his hands to show how small. "I don't know how they got on, but once they did, there were plenty of places to hide." He looked up defensively. "This is an old ship with new equipment and they hide under the machinery. There's nothing we can do except rebuild the ship from the hull inward." Firmon was right. The new equipment had been installed in any place just to get it in and now there were inaccessible corners and crevices everywhere that couldn't be closed off without rebuilding. They couldn't set up a continuous watch and shoot the animals down because there weren't that many men to spare. Besides, the use of weapons in hydroponics would cause more damage to the thing they were trying to protect than to the pest. He'd have to devise other ways. Sam Halden got up. "I'll take a look and see what I can do." "I'll come along and help," said Meredith, untwining her legs and leaning against him. "Your mistress ought to have some sort of privileges." Halden started. So she knew that the crew was calling her that! Perhaps it was intended to discourage Firmon, but he wished she hadn't said it. It didn't help the situation at all. Taphetta sat in a chair designed for humans. With a less flexible body, he wouldn't have fitted. Maybe it wasn't sitting, but his flat legs were folded neatly around the arms and his head rested comfortably on the seat. The head ribbons, which were his hands and voice, were never quite still. He looked from Halden to Emmer and back again. "The hydroponics tech tells me you're contemplating an experiment. I don't like it." Halden shrugged. "We've got to have better air. It might work." "Pests on the ship? It's filthy! My people would never tolerate it!" "Neither do we." The Ribboneer's distaste subsided. "What kind of creatures are they?" "I have a description, though I've never seen one. It's a small four-legged animal with two antennae at the lower base of its skull. A typical pest." Taphetta rustled. "Have you found out how it got on?" "It was probably brought in with the supplies," said the biologist. "Considering how far we've come, it may have been any one of a half a dozen planets. Anyway, it hid, and since most of the places it had access to were near the outer hull, it got an extra dose of hard radiation, or it may have nested near the atomic engines; both are possibilities. Either way, it mutated, became a different animal. It's developed a tolerance for the poisons we spray on plants. Other things it detects and avoids, even electronic traps." "Then you believe it changed mentally as well as physically, that it's smarter?" "I'd say that, yes. It must be a fairly intelligent creature to be so hard to get rid of. But it can be lured into traps, if the bait's strong enough." "That's what I don't like," said Taphetta, curling. "Let me think it over while I ask questions." He turned to Emmer. "I'm curious about humans. Is there anything else you can tell me about the hypothetical ancestor?" Emmer didn't look like the genius he was—a Neanderthal genius, but nonetheless a real one. In his field, he rated very high. He raised a stubble-flecked cheek from a large thick-fingered paw and ran shaggy hands through shaggier hair. "I can speak with some authority," he rumbled. "I was born on a world with the most extensive relics. As a child, I played in the ruins of their camp." "I don't question your authority," crinkled Taphetta. "To me, all humans—late or early and male or female—look remarkably alike. If you are an archeologist, that's enough for me." He paused and flicked his speech ribbons. "Camp, did you say?" Emmer smiled, unsheathing great teeth. "You've never seen any pictures? Impressive, but just a camp, monolithic one-story structures, and we'd give something to know what they're made of. Presumably my world was one of the first they stopped at. They weren't used to roughing it, so they built more elaborately than they did later on. One-story structures and that's how we can guess at their size. The doorways were forty feet high." "Very large," agreed Taphetta. It was difficult to tell whether he was impressed. "What did you find in the ruins?" "Nothing," said Emmer. "There were buildings there and that was all, not a scrap of writing or a tool or a single picture. They covered a route estimated at thirty thousand light-years in less than five thousand years—and not one of them died that we have a record of." "A faster-than-light drive and an extremely long life," mused Taphetta. "But they didn't leave any information for their descendants. Why?" "Who knows? Their mental processes were certainly far different from ours. They may have thought we'd be better off without it. We do know they were looking for a special kind of planet, like Earth, because they visited so many of that type, yet different from it because they never stayed. They were pretty special people themselves, big and long-lived, and maybe they couldn't survive on any planet they found. Perhaps they had ways of determining there wasn't the kind of planet they needed in the entire Milky Way. Their science was tremendously advanced and when they learned that, they may have altered their germ plasm and left us, hoping that some of us would survive. Most of us did." "This special planet sounds strange," murmured Taphetta. "Not really," said Emmer. "Fifty human races reached space travel independently and those who did were scattered equally among early and late species. It's well known that individuals among my people are often as bright as any of Halden's or Meredith's, but as a whole we don't have the total capacity that later Man does, and yet we're as advanced in civilization. The difference? It must lie somewhere in the planets we live on and it's hard to say just what it is." "What happened to those who didn't develop space travel?" asked Taphetta. "We helped them," said Emmer. And they had, no matter who or what they were, biologically late or early, in the depths of the bronze age or the threshold of atomic—because they were human. That was sometimes a frightening thing for non-humans, that the race stuck together. They weren't actually aggressive, but their total number was great and they held themselves aloof. The unknown ancestor again. Who else had such an origin and, it was tacitly assumed, such a destiny? Taphetta changed his questioning. "What do you expect to gain from this discovery of the unknown ancestor?" It was Halden who answered him. "There's the satisfaction of knowing where we came from." "Of course," rustled the Ribboneer. "But a lot of money and equipment was required for this expedition. I can't believe that the educational institutions that are backing you did so purely out of intellectual curiosity." "Cultural discoveries," rumbled Emmer. "How did our ancestors live? When a creature is greatly reduced in size, as we are, more than physiology is changed—the pattern of life itself is altered. Things that were easy for them are impossible for us. Look at their life span." "No doubt," said Taphetta. "An archeologist would be interested in cultural discoveries." "Two hundred thousand years ago, they had an extremely advanced civilization," added Halden. "A faster-than-light drive, and we've achieved that only within the last thousand years." "But I think we have a better one than they did," said the Ribboneer. "There may be things we can learn from them in mechanics or physics, but wouldn't you say they were better biologists than anything else?" Halden nodded. "Agreed. They couldn't find a suitable planet. So, working directly with their germ plasm, they modified themselves and produced us. They were master biologists." "I thought so," said Taphetta. "I never paid much attention to your fantastic theories before I signed to pilot this ship, but you've built up a convincing case." He raised his head, speech ribbons curling fractionally and ceaselessly. "I don't like to, but we'll have to risk using bait for your pest." He'd have done it anyway, but it was better to have the pilot's consent. And there was one question Halden wanted to ask; it had been bothering him vaguely. "What's the difference between the Ribboneer contract and the one we offered you? Our terms are more liberal." "To the individual, they are, but it won't matter if you discover as much as you think you will. The difference is this: My terms don't permit you to withhold any discovery for the benefit of one race." Taphetta was wrong; there had been no intention of withholding anything. Halden examined his own attitudes. He hadn't intended, but could he say that was true of the institutions backing the expedition? He couldn't, and it was too late now—whatever knowledge they acquired would have to be shared. That was what Taphetta had been afraid of—there was one kind of technical advancement that multiplied unceasingly. The race that could improve itself through scientific control of its germ plasm had a start that could never be headed. The Ribboneer needn't worry now. "Why do we have to watch it on the screen?" asked Meredith, glancing up. "I'd rather be in hydroponics." Halden shrugged. "They may or may not be smarter than planetbound animals, but they're warier. They don't come out when anyone's near." Lights dimmed in the distant hydroponic section and the screen with it, until he adjusted the infra-red frequencies. He motioned to the two crew members, each with his own peculiar screen, below which was a miniature keyboard. "Ready?" When they nodded, Halden said: "Do as you've rehearsed. Keep noise at a minimum, but when you do use it, be vague. Don't try to imitate them exactly." At first, nothing happened on the big screen, and then a gray shape crept out. It slid through leaves, listened intently before coming forward. It jumped off one hydroponic section and fled across the open floor to the next. It paused, eyes glittering and antennae twitching. Looking around once, it leaped up, seizing the ledge and clawing up the side of the tank. Standing on top and rising to its haunches, it began nibbling what it could reach. Suddenly it whirled. Behind it and hitherto unnoticed was another shape, like it but larger. The newcomer inched forward. The small one retreated, skittering nervously. Without warning, the big one leaped and the small one tried to flee. In a few jumps, the big one caught up and mauled the other unmercifully. It continued to bite even after the little one lay still. At last it backed off and waited, watching for signs of motion. There was none. Then it turned to the plant. When it had chewed off everything within reach, it climbed into the branches. The little one twitched, moved a leg, and cautiously began dragging itself away. It rolled off the raised section and surprisingly made no noise as it fell. It seemed to revive, shaking itself and scurrying away, still within range of the screen. Against the wall was a small platform. The little one climbed on top and there found something that seemed to interest it. It sniffed around and reached and felt the discovery. Wounds were forgotten as it snatched up the object and frisked back to the scene of its recent defeat. This time it had no trouble with the raised section. It leaped and landed on top and made considerable noise in doing so. The big animal heard and twisted around. It saw and clambered down hastily, jumping the last few feet. Squealing, it hit the floor and charged. The small one stood still till the last instant—and then a paw flickered out and an inch-long knife blade plunged into the throat of the charging creature. Red spurted out as the bigger beast screamed. The knife flashed in and out until the big animal collapsed and stopped moving. The small creature removed the knife and wiped it on the pelt of its foe. Then it scampered back to the platform on which the knife had been found— and laid it down . At Halden's signal, the lights flared up and the screen became too bright for anything to be visible. "Go in and get them," said Halden. "We don't want the pests to find out that the bodies aren't flesh." "It was realistic enough," said Meredith as the crewmen shut off their machines and went out. "Do you think it will work?" "It might. We had an audience." "Did we? I didn't notice." Meredith leaned back. "Were the puppets exactly like the pests? And if not, will the pests be fooled?" "The electronic puppets were a good imitation, but the animals don't have to identify them as their species. If they're smart enough, they'll know the value of a knife, no matter who uses it." "What if they're smarter? Suppose they know a knife can't be used by a creature without real hands?" "That's part of our precautions. They'll never know until they try—and they'll never get away from the trap to try." "Very good. I never thought of that," said Meredith, coming closer. "I like the way your primitive mind works. At times I actually think of marrying you." "Primitive," he said, alternately frozen and thawed, though he knew that, in relation to her, he was not advanced. "It's almost a curse, isn't it?" She laughed and took the curse away by leaning provocatively against him. "But barbaric lovers are often nice." Here we go again, he thought drearily, sliding his arm around her. To her, I'm merely a passionate savage. They went to his cabin. She sat down, smiling. Was she pretty? Maybe. For her own race, she wasn't tall, only by Terran standards. Her legs were disproportionately long and well shaped and her face was somewhat bland and featureless, except for a thin, straight, short nose. It was her eyes that made the difference, he decided. A notch or two up the scale of visual development, her eyes were larger and she could see an extra color on the violet end of the spectrum. She settled back and looked at him. "It might be fun living with you on primeval Earth." He said nothing; she knew as well as he that Earth was as advanced as her own world. She had something else in mind. "I don't think I will, though. We might have children." "Would it be wrong?" he asked. "I'm as intelligent as you. We wouldn't have subhuman monsters." "It would be a step up—for you." Under her calm, there was tension. It had been there as long as he'd known her, but it was closer to the surface now. "Do I have the right to condemn the unborn? Should I make them start lower than I am?" The conflict was not new nor confined to them. In one form or another, it governed personal relations between races that were united against non-humans, but held sharp distinctions themselves. "I haven't asked you to marry me," he said bluntly. "Because you're afraid I'd refuse." It was true; no one asked a member of a higher race to enter a permanent union. "Why did you ever have anything to do with me?" demanded Halden. "Love," she said gloomily. "Physical attraction. But I can't let it lead me astray." "Why not make a play for Kelburn? If you're going to be scientific about it, he'd give you children of the higher type." "Kelburn." It didn't sound like a name, the way she said it. "I don't like him and he wouldn't marry me." "He wouldn't, but he'd give you children if you were humble enough. There's a fifty per cent chance you might conceive." She provocatively arched her back. Not even the women of Kelburn's race had a body like hers and she knew it. "Racially, there should be a chance," she said. "Actually, Kelburn and I would be infertile." "Can you be sure?" he asked, knowing it was a poor attempt to act unconcerned. "How can anyone be sure on a theoretical basis?" she asked, an oblique smile narrowing her eyes. "I know we can't." His face felt anesthetized. "Did you have to tell me that?" She got up and came to him. She nuzzled against him and his reaction was purely reflexive. His hand swung out and he could feel the flesh give when his knuckles struck it. She fell back and dazedly covered her face with her hand. When she took it away, blood spurted. She groped toward the mirror and stood in front of it. She wiped the blood off, examining her features carefully. "You've broken my nose," she said factually. "I'll have to stop the blood and pain." She pushed her nose back into place and waggled it to make sure. She closed her eyes and stood silent and motionless. Then she stepped back and looked at herself critically. "It's set and partially knitted. I'll concentrate tonight and have it healed by morning." She felt in the cabinet and attached an invisible strip firmly across the bridge. Then she came over to him. "I wondered what you'd do. You didn't disappoint me." He scowled miserably at her. Her face was almost plain and the bandage, invisible or not, didn't improve her appearance any. How could he still feel that attraction to her? "Try Emmer," he suggested tiredly. "He'll find you irresistible, and he's even more savage than I am." "Is he?" She smiled enigmatically. "Maybe, in a biological sense. Too much, though. You're just right." He sat down on the bed. Again there was only one way of knowing what Emmer would do—and she knew. She had no concept of love outside of the physical, to make use of her body so as to gain an advantage—what advantage?—for the children she intended to have. Outside of that, nothing mattered, and for the sake of alloying the lower with the higher, she was as cruel to herself as she was to him. And yet he wanted her. "I do think I love you," she said. "And if love's enough, I may marry you in spite of everything. But you'll have to watch out whose children I have." She wriggled into his arms. The racial disparity was great and she had provoked him, but it was not completely her fault. Besides.... Besides what? She had a beautiful body that could bear superior children—and they might be his. He twisted away. With those thoughts, he was as bad as she was. Were they all that way, every one of them, crawling upward out of the slime toward the highest goal they could conceive of? Climbing over—no, through —everybody they could coerce, seduce or marry—onward and upward. He raised his hand, but it was against himself that his anger was turned. "Careful of the nose," she said, pressing against him. "You've already broken it once." He kissed her with sudden passion that even he knew was primitive.
Birds of a Feather by Silverberg, Robert	"Birds of a Feather", Robert Silverberg, 1954. Birds of a Feather By ROBERT SILVERBERG Illustrated by WOOD [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine November 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo was no problem—they battled for the honor—but now I had to fight like a wildcat to keep a display from making a monkey of me! It was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see and smell them with ease. My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures—and all of them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old exhibitionist urge. "Send them in one at a time," I told Stebbins. I ducked into the office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to begin. The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals happy wherever I go. Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED—EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding arrival. Stuff like this: Want to visit Earth—see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial, there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science. No freaks wanted—normal beings only. J. F. Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until 2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches can be yours! Broadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind, the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the other species of the universe. The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, "The first applicant is ready to see you, sir." "Send him, her or it in." The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body. There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones, one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth. His voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. "You are Mr. Corrigan?" "That's right." I reached for a data blank. "Before we begin, I'll need certain information about—" "I am a being of Regulus II," came the grave, booming reply, even before I had picked up the blank. "I need no special care and I am not a fugitive from the law of any world." "Your name?" "Lawrence R. Fitzgerald." I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick cough. "Let me have that again, please?" "Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for Raymond." "Of course, that's not the name you were born with." The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation, remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of an apologetic smile. "My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see." The little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained. "You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?" "I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day." "And the pay will be—ah—$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and transportation." The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping on one side, two on the other. "Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I accept the terms!" I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into the other office to sign him up. I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show; the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get to Earth. My conscience won't let me really exploit a being, but I don't believe in throwing money away, either. The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet, four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at anything short of top rate. Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging. The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right. It was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in 2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement. Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down, a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a scientific collection—in short, as an exhibit in a zoo. That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is, of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it. We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms. My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up—if it can. After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids, fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks. It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some 400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan. "One more specimen before lunch," I told Stebbins, "to make it an even dozen." He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman. He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look about him. He said, in level Terran accents, "I'm looking for a job with your outfit, Corrigan." "There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only." "I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz XIII." I don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line at getting bilked myself. "Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known for my sense of humor. Or my generosity." "I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job." "Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as Earthborn as I am." "I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your circus?" "No. And it's not a circus. It's—" "A scientific institute. I stand corrected." There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on his ear without another word. Instead I played along. "If you're from such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?" "I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath—not the kind that reads minds, just the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate back to colloquial speech." "Very clever, Mr. Gorb." I grinned at him and shook my head. "You spin a good yarn—but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb." He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, "You're making a big mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect! Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And—" I pulled away from his yawning mouth. "Good-by, Mr. Gorb," I repeated. "All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big attraction. I'll—" " Good-by, Mr. Gorb! " He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to the door. "I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you another chance." He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile. This was the best con switch yet—an Earthman posing as an alien to get a job! But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's only one human race in the Galaxy—on Earth. I was going to need some real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket home. I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands. The first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan, and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds. Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him officially. He was big even for his kind—in the neighborhood of nine feet high, and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture, and growled, "I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me immediately to a contract." "Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks." "You will grant me a contract!" "Will you please sit down?" He said sulkily, "I will remain standing." "As you prefer." My desk has a few concealed features which are sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of trouble. The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his warlike race. I said, "You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males, because—" "You will hire me or trouble I will make!" I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty. The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. "Yes, you have four representatives—of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn! For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to the noble Clan Gursdrinn!" At the key-word avenge , I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he didn't move. He bellowed, "I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!" I'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and one of the most important of those principles is that I never let myself be bullied by anyone. "I deeply regret having unintentionally insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?" He glared at me in silence. I went on, "Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon as a vacancy—" "No. You will hire me now." "It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to it." "You will rue! I will take drastic measures!" "Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting—" You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting all the others. I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left. They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw, but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was out in the hall. I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins. "Come here, you!" "Stebbins?" I said gently. "I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he came running in—" "Please, please," squeaked the little alien pitifully. "I must see you, honored sir!" "It isn't his turn in line," Stebbins protested. "There are at least fifty ahead of him." "All right," I said tiredly. "As long as he's in here already, I might as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins." Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out. The alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at full volume. "Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with yourself." I said, "I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a female now and—" "This is known to me. The female—is her name perchance Tiress?" I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian entry. "Yes, that's her name." The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. "It is she! It is she!" "I'm afraid we don't have room for any more—" "You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress, she is—was—my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life and my love." "Funny," I said. "When we signed her three years ago, she said she was single. It's right here on the chart." "She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry, languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You must take me to Earth!" "But—" "I must see her—her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner flame? I must bring her back! " My face was expressionless. "You don't really intend to join our organization at all—you just want free passage to Earth?" "Yes, yes!" wailed the Stortulian. "Find some other member of my race, if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead lump of stone?" It isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel happy—not to mention footing the transportation. I said, "I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience lie for you, can I?" "Well—" "Of course not." I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right along. "Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up, I might conceivably have done it. But no—you had to go unburden your heart to me." "I thought the truth would move you." "It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to me," I said piously. "Then you will refuse me?" "My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth." "Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?" There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low trick like that on our female Stortulian. I said, "I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is." The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, "There is no hope then. All is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman." He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping. I watched him shuffle out. I do have some conscience, and I had the uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to commit suicide on my account. About fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life started to get complicated again. Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract. I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII stepped in. "How did you get in here?" I demanded. "Your man happened to be looking the wrong way," he said cheerily. "Change your mind about me yet?" "Get out before I have you thrown out." Gorb shrugged. "I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I tell you that I am Earthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your staff." "I don't care what your story is! Get out or—" "—you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second. Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I—but that fellow of yours outside is . He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?" I scowled at him. "Too damn many." "You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead. I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan." I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of the office before I spoke. "Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is, I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me. I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is that I'm not looking for any of those either. Now will you scram or—" The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian, came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt. "Sorry, Chief," Stebbins gasped. "I tried to keep him out, but—" Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out with a roar. "Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!" Sitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to let him have it at the first sight of actual violence. Heraal boomed, "You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!" "Watch it, Chief," Stebbins yelled. "He's going to—" An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him. Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me. "You are J. F. Corrigan?" the leader asked. "Y-yes." "We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint being—" "—that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the untimely death of an intelligent life-form," filled in the second of the Ghrynian policemen. "The evidence lies before us," intoned the leader, "in the cadaver of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several minutes ago." "And therefore," said the third lizard, "it is our duty to arrest you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than $100,000 Galactic or two years in prison." "Hold on!" I stormed. "You mean that any being from anywhere in the Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and I'm responsible?" "This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?" "Well, no, but—" "Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman." Closing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000 per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall. I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced arrival. The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a moment and turned to eye the newcomer. I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again—or, if I did come, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against crackpots. In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, "Life is no longer worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me to do." I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers going down the drain. "Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself! He's—" Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on. Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting himself off. He helped me up. "Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get you." I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh. "Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian psychology, Corrigan," Gorb said lightly. "Suicide is completely abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who caused their trouble. In this case, you." I began to chuckle—more of a tension-relieving snicker than a full-bodied laugh. "Funny," I said. "What is?" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian. "These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and killed himself , and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and pathetic damn near blew my head off." I shuddered. "Thanks for the tackle job." "Don't mention it," Gorb said. I glared at the Ghrynian police. "Well? What are you waiting for? Take that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the local laws?" "The Stortulian will be duly punished," replied the leader of the Ghrynian cops calmly. "But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian and the fine of—" "—one hundred thousand dollars. I know." I groaned and turned to Stebbins. "Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out of this mess with our skins intact." "Right, Chief." Stebbins moved toward the visiphone. Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest. "Hold it," the Wazzenazzian said crisply. "The Consulate can't help you. I can." "You?" I said. "I can get you out of this cheap." " How cheap?" Gorb grinned rakishly. "Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?" I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand, giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition. "Tell you what," I said finally. "You've got yourself a deal—but on a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and the contract. Otherwise, nothing." Gorb shrugged. "What have I to lose?"
Bodyguard by Gold, H. L. (Horace Leonard)	"Bodyguard", H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold, 1955. Bodyguard By CHRISTOPHER GRIMM Illustrated by CAVAT [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that he had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate! The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner. Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was almost ordinary-looking. As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably hideous. Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century. The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one—or at least he felt he was, which was what mattered. "Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the same for my fellow-man here." The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth hastily supplied by the management. "You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me." You could use one was implied. And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance, was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's handsome face. Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to go to jail because of him." The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces now ranged against him—including his own belated prudence—were too strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to smash back, and now it was too late for that. Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?" The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up for you?" "I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful at times, you know." "So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again. "Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from yourself—you lost yourself a while back, remember?" Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you something—I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out." "I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving." "Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked. He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he happened to have been telling the truth. Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions, reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to the letter combination bodyguard , he went out into the street. If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for years. The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?" the driver asked. "I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there. "Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?" But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head. "Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?" "Is there a good zarquil game in town?" The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit suicide? It's cleaner and quicker." "I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy. "Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ... anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em." "But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly. "Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though." "I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun." "You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly. II It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn. "Let me take the controls, honey," the light-haired girl urged, but he shook his handsome head. "Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty," he said thickly, referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held, and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek. Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist. To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames. Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him speculatively. "My guardian angel," he mumbled—shock had sobered him a little, but not enough. He sat up. "Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have thrown me back in." "And that's no joke," the fat man agreed. The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall that he had not been alone. "How about Helen? She on course?" "Seems to be," the fat man said. "You all right, miss?" he asked, glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern. " Mrs. ," Gabriel corrected. "Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl. "Pretty bauble, isn't she?" "I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard," the fat man said, looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. "I hope you'll be worthy of the name." The light given off by the flaming car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too. Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them. There were no public illuminators this far out—even in town the lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and beginning to slide downhill.... Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see. There was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before, which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket closer about her chilly body. "Aren't you going to introduce your—your friend to me, Gabe?" "I don't know who he is," Gabe said almost merrily, "except that he's no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?" "Of course I have a name." The fat man extracted an identification card from his wallet and read it. "Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago, and now he isn't ... anything." "You saved our lives," the girl said. "I'd like to give you some token of my—of our appreciation." Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation held little gratitude. The fat man shook his head without rancor. "I have plenty of money, thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come," he addressed her husband, "if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the future! Sometimes," he added musingly, "I almost wish you would let something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?" Gabriel shivered. "I'll be careful," he vowed. "I promise—I'll be careful." When he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night, the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification. Perhaps—and this was the most likely hypothesis—he just didn't care. Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of "crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator; otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse. Playing the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs. Which was why they came to Terra to make profits—there has never been big money in musical chairs as such. When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent—as they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the law—they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet. The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible. But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was the trouble in these smaller towns—you ran greater risks of getting involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened. The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but, when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew everybody else far too well. The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in coming to such desolate, off-trail places—hoping that eventually disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed too logical for the man he was haunting. However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. "One?" the small green creature in the slightly frayed robe asked. "One," the fat man answered. III The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. "Only weighted out," he muttered, "he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you two to come out to a place like this?" "I really think Gabriel must be possessed...." the girl said, mostly to herself. "I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse. It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?" "It does indeed," the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up. The girl looked closely at him. "You look different, but you are the same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?" The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. "Yes, I'm all of them." "Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people who go around changing their bodies like—like hats?" Automatically she reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that. He smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking. "But why do you do it? Why! Do you like it? Or is it because of Gabriel?" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was included in its scope. "Do you want to keep him from recognizing you; is that it?" "Ask him." "He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I think?" There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not, she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so casually. It was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat—of fur taken from some animal who had lived and died light-years away—more closely about herself. The thin young man began to cough again. Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk of the Moon and hurl itself upward—one of the interstellar ships embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of them would stay.... "If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him," she asked, "why then do you keep helping him?" "I am not helping him . And he knows that." "You'll change again tonight, won't you?" she babbled. "You always change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's something about you that doesn't change." "Too bad he got married," the young man said. "I could have followed him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway," he added, his voice less impersonal, "for your sake." She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an outsider; he was part of their small family group—as long as she had known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect that he was even more closely involved than that. "Why must you change again?" she persisted, obliquely approaching the subject she feared. "You have a pretty good body there. Why run the risk of getting a bad one?" "This isn't a good body," he said. "It's diseased. Sure, nobody's supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty of foliage." "How—long will it last you?" "Four or five months, if I'm careful." He smiled. "But don't worry, if that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be expensive—that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then it was tough on me too, wasn't it?" "But how did you get into this ... pursuit?" she asked again. "And why are you doing it?" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should know him better than most. "Ask your husband." The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate, snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name, and stirred it with his toe. "I'd better call a cab—he might freeze to death." He signaled and a cab came. "Tell him, when he comes to," he said to the girl as he and the driver lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, "that I'm getting pretty tired of this." He stopped for a long spell of coughing. "Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't, in the long run, be most beneficial for my face." "Sorry," the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, "but I'm afraid you cannot play." "Why not?" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes. "You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house." "But I have plenty of money." The young man coughed. The Vinzz shrugged. "I'll pay you twice the regular fee." The green one shook his head. "Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This game is really clean." "In a town like this?" "That is the reason we can afford to be honest." The Vinzz' tendrils quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung with him. "We do a lot of business here," he said unnecessarily, for the whole set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by no means poor when it came to worldly goods. "Why don't you try another town where they're not so particular?" The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game. He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration. And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him? Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original casing had? He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl, seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of information. The Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they detached, and the first approached the man once more. "There is, as it happens, a body available for a private game," he lisped. "No questions to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good health." The man hesitated. "But unable to pass the screening?" he murmured aloud. "A criminal then." The green one's face—if you could call it a face—remained impassive. "Male?" "Of course," the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or biological impossibility, no one could tell. It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part—if it had ever been proved that an alien life-form had "desecrated" a human body, Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear—and the Vinzz, despite being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was, "Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em." "It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take such a risk." The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much?" "Thirty thousand credits." "Why, that's three times the usual rate!" "The other will pay five times the usual rate." "Oh, all right," the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do. He looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body; tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful student of the "wanted" fax that had decorated public buildings from time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily, nor whom the police intended to capture easily. This might be a lucky break for me after all , the new tenant thought, as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious rude health, was not a very comfortable fit. I can do a lot with a hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe I'll be able to get away with it. IV "Look, Gabe," the girl said, "don't try to fool me! I know you too well. And I know you have that man's—the real Gabriel Lockard's—body." She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror. Lockard—Lockard's body, at any rate—sat up and felt his unshaven chin. "That what he tell you?" "No, he didn't tell me anything really—just suggested I ask you whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to see his body spoiled." "It is a pretty good body, isn't it?" Gabe flexed softening muscles and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved at having someone with whom to share his secret. "Not as good as it must have been," the girl said, turning and looking at him without admiration. "Not if you keep on the way you're coursing. Gabe, why don't you...?" "Give it back to him, eh?" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be his wife then. That would be nice—a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little more than you deserve?" "I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe," she said truthfully enough, for she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. "Of course I'd go with you," she went on, now knowing she lied, "when you got your ... old body back." Sure , she thought, I'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and thrill-mills. Actually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash that experience from her mind or her body. "You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?" she went on. "You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose, does he?" "I don't want to know!" he spat. "I wouldn't want it if I could get it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he looked in a mirror." He swung long legs over the side of his bed. "Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a hulk I had!" "Oh, yes, I can," she said incautiously. "You must have had a body to match your character. Pity you could only change one."
Booze You Can Use by James Fallows	"Booze You Can Use", James Fallows, 1999. Booze You Can Use I love beer, but lately I've been wondering: Am I getting full value for my beer dollar? As I've stocked up on microbrews and fancy imports, I've told myself that their taste is deeper, richer, more complicated, more compelling--and therefore worth the 50 percent to 200 percent premium they command over cheap mass products or even mainstream Bud. And yet, I've started to wonder, is this just costly snobbery? If I didn't know what I was drinking, could I even tell whether it was something from Belgium, vs. something from Pabst? I'm afraid we'll never know the answer to that exact question, since I'm not brave enough to expose my own taste to a real test. But I'm brave enough to expose my friends'. This summer, while working at Microsoft, I put out a call for volunteers for a "science of beer" experiment. Testing candidates had to meet two criteria: 1) they had to like beer; and 2) they had to think they knew the difference between mass products and high-end microbrews. Twelve tasters were selected, mainly on the basis of essays detailing their background with beer. A few were selected because they had been bosses in the Microsoft department where I worked. All were software managers or developers ; all were male, but I repeat myself. Nearly half had grown up outside the United States or lived abroad for enough years to speak haughtily about American macrobrews. Most tasters came in talking big about the refinement of their palates. When they entered the laboratory (which mere moments before had been a Microsoft conference room), they discovered an experiment set up on the following lines: 1 Philosophy : The experiment was designed to take place in two separate sessions. The first session, whose results are revealed here, involved beers exclusively from the lager group. Lagers are the light-colored, relatively lightly flavored brews that make up most of the vattage of beer consumption in the United States. Imported lagers include Foster's, Corona, and Heineken. Budweiser is a lager; so are Coors, Miller, most light beers, and most bargain-basement beers. Beer snobs sneer at lagers, because they look so watery and because so many bad beers are in the group. But the lager test came first, for two reasons. One, lagers pose the only honest test of the ability to tell expensive from dirt-cheap beers. There are very few inexpensive nut brown ales, India pale ales, extra special bitters, or other fancy-pantsy, microbrew-style, nonlager drinks. So if you want to see whether people can taste a money difference among beers of the same type, you've got to go lager. Two, the ideal of public service requires lager coverage. This is what most people drink, so new findings about lager quality could do the greatest good for the greatest number. In the second stage of the experiment, held several weeks later, the same testers reassembled to try the fancier beers. The results of that tasting will be reported separately, once Microsoft's mighty Windows 2000-powered central computers have . 2 Materials : Ten lagers were selected for testing, representing three distinct price-and-quality groups. Through the magic of the market, it turns out that lager prices nearly all fall into one of three ranges: a) High end at $1.50 to $1.60 per pint. ("Per pint" was the unit-pricing measure at the Safeway in Bellevue, Wash., that was the standard supply source for the experiment. There are 4.5 pints per six pack, so the high-end price point is around $7 per six pack.) b) Middle at around 80 cents per pint, or under $4 per six pack. c) Low at 50 cents to 55 cents per pint, or under $3 per six pack. The neat 6:3:2 mathematical relationship among the price groups should be noted. The high-end beers cost roughly three times as much as the cheapest ones, and twice as much as the middle range. The beers used in the experiment were as follows: High End Grolsch. Import lager (Holland). $1.67 per pint. (See an important .) Chosen for the test because of its beer-snob chic; also, one of my favorite beers. Heineken. Import lager (Holland). $1.53 per pint. (Sale price. List price was $1.71 per pint.) Chosen because it is America's long-standing most popular import. Pete's Wicked Lager. National-scale "microbrew." $1.11 per pint. (Deep-discount sale. List price $1.46 per pint.) Like the next one, this put us into the gray zone for a lager test. Few American "microbreweries" produce lagers of any sort. Pete's is called a lager but was visibly darker than, say, Bud. Samuel Adams Boston Lager. National macro-microbrew. $1.56 per pint. (That was list price. The following week it was on sale for $1.25 per pint, which would have made it do far better in the value rankings.) Calls itself America's Best Beer. Has dark orangey-amber color that was obviously different from all other lagers tested. Mid-Range Budweiser. $.84 per pint. (Sale. List price $.89 per pint.) Self-styled King of Beers. Miller Genuine Draft. $.84 per pint. (Sale. List price $.89 per pint.) Coors Light. $.84 per pint. (Sale. List price $.89 per pint. Isn't price competition a wonderful thing?) The Silver Bullet That Won't Slow You Down. Cheap Milwaukee's Best. $.55 per pint. (Sale. List price $.62 per pint.) A k a "Beast." Schmidt's. $.54 per pint. (Sale. List $.62 per pint.) Box decorated with a nice painting of a trout. Busch. $.50 per pint. (Sale. List $.69 per pint.) Painting of mountains. The Safeway that supplied the beers didn't carry any true bargain-basement products, such as "Red, White, and Blue," "Old German," or the one with generic printing that just says "Beer." The experiment was incomplete in that regard, but no tester complained about a shortage of bad beer. Also, with heavy heart, the test administrator decided to leave malt liquors, such as Mickey's (with its trademark wide-mouth bottles), off the list. They have the air of cheapness but actually cost more than Bud, probably because they offer more alcohol per pint. 3 Experimental procedure: Each taster sat down before an array of 10 plastic cups labeled A through J. The A-to-J coding scheme was the same for all tasters. Each cup held 3 ounces of one of the sample beers. (Total intake, for a taster who drank all of every sample: 30 ounces, or two and a half normal beers. Not lethal; also, they were just going back to software coding when they were done.) Saltines were available to cleanse the palate. The cups were red opaque plastic, so tasters could judge the beer's color only from above. There was no time limit for the tasting, apart from the two-hour limit in which we had reserved the conference room. One experimenter (the boss of most of the others there) rushed through his rankings in 10 minutes and gave the lowest overall scores. The taster who took the longest, nearly the full two hours, had the ratings that came closest to the relative price of the beers. (This man grew up in Russia.) The experimenters were asked not to compare impressions until the test was over. After tasting the beers, each taster rated beers A through J on the following standards: Overall quality points: Zero to 100, zero as undrinkable and 100 as dream beer. Purely subjective measure of how well each taster liked each beer. Price category: The tasters knew that each beer came from the expensive, medium, or cheap category--and they had to guess where A through J belonged. A rating of 3 was most expensive, 2 for average, 1 for cheap. Description: "Amusing presumption," "fresh on the palate," "crap," etc. Best and Worst: Tasters chose one Best and one Worst from the "flight" (as they would call it if this were a wine test). When the session was over, results for each beer were collected in a grid like this: To see all the grids for all the beers, click . 4 Data Analysis: The ratings led to four ways to assess the quality of the beers. 1. Best and Worst. Least scientific, yet clearest cut in its results. Eleven tasters named a favorite beer. Ten of them chose Sam Adams . The other one chose Busch , the cheapest of all beers in the sample. (The taster who made this choice advises Microsoft on what new features should go into the next version of Word.) Busch was the only beer to receive both a Best and a Worst vote. Bottom rankings were also clear. Of the 11 naming a Worst beer, five chose Grolsch , the most expensive beer in the survey. Results by best/worst preference: 2. Overall preference points . This was a subtler and more illuminating look at similar trends. The beers were ranked on "corrected average preference points"--an average of the zero-to-100 points assigned by each taster, corrected, just like ice skating scores, by throwing out the highest and lowest score each beer received. The tasters used widely varying scales--one confining all beers to the range between zero and 30, another giving 67 as his lowest mark. But the power of our corrected ranking system surmounted such difficulties to provide these results: Here again one costly beer-- Sam Adams --shows up well, while another, Grolsch , continues to struggle, but not as badly as the medium-price Miller Genuine Draft . Sam's success could reflect its quasi-mislabeling, presenting a strong-flavored beer as a "lager." It could also reflect that participants simply thought it was good. (Only one guessed it was Sam Adams.) As for Grolsch ... it is very strongly hopped, which can seem exotic if you know you're drinking a pricey import but simply bad if you don't. MGD overtook Grolsch in the race for the bottom because, while many people hated Grolsch, some actually liked it; no one liked MGD. There are some other important findings buried in the chart, but they're clearest if we move to ... 3) Value for Money: the Taste-o-meter® . Since this experiment's real purpose was to find the connection between cost and taste, the next step was to adjust subjective preference points by objective cost. The Taste-o-meter rating for each beer was calculated by dividing its corrected average preference rating by its price per pint . If Beer X had ratings twice as high as Beer Y, but it cost three times as much, Beer Y would have the higher Taste-o-meter rating. When the 10 beers are reranked this way, the results are: In a familiar pattern, we have Grolsch bringing up the rear, with less than one-quarter the Taste-o-meter power of Busch , the No. 1 value beer. The real news in this ranking is: the success of Busch ; the embarrassment of Heineken and Miller Genuine Draft , an expensive and a medium beer, respectively, which share the cellar with the hapless Grolsch ; and the nearly Busch-like value of Milwaukee's Best and Schmidt's . It is safe to say that none of our testers would have confessed respect for Busch, Milwaukee's Best, or Schmidt's before the contest began. But when they didn't know what they were drinking, they found these beers much closer in quality to "best" beers than the prices would indicate. 4) Social Value for Money: the Snob-o-meter® . In addition to saying which beers they preferred, the tasters were asked to estimate whether the beers were expensive or not--in effect, to judge whether other people would like and be impressed by the beers. One taster perfectly understood the intention of this measure when he said, in comments about Beer B (Heineken), "I don't like it, but I bet it's what the snobs buy." The Snob-o-meter rating for each beer is similar to the Taste-o-meter. You start with the "group" ranking--whether the tasters thought the beer belonged in Group 1 (cheap), 2, or 3--and then divide by the price per pint. The result tells you the social-mobility power of the beer--how impressive it will seem, relative to how much it costs. The Snob-o-meter rankings are: We won't even speak of poor Grolsch or MGD any more. The story here is the amazing snob-power-per-dollar of Busch , closely followed by Schmidt's . A dollar spent on Busch gets you three times the impressiveness of a dollar spent in Grolsch, useful information when planning a party. Not everyone liked Busch--one called it "crap"; another, "Water. LITE." But the magic of statistics lets us see the larger trends. 5 Conclusions . Further study is needed. But on the basis of evidence to date, we can say: One and only one beer truly survived the blind taste test. This is Sam Adams , which 10 tasters independently ranked "best" without knowing they were drinking a fancy beer. (They knew it was darker than the others but couldn't have known whether this was some trick off-brand sneaked into the test.) Don't serve Grolsch unless you know people will consider it exotic, or unless you've invited me. Apart from Sam Adams and Grolsch, the tasters really had trouble telling one beer from another . This conclusion is implicit in many of the findings, but it was really obvious during the experiment itself, when the confident look of men-who-know-their-beer quickly turned to dismay and panic as they realized that all the lagers tasted pretty much the same. The evidence suggests other implications about specific beers. For instance, the comments about Coors Light are much less enthusiastic than the average-or-better numerical rankings. Most tasters paused to complain about it--"fizzy and soapy"--before giving it reasonable marks. But the main implication, and the most useful consumer news from this study, is a radically simplified buying philosophy for lager beers. Based on this study, rational consumers should: 1) Buy Sam Adams when they want an individual glass of lager to be as good as it can be. 2) Buy Busch at all other times, since it gives them the maximum taste and social influence per dollar invested. The detailed rankings and comments for all tasters on all beers may be found . Next installment: fancy beers .
Boys Do Bleed by David Edelstein	"Boys Do Bleed", David Edelstein, 1999. Boys Do Bleed Fight Club is silly stuff, sensationalism that mistakes itself for satire, but it's also a brash and transporting piece of moviemaking, like Raging Bull on acid. The film opens with--literally--a surge of adrenalin, which travels through the bloodstream and into the brain of its protagonist, Jack (Edward Norton), who's viewed, as the camera pulls out of his insides, with a gun stuck in his mouth. How'd he get into this pickle? He's going to tell you, breezily, and the director, David Fincher, is going to illustrate his narrative--violently. Fincher ( Seven , 1995; The Game , 1997) is out to bombard you with so much feverish imagery that you have no choice but to succumb to the movie's reeling, punch-drunk worldview. By the end, you might feel as if you, too, have a mouthful of blood. Not to mention a hole in your head. Fight Club careers from one resonant satirical idea to the next without quite deciding whether its characters are full of crap or are Gen X prophets. It always gives you a rush, though. At first, it goofs on the absurd feminization of an absurdly macho culture. An increasingly desperate insomniac, Jack finds relief (and release) only at meetings for the terminally ill. At a testicular cancer group, he's enfolded in the ample arms of Bob (the singer Meat Loaf Aday), a former bodybuilder who ruined his health with steroids and now has "bitch tits." Jack and Bob subscribe to a new form of male bonding: They cling to each other and sob. But Jack's idyll is rudely disrupted by--wouldn't you know it?--a woman. A dark-eyed, sepulchral head case named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) begins showing up at all the same disparate meetings for essentially the same voyeuristic ends, and the presence of this "tourist" makes it impossible for Jack to emote. Jack finds another outlet, though. On a plane, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a cryptic hipster with a penchant for subversive acts both large (he makes high-priced soaps from liposuctioned human fat) and small (he splices frames from porn flicks into kiddie movies). When Jack's apartment mysteriously explodes--along with his carefully chosen IKEA furniture--he moves into Tyler's squalid warehouse and helps to found a new religion: Fight Club, in which young males gather after hours in the basement of a nightclub to pound one another (and be pounded) to a bloody pulp. That last parenthesis isn't so parenthetical. In some ways, it's the longing to be beaten into oblivion that's the strongest. "Self-improvement," explains Tyler, "is masturbation"; self-destruction is the new way. Tyler's manifesto calls for an end to consumerism ("Things you own end up owning you"), and since society is going down ("Martha Stewart is polishing brass on the Titanic "), the only creative outlet left is annihilation. "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything," he says. Fincher and his screenwriter, Jim Uhls, seem to think they've broken new ground in Fight Club , that their metaphor for our discontents hits harder than anyone else's. Certainly it produces more bloody splatter. But 20 years ago, the same impulse was called punk and, as Greil Marcus documents in Lipstick Traces , it was other things before that. Yes, the mixture of Johnny Rotten, Jake La Motta, and Jesus is unique; and the Faludi-esque emasculation themes are more explicit. But there's something deeply movie-ish about the whole conceit, as if the novelist and director were weaned on Martin Scorsese pictures and never stopped dreaming of recapturing that first masochistic rush. The novel, the first by Chuck Palahniuk (the surname sounds like Eskimo for "palooka"--which somehow fits), walks a line between the straight and ironic--it isn't always clear if its glib sociological pronouncements are meant to be taken straight or as the ravings of a delusional mama's boy. But onscreen, when Pitt announces to the assembled fighters that they are the "middle children of history" with "no purpose and no place"--emasculated on one hand by the lack of a unifying crisis (a world war or depression) and on the other by lack of material wealth as promised by television--he seems meant to be intoning gospel. "We are a generation of men raised by women," Tyler announces, and adds, "If our fathers bail, what does that tell you about God?" (I give up: What?) F ight Club could use a few different perspectives: a woman's, obviously, but also an African-American's--someone who'd have a different take on the "healing" properties of violence. It's also unclear just what has emasculated Jack: Is it that he's a materialist or that the materials themselves (i.e., IKEA's lacquered particle boards) don't measure up to his fantasies of opulence? Is he motivated by spiritual hunger or envy? Tyler's subsequent idea of confining his group's mayhem to franchise coffee bars and corporate-subsidized art is a witty one--it's like a parody of neo-Nazism as re-enacted by yuppies. It might have been a howl if performed by, say, the troupe of artsy German nihilists in Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998). Somehow Brad Pitt doesn't have the same piquancy. Actually, Pitt isn't as terrible as usual: He's playing not a character but a conceit, and he can bask in his movie-idol arrogance, which seems to be the most authentic emotion he has. But the film belongs to Norton. As a ferocious skinhead in last year's American History X , Norton was taut and ropy, his long torso curled into a sneer; here, he's skinny and wilting, a quivering pansy. Even when he fights he doesn't transform--he's a raging wimp. The performance is marvelous, and it makes poetic sense in light of the movie's climactic twist. But that twist will annoy more people than it will delight, if only because it shifts the drama from the realm of the sociological to that of the psychoanalytic. The finale, scored with the Pixies' great "Where Is My Mind?" comes off facetiously--as if Fincher is throwing the movie away. Until then, however, he has done a fabulous job of keeping it spinning. The most thrilling thing about Fight Club isn't what it says but how Uhls and Fincher pull you into its narrator's head and simulate his adrenalin rushes. A veteran of rock videos, Fincher is one of those filmmakers who helps make the case that MTV--along with digital editing--has transformed cinema for better as well as worse. The syntax has become more intricate. Voice-over narration, once considered uncinematic, is back in style, along with novelistic asides, digressions, fantasies, and flashbacks. To make a point, you can jazzily interject anything--even, as in Three Kings , a shot of a bullet slicing through internal organs. Films like Fight Club might not gel, but they have a breathless, free-associational quality that points to new possibilities in storytelling. Or maybe old possibilities: The language of movies hasn't seemed this unfettered since the pre-sound days of Sergei Eisenstein and Abel Gance. An actress named Hilary Swank gives one of the most rapturous performances I've ever seen as the cross-dressing Brandon Teena (a k a Teena Brandon) in Kimberly Peirce's stark and astonishingly beautiful debut feature, Boys Don't Cry . The movie opens with Teena being shorn of her hated female tresses and becoming "Brandon," who swaggers around in tight jeans and leather jackets. The joy is in watching the actor transform, and I don't just mean Swank: I mean Teena Brandon playing Brandon Teena--the role she has been longing for her whole life. In a redneck Nebraska bar, Brandon throws back a shot of whiskey and the gesture--a macho cliché--becomes an act of self-discovery. Every gesture does. "You're gonna have a shiner in the morning," someone tells Brandon after a barroom brawl, and he takes the news with a glee that's almost mystical: "I am????? Oh, shit!!!" he cries, grinning. That might be my favorite moment in the picture, because Swank's ecstatic expression carries us through the next hour, as Brandon acts out his urban-cowboy fantasies--"surfing" from the bumper of a pickup truck, rolling in the mud, and straddling a barstool with one hand on a brewski and the other on the shoulder of a gorgeous babe. That the people with whom Brandon feels most at home would kill him if they knew his true gender is the movie's most tragic irony--and the one that lifts it out of the realm of gay-martyr hagiography and into something more complex and irreducible: a meditation on the irrelevance of gender. Peirce's triumph is to make these scenes at once exuberant (occasionally hilarious) and foreboding, so that all the seeds of Brandon's killing are right there on the screen. John (Peter Sarsgaard), one of his future rapists and murderers, calls him "little buddy" and seems almost attracted to him; Sarsgaard's performance is a finely chiseled study of how unresolved emotion can suddenly resolve itself into violence. Though harrowing, the second half of Boys Don't Cry isn't as great as the first. The early scenes evoke elation and dread simultaneously, the later ones just dread; and the last half-hour is unrelieved torture. What keeps the movie tantalizing is Chloë Sevigny's Lana, who might or might not know that Brandon is a girl but who's entranced by him anyway. With her lank hair, hooded eyes, and air of sleepy sensuality, Sevigny--maybe even more than Swank--embodies the mystery of sex that's at the core of Boys Don't Cry . Everything she does is deliberate, ironic, slightly unreadable--and unyielding. She's could be saying, "I'm in this world but not of it. ... You'd never dream what's underneath." I n brief: If a friend tells you you'll love Happy Texas , rethink the friendship. This clunky mistaken-identity comedy about escaped cons who impersonate gay pageant directors doesn't even make sense on its own low farcical terms; it's mostly one lame homo joke after another. The only bright spot is Steve Zahn, who could be the offspring of Michael J. Fox and Crispin Glover if they'd mated on the set of Back to the Future (1985). It's hard to make a serious case for Lawrence Kasdan's Mumford , which has apparently flopped but which you can still catch at second- and third-tier theaters. It looks peculiar--a Norman Rockwell painting with noir shadows. And its tale of a small town healed by a depressive (Loren Dean) posing as a psychologist is full of doddering misconceptions about psychotherapy. I almost don't know why I loved it, but the relaxed pacing and the witty turns by Martin Short, Ted Danson, David Paymer, and Mary McDonnell surely helped. I can't decide if the weirdly affectless Dean is inspired or inept, but my indecision suggests why he works in the role. There's no doubt, however, about his even more depressive love object, Hope Davis, who posseses the cinema's most expressive honking-nasal voice and who slumps through the movie like the world's most lyrical anti-ballerina. Even her puffy cheeks are eloquent: They made me think of Mumford as the home of the psychological mumps.
Bramble Bush by Nourse, Alan Edward	"Bramble Bush", Alan Edward Nourse, 1960. BRAMBLE BUSH BY ALAN E. NOURSE [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] There was a man in our town, and he was wondrous wise; He jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes. And when he saw what he had done, with all his might and main He jumped into another bush and scratched them in again. MOTHER GOOSE Dr. David Lessing found Jack Dorffman and the boy waiting in his office when he arrived at the Hoffman Center that morning. Dorffman looked as though he'd been running all night. There were dark pouches under his eyes; his heavy unshaven face seemed to sag at every crease. Lessing glanced sharply at his Field Director and sank down behind his desk with a sigh. "All right, Jack—what's wrong?" "This kid is driving me nuts," said Dorffman through clenched teeth. "He's gone completely hay-wire. Nobody's been able to get near him for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's leaving the Farm. I talk to him, I sweat him down, I do everything but tie him to the bed, and I waste my time. He's leaving the Farm. Period." "So you bring him down here," said Lessing sourly. "The worst place he could be, if something's really wrong." He looked across at the boy. "Tommy? Come over and sit down." There was nothing singular about the boy's appearance. He was thin, with a pale freckled face and the guileless expression of any normal eight-year-old as he blinked across the desk at Lessing. The awkward grey monitor-helmet concealed a shock of sandy hair. He sat with a mute appeal in his large grey eyes as Lessing flipped the reader-switch and blinked in alarm at the wildly thrashing pattern on the tape. The boy was terrorized. He was literally pulsating with fear. Lessing sat back slowly. "Tell me about it, Tommy," he said gently. "I don't want to go back to the Farm," said the boy. "Why?" "I just don't. I hate it there." "Are you frightened?" The boy bit his lip and nodded slowly. "Of me? Of Dr. Dorffman?" "No. Oh, no!" "Then what?" Again the mute appeal in the boy's eyes. He groped for words, and none came. Finally he said, "If I could only take this off—" He fingered the grey plastic helmet. "You think that would make you feel better?" "It would, I know it would." Lessing shook his head. "I don't think so, Tommy. You know what the monitor is for, don't you?" "It stops things from going out." "That's right. And it stops things from going in. It's an insulator. You need it badly. It would hurt you a great deal if you took it off, away from the Farm." The boy fought back tears. "But I don't want to go back there—" The fear-pattern was alive again on the tape. "I don't feel good there. I never want to go back." "Well, we'll see. You can stay here for a while." Lessing nodded at Dorffman and stepped into an adjoining room with him. "You say this has been going on for three weeks ?" "I'm afraid so. We thought it was just a temporary pattern—we see so much of that up there." "I know, I know." Lessing chewed his lip. "I don't like it. We'd better set up a battery on him and try to spot the trouble. And I'm afraid you'll have to set it up. I've got that young Melrose from Chicago to deal with this morning—the one who's threatening to upset the whole Conference next month with some crazy theories he's been playing with. I'll probably have to take him out to the Farm to shut him up." Lessing ran a hand through sparse grey hair. "See what you can do for the boy downstairs." "Full psi precautions?" asked Dorffman. "Certainly! And Jack—in this case, be sure of it. If Tommy's in the trouble I think he's in, we don't dare risk a chance of Adult Contact now. We could end up with a dead boy on our hands." Two letters were waiting on Lessing's desk that morning. The first was from Roberts Bros., announcing another shift of deadline on the book, and demanding the galley proofs two weeks earlier than scheduled. Lessing groaned. As director of psionic research at the Hoffman Medical Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck up daytime hours. He knew that his real work was at the Farm—yet he hadn't even been to the Farm in over six weeks. And now, as the book approached publication date, Lessing wondered if he would ever really get back to work again. The other letter cheered him a bit more. It bore the letterhead of the International Psionics Conference: Dear Dr. Lessing: In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic behavior patterns, we would be gratified to schedule you as principle speaker at the Conference in Chicago on October 12th. A few remarks in discussion of your forthcoming book would be entirely in order— They were waiting for it, then! He ran the galley proofs into the scanner excitedly. They knew he had something up his sleeve. His earlier papers had only hinted at the direction he was going—but the book would clear away the fog. He scanned the title page proudly. "A Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development." A good title—concise, commanding, yet modest. They would read it, all right. And they would find it a light shining brightly in the darkness, a guide to the men who were floundering in the jungle of a strange and baffling new science. For they were floundering. When they were finally forced to recognize that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds, with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. Nothing worked, and everything worked too well. They were trying to study phenomena which made no sense, observing things that defied logic. Natural laws came crashing down about their ears as they stood sadly by and watched things happen which natural law said could never happen. They had never been in this jungle before, nor in any jungle remotely like it. The old rules didn't work here, the old methods of study failed. And the more they struggled, the thicker and more impenetrable the bramble bush became— But now David Lessing had discovered a pathway through that jungle, a theory to work by— At his elbow the intercom buzzed. "A gentleman to see you," the girl said. "A Dr. Melrose. He's very impatient, sir." He shut off the scanner and said, "Send him in, please." Dr. Peter Melrose was tall and thin, with jet black hair and dark mocking eyes. He wore a threadbare sport coat and a slouch. He offered Lessing a bony hand, then flung himself into a chair as he stared about the office in awe. "I'm really overwhelmed," he said after a moment. "Within the stronghold of psionic research at last. And face to face with the Master in the trembling flesh!" Lessing frowned. "Dr. Melrose, I don't quite understand—" "Oh, it's just that I'm impressed," the young man said airily. "Of course, I've seen old dried-up Authorities before—but never before a brand spanking new one, just fresh out of the pupa, so to speak!" He touched his forehead in a gesture of reverence. "I bow before the Oracle. Speak, oh Motah, live forever! Cast a pearl at my feet!" "If you've come here to be insulting," Lessing said coldly, "you're just wasting time." He reached for the intercom switch. "I think you'd better wait before you do that," Melrose said sharply, "because I'm planning to take you apart at the Conference next month unless I like everything I see and hear down here today. And if you don't think I can do it, you're in for quite a dumping." Lessing sat back slowly. "Tell me—just what, exactly, do you want?" "I want to hear this fairy tale you're about to publish in the name of 'Theory'," Melrose said. "I want to see this famous Farm of yours up in Connecticut and see for myself how much pressure these experimental controls you keep talking about will actually bear. But mostly, I want to see just what in psionic hell you're so busy making yourself an Authority about." There was no laughter in the man's sharp brown eyes. "You couldn't touch me with a ten foot pole at this conference," snapped Lessing. The other man grinned. "Try me! We shook you up a little bit last year, but you didn't seem to get the idea." "Last year was different." Lessing scowled. "As for our 'fairy tale', we happen to have a staggering body of evidence that says that it's true." "If the papers you've already published are a preview, we think it's false as Satan." "And our controls are above suspicion." "So far, we haven't found any way to set up logical controls," said Melrose. "We've done a lot of work on it, too." "Oh, yes—I've heard about your work. Not bad, really. A little misdirected, is all." "According to your Theory, that is." "Wildly unorthodox approach to psionics—but at least you're energetic enough." "We haven't been energetic enough to find an orthodox approach that got us anywhere. We doubt if you have, either. But maybe we're all wrong." Melrose grinned unpleasantly. "We're not unreasonable, your Majesty. We just ask to be shown. If you dare, that is." Lessing slammed his fist down on the desk angrily. "Have you got the day to take a trip?" "I've got 'til New Year." Lessing shouted for his girl. "Get Dorffman up here. We're going to the Farm this afternoon." The girl nodded, then hesitated. "But what about your lunch?" "Bother lunch." He gave Melrose a sidelong glare. "We've got a guest here who's got a lot of words he's going to eat for us...." Ten minutes later they rode the elevator down to the transit levels and boarded the little shuttle car in the terminal below the Hoffman Center. They sat in silence as the car dipped down into the rapid-transit channels beneath the great city, swinging northward in the express circuit through Philadelphia and Camden sectors, surfacing briefly in Trenton sector, then dropping underground once again for the long pull beneath Newark, Manhattan and Westchester sectors. In less than twenty minutes the car surfaced on a Parkway channel and buzzed north and east through the verdant Connecticut countryside. "What about Tommy?" Lessing asked Dorffman as the car sped along through the afternoon sun. "I just finished the prelims. He's not cooperating." Lessing ground his teeth. "I should be running him now instead of beating the bushes with this—" He broke off to glare at young Melrose. Melrose grinned. "I've heard you have quite a place up here." "It's—unconventional, at any rate," Lessing snapped. "Well, that depends on your standards. Sounds like a country day school, from what I've heard. According to your papers, you've even used conventional statistical analysis on your data from up here." "Until we had to throw it out. We discovered that what we were trying to measure didn't make sense in a statistical analysis." "Of course, you're sure you were measuring something ." "Oh, yes. We certainly were." "Yet you said that you didn't know what." "That's right," said Lessing. "We don't." "And you don't know why your instruments measure whatever they're measuring." The Chicago man's face was thoughtful. "In fact, you can't really be certain that your instruments are measuring the children at all. It's not inconceivable that the children might be measuring the instruments , eh?" Lessing blinked. "It's conceivable." "Mmmm," said Melrose. "Sounds like a real firm foundation to build a theory on." "Why not?" Lessing growled. "It wouldn't be the first time the tail wagged the dog. The psychiatrists never would have gotten out of their rut if somebody hadn't gotten smart and realized that one of their new drugs worked better in combatting schizophrenia when the doctor took the medicine instead of the patient. That was quite a wall to climb." "Yes, wasn't it," mused Melrose, scratching his bony jaw. "Only took them seventy years to climb it, thanks to a certain man's theories. I wonder how long it'll take psionics to crawl out of the pit you're digging for it?" "We're not digging any pit," Lessing exploded angrily. "We're exploring—nothing more. A phenomenon exists. We've known that, one way or another, for centuries. The fact that it doesn't seem to be bound by the same sort of natural law we've observed elsewhere doesn't mean that it isn't governed by natural law. But how can we define the law? How can we define the limits of the phenomenon, for that matter? We can't work in the dark forever—we've got to have a working hypothesis to guide us." "So you dreamed up this 'tadpole' idea," said Melrose sourly. "For a working hypothesis—yes. We've known for a long time that every human being has extrasensory potential to one degree or another. Not just a few here and there—every single one. It's a differentiating quality of the human mind. Just as the ability to think logically in a crisis instead of giving way to panic is a differentiating quality." "Fine," said Melrose. "Great. We can't prove that, of course, but I'll play along." Lessing glared at him. "When we began studying this psi-potential, we found out some curious things. For one thing, it seemed to be immensely more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults. Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We don't know what. We do know that the child's psi-potential gradually withdraws deeper and deeper into his mind, burying itself farther and farther out of reach, just the way a tadpole's tail is absorbed deeper and deeper into the growing frog until there just isn't any tail any more." Lessing paused, packing tobacco into his pipe. "That's why we have the Farm—to try to discover why. What forces that potential underground? What buries it so deeply that adult human beings can't get at it any more?" "And you think you have an answer," said Melrose. "We think we might be near an answer. We have a theory that explains the available data." The shuttle car bounced sharply as it left the highway automatics. Dorffman took the controls. In a few moments they were skimming through the high white gates of the Farm, slowing down at the entrance to a long, low building. "All right, young man—come along," said Lessing. "I think we can show you our answer." In the main office building they donned the close-fitting psionic monitors required of all personnel at the Farm. They were of a hard grey plastic material, with a network of wiring buried in the substance, connected to a simple pocket-sized power source. "The major problem," Lessing said, "has been to shield the children from any external psionic stimuli, except those we wished to expose them to. Our goal is a perfectly controlled psi environment. The monitors are quite effective—a simple Renwick scrambler screen." "It blocks off all types of psi activity?" asked Melrose. "As far as we can measure, yes." "Which may not be very far." Jack Dorffman burst in: "What Dr. Lessing is saying is that they seem effective for our purposes." "But you don't know why," added Melrose. "All right, we don't know why. Nobody knows why a Renwick screen works—why blame us?" They were walking down the main corridor and out through an open areaway. Behind the buildings was a broad playground. A baseball game was in progress in one corner; across the field a group of swings, slides, ring bars and other playground paraphernalia was in heavy use. The place was teeming with youngsters, all shouting in a fury of busy activity. Occasionally a helmeted supervisor hurried by; one waved to them as she rescued a four-year-old from the parallel bars. They crossed into the next building, where classes were in progress. "Some of our children are here only briefly," Lessing explained as they walked along, "and some have been here for years. We maintain a top-ranking curriculum—your idea of a 'country day school' wasn't so far afield at that—with scholarships supported by Hoffman Center funds. Other children come to us—foundlings, desertees, children from broken homes, children of all ages from infancy on. Sometimes they stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as psionics research is concerned, we are not trying to be teachers. We are strictly observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions where they can develope what potential they have— without the presence of external psionic influences they would normally be subject to. The results have been remarkable." He led them into a long, narrow room with chairs and ash trays, facing a wide grey glass wall. The room fell into darkness, and through the grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing in a large room. "They're perfectly insulated from us," said Lessing. "A variety of recording instruments are working. And before you ask, Dr. Melrose, they are all empirical instruments, and they would all defy any engineer's attempts to determine what makes them go. We don't know what makes them go, and we don't care—they go. That's all we need. Like that one, for instance—" In the corner a flat screen was flickering, emitting a pale green fluorescent light. It hung from the wall by two plastic rods which penetrated into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch, nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered. Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts and starts of activity. "What are they doing?" Melrose asked after watching the children a few moments. "Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually, had a fairly constant recordable psi potential of about seventeen on the arbitrary scale we find useful here. Any two of them scale in at thirty-four to thirty-six. Put the three together and they operate somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred on the same scale." Lessing smiled. "This is an isolated phenomenon—it doesn't hold for any other three children on the Farm. Nor did we make any effort to place them together—they drew each other like magnets. One of our workers spent two weeks trying to find out why the instruments weren't right. It wasn't the instruments, of course." Lessing nodded to an attendant, and peered around at Melrose. "Now, I want you to watch this very closely." He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The fluorescent screen continued to flicker as the children ran to Lessing. He inspected the block tower they were building, and stooped down to talk to them, his lips moving soundlessly behind the observation wall. The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he was proposing. He walked to the table and tapped the bottom block in the tower with his thumb. The tower quivered, and the screen blazed out with green light, but the tower stood. Carefully Lessing jogged all the foundation blocks out of place until the tower hung in midair, clearly unsupported. The children watched it closely, and the foundation blocks inched still further out of place.... Then, quite casually, Lessing lifted off his monitor. The children continued staring at the tower as the screen gave three or four violent bursts of green fire and went dark. The block tower fell with a crash. Moments later Lessing was back in the observation room, leaving the children busily putting the tower back together. There was a little smile on his lips as he saw Melrose's face. "Perhaps you're beginning to see what I'm driving at," he said slowly. "Yes," said Melrose. "I think I'm beginning to see." He scratched his jaw. "You think that it's adult psi-contact that drives the child's potential underground—that somehow adult contact acts like a damper, a sort of colossal candle-snuffer." "That's what I think," said Lessing. "How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?" Lessing blinked. "Why should they?" "Maybe they enjoy the crash when the blocks fall down." "But that wouldn't make any difference, would it? The blocks still fall down." Melrose paced down the narrow room. "This is very good," he said suddenly, his voice earnest. "You have fine facilities here, good workers. And in spite of my flippancy, Dr. Lessing, I have never imagined for a moment that you were not an acute observer and a careful, highly imaginative worker. But suppose I told you, in perfect faith, that we have data that flatly contradicts everything you've told me today. Reproducible data, utterly incompatable with yours. What would you say to that?" "I'd say you were wrong," said Lessing. "You couldn't have such data. According to the things I am certain are true, what you're saying is sheer nonsense." "And you'd express that opinion in a professional meeting?" "I would." "And as an Authority on psionic behavior patterns," said Melrose slowly, "you would kill us then and there. You would strangle us professionally, discredit anything we did, cut us off cold." The tall man turned on him fiercely. "Are you blind, man? Can't you see what danger you're in? If you publish your book now, you will become an Authority in a field where the most devastating thing that could possibly happen would be— the appearance of an Authority ." Lessing and Dorffman rode back to the Hoffman Center in grim silence. At first Lessing pretended to work; finally he snapped off the tape recorder in disgust and stared out the shuttle-car window. Melrose had gone on to Idlewild to catch a jet back to Chicago. It was a relief to see him go, Lessing thought, and tried to force the thin, angry man firmly out of his mind. But somehow Melrose wouldn't force. "Stop worrying about it," Dorffman urged. "He's a crackpot. He's crawled way out on a limb, and now he's afraid your theory is going to cut it off under him. Well, that's his worry, not yours." Dorffman's face was intense. "Scientifically, you're on unshakeable ground. Every great researcher has people like Melrose sniping at him. You just have to throw them off and keep going." Lessing shook his head. "Maybe. But this field of work is different from any other, Jack. It doesn't follow the rules. Maybe scientific grounds aren't right at all, in this case." Dorffman snorted. "Surely there's nothing wrong with theorizing—" "He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after the theory." "So it seems. But why?" "Have you ever considered what makes a man an Authority?" "He knows more about his field than anybody else does." "He seems to, you mean. And therefore, anything he says about it carries more weight than what anybody else says. Other workers follow his lead. He developes ideas, formulates theories—and then defends them for all he's worth ." "But why shouldn't he?" "Because a man can't fight for his life and reputation and still keep his objectivity," said Lessing. "And what if he just happens to be wrong? Once he's an Authority the question of what's right and what's wrong gets lost in the shuffle. It's what he says that counts." "But we know you're right," Dorffman protested. "Do we?" "Of course we do! Look at our work! Look at what we've seen on the Farm." "Yes, I know." Lessing's voice was weary. "But first I think we'd better look at Tommy Gilman, and the quicker we look, the better—" A nurse greeted them as they stepped off the elevator. "We called you at the Farm, but you'd already left. The boy—" She broke off helplessly. "He's sick, Doctor. He's sicker than we ever imagined." "What happened?" "Nothing exactly—happened. I don't quite know how to describe it." She hurried them down the corridor and opened a door into a large children's playroom. "See what you think." The boy sat stolidly in the corner of the room. He looked up as they came in, but there was no flicker of recognition or pleasure on his pale face. The monitor helmet was still on his head. He just sat there, gripping a toy fire engine tightly in his hands. Lessing crossed the room swiftly. "Tommy," he said. The boy didn't even look at him. He stared stupidly at the fire engine. "Tommy!" Lessing reached out for the toy. The boy drew back in terror, clutching it to his chest. "Go away," he choked. "Go away, go away—" When Lessing persisted the boy bent over swiftly and bit him hard on the hand. Lessing sat down on the table. "Tommy, listen to me." His voice was gentle. "I won't try to take it again. I promise." "Go away." "Do you know who I am?" Tommy's eyes shifted haltingly to Lessing's face. He nodded. "Go away." "Why are you afraid, Tommy?" "I hurt. My head hurts. I hurt all over. Go away." "Why do you hurt?" "I—can't get it—off," the boy said. The monitor , Lessing thought suddenly. Something had suddenly gone horribly wrong—could the boy really be sensing the source of the trouble? Lessing felt a cold knot gather in the pit of his stomach. He knew what happened when adult psi-contact struck a psi-high youngster's mind. He had seen it a hundred times at the Farm. But even more—he had felt it in his own mind, bursting from the child. Like a violent physical blow, the hate and fear and suspicion and cruelty buried and repressed in the adult mind, crushing suddenly into the raw receptors of the child's mind like a smothering fog—it was a fearful thing. A healthy youngster could survive it, even though the scar remained. But this youngster was sick— And yet an animal instinctively seeks its own protection . With trembling fingers Lessing reached out and opened the baffle-snap on the monitor. "Take it off, Tommy," he whispered. The boy blinked in amazement, and pulled the grey helmet from his head. Lessing felt the familiar prickly feeling run down his scalp as the boy stared at him. He could feel deep in his own mind the cold chill of terror radiating from the boy. Then, suddenly, it began to fade. A sense of warmth—peace and security and comfort—swept in as the fear faded from the boy's face. The fire engine clattered to the floor. They analyzed the tapes later, punching the data cards with greatest care, filing them through the machines for the basic processing and classification that all their data underwent. It was late that night when they had the report back in their hands. Dorffman stared at it angrily. "It's obviously wrong," he grated. "It doesn't fit. Dave, it doesn't agree with anything we've observed before. There must be an error." "Of course," said Lessing. "According to the theory. The theory says that adult psi-contact is deadly to the growing child. It smothers their potential through repeated contact until it dries up completely. We've proved that, haven't we? Time after time. Everything goes according to the theory—except Tommy. But Tommy's psi-potential was drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the balance of his mind. Then he made an adult contact, and we saw how he bloomed." Lessing sank down to his desk wearily. "What are we going to do, Jack? Formulate a separate theory for Tommy?" "Of course not," said Dorffman. "The instruments were wrong. Somehow we misread the data—" "Didn't you see his face ?" Lessing burst out. "Didn't you see how he acted ? What do you want with an instrument reading?" He shook his head. "It's no good, Jack. Something different happened here, something we'd never counted on. It's something the theory just doesn't allow for." They sat silently for a while. Then Dorffman said: "What are you going to do?" "I don't know," said Lessing. "Maybe when we fell into this bramble bush we blinded ourselves with the urge to classify—to line everything up in neat rows like pins in a paper. Maybe we were so blind we missed the path altogether." "But the book is due! The Conference speech—" "I think we'll make some changes in the book," Lessing said slowly. "It'll be costly—but it might even be fun. It's a pretty dry, logical presentation of ideas, as it stands. Very austere and authoritarian. But a few revisions could change all that—" He rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. "How about it, Jack? Do we have nerve enough to be laughed at? Do you think we could stand a little discredit, making silly asses of ourselves? Because when I finish this book, we'll be laughed out of existence. There won't be any Authority in psionics for a while—and maybe that way one of the lads who's really sniffing out the trail will get somebody to listen to him! "Get a pad, get a pencil! We've got work to do. And when we finish, I think we'll send a carbon copy out Chicago way. Might even persuade that puppy out there to come here and work for me—"
Bread Overhead by Leiber, Fritz	"Bread Overhead", Fritz Leiber, 1951. Bread Overhead By FRITZ LEIBER The Staff of Life suddenly and disconcertingly sprouted wings —and mankind had to eat crow! Illustrated by WOOD AS a blisteringly hot but guaranteed weather-controlled future summer day dawned on the Mississippi Valley, the walking mills of Puffy Products ("Spike to Loaf in One Operation!") began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas. The walking mills resembled fat metal serpents, rather larger than those Chinese paper dragons animated by files of men in procession. Sensory robot devices in their noses informed them that the waiting wheat had reached ripe perfection. As they advanced, their heads swung lazily from side to side, very much like snakes, gobbling the yellow grain. In their throats, it was threshed, the chaff bundled and burped aside for pickup by the crawl trucks of a chemical corporation, the kernels quick-dried and blown along into the mighty chests of the machines. There the tireless mills ground the kernels to flour, which was instantly sifted, the bran being packaged and dropped like the chaff for pickup. A cluster of tanks which gave the metal serpents a decidedly humpbacked appearance added water, shortening, salt and other ingredients, some named and some not. The dough was at the same time infused with gas from a tank conspicuously labeled "Carbon Dioxide" ("No Yeast Creatures in Your Bread!"). Thus instantly risen, the dough was clipped into loaves and shot into radionic ovens forming the midsections of the metal serpents. There the bread was baked in a matter of seconds, a fierce heat-front browning the crusts, and the piping-hot loaves sealed in transparent plastic bearing the proud Puffyloaf emblem (two cherubs circling a floating loaf) and ejected onto the delivery platform at each serpent's rear end, where a cluster of pickup machines, like hungry piglets, snatched at the loaves with hygienic claws. A few loaves would be hurried off for the day's consumption, the majority stored for winter in strategically located mammoth deep freezes. But now, behold a wonder! As loaves began to appear on the delivery platform of the first walking mill to get into action, they did not linger on the conveyor belt, but rose gently into the air and slowly traveled off down-wind across the hot rippling fields. THE robot claws of the pickup machines clutched in vain, and, not noticing the difference, proceeded carefully to stack emptiness, tier by tier. One errant loaf, rising more sluggishly than its fellows, was snagged by a thrusting claw. The machine paused, clumsily wiped off the injured loaf, set it aside—where it bobbed on one corner, unable to take off again—and went back to the work of storing nothingness. A flock of crows rose from the trees of a nearby shelterbelt as the flight of loaves approached. The crows swooped to investigate and then suddenly scattered, screeching in panic. The helicopter of a hangoverish Sunday traveler bound for Wichita shied very similarly from the brown fliers and did not return for a second look. A black-haired housewife spied them over her back fence, crossed herself and grabbed her walkie-talkie from the laundry basket. Seconds later, the yawning correspondent of a regional newspaper was jotting down the lead of a humorous news story which, recalling the old flying-saucer scares, stated that now apparently bread was to be included in the mad aerial tea party. The congregation of an open-walled country church, standing up to recite the most familiar of Christian prayers, had just reached the petition for daily sustenance, when a sub-flight of the loaves, either forced down by a vagrant wind or lacking the natural buoyancy of the rest, came coasting silently as the sunbeams between the graceful pillars at the altar end of the building. Meanwhile, the main flight, now augmented by other bread flocks from scores and hundreds of walking mills that had started work a little later, mounted slowly and majestically into the cirrus-flecked upper air, where a steady wind was blowing strongly toward the east. About one thousand miles farther on in that direction, where a cluster of stratosphere-tickling towers marked the location of the metropolis of NewNew York, a tender scene was being enacted in the pressurized penthouse managerial suite of Puffy Products. Megera Winterly, Secretary in Chief to the Managerial Board and referred to by her underlings as the Blonde Icicle, was dealing with the advances of Roger ("Racehorse") Snedden, Assistant Secretary to the Board and often indistinguishable from any passing office boy. "Why don't you jump out the window, Roger, remembering to shut the airlock after you?" the Golden Glacier said in tones not unkind. "When are your high-strung, thoroughbred nerves going to accept the fact that I would never consider marriage with a business inferior? You have about as much chance as a starving Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's clapped on the interdict." ROGER'S voice was calm, although his eyes were feverishly bright, as he replied, "A lot of things are going to be different around here, Meg, as soon as the Board is forced to admit that only my quick thinking made it possible to bring the name of Puffyloaf in front of the whole world." "Puffyloaf could do with a little of that," the business girl observed judiciously. "The way sales have been plummeting, it won't be long before the Government deeds our desks to the managers of Fairy Bread and asks us to take the Big Jump. But just where does your quick thinking come into this, Mr. Snedden? You can't be referring to the helium—that was Rose Thinker's brainwave." She studied him suspiciously. "You've birthed another promotional bumble, Roger. I can see it in your eyes. I only hope it's not as big a one as when you put the Martian ambassador on 3D and he thanked you profusely for the gross of Puffyloaves, assuring you that he'd never slept on a softer mattress in all his life on two planets." "Listen to me, Meg. Today—yes, today!—you're going to see the Board eating out of my hand." "Hah! I guarantee you won't have any fingers left. You're bold enough now, but when Mr. Gryce and those two big machines come through that door—" "Now wait a minute, Meg—" "Hush! They're coming now!" Roger leaped three feet in the air, but managed to land without a sound and edged toward his stool. Through the dilating iris of the door strode Phineas T. Gryce, flanked by Rose Thinker and Tin Philosopher. The man approached the conference table in the center of the room with measured pace and gravely expressionless face. The rose-tinted machine on his left did a couple of impulsive pirouettes on the way and twittered a greeting to Meg and Roger. The other machine quietly took the third of the high seats and lifted a claw at Meg, who now occupied a stool twice the height of Roger's. "Miss Winterly, please—our theme." The Blonde Icicle's face thawed into a little-girl smile as she chanted bubblingly: " Made up of tiny wheaten motes And reinforced with sturdy oats, It rises through the air and floats— The bread on which all Terra dotes! " "THANK YOU, Miss Winterly," said Tin Philosopher. "Though a purely figurative statement, that bit about rising through the air always gets me—here." He rapped his midsection, which gave off a high musical clang . "Ladies—" he inclined his photocells toward Rose Thinker and Meg—"and gentlemen. This is a historic occasion in Old Puffy's long history, the inauguration of the helium-filled loaf ('So Light It Almost Floats Away!') in which that inert and heaven-aspiring gas replaces old-fashioned carbon dioxide. Later, there will be kudos for Rose Thinker, whose bright relays genius-sparked the idea, and also for Roger Snedden, who took care of the details. "By the by, Racehorse, that was a brilliant piece of work getting the helium out of the government—they've been pretty stuffy lately about their monopoly. But first I want to throw wide the casement in your minds that opens on the Long View of Things." Rose Thinker spun twice on her chair and opened her photocells wide. Tin Philosopher coughed to limber up the diaphragm of his speaker and continued: "Ever since the first cave wife boasted to her next-den neighbor about the superior paleness and fluffiness of her tortillas, mankind has sought lighter, whiter bread. Indeed, thinkers wiser than myself have equated the whole upward course of culture with this poignant quest. Yeast was a wonderful discovery—for its primitive day. Sifting the bran and wheat germ from the flour was an even more important advance. Early bleaching and preserving chemicals played their humble parts. "For a while, barbarous faddists—blind to the deeply spiritual nature of bread, which is recognized by all great religions—held back our march toward perfection with their hair-splitting insistence on the vitamin content of the wheat germ, but their case collapsed when tasteless colorless substitutes were triumphantly synthesized and introduced into the loaf, which for flawless purity, unequaled airiness and sheer intangible goodness was rapidly becoming mankind's supreme gustatory experience." "I wonder what the stuff tastes like," Rose Thinker said out of a clear sky. "I wonder what taste tastes like," Tin Philosopher echoed dreamily. Recovering himself, he continued: "Then, early in the twenty-first century, came the epochal researches of Everett Whitehead, Puffyloaf chemist, culminating in his paper 'The Structural Bubble in Cereal Masses' and making possible the baking of airtight bread twenty times stronger (for its weight) than steel and of a lightness that would have been incredible even to the advanced chemist-bakers of the twentieth century—a lightness so great that, besides forming the backbone of our own promotion, it has forever since been capitalized on by our conscienceless competitors of Fairy Bread with their enduring slogan: 'It Makes Ghost Toast'." "That's a beaut, all right, that ecto-dough blurb," Rose Thinker admitted, bugging her photocells sadly. "Wait a sec. How about?— " There'll be bread Overhead When you're dead— It is said. " PHINEAS T. GRYCE wrinkled his nostrils at the pink machine as if he smelled her insulation smoldering. He said mildly, "A somewhat unhappy jingle, Rose, referring as it does to the end of the customer as consumer. Moreover, we shouldn't overplay the figurative 'rises through the air' angle. What inspired you?" She shrugged. "I don't know—oh, yes, I do. I was remembering one of the workers' songs we machines used to chant during the Big Strike— " Work and pray, Live on hay. You'll get pie In the sky When you die— It's a lie! "I don't know why we chanted it," she added. "We didn't want pie—or hay, for that matter. And machines don't pray, except Tibetan prayer wheels." Phineas T. Gryce shook his head. "Labor relations are another topic we should stay far away from. However, dear Rose, I'm glad you keep trying to outjingle those dirty crooks at Fairy Bread." He scowled, turning back his attention to Tin Philosopher. "I get whopping mad, Old Machine, whenever I hear that other slogan of theirs, the discriminatory one—'Untouched by Robot Claws.' Just because they employ a few filthy androids in their factories!" Tin Philosopher lifted one of his own sets of bright talons. "Thanks, P.T. But to continue my historical resume, the next great advance in the baking art was the substitution of purified carbon dioxide, recovered from coal smoke, for the gas generated by yeast organisms indwelling in the dough and later killed by the heat of baking, their corpses remaining in situ . But even purified carbon dioxide is itself a rather repugnant gas, a product of metabolism whether fast or slow, and forever associated with those life processes which are obnoxious to the fastidious." Here the machine shuddered with delicate clinkings. "Therefore, we of Puffyloaf are taking today what may be the ultimate step toward purity: we are aerating our loaves with the noble gas helium, an element which remains virginal in the face of all chemical temptations and whose slim molecules are eleven times lighter than obese carbon dioxide—yes, noble uncontaminable helium, which, if it be a kind of ash, is yet the ash only of radioactive burning, accomplished or initiated entirely on the Sun, a safe 93 million miles from this planet. Let's have a cheer for the helium loaf!" WITHOUT changing expression, Phineas T. Gryce rapped the table thrice in solemn applause, while the others bowed their heads. "Thanks, T.P.," P.T. then said. "And now for the Moment of Truth. Miss Winterly, how is the helium loaf selling?" The business girl clapped on a pair of earphones and whispered into a lapel mike. Her gaze grew abstracted as she mentally translated flurries of brief squawks into coherent messages. Suddenly a single vertical furrow creased her matchlessly smooth brow. "It isn't, Mr. Gryce!" she gasped in horror. "Fairy Bread is outselling Puffyloaves by an infinity factor. So far this morning, there has not been one single delivery of Puffyloaves to any sales spot ! Complaints about non-delivery are pouring in from both walking stores and sessile shops." "Mr. Snedden!" Gryce barked. "What bug in the new helium process might account for this delay?" Roger was on his feet, looking bewildered. "I can't imagine, sir, unless—just possibly—there's been some unforeseeable difficulty involving the new metal-foil wrappers." "Metal-foil wrappers? Were you responsible for those?" "Yes, sir. Last-minute recalculations showed that the extra lightness of the new loaf might be great enough to cause drift during stackage. Drafts in stores might topple sales pyramids. Metal-foil wrappers, by their added weight, took care of the difficulty." "And you ordered them without consulting the Board?" "Yes, sir. There was hardly time and—" "Why, you fool! I noticed that order for metal-foil wrappers, assumed it was some sub-secretary's mistake, and canceled it last night!" Roger Snedden turned pale. "You canceled it?" he quavered. "And told them to go back to the lighter plastic wrappers?" "Of course! Just what is behind all this, Mr. Snedden? What recalculations were you trusting, when our physicists had demonstrated months ago that the helium loaf was safely stackable in light airs and gentle breezes—winds up to Beaufort's scale 3. Why should a change from heavier to lighter wrappers result in complete non-delivery?" ROGER Snedden's paleness became tinged with an interesting green. He cleared his throat and made strange gulping noises. Tin Philosopher's photocells focused on him calmly, Rose Thinker's with unfeigned excitement. P.T. Gryce's frown grew blacker by the moment, while Megera Winterly's Venus-mask showed an odd dawning of dismay and awe. She was getting new squawks in her earphones. "Er ... ah ... er...." Roger said in winning tones. "Well, you see, the fact is that I...." "Hold it," Meg interrupted crisply. "Triple-urgent from Public Relations, Safety Division. Tulsa-Topeka aero-express makes emergency landing after being buffeted in encounter with vast flight of objects first described as brown birds, although no failures reported in airway's electronic anti-bird fences. After grounding safely near Emporia—no fatalities—pilot's windshield found thinly plastered with soft white-and-brown material. Emblems on plastic wrappers embedded in material identify it incontrovertibly as an undetermined number of Puffyloaves cruising at three thousand feet!" Eyes and photocells turned inquisitorially upon Roger Snedden. He went from green to Puffyloaf white and blurted: "All right, I did it, but it was the only way out! Yesterday morning, due to the Ukrainian crisis, the government stopped sales and deliveries of all strategic stockpiled materials, including helium gas. Puffy's new program of advertising and promotion, based on the lighter loaf, was already rolling. There was only one thing to do, there being only one other gas comparable in lightness to helium. I diverted the necessary quantity of hydrogen gas from the Hydrogenated Oils Section of our Magna-Margarine Division and substituted it for the helium." "You substituted ... hydrogen ... for the ... helium?" Phineas T. Gryce faltered in low mechanical tones, taking four steps backward. "Hydrogen is twice as light as helium," Tin Philosopher remarked judiciously. "And many times cheaper—did you know that?" Roger countered feebly. "Yes, I substituted hydrogen. The metal-foil wrapping would have added just enough weight to counteract the greater buoyancy of the hydrogen loaf. But—" "So, when this morning's loaves began to arrive on the delivery platforms of the walking mills...." Tin Philosopher left the remark unfinished. "Exactly," Roger agreed dismally. "Let me ask you, Mr. Snedden," Gryce interjected, still in low tones, "if you expected people to jump to the kitchen ceiling for their Puffybread after taking off the metal wrapper, or reach for the sky if they happened to unwrap the stuff outdoors?" "Mr. Gryce," Roger said reproachfully, "you have often assured me that what people do with Puffybread after they buy it is no concern of ours." "I seem to recall," Rose Thinker chirped somewhat unkindly, "that dictum was created to answer inquiries after Roger put the famous sculptures-in-miniature artist on 3D and he testified that he always molded his first attempts from Puffybread, one jumbo loaf squeezing down to approximately the size of a peanut." HER photocells dimmed and brightened. "Oh, boy—hydrogen! The loaf's unwrapped. After a while, in spite of the crust-seal, a little oxygen diffuses in. An explosive mixture. Housewife in curlers and kimono pops a couple slices in the toaster. Boom!" The three human beings in the room winced. Tin Philosopher kicked her under the table, while observing, "So you see, Roger, that the non-delivery of the hydrogen loaf carries some consolations. And I must confess that one aspect of the affair gives me great satisfaction, not as a Board Member but as a private machine. You have at last made a reality of the 'rises through the air' part of Puffybread's theme. They can't ever take that away from you. By now, half the inhabitants of the Great Plains must have observed our flying loaves rising high." Phineas T. Gryce shot a frightened look at the west windows and found his full voice. "Stop the mills!" he roared at Meg Winterly, who nodded and whispered urgently into her mike. "A sensible suggestion," Tin Philosopher said. "But it comes a trifle late in the day. If the mills are still walking and grinding, approximately seven billion Puffyloaves are at this moment cruising eastward over Middle America. Remember that a six-month supply for deep-freeze is involved and that the current consumption of bread, due to its matchless airiness, is eight and one-half loaves per person per day." Phineas T. Gryce carefully inserted both hands into his scanty hair, feeling for a good grip. He leaned menacingly toward Roger who, chin resting on the table, regarded him apathetically. "Hold it!" Meg called sharply. "Flock of multiple-urgents coming in. News Liaison: information bureaus swamped with flying-bread inquiries. Aero-expresslines: Clear our airways or face law suit. U. S. Army: Why do loaves flame when hit by incendiary bullets? U. S. Customs: If bread intended for export, get export license or face prosecution. Russian Consulate in Chicago: Advise on destination of bread-lift. And some Kansas church is accusing us of a hoax inciting to blasphemy, of faking miracles—I don't know why ." The business girl tore off her headphones. "Roger Snedden," she cried with a hysteria that would have dumfounded her underlings, "you've brought the name of Puffyloaf in front of the whole world, all right! Now do something about the situation!" Roger nodded obediently. But his pallor increased a shade, the pupils of his eyes disappeared under the upper lids, and his head burrowed beneath his forearms. "Oh, boy," Rose Thinker called gayly to Tin Philosopher, "this looks like the start of a real crisis session! Did you remember to bring spare batteries?" MEANWHILE, the monstrous flight of Puffyloaves, filling midwestern skies as no small fliers had since the days of the passenger pigeon, soared steadily onward. Private fliers approached the brown and glistening bread-front in curiosity and dipped back in awe. Aero-expresslines organized sightseeing flights along the flanks. Planes of the government forestry and agricultural services and 'copters bearing the Puffyloaf emblem hovered on the fringes, watching developments and waiting for orders. A squadron of supersonic fighters hung menacingly above. The behavior of birds varied considerably. Most fled or gave the loaves a wide berth, but some bolder species, discovering the minimal nutritive nature of the translucent brown objects, attacked them furiously with beaks and claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly through the crusts had now distended most of the sealed plastic wrappers into little balloons, which ruptured, when pierced, with disconcerting pops . Below, neck-craning citizens crowded streets and back yards, cranks and cultists had a field day, while local and national governments raged indiscriminately at Puffyloaf and at each other. Rumors that a fusion weapon would be exploded in the midst of the flying bread drew angry protests from conservationists and a flood of telefax pamphlets titled "H-Loaf or H-bomb?" Stockholm sent a mystifying note of praise to the United Nations Food Organization. Delhi issued nervous denials of a millet blight that no one had heard of until that moment and reaffirmed India's ability to feed her population with no outside help except the usual. Radio Moscow asserted that the Kremlin would brook no interference in its treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying bread as a farce perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud Cuckoo Land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped by Capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent on the whole topic. Radio Venus reported to its winged audience that Earth's inhabitants were establishing food depots in the upper air, preparatory to taking up permanent aerial residence "such as we have always enjoyed on Venus." NEWNEW YORK made feverish preparations for the passage of the flying bread. Tickets for sightseeing space in skyscrapers were sold at high prices; cold meats and potted spreads were hawked to viewers with the assurance that they would be able to snag the bread out of the air and enjoy a historic sandwich. Phineas T. Gryce, escaping from his own managerial suite, raged about the city, demanding general cooperation in the stretching of great nets between the skyscrapers to trap the errant loaves. He was captured by Tin Philosopher, escaped again, and was found posted with oxygen mask and submachine gun on the topmost spire of Puffyloaf Tower, apparently determined to shoot down the loaves as they appeared and before they involved his company in more trouble with Customs and the State Department. Recaptured by Tin Philosopher, who suffered only minor bullet holes, he was given a series of mild electroshocks and returned to the conference table, calm and clear-headed as ever. But the bread flight, swinging away from a hurricane moving up the Atlantic coast, crossed a clouded-in Boston by night and disappeared into a high Atlantic overcast, also thereby evading a local storm generated by the Weather Department in a last-minute effort to bring down or at least disperse the H-loaves. Warnings and counterwarnings by Communist and Capitalist governments seriously interfered with military trailing of the flight during this period and it was actually lost in touch with for several days. At scattered points, seagulls were observed fighting over individual loaves floating down from the gray roof—that was all. A mood of spirituality strongly tinged with humor seized the people of the world. Ministers sermonized about the bread, variously interpreting it as a call to charity, a warning against gluttony, a parable of the evanescence of all earthly things, and a divine joke. Husbands and wives, facing each other across their walls of breakfast toast, burst into laughter. The mere sight of a loaf of bread anywhere was enough to evoke guffaws. An obscure sect, having as part of its creed the injunction "Don't take yourself so damn seriously," won new adherents. The bread flight, rising above an Atlantic storm widely reported to have destroyed it, passed unobserved across a foggy England and rose out of the overcast only over Mittel-europa. The loaves had at last reached their maximum altitude. The Sun's rays beat through the rarified air on the distended plastic wrappers, increasing still further the pressure of the confined hydrogen. They burst by the millions and tens of millions. A high-flying Bulgarian evangelist, who had happened to mistake the up-lever for the east-lever in the cockpit of his flier and who was the sole witness of the event, afterward described it as "the foaming of a sea of diamonds, the crackle of God's knuckles." BY THE millions and tens of millions, the loaves coasted down into the starving Ukraine. Shaken by a week of humor that threatened to invade even its own grim precincts, the Kremlin made a sudden about-face. A new policy was instituted of communal ownership of the produce of communal farms, and teams of hunger-fighters and caravans of trucks loaded with pumpernickel were dispatched into the Ukraine. World distribution was given to a series of photographs showing peasants queueing up to trade scavenged Puffyloaves for traditional black bread, recently aerated itself but still extra solid by comparison, the rate of exchange demanded by the Moscow teams being twenty Puffyloaves to one of pumpernickel. Another series of photographs, picturing chubby workers' children being blown to bits by booby-trapped bread, was quietly destroyed. Congratulatory notes were exchanged by various national governments and world organizations, including the Brotherhood of Free Business Machines. The great bread flight was over, though for several weeks afterward scattered falls of loaves occurred, giving rise to a new folklore of manna among lonely Arabian tribesmen, and in one well-authenticated instance in Tibet, sustaining life in a party of mountaineers cut off by a snow slide. Back in NewNew York, the managerial board of Puffy Products slumped in utter collapse around the conference table, the long crisis session at last ended. Empty coffee cartons were scattered around the chairs of the three humans, dead batteries around those of the two machines. For a while, there was no movement whatsoever. Then Roger Snedden reached out wearily for the earphones where Megera Winterly had hurled them down, adjusted them to his head, pushed a button and listened apathetically. After a bit, his gaze brightened. He pushed more buttons and listened more eagerly. Soon he was sitting tensely upright on his stool, eyes bright and lower face all a-smile, muttering terse comments and questions into the lapel mike torn from Meg's fair neck. The others, reviving, watched him, at first dully, then with quickening interest, especially when he jerked off the earphones with a happy shout and sprang to his feet. "LISTEN to this!" he cried in a ringing voice. "As a result of the worldwide publicity, Puffyloaves are outselling Fairy Bread three to one—and that's just the old carbon-dioxide stock from our freezers! It's almost exhausted, but the government, now that the Ukrainian crisis is over, has taken the ban off helium and will also sell us stockpiled wheat if we need it. We can have our walking mills burrowing into the wheat caves in a matter of hours! "But that isn't all! The far greater demand everywhere is for Puffyloaves that will actually float. Public Relations, Child Liaison Division, reports that the kiddies are making their mothers' lives miserable about it. If only we can figure out some way to make hydrogen non-explosive or the helium loaf float just a little—" "I'm sure we can take care of that quite handily," Tin Philosopher interrupted briskly. "Puffyloaf has kept it a corporation secret—even you've never been told about it—but just before he went crazy, Everett Whitehead discovered a way to make bread using only half as much flour as we do in the present loaf. Using this secret technique, which we've been saving for just such an emergency, it will be possible to bake a helium loaf as buoyant in every respect as the hydrogen loaf." "Good!" Roger cried. "We'll tether 'em on strings and sell 'em like balloons. No mother-child shopping team will leave the store without a cluster. Buying bread balloons will be the big event of the day for kiddies. It'll make the carry-home shopping load lighter too! I'll issue orders at once—" HE broke off, looking at Phineas T. Gryce, said with quiet assurance, "Excuse me, sir, if I seem to be taking too much upon myself." "Not at all, son; go straight ahead," the great manager said approvingly. "You're"—he laughed in anticipation of getting off a memorable remark—"rising to the challenging situation like a genuine Puffyloaf." Megera Winterly looked from the older man to the younger. Then in a single leap she was upon Roger, her arms wrapped tightly around him. "My sweet little ever-victorious, self-propelled monkey wrench!" she crooned in his ear. Roger looked fatuously over her soft shoulder at Tin Philosopher who, as if moved by some similar feeling, reached over and touched claws with Rose Thinker. This, however, was what he telegraphed silently to his fellow machine across the circuit so completed: "Good-o, Rosie! That makes another victory for robot-engineered world unity, though you almost gave us away at the start with that 'bread overhead' jingle. We've struck another blow against the next world war, in which—as we know only too well!—we machines would suffer the most. Now if we can only arrange, say, a fur-famine in Alaska and a migration of long-haired Siberian lemmings across Behring Straits ... we'd have to swing the Japanese Current up there so it'd be warm enough for the little fellows.... Anyhow, Rosie, with a spot of help from the Brotherhood, those humans will paint themselves into the peace corner yet." Meanwhile, he and Rose Thinker quietly watched the Blonde Icicle melt. —FRITZ LEIBER Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy February 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Break a Leg by Harmon, Jim	"Break a Leg", Jim Harmon, 1958. BREAK A LEG By JIM HARMON Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction November 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The man worth while couldn't be allowed to smile ... if he ever laughed at himself, the entire ship and crew were as good as dead! If there is anything I am afraid of, and there probably is, it is having a rookie Accident Prone, half-starved from the unemployment lines, aboard my spaceship. They are always so anxious to please. They remember what it is like to live in a rathole behind an apartment house furnace eating day-old bread and wilted vegetables, which doesn't compare favorably to the Admiralty-style staterooms and steak and caviar they draw down in the Exploration Service. You may wonder why anybody should make things so pleasant for a grownup who can't walk a city block without tripping over his own feet and who has a very low life expectancy on Earth due to the automobiles they are constantly stepping in front of and the live wires they are fond of picking up so the street won't be littered. The Admiralty, however, is a very thorough group of men. Before they open a planet to colonization or even fraternization, they insist on knowing just what they are up against. Accident Prones can find out what is wrong with a planet as easily as falling off a log, which they will if there is one lonely tree on the whole world. A single pit of quicksand on a veritable Eden of a planet and a Prone will be knee-deep in it within an hour of blastdown. If an alien race will smile patronizingly on your heroic attempts at genocide, but be offended into a murderous religious frenzy if you blow your nose, you can take the long end of the odds that the Prone will almost immediately catch a cold. All of this is properly recorded for the next expedition in the Admiralty files, and if it's any consolation, high officials and screen stars often visit you in the hospital. Charlie Baxter was like all of the other Prones, only worse. Moran III was sort of an unofficial test for him and he wanted to make good. We had blasted down in the black of night and were waiting for daylight to begin our re-survey of the planet. It was Charlie's first assignment, so we had an easy one—just seeing if anything new had developed in the last fifty years. Baxter's guard was doubled as soon as we set down, of course, and that made him fidgety. He had heard all the stories about how high the casualty rate was with Prones aboard spaceships and now he was beginning to get nervous. Actually Charlie was safer in space than he would be back on Earth with all those cars and people. We could have told him how the Service practically never lost a Prone—they were too valuable and rare to lose—but we did not want him to stop worrying. The precautions we took to safeguard him, the armed men who went with him everywhere, the Accident Prone First Aid Kit with spare parts for him, blood, eyes, bone, nerves, arms, legs, and so forth, only emphasized to him the danger, not the rigidly secured safety. We like it that way. No one knows what causes an accident prone. The big insurance companies on Earth discovered them when they found out in the last part of the nineteenth century that ninety per cent of the accidents were happening to a few per cent of the people. They soon found out that these people were not malingering or trying to defraud anybody; they simply had accidents. I suppose everything from psychology to extra-sensory perception has been used to explain or explain away prones. I have my own ideas. I think an accident prone is simply a super-genius with a super-doubt of himself. I believe accident prones have a better system of calculation than a cybernetic machine. They can take everything into consideration—the humidity, their blood sugar, the expression on the other guy's face—and somewhere in the corners and attic of their brain they infallibly make the right choice in any given situation. Then, because they are incapable of trusting themselves, they do exactly the opposite. I felt a little sorry for Charlie Baxter, but I was Captain of the Hilliard and my job was to keep him worried and trying. The worst thing that can happen is for a Prone to give up and let himself sink into the fate of being a Prone. He will wear the rut right down into a tomb. Accident Prones have to stay worried and thinking, trying to break out of the jinx that traps them. Usually they come to discover this themselves, but by then, if they are real professionals with a career in the Service, they have framed the right attitude and they keep it. Baxter was a novice and very much of an amateur at the game. He didn't like the scoring system, but he was attached to the equipment and didn't want to lose it. His clumsiness back on Earth had cost him every decent job he ever had. He had come all the way down the line until he was rated eligible only for the position of Prone aboard a spaceship. He had been poor—hungry, cold, wet, poor—and now he had luxury of a kind almost no one had in our era. He was drunk with it, passionately in love with it. It would cease to be quite so important after a few years of regular food, clean clothes and a solid roof to keep out the rain. But right now I knew he would come precariously close to killing to keep it. Or to being killed. He was ready to work. I knocked politely on his hatch and straightened my tunic. I have always admired the men who can look starched in a uniform. Mine always seemed to wrinkle as soon as I put them around my raw-boned frame. Sometimes it is hard for me to keep a military appearance or manner. I got my commission during the Crisis ten years back, because of my work in the reserve unit that I created out of my employees in the glass works (glassware blown to order for laboratories). Someone said something through the door and I went inside. Bronoski looked at me over the top of his picture tape from where he lay on the sofa. No one else was in the compartment. "Where is Baxter?" I asked the hulking guard. My eyes were on the sofa. My own bed pulled out of the wall and was considerably inferior to this, much less Baxter's bed in the next cabin. But then I am only a captain. Bronoski swung his feet off the couch and stood more or less in what I might have taken for attention if I hadn't known him better. "Sidney and Elliot escorted him down to the men's room, Captain Jackson." "You mean," I said very quietly, "that he isn't in his own bath?" "No sir," Bronoski said wearily. "He told us it was out of order." I stifled the gurgle of rage that came into my throat and motioned Bronoski to follow me. The engines on the Hilliard were more likely to be out of order than the plumbing in the Accident Prone's suite. No effort was spared to insure comfort for the key man in the whole crew. One glance inside the compartment at the end of the corridor satisfied me. There wasn't a thing wrong with the plumbing, so Baxter must have had something in mind. On a hunch of my own, I checked the supply lockers next to the airlock while Bronoski fired questions at my back. Three translator collars were missing. Baxter had left the spaceship and gone off into an alien night. Elliot and Sidney, the guards, were absolutely prohibited from interfering in any way with a Prone's decisions. They merely had to follow him and give their lives to save his, if necessary. I grabbed up a translator collar and tossed one to Bronoski. Then, just as we were getting into the airlock, I remembered something and ran back to the bridge. The thick brown envelope I had left on my desk was gone. I had shown it to Baxter and informed him that he should study it when he felt so inclined. He had seemed bored with the idea then, but he had come back for the report before leaving the ship. The envelope contained the exploration survey on Moran III made some fifty years before. I unlocked a desk drawer with my thumb print and drew out a duplicate of the report. I didn't have too much confidence in it and I hoped Charlie Baxter had less. Lots of things can change on a planet in fifty years, including its inhabitants. Bronoski picked up Baxter's tracks and those of the two guards, Elliot and Sidney, with ultra-violet light. They were cold splotches of green fire against the rotting black peat of the jungle path. The whole dark, tangled mess smelled of sour mash, an intoxicating bourbon-type aroma. I jogged along following the big man more by instinct than anything else, ruining my eyes in an effort to refresh my memory as to the contents of the survey report in the cheery little glow from my cigarette lighter. The lighter was beginning to feel hot to my fingers and I started to worry about radiation leak, although they are supposed to be guaranteed perfectly shielded. I read that before the last exploration party had left, they had made the Moranite natives blood brothers. Then Bronoski knocked me down. Actually he put his hands in the small of my back and shoved politely but firmly. Just the same, I went face down into the moist dirt fast enough. I raised my head cautiously to see if Bronoski would shove it back down. He didn't. I could see through the stringy, alcoholic grass fairly well and there were Baxter, Elliot and Sidney in the middle of a curious mob of aliens. Charlie Baxter had got pretty thin on his starvation diet back on Earth. He had grown a slight pot belly on the good food he drew down as Prone, but he was a fairly nice-looking young fellow. He looked even better in the pale moonlight, mixed amber and chartreuse from the twin satellites, and in contrast to the rest of the group. Elliot Charterson and Sidney Von Elderman were more or less type-cast as brawny, brainless bodyguards. Their friends described them as muscle-bound apes, but other people sometimes got insulting. The natives were less formidable. They made the slight lump of fat Charlie had at his waist look positively indecent. The natives were skinny . How skinny? Well, the only curves they had in their bodies were their bulging eyeballs. But just because they were thin didn't mean they were pushovers. Whips and garrotes aren't fat and these looked just as dangerous. Whenever I see aliens who are so humanoid, I remember all that Sunday supplement stuff about the Galaxy being colonized sometime by one humanlike race and the Ten Lost Tribes and so forth. They didn't give me much time to think about it just then. The natives looked unhappy—belligerently unhappy. I began to shake and at the same time to assure myself that I didn't have anything to worry about, that the precious Accident Prone would come out of it alive. After all, Elliot and Sidney were there to protect him. They had machine guns, flame-throwers, atomic grenades, and some really potent weapons. They could handle the situation. I didn't have a thing to worry about. So why couldn't I stop shaking? Maybe it was the way the natives were slowly but deliberately forming a circle about Charlie and his bodyguards. The clothing of the Moranites hadn't changed much, I noticed. That was understandable. They had a non-mechanical civilization with scattered colonies that it would take a terrestrial season to tour by animal cart. An isolated culture like that couldn't change many of its customs. Then Charlie shouldn't have any trouble if he stuck to the findings on behavior in the report. Naturally, that meant by now he had discovered the fatal error. The three men were just standing still, waiting for the aliens to make the first move. The natives looked just as worried as Charlie and his guards, but then that might have been their natural expression. I jumped a little when the natives all began to talk at once. The mixture of sound was fed to me through my translator collar while the cybernetic unit back on board the spaceship tried decoding the words. It was too much of an overload and, infuriatingly, the sound was cut out altogether. I started to rip my collar off when the natives stopped screeching and a spokesman stepped forward. The native slumped a little more than the others, as if he were more relaxed, and his eyes didn't goggle so much. He said, "We do not understand," and the translation came through fine. Baxter swallowed and started forward to meet the alien halfway. His boot slipped on the wet scrub grass and I saw him do the desperate little dance to regain his balance that I had seen him make so many times; he could never stay on his feet. Before he could perform his usual pratfall, Sidney and Elliot were at his sides, supporting him by his thin biceps. He glared at them and shrugged them off, informing them wordlessly that he would have regained his balance if they had given him half a chance. "We do not understand," the native repeated. "Do you hold us in so much contempt as to claim all of us as your brothers?" "All beings are brothers," Charlie said. "We were made blood brothers by your people and my people several hundred of your years ago." Charlie's words were being translated into the native language, of course, but Bronoski's collars and mine switched them back into Terrestrial. I've read stories where explorers wearing translators couldn't understand each other, but that isn't the way it works. If you listen closely, you make out the words in your own language underneath, and if you pay very close attention, you can find minor semantic differences in the original words and the echo translated back from a native language. I was trying to catch both versions from Charlie. I knew he was making a mistake and later I wanted to be sure I knew just what it was. Frankly, I would have used the blood-brother gambit myself. I had also read about it in the survey report, as I made a point of telling you. This just proves that Accident Prones haven't secured the franchise on mistakes. The difference is that I would have gone about it a lot more cautiously. "Enough of this," the native said sharply. "Do you claim to be my brother?" "Sure," Charlie said. Dispassionately but automatically, the alien launched himself at the Prone's throat. Charterson and Von Elderman instantly went into action. Elliot Charterson jumped to Charlie's assistance while Sidney Von Elderman swung around to protect Charlie from the rest of the crowd. But the defense didn't work. The other aliens didn't try to get to Baxter, but when they saw Elliot start to interfere with the two writhing opponents, they clawed him down into the grass. Sidney had been set to defend the Prone, not his fellow guard. They might have been all right if he had pulled a few off Elliot and let him get to work, except his training told him that the life of a guard did not matter a twit, but that a Prone must be defended. He started toward Charlie Baxter and was immediately pulled down by a spare dozen of the mob. It all meant one thing to me. The reaction of the crowd had been spontaneous, not planned. That meant that the struggle between Charlie and the spokesman was a high order of single combat with which it was unholy, indecent and dastardly to interfere. I could fairly hear Bronoski's steel muscles preparing for battle as he saw his two mammoth pals go down under the press of numbers. A bristle-covered bullet of skull rose out of the grass beside me and it was my turn to grind his face in the muck. I had a nice little problem to contend with. I knew the reason Baxter had slipped out at night to be the first to greet the aliens. He was determined to be useful and necessary without fouling things up. I suppose Charlie had never felt valuable to anyone before in his life, but at the same time it hurt him to think that he was valuable only because he was a misfit. He had decided to take a positive approach. If he did things right, that would be as good proof of conditions as if he made the mistakes he was supposed to do. But he couldn't lick that doubt of himself that had been ground into him since birth and there he was, in trouble as always. Now maybe Bronoski and I could get him out ourselves by a direct approach, but Charlie would probably lose all self-confidence and sink down into accepting himself as an Accident Prone, a purely passive state. We couldn't have that. We had to have Charlie acting and thinking and therefore making mistakes whose bad examples we could profit by. As I lay on my belly thinking, Charlie was putting up a pretty good fight with the stringy native. He got in a few good punches, which seemed to mystify the native, who apparently knew nothing of boxing. Naturally Charlie then began wrestling a trained and deadly wrestler instead of continuing to box him. I grabbed Bronoski by his puffy ear and hissed some commands into it. He fumbled out a book of matches and lit one for me. By the tiny flicker of light, I began tearing apart my lighter. I suppose you have played "tickling the dragon's tail" when you were a kid. I did. I guess all kids have. You know, worrying around two lumps of fissionable material and just keeping them from uniting and making a critical mass that will result in an explosion or lethal radiation. I caught my oldest boy doing it one day back on Earth and gave him a good tanning for it. Actually I thought it showed he had a lot of grit. Every real boy likes to tickle the dragon's tail. Maybe I was a little old for it, but that's what I was doing there in the Moran III jungle. I got the shield off my cigarette lighter and jerked out the dinky little damper rods for the pile and started easing the two little bricks toward each other with the point of my lead pencil. I heard something that resembled a death rattle come from Charlie's throat as the fingers of the alien closed down on it and my hand twitched. A blooming light stabbed at my eyes and I flicked the lighter away from me. The explosion was a dud. It lit up the jungle for a radius of half a mile like a giant flashbulb, but it exploded only about ten times as loud as a pistol shot. The mass hadn't been slapped together hard enough or held long enough to do any real damage. The natives weren't fools, though. They got out of there fast. I wished I could have gone with them. There was undoubtedly an unhealthy amount of radiation hanging around. "Now!" I told Bronoski. He ran into the clearing and found four bodies sprawled out: Charlie Baxter, his two guards and the native spokesman. Charlie and the native were both technically unconscious, but they each had a stranglehold on each other, with Charlie getting the worst of it. Bronoski pried the two of them apart. While he roused Sidney and Elliot from their punch-drunk state, I examined Charlie. He had a nasty burn on his leg and two toes were gone. If there was an explosion anywhere around, he was bound to be in front of it. He was abruptly choking and blinking watery eyes. "You did it, Charlie," I lied. "You beat him fair and square." Charlie was in bed for the next few days while his grafted toes grew on, but he didn't seem to mind. We knew enough not to use the blood-brothers approach after fifty years and therefore it did not take us long to find out why we shouldn't. The Moran III culture was isolated in small colonies, but we had forgotten that a generation of the intelligent life-forms was only three Earth months. It seems a waste at first thought, but all things are relative. The Crystopeds of New Lichtenstein, for instance, have a life span of twenty thousand Terrestrial years. With so fast a turnover in Moran III individuals, there was bound to be a lot of variables introduced, resulting in change. The idea that seemed to be in favor was the survival of the fittest. Since the natives were born in litters, with single births extremely rare, this concept was practiced from the first. Unless they were particularly cunning, the runts of the litter did not survive the first year and rarely more than one sibling ever saw adulthood. Obviously, to claim to be a native's brother was to challenge him to a test of survival. My men learned to call themselves Last Brother in the usual bragging preliminaries that preceded every encounter. We got pretty good results with that approach and learned a lot about the changes in customs in the half century. But finally one of the men—either Frank Peirmonte or Sidney Charterson, who both claim to be the one—thought of calling the crew a Family and right away we began hitting it off famously. The Moranites figured we would kill each other off all except maybe one, whom they could handle themselves. They still had folk legends about the previous visit of Earthmen and they didn't trust us. Charlie Baxter's original mistake had supplied us with the Rosetta Stone we needed. Doctor Selby told me Charlie could get up finally, so I went to his suite and shook hands with him as he still lay in bed. I waited for the big moment when Charlie would be on his feet again and we could get on with the re-survey of the planet. "Here goes," Charlie said and threw back his sheet. He swung his legs around and tottered to his feet. He was a little weak, but he took a few steps and seemed to make it okay. Then the inevitable happened. He snagged the edge of one of the Persian carpets on the bedroom floor with his big toe and started to fall. Selby and I both dived forward to catch him, but instead of doing the arm-waving dance for balance that we were both used to, he seemed to go limp and he plopped on the floor like a wet fish. Immediately he jumped to his feet, grinning. "I finally learned to go limp when I take a fall, sir. It took a lot of practice. I imagine I'll save some broken bones that way." "Yes," I said uneasily. "You have been thinking about this quite a lot while you lay there, haven't you, Baxter?" "Yes, sir. I see I've been fighting this thing too hard. I am an Accident Prone and I might as well accept it. Why not? I seem to always muddle through some way, like out there in the jungle, so why should I worry or feel embarrassed ? I know I can't change it." I was beginning to do some worrying of my own. Things weren't working out the way they should. We were supposed to see that Prones kept developing a certain amount of doomed self-confidence, but they couldn't be allowed to believe they were infallible Prones. A Prone's value lies in his active and constructive effort to do the right thing. If he merely accepts being a Prone, his accidents gain us nothing. We can't profit from mistakes that come about from resignation or laughing off blunders or, as in this case, conviction that he never got himself into anything he couldn't get himself out of. "Doctor Selby, would you excuse us?" I asked. The medic left with a bow and a surly expression. I turned to Baxter, rather wishing Selby could have stayed. It was a labor dispute and I was used to having a mediator present at bargaining sessions at my glassworks. But this was a military, not a civilian, spaceship. "I have some facts of life to give you, Baxter," I told him. "It is your duty to actively fulfill your position. You have to make decisions and plan courses of action. Do you figure on just walking around in that jungle until a tree falls on you?" He sat down on the edge of the bed and examined the pattern in the carpet. "Not exactly, sir. But I get tired of people waiting for me to make a fool out of myself. I have a natural talent for—for Creative Negativism . That's it. And I should be able to exercise my talent with dignity ." "If you don't actively fulfill the obligations of a Prone, you aren't allowed the luxuries and privileges that go with the position. Do you think you would like to be without your armed guards to protect you every moment?" "I can take care of myself, sir!" I paused and came up with my best argument. "How would you like to live like an ordinary spaceman, without rare steaks and clean sheets? Because if you're not our Accident Prone, you're just another crew member, you know." That one hurt him, but I saw I had put it to him as a challenge and he must have had some guilt feelings about accepting all that luxury for being nothing more than he was. "I could fulfill the duties of an ordinary spaceman, sir." I snorted. "It takes skill and training, Baxter. Your papers entitle you to one position and one only anywhere—Accident Prone of a spaceship complement. If you refuse to do your duties in that post, you can only become a ward of the Galaxy." His jaw line firmed. He had gone through a lot to keep from taking such abject charity. "Isn't there," he asked in a milder tone, " any other position I could serve in on this ship, sir?" I studied his face a moment. "We had to blast off without an Assistant Pile Driver, j.g. It keeps getting harder and harder to recruit an APD, j.g. I suppose it's those reports about the eventual fatalities due to radiation leak back there where they are stationed." Baxter looked back at me steadily. "There are a lot of rumors about the high mortality rate among Accident Prones in space, too." He was right. We had started the rumors. We wanted the Prones alert, active and scheming to stay alive. More beneficial accidents that way. Actually, most Prones died of old age in space, which is more than could be said of them on Earth, where they didn't have the kind of protection the Service gives them. "Look here, Baxter, do you like your quarters on this ship?" I demanded. "You mean this master bedroom, the private heated swimming pool, the tennis court, bowling alley and all? Yes, sir, I like it." "The Assistant Pile Driver has a cot near the fuel tanks." He gazed off over my left shoulder. "I had a bed behind the furnace back on Earth before the building I was working in burned down." "You wouldn't like this one any better than the one before." "But there I would have some chance of advancement . I don't want to be stuck in the rank of Accident Prone for life." I stared at him in frank amazement. "Baxter, the only rank getting higher pay or more privileges than Prone is Grand Admiral of the Services, a position it would take you at least fifty years to reach if you had the luck and brains to make it, which you haven't." "I had something more modest in mind, sir. Like being a captain." He surely must have known how I lived in comparison to him, so I didn't bother to remind him. I said, "Have you ever seen a case of radiation poisoning?" Baxter's jaw thrust forward. "It must be pretty bad—but it isn't as violent as being eaten by floating fungi or being swallowed in an earthquake on some airless satellite." "No," I agreed, "it is much slower than any of those. It is unfortunate that we don't carry the necessary supplies to take care of Pile Drivers. Most of our medical supplies are in the Accident Prone First Aid Kit, for the exclusive use of the Prone. Have you ever taken a good look at that?" Baxter shivered. "Yes, I've seen it. Several drums of blood, Type AB, my type. A half-dozen fresh-frozen assorted arms and legs, several rows of eyes, a hundred square feet of graftable skin, and a well-stocked tank of inner organs and a double-doored bank of nerve lengths. Impressive." I smiled. "Sort of gives you a feeling of confidence and security, doesn't it? It would be unfortunate for anyone who had a great many accidents to be denied the supplies in that Kit, I should think. Of course, it is available only to those filling the position of Accident Prone and doing the work faithfully and according to orders." "Yes, sir," Charlie mumbled. "Selby is your personal physician, you realize," I drove on. "He takes care of the rest of us only if he has time left over from you. Why, when I was having my two weeks in the summer as an Ensign, I had to lie for half an hour with a crushed foot while the doctor sprayed our Prone's throat to guard against infection. Let me tell you, I was in quite a bit of pain." Charlie's pale eyes narrowed as if he had just made a sudden discovery, perhaps about the relationship between us. "You don't make as much money as I do, do you, sir? You don't have a valet? And your bed folds into the bulkhead?" I thought he was at last beginning to get it. "Yes," I said. He stood sharply to attention. "Request transfer to position of Assistant Pile Driver, j.g., sir." I barely halted a groan. He thought I resented him and was deliberately holding him down into the miserable overpaid, overfed job that was beneath him and the talents that so fitted him for the job. "Request granted." He would learn. He had better. I started to sweat in a gush. He had really better.
Breakaway by Gimble, Stanley	"Breakaway", Stanley Gimble, 1964. Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction December 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. BREAKAWAY BY STANLEY GIMBLE Illustrated by Freas She surely got her wish ... but there was some question about getting what she wanted. Phil Conover pulled the zipper of his flight suit up the front of his long, thin body and came into the living room. His face, usually serious and quietly handsome, had an alive, excited look. And the faint lines around his dark, deep-set eyes were accentuated when he smiled at his wife. "All set, honey. How do I look in my monkey suit?" His wife was sitting stiffly on the flowered couch that was still not theirs completely. In her fingers she held a cigarette burned down too far. She said, "You look fine, Phil. You look just right." She managed a smile. Then she leaned forward and crushed the cigarette in the ash tray on the maple coffee table and took another from the pack. He came to her and touched his hands to her soft blond hair, raising her face until she was looking into his eyes. "You're the most beautiful girl I know. Did I ever tell you that?" "Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure you did," she said, finishing the ritual; but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. Phil sat beside her and put his arm around her small shoulders. He had stopped smiling. "Honey, look at me," he said. "It isn't going to be bad. Honestly it isn't. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they wouldn't be sending me; you know that. I told you that we've sent five un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch." She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her wide, brown eyes, and she brushed them away with her hand. "Phil, don't go. Please don't. They can send Sammy. Sammy doesn't have a wife. Can't he go? They'd understand, Phil. Please!" She was holding his arms tightly with her hands, and the color had drained from her cheeks. "Mary, you know I can't back out now. How could I? It's been three years. You know how much I've wanted to be the first man to go. Nothing would ever be right with me again if I didn't go. Please don't make it hard." He stopped talking and held her to him and stroked the back of her head. He could feel her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. He released her and stood up. "I've got to get started, Mary. Will you come to the field with me?" "Yes, I'll come to say good-by." She paused and dropped her eyes. "Phil, if you go, I won't be here when you get back—if you get back. I won't be here because I won't be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my life. It isn't the kind of life I bargained for. No matter how much I love you, I just couldn't take that, Phil. I'm sorry. I guess I'm not the noble sort of wife." She finished and took another cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and put it to her lips. Her hand was trembling as she touched the lighter to the end of the cigarette and drew deeply. Phil stood watching her, the excitement completely gone from his eyes. "I wish you had told me this a long time ago, Mary," Phil said. His voice was dry and low. "I didn't know you felt this way about it." "Yes, you did. I told you how I felt. I told you I could never be the wife of a space pilot. But I don't think I ever really believed it was possible—not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off. It's so stupid to jeopardize everything we've got for a ridiculous dream!" He sat down on the edge of the couch and took her hands between his. "Mary, listen to me," he said. "It isn't a dream. It's real. There's nothing means anything more to me than you do—you know that. But no man ever had the chance to do what I'm going to do tonight—no man ever. If I backed out now for any reason, I'd never be able to look at the sky again. I'd be through." She looked at him without seeing him, and there was nothing at all in her eyes. "Let's go, if you're still going," she finally said. They drove through the streets of the small town with its small bungalows, each alike. There were no trees and very little grass. It was a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It existed only because of the huge ship standing poised in the take-off zone five miles away in the desert. Its future as a town rested with the ship, and the town seemed to feel the uncertainty of its future, seemed ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert, if such was its destiny. Phil turned the car off the highway onto the rutted dirt road that led across the sand to the field where the ship waited. In the distance they could see the beams of the searchlights as they played across the take-off zone and swept along the top of the high wire fence stretching out of sight to right and left. At the gate they were stopped by the guard. He read Phil's pass, shined his flashlight in their faces, and then saluted. "Good luck, colonel," he said, and shook Phil's hand. "Thanks, sergeant. I'll be seeing you next week," Phil said, and smiled. They drove between the rows of wooden buildings that lined the field, and he parked near the low barbed fence ringing the take-off zone. He turned off the ignition, and sat quietly for a moment before lighting a cigarette. Then he looked at his wife. She was staring through the windshield at the rocket two hundred yards away. Its smooth polished surface gleamed in the spotlight glare, and it sloped up and up until the eye lost the tip against the stars. "She's beautiful, Mary. You've never seen her before, have you?" "No, I've never seen her before," she said. "Hadn't you better go?" Her voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap. "Please go now, Phil," she said. He leaned toward her and touched her cheek. Then she was in his arms, her head buried against his shoulder. "Good-by, darling," she said. "Wish me luck, Mary?" he asked. "Yes, good luck, Phil," she said. He opened the car door and got out. The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell of the rocket waiting silently for flight. "Mary, I—" he began, and then turned and strode toward the administration building without looking back. Inside the building it was like a locker room before the big game. The tension stood alone, and each man had the same happy, excited look that Phil had worn earlier. When he came into the room, the noise and bustle stopped. They turned as one man toward him, and General Small came up to him and took his hand. "Hello, Phil. We were beginning to think you weren't coming. You all set, son?" "Yes, sir, I'm all set, I guess," Phil said. "I'd like you to meet the Secretary of Defense, Phil. He's over here by the radar." As they crossed the room, familiar faces smiled, and each man shook his hand or touched his arm. He saw Sammy, alone, by the coffee urn. Sammy waved to him, but he didn't smile. Phil wanted to talk to him, to say something; but there was nothing to be said now. Sammy's turn would come later. "Mr. Secretary," the general said, "this is Colonel Conover. He'll be the first man in history to see the other side of the Moon. Colonel—the Secretary of Defense." "How do you do, sir. I'm very proud to meet you," Phil said. "On the contrary, colonel. I'm very proud to meet you. I've been looking at that ship out there and wondering. I almost wish I were a young man again. I'd like to be going. It's a thrilling thought—man's first adventure into the universe. You're lighting a new dawn of history, colonel. It's a privilege few men have ever had; and those who have had it didn't realize it at the time. Good luck, and God be with you." "Thank you, sir. I'm aware of all you say. It frightens me a little." The general took Phil's arm and they walked to the briefing room. There were chairs set up for the scientists and Air Force officers directly connected with the take-off. They were seated now in a semicircle in front of a huge chart of the solar system. Phil took his seat, and the last minute briefing began. It was a routine he knew by heart. He had gone over and over it a thousand times, and he only half listened now. He kept thinking of Mary outside, alone by the fence. The voice of the briefing officer was a dull hum in his ears. "... And orbit at 18,000-mph. You will then accelerate for the breakaway to 24,900-mph for five minutes and then free-coast for 116 hours until—" Phil asked a few questions about weather and solar conditions. And then the session was done. They rose and looked at each other, the same unanswered questions on each man's face. There were forced smiles and handshakes. They were ready now. "Phil," the general said, and took him aside. "Sir?" "Phil, you're ... you feel all right, don't you, son?" "Yes, sir. I feel fine. Why?" "Phil, I've spent nearly every day with you for three years. I know you better than I know myself in many ways. And I've studied the psychologist's reports on you carefully. Maybe it's just nervousness, Phil, but I think there's something wrong. Is there?" "No, sir. There's nothing wrong," Phil said, but his voice didn't carry conviction. He reached for a cigarette. "Phil, if there is anything—anything at all—you know what it might mean. You've got to be in the best mental and physical condition of your life tonight. You know better than any man here what that means to our success. I think there is something more than just natural apprehension wrong with you. Want to tell me?" Outside, the take-off zone crawled with men and machines at the base of the rocket. For ten hours, the final check-outs had been in progress; and now the men were checking again, on their own time. The thing they had worked toward for six years was ready to happen, and each one felt that he was sending just a little bit of himself into the sky. Beyond the ring of lights and moving men, on the edge of the field, Mary stood. Her hands moved slowly over the top of the fence, twisting the barbs of wire. But her eyes were on the ship. And then they were ready. A small group of excited men came out from the administration building and moved forward. The check-out crews climbed into their machines and drove back outside the take-off zone. And, alone, one man climbed the steel ladder up the side of the rocket—ninety feet into the air. At the top he waved to the men on the ground and then disappeared through a small port. Mary waved to him. "Good-by," she said to herself, but the words stuck tight in her throat. The small group at the base of the ship turned and walked back to the fence. And for an eternity the great ship stood alone, waiting. Then, from deep inside, a rumble came, increasing in volume to a gigantic roar that shook the earth and tore at the ears. Slowly, the first manned rocket to the Moon lifted up and up to the sky. For a long time after the rocket had become a tiny speck of light in the heavens, she stood holding her face in her hands and crying softly to herself. And then she felt the touch of a hand on her arm. She turned. "Phil! Oh, Phil." She held tightly to him and repeated his name over and over. "They wouldn't let me go, Mary," he said finally. "The general would not let me go." She looked at him. His face was drawn tight, and there were tears on his cheeks. "Thank, God," she said. "It doesn't matter, darling. The only thing that matters is you didn't go." "You're right, Mary," he said. His voice was low—so low she could hardly hear him. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now." He stood with his hands at his sides, watching her. And then turned away and walked toward the car. THE END
Brightside Crossing by Nourse, Alan Edward	"Brightside Crossing", Alan Edward Nourse, 1960. Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse JAMES BARON was not pleased to hear that he had had a visitor when he reached the Red Lion that evening. He had no stomach for mysteries, vast or trifling, and there were pressing things to think about at this time. Yet the doorman had flagged him as he came in from the street: “A thousand pardons, Mr. Baron. The gentleman—he would leave no name. He said you’d want to see him. He will be back by eight.” Now Baron drummed his fingers on the table top, staring about the quiet lounge. Street trade was discouraged at the Red Lion, gently but persuasively; the patrons were few in number. Across to the right was a group that Baron knew vaguely—Andean climbers, or at least two of them were. Over near the door he recognized old Balmer, who had mapped the first passage to the core of Vulcan Crater on Venus. Baron returned his smile with a nod. Then he settled back and waited impatiently for the intruder who demanded his time without justifying it. Presently a small, grizzled man crossed the room and sat down at Baron’s table. He was short and wiry. His face held no key to his age—he might have been thirty or a thousand—but he looked weary and immensely ugly. His cheeks and forehead were twisted and brown, with scars that were still healing. The stranger said, “I’m glad you waited. I’ve heard you’re planning to attempt the Brightside.” Baron stared at the man for a moment. “I see you can read telecasts,” he said coldly. “The news was correct. We are going to make a Brightside Crossing.” “At perihelion?” “Of course. When else?” The grizzled man searched Baron’s face for a moment without expression. Then he said slowly, “No, I’m afraid you’re not going to make the Crossing.” “Say, who are you, if you don’t mind?” Baron demanded. “The name is Claney,” said the stranger. There was a silence. Then: “Claney? Peter Claney?” “That’s right.” Baron’s eyes were wide with excitement, all trace of anger gone. “Great balls of fire, man— where have you been hiding? We’ve been trying to contact you for months!” “I know. I was hoping you’d quit looking and chuck the whole idea.” “Quit looking!” Baron bent forward over the table. “My friend, we’d given up hope, but we’ve never quit looking. Here, have a drink. There’s so much you can tell us.” His fingers were trembling. Peter Claney shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything you want to hear.” “But you’ve got to. You’re the only man on Earth who’s attempted a Brightside Crossing and lived through it! And the story you cleared for the news—it was nothing. We need details . Where did your equipment fall down? Where did you miscalculate? What were the trouble spots?” Baron jabbed a finger at Claney’s face. “That, for instance—epithelioma? Why? What was wrong with your glass? Your filters? We’ve got to know those things. If you can tell us, we can make it across where your attempt failed—” “You want to know why we failed?” asked Claney. “Of course we want to know. We have to know.” “It’s simple. We failed because it can’t be done. We couldn’t do it and neither can you. No human beings will ever cross the Brightside alive, not if they try for centuries.” “Nonsense,” Baron declared. “We will.” Claney shrugged. “I was there. I know what I’m saying. You can blame the equipment or the men—there were flaws in both quarters—but we just didn’t know what we were fighting. It was the planet that whipped us, that and the Sun . They’ll whip you, too, if you try it.” “Never,” said Baron. “Let me tell you,” Peter Claney said. I’d been interested in the Brightside for almost as long as I can remember (Claney said). I guess I was about ten when Wyatt and Carpenter made the last attempt—that was in 2082, I think. I followed the news stories like a tri-V serial and then I was heartbroken when they just disappeared. I know now that they were a pair of idiots, starting off without proper equipment, with practically no knowledge of surface conditions, without any charts—they couldn’t have made a hundred miles—but I didn’t know that then and it was a terrible tragedy. After that, I followed Sanderson’s work in the Twilight Lab up there and began to get Brightside into my blood, sure as death. But it was Mikuta’s idea to attempt a Crossing. Did you ever know Tom Mikuta? I don’t suppose you did. No, not Japanese—Polish-American. He was a major in the Interplanetary Service for some years and hung onto the title after he gave up his commission. He was with Armstrong on Mars during his Service days, did a good deal of the original mapping and surveying for the Colony there. I first met him on Venus; we spent five years together up there doing some of the nastiest exploring since the Matto Grasso. Then he made the attempt on Vulcan Crater that paved the way for Balmer a few years later. I’d always liked the Major—he was big and quiet and cool, the sort of guy who always had things figured a little further ahead than anyone else and always knew what to do in a tight place. Too many men in this game are all nerve and luck, with no judgment. The Major had both. He also had the kind of personality that could take a crew of wild men and make them work like a well-oiled machine across a thousand miles of Venus jungle. I liked him and I trusted him. He contacted me in New York and he was very casual at first. We spent an evening here at the Red Lion, talking about old times; he told me about the Vulcan business, and how he’d been out to see Sanderson and the Twilight Lab on Mercury, and how he preferred a hot trek to a cold one any day of the year—and then he wanted to know what I’d been doing since Venus and what my plans were. “No particular plans,” I told him. “Why?” He looked me over. “How much do you weigh, Peter?” I told him one-thirty-five. “That much!” he said. “Well, there can’t be much fat on you, at any rate. How do you take heat?” “You should know,” I said. “Venus was no icebox.” “No, I mean real heat.” Then I began to get it. “You’re planning a trip.” “That’s right. A hot trip.” He grinned at me. “Might be dangerous, too.” “What trip?” “Brightside of Mercury,” the Major said. I whistled cautiously. “At aphelion?” He threw his head back. “Why try a Crossing at aphelion? What have you done then? Four thousand miles of butcherous heat, just to have some joker come along, use your data and drum you out of the glory by crossing at perihelion forty-four days later? No, thanks. I want the Brightside without any nonsense about it.” He leaned across me eagerly. “I want to make a Crossing at perihelion and I want to cross on the surface. If a man can do that, he’s got Mercury. Until then, nobody’s got Mercury. I want Mercury—but I’ll need help getting it.” I’d thought of it a thousand times and never dared consider it. Nobody had, since Wyatt and Carpenter disappeared. Mercury turns on its axis in the same time that it wheels around the Sun, which means that the Brightside is always facing in. That makes the Brightside of Mercury at perihelion the hottest place in the Solar System, with one single exception: the surface of the Sun itself. It would be a hellish trek. Only a few men had ever learned just how hellish and they never came back to tell about it. It was a real hell’s Crossing, but someday, I thought, somebody would cross it. I wanted to be along. The Twilight Lab, near the northern pole of Mercury, was the obvious jumping-off place. The setup there wasn’t very extensive—a rocket landing, the labs and quarters for Sanderson’s crew sunk deep into the crust, and the tower that housed the Solar ’scope that Sanderson had built up there ten years before. Twilight Lab wasn’t particularly interested in the Brightside, of course—the Sun was Sanderson’s baby and he’d picked Mercury as the closest chunk of rock to the Sun that could hold his observatory. He’d chosen a good location, too. On Mercury, the Brightside temperature hits 770° F. at perihelion and the Darkside runs pretty constant at -410° F. No permanent installation with a human crew could survive at either extreme. But with Mercury’s wobble, the twilight zone between Brightside and Darkside offers something closer to survival temperatures. Sanderson built the Lab up near the pole, where the zone is about five miles wide, so the temperature only varies 50 to 60 degrees with the libration. The Solar ’scope could take that much change and they’d get good clear observation of the Sun for about seventy out of the eighty-eight days it takes the planet to wheel around. The Major was counting on Sanderson knowing something about Mercury as well as the Sun when we camped at the Lab to make final preparations. Sanderson did. He thought we’d lost our minds and he said so, but he gave us all the help he could. He spent a week briefing Jack Stone, the third member of our party, who had arrived with the supplies and equipment a few days earlier. Poor Jack met us at the rocket landing almost bawling, Sanderson had given him such a gloomy picture of what Brightside was like. Stone was a youngster—hardly twenty-five, I’d say—but he’d been with the Major at Vulcan and had begged to join this trek. I had a funny feeling that Jack really didn’t care for exploring too much, but he thought Mikuta was God, followed him around like a puppy. It didn’t matter to me as long as he knew what he was getting in for. You don’t go asking people in this game why they do it—they’re liable to get awfully uneasy and none of them can ever give you an answer that makes sense. Anyway, Stone had borrowed three men from the Lab, and had the supplies and equipment all lined up when we got there, ready to check and test. We dug right in. With plenty of funds—tri-V money and some government cash the Major had talked his way around—our equipment was new and good. Mikuta had done the designing and testing himself, with a big assist from Sanderson. We had four Bugs, three of them the light pillow-tire models, with special lead-cooled cut-in engines when the heat set in, and one heavy-duty tractor model for pulling the sledges. The Major went over them like a kid at the circus. Then he said, “Have you heard anything from McIvers?” “Who’s he?” Stone wanted to know. “He’ll be joining us. He’s a good man—got quite a name for climbing, back home.” The Major turned to me. “You’ve probably heard of him.” I’d heard plenty of stories about Ted McIvers and I wasn’t too happy to hear that he was joining us. “Kind of a daredevil, isn’t he?” “Maybe. He’s lucky and skillful. Where do you draw the line? We’ll need plenty of both.” “Have you ever worked with him?” I asked. “No. Are you worried?” “Not exactly. But Brightside is no place to count on luck.” The Major laughed. “I don’t think we need to worry about McIvers. We understood each other when I talked up the trip to him and we’re going to need each other too much to do any fooling around.” He turned back to the supply list. “Meanwhile, let’s get this stuff listed and packed. We’ll need to cut weight sharply and our time is short. Sanderson says we should leave in three days.” Two days later, McIvers hadn’t arrived. The Major didn’t say much about it. Stone was getting edgy and so was I. We spent the second day studying charts of the Brightside, such as they were. The best available were pretty poor, taken from so far out that the detail dissolved into blurs on blow-up. They showed the biggest ranges of peaks and craters and faults, and that was all. Still, we could use them to plan a broad outline of our course. “This range here,” the Major said as we crowded around the board, “is largely inactive, according to Sanderson. But these to the south and west could be active. Seismograph tracings suggest a lot of activity in that region, getting worse down toward the equator—not only volcanic, but sub-surface shifting.” Stone nodded. “Sanderson told me there was probably constant surface activity.” The Major shrugged. “Well, it’s treacherous, there’s no doubt of it. But the only way to avoid it is to travel over the Pole, which would lose us days and offer us no guarantee of less activity to the west. Now we might avoid some if we could find a pass through this range and cut sharp east—” It seemed that the more we considered the problem, the further we got from a solution. We knew there were active volcanoes on the Brightside—even on the Darkside, though surface activity there was pretty much slowed down and localized. But there were problems of atmosphere on Brightside, as well. There was an atmosphere and a constant atmospheric flow from Brightside to Darkside. Not much—the lighter gases had reached escape velocity and disappeared from Brightside millennia ago—but there was CO 2 , and nitrogen, and traces of other heavier gases. There was also an abundance of sulfur vapor, as well as carbon disulfide and sulfur dioxide. The atmospheric tide moved toward the Darkside, where it condensed, carrying enough volcanic ash with it for Sanderson to estimate the depth and nature of the surface upheavals on Brightside from his samplings. The trick was to find a passage that avoided those upheavals as far as possible. But in the final analysis, we were barely scraping the surface. The only way we would find out what was happening where was to be there. Finally, on the third day, McIvers blew in on a freight rocket from Venus. He’d missed the ship that the Major and I had taken by a few hours, and had conned his way to Venus in hopes of getting a hop from there. He didn’t seem too upset about it, as though this were his usual way of doing things and he couldn’t see why everyone should get so excited. He was a tall, rangy man with long, wavy hair prematurely gray, and the sort of eyes that looked like a climber’s—half-closed, sleepy, almost indolent, but capable of abrupt alertness. And he never stood still; he was always moving, always doing something with his hands, or talking, or pacing about. Evidently the Major decided not to press the issue of his arrival. There was still work to do, and an hour later we were running the final tests on the pressure suits. That evening, Stone and McIvers were thick as thieves, and everything was set for an early departure after we got some rest. “And that,” said Baron, finishing his drink and signaling the waiter for another pair, “was your first big mistake.” Peter Claney raised his eyebrows. “McIvers?” “Of course.” Claney shrugged, glanced at the small quiet tables around them. “There are lots of bizarre personalities around a place like this, and some of the best wouldn’t seem to be the most reliable at first glance. Anyway, personality problems weren’t our big problem right then. Equipment worried us first and route next.” Baron nodded in agreement. “What kind of suits did you have?” “The best insulating suits ever made,” said Claney. “Each one had an inner lining of a fiberglass modification, to avoid the clumsiness of asbestos, and carried the refrigerating unit and oxygen storage which we recharged from the sledges every eight hours. Outer layer carried a monomolecular chrome reflecting surface that made us glitter like Christmas trees. And we had a half-inch dead-air space under positive pressure between the two layers. Warning thermocouples, of course—at 770 degrees, it wouldn’t take much time to fry us to cinders if the suits failed somewhere.” “How about the Bugs?” “They were insulated, too, but we weren’t counting on them too much for protection.” “You weren’t!” Baron exclaimed. “Why not?” “We’d be in and out of them too much. They gave us mobility and storage, but we knew we’d have to do a lot of forward work on foot.” Claney smiled bitterly. “Which meant that we had an inch of fiberglass and a half-inch of dead air between us and a surface temperature where lead flowed like water and zinc was almost at melting point and the pools of sulfur in the shadows were boiling like oatmeal over a campfire.” Baron licked his lips. His fingers stroked the cool, wet glass as he set it down on the tablecloth. “Go on,” he said tautly. “You started on schedule?” “Oh, yes,” said Claney, “we started on schedule, all right. We just didn’t quite end on schedule, that was all. But I’m getting to that.” He settled back in his chair and continued. We jumped off from Twilight on a course due southeast with thirty days to make it to the Center of Brightside. If we could cross an average of seventy miles a day, we could hit Center exactly at perihelion, the point of Mercury’s closest approach to the Sun—which made Center the hottest part of the planet at the hottest it ever gets. The Sun was already huge and yellow over the horizon when we started, twice the size it appears on Earth. Every day that Sun would grow bigger and whiter, and every day the surface would get hotter. But once we reached Center, the job was only half done—we would still have to travel another two thousand miles to the opposite twilight zone. Sanderson was to meet us on the other side in the Laboratory’s scout ship, approximately sixty days from the time we jumped off. That was the plan, in outline. It was up to us to cross those seventy miles a day, no matter how hot it became, no matter what terrain we had to cross. Detours would be dangerous and time-consuming. Delays could cost us our lives. We all knew that. The Major briefed us on details an hour before we left. “Peter, you’ll take the lead Bug, the small one we stripped down for you. Stone and I will flank you on either side, giving you a hundred-yard lead. McIvers, you’ll have the job of dragging the sledges, so we’ll have to direct your course pretty closely. Peter’s job is to pick the passage at any given point. If there’s any doubt of safe passage, we’ll all explore ahead on foot before we risk the Bugs. Got that?” McIvers and Stone exchanged glances. McIvers said: “Jack and I were planning to change around. We figured he could take the sledges. That would give me a little more mobility.” The Major looked up sharply at Stone. “Do you buy that, Jack?” Stone shrugged. “I don’t mind. Mac wanted—” McIvers made an impatient gesture with his hands. “It doesn’t matter. I just feel better when I’m on the move. Does it make any difference?” “I guess it doesn’t,” said the Major. “Then you’ll flank Peter along with me. Right?” “Sure, sure.” McIvers pulled at his lower lip. “Who’s going to do the advance scouting?” “It sounds like I am,” I cut in. “We want to keep the lead Bug light as possible.” Mikuta nodded. “That’s right. Peter’s Bug is stripped down to the frame and wheels.” McIvers shook his head. “No, I mean the advance work. You need somebody out ahead—four or five miles, at least—to pick up the big flaws and active surface changes, don’t you?” He stared at the Major. “I mean, how can we tell what sort of a hole we may be moving into, unless we have a scout up ahead?” “That’s what we have the charts for,” the Major said sharply. “Charts! I’m talking about detail work. We don’t need to worry about the major topography. It’s the little faults you can’t see on the pictures that can kill us.” He tossed the charts down excitedly. “Look, let me take a Bug out ahead and work reconnaissance, keep five, maybe ten miles ahead of the column. I can stay on good solid ground, of course, but scan the area closely and radio back to Peter where to avoid the flaws. Then—” “No dice,” the Major broke in. “But why not? We could save ourselves days!” “I don’t care what we could save. We stay together. When we get to the Center, I want live men along with me. That means we stay within easy sight of each other at all times. Any climber knows that everybody is safer in a party than one man alone—any time, any place.” McIvers stared at him, his cheeks an angry red. Finally he gave a sullen nod. “Okay. If you say so.” “Well, I say so and I mean it. I don’t want any fancy stuff. We’re going to hit Center together, and finish the Crossing together. Got that?” McIvers nodded. Mikuta then looked at Stone and me and we nodded, too. “All right,” he said slowly. “Now that we’ve got it straight, let’s go.” It was hot. If I forget everything else about that trek, I’ll never forget that huge yellow Sun glaring down, without a break, hotter and hotter with every mile. We knew that the first few days would be the easiest and we were rested and fresh when we started down the long ragged gorge southeast of the Twilight Lab. I moved out first; back over my shoulder, I could see the Major and McIvers crawling out behind me, their pillow tires taking the rugged floor of the gorge smoothly. Behind them, Stone dragged the sledges. Even at only 30 per cent Earth gravity they were a strain on the big tractor, until the ski-blades bit into the fluffy volcanic ash blanketing the valley. We even had a path to follow for the first twenty miles. I kept my eyes pasted to the big polaroid binocs, picking out the track the early research teams had made out into the edge of Brightside. But in a couple of hours we rumbled past Sanderson’s little outpost observatory and the tracks stopped. We were in virgin territory and already the Sun was beginning to bite. We didn’t feel the heat so much those first days out. We saw it. The refrig units kept our skins at a nice comfortable seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit inside our suits, but our eyes watched that glaring Sun and the baked yellow rocks going past, and some nerve pathways got twisted up, somehow. We poured sweat as if we were in a superheated furnace. We drove eight hours and slept five. When a sleep period came due, we pulled the Bugs together into a square, threw up a light aluminum sun-shield and lay out in the dust and rocks. The sun-shield cut the temperature down sixty or seventy degrees, for whatever help that was. And then we ate from the forward sledge—sucking through tubes—protein, carbohydrates, bulk gelatin, vitamins. The Major measured water out with an iron hand, because we’d have drunk ourselves into nephritis in a week otherwise. We were constantly, unceasingly thirsty. Ask the physiologists and psychiatrists why—they can give you have a dozen interesting reasons—but all we knew, or cared about, was that it happened to be so. We didn’t sleep the first few stops, as a consequence. Our eyes burned in spite of the filters and we had roaring headaches, but we couldn’t sleep them off. We sat around looking at each other. Then McIvers would say how good a beer would taste, and off we’d go. We’d have murdered our grandmothers for one ice-cold bottle of beer. After a few driving periods, I began to get my bearings at the wheel. We were moving down into desolation that made Earth’s old Death Valley look like a Japanese rose garden. Huge sun-baked cracks opened up in the floor of the gorge, with black cliffs jutting up on either side; the air was filled with a barely visible yellowish mist of sulfur and sulfurous gases. It was a hot, barren hole, no place for any man to go, but the challenge was so powerful you could almost feel it. No one had ever crossed this land before and escaped. Those who had tried it had been cruelly punished, but the land was still there, so it had to be crossed. Not the easy way. It had to be crossed the hardest way possible: overland, through anything the land could throw up to us, at the most difficult time possible. Yet we knew that even the land might have been conquered before, except for that Sun. We’d fought absolute cold before and won. We’d never fought heat like this and won. The only worse heat in the Solar System was the surface of the Sun itself. Brightside was worth trying for. We would get it or it would get us. That was the bargain. I learned a lot about Mercury those first few driving periods. The gorge petered out after a hundred miles and we moved onto the slope of a range of ragged craters that ran south and east. This range had shown no activity since the first landing on Mercury forty years before, but beyond it there were active cones. Yellow fumes rose from the craters constantly; their sides were shrouded with heavy ash. We couldn’t detect a wind, but we knew there was a hot, sulfurous breeze sweeping in great continental tides across the face of the planet. Not enough for erosion, though. The craters rose up out of jagged gorges, huge towering spears of rock and rubble. Below were the vast yellow flatlands, smoking and hissing from the gases beneath the crust. Over everything was gray dust—silicates and salts, pumice and limestone and granite ash, filling crevices and declivities—offering a soft, treacherous surface for the Bug’s pillow tires. I learned to read the ground, to tell a covered fault by the sag of the dust; I learned to spot a passable crack, and tell it from an impassable cut. Time after time the Bugs ground to a halt while we explored a passage on foot, tied together with light copper cable, digging, advancing, digging some more until we were sure the surface would carry the machines. It was cruel work; we slept in exhaustion. But it went smoothly, at first. Too smoothly, it seemed to me, and the others seemed to think so, too. McIvers’ restlessness was beginning to grate on our nerves. He talked too much, while we were resting or while we were driving; wisecracks, witticisms, unfunny jokes that wore thin with repetition. He took to making side trips from the route now and then, never far, but a little further each time. Jack Stone reacted quite the opposite; he grew quieter with each stop, more reserved and apprehensive. I didn’t like it, but I figured that it would pass off after a while. I was apprehensive enough myself; I just managed to hide it better. And every mile the Sun got bigger and whiter and higher in the sky and hotter. Without our ultra-violet screens and glare filters we would have been blinded; as it was our eyes ached constantly and the skin on our faces itched and tingled at the end of an eight-hour trek. But it took one of those side trips of McIvers’ to deliver the penultimate blow to our already fraying nerves. He had driven down a side-branch of a long canyon running off west of our route and was almost out of sight in a cloud of ash when we heard a sharp cry through our earphones. I wheeled my Bug around with my heart in my throat and spotted him through the binocs, waving frantically from the top of his machine. The Major and I took off, lumbering down the gulch after him as fast as the Bugs could go, with a thousand horrible pictures racing through our minds.... We found him standing stock-still, pointing down the gorge and, for once, he didn’t have anything to say. It was the wreck of a Bug; an old-fashioned half-track model of the sort that hadn’t been in use for years. It was wedged tight in a cut in the rock, an axle broken, its casing split wide open up the middle, half-buried in a rock slide. A dozen feet away were two insulated suits with white bones gleaming through the fiberglass helmets. This was as far as Wyatt and Carpenter had gotten on their Brightside Crossing. On the fifth driving period out, the terrain began to change. It looked the same, but every now and then it felt different. On two occasions I felt my wheels spin, with a howl of protest from my engine. Then, quite suddenly, the Bug gave a lurch; I gunned my motor and nothing happened. I could see the dull gray stuff seeping up around the hubs, thick and tenacious, splattering around in steaming gobs as the wheels spun. I knew what had happened the moment the wheels gave and, a few minutes later, they chained me to the tractor and dragged me back out of the mire. It looked for all the world like thick gray mud, but it was a pit of molten lead, steaming under a soft layer of concealing ash. I picked my way more cautiously then. We were getting into an area of recent surface activity; the surface was really treacherous. I caught myself wishing that the Major had okayed McIvers’ scheme for an advanced scout; more dangerous for the individual, maybe, but I was driving blind now and I didn’t like it. One error in judgment could sink us all, but I wasn’t thinking much about the others. I was worried about me , plenty worried. I kept thinking, better McIvers should go than me. It wasn’t healthy thinking and I knew it, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. It was a grueling eight hours and we slept poorly. Back in the Bug again, we moved still more slowly—edging out on a broad flat plateau, dodging a network of gaping surface cracks—winding back and forth in an effort to keep the machines on solid rock. I couldn’t see far ahead, because of the yellow haze rising from the cracks, so I was almost on top of it when I saw a sharp cut ahead where the surface dropped six feet beyond a deep crack. I let out a shout to halt the others; then I edged my Bug forward, peering at the cleft. It was deep and wide. I moved fifty yards to the left, then back to the right. There was only one place that looked like a possible crossing; a long, narrow ledge of gray stuff that lay down across a section of the fault like a ramp. Even as I watched it, I could feel the surface crust under the Bug trembling and saw the ledge shift over a few feet.
Bullet with His Name by Leiber, Fritz	"Bullet with His Name", Fritz Leiber, 1972. Bullet With His Name By FRITZ LEIBER Illustrated By: DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Before passing judgment, just ask yourself one question: Would you like answering for humanity any better than Ernie Meeker did? The Invisible Being shifted his anchorage a bit in Earth's gravitational field, which felt like a push rather than a pull to him, and said, "This featherless biped seems to satisfy Galaxy Center's requirements. I'd say he's a suitable recipient for the Gifts." His Coadjutor, equally invisible and negatively massed, chewed that over. "Mature by his length and mass. Artificial plumage neither overly gaudy nor utterly drab—indicating median social level, which is confirmed by the size of his bachelor nest. Inward maps of his environment not fantastically inaccurate. Feelings reasonably meshed—at least neither volcanic nor frozen. Thoughts and values in reasonable order. Yes, I agree, a satisfactory test subject. Except...." "Except what?" "Except we can never be sure of that 'reasonable' part." "Of course not! Thank your stars that's beyond the reach of Galaxy Center's keenest telepathy, or even ours on the spot. Otherwise you and I'd be out of a job." "And have to scheme up some other excuse for free-touring the Cosmos with backtracking permitted." "Exactly!" The Being and his Coadjutor understood each other very well and were the best of friends. "Well, how many Gifts would you suggest for the test?" "How about two Little and one Big?" the Coadjutor ventured. "Umm ... statistically adequate but spiritually unsatisfying. Remember, the fate of his race hangs on his reactions to them. I'd be inclined to increase your suggestion by one each and add a Great." "No—at least I question the last. After all, the Great Gifts aren't as important, really, as the Big Gifts. Besides...." "Besides what? Come on, spit it out!" The Invisible Being was the bluff, blunt type. "Well," said his less hearty but unswervingly honest companion, "I'm always afraid that you'll use the granting of a Great Gift as an excuse for some sardonic trick—that you'll put a sting in its tail." "And why shouldn't I, if I want to? Snakes have stings in their tails (or do they on this planet?) and I'm a sort of snake. If he fails the test, he fails. And aren't both of us malicious, plaguing spirits, eager to knock holes in the inward armor of provincial entities? It's in the nature of our job. But we can argue about that in due course. What Little Gifts would you suggest?" "That's something I want to talk about. Many of the Little Gifts are already well within his race's reach, if not his. After all, they've already got atomic power." "Which as you very well know scores them nothing one way or the other on a Galaxy Center test. We're agreed on the nature and the number of our Gifts—three Little, two Big, and one Great?" "Yes," his Coadjutor responded resignedly. "And we're agreed on our subject?" "Yes to that too." "All right, then, let's get started. This isn't the only solar system we have to visit on this circuit." Ernie Meeker—of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. of A., Occident, Terra, Sol, Starswarm 37, Rim Sector, Milky Way Galaxy—rubbed his chin and slanted across the street to a drugstore. "Package of blades. Double edge. Five. Cheapest." At one point during the transaction, the clerk lost sight of the tiny packet he'd placed on the coin-whitened glass between them. He gave a suspicious look, as if the customer had palmed them. Ernie blinked. After a moment, he pointed toward the center of the counter. "There they are," he said, dropping a coin beside them. The clerk's face didn't get any less suspicious. Customer who could sneak something without your seeing could sneak it back the same way. He rang up the sale and closed the register fast. Ernie Meeker went home and shaved. Five days—and shaves—later, he pushed the first blade, uncomfortably dull now, through the tiny slot beside the bathroom mirror. He unwrapped the second blade from the packet. Five shaves later, he cut himself under the chin with the second blade, although he was drawing it as gently through his soaped beard as if it were only his second shave with it, or at most his third. He looked at it sourly and checked the packet. Wouldn't have been the first time he'd absentmindedly changed blades ahead of schedule. But there were still three blades in their waxed wrappings. Maybe, he thought, he'd still had one of the blades from the last packet and shuffled it into this series. Or maybe—although the manufacturers undoubtedly had inspectors to prevent it from happening—he'd got a decent blade for once. Two or three shaves later, it still seemed as sharp as ever, or almost so. "Funny thing," he remarked to Bill at lunch, "sometimes you get a blade that shaves a lot better. Looks exactly like the others, but shaves better. Or worse sometimes, of course." "And sometimes," his office mate said, "you wear out a blade fast by not soaking your beard enough. For me, one shave with a stiff beard and the blade's through. On the other hand, if you're careful to soak your beard real good—four, five minutes at least—have the water steaming hot, get the soap really into it, one blade can last a long time." "That's true, all right," Ernie agreed, trying to remember how well he had been soaking his beard lately. Shaving was a good topic for light conversation, warm and agreeable, like most bathroom and kitchen topics. But next morning in the bathroom, looking at the reflection of his unremarkable face, there was something chilly in his feelings that he couldn't quite analyze. He flipped his razor open and suspiciously studied the bright metal wafer, then flipped it closed with an irritated shrug. As he shaved, it occurred to him that a good detective-story murder method would be to substitute a very sharp razor blade for one the victim knew was extremely dull. He'd whip it across his throat, putting a lot of muscle into the stroke to get through the tangle, and— urrk ! Ridiculous, of course. Wouldn't work except with a straight razor. Wouldn't even work with a straight razor, unless ... oh, well. He told himself the blade was noticeably duller today. Next morning, he was still using the freak blade, but with a persistent though very slight uneasiness. Things should behave as you expected them to, in accordance with their flimsy souls, he told himself at the barely conscious level. Men should die, hearts should break, girls should tell, nations perish, curtains get dirty, milk sour ... and razor blades grow dull. It was the comfortable, expected, reassuring way. He told himself the blade was duller still. Just a bit. The third morning, face lathered, he flipped open the razor and lifted it out. "You're through," he said to it silently. "I've had the experience before of getting bum shaves by trying to save a penny by pretending to myself that a wornout blade was still sharp enough, when it obviously couldn't be. Or maybe—" he grinned a little wryly—"maybe I'd almost get one more shave out of you and then you'd fall to pieces like the Wonderful One Horse Shay and leave me with a chin full of steel porcupine quills. No, thanks." So Ernie Meeker pushed through the little slot beside the mirror and heard tinkle faintly down and away the first of the Little Gifts, the Everlasting Razor Blade. One hundred and fifty thousand years later, it turned up, bright and shining, in the midst of a small knob of red iron oxide excavated by an archeological expedition of multi-brachs from Antares Gamma. Those wise history-mad beings handed it about wonderingly, from tentacle to impatient tentacle. That day, Ernie felt a little sick, somehow. After dinner, he decided it was the Thuringer sausage he'd eaten at lunch. He hurried up to the bathroom with a spoon, but as he clutched the box of bicarbonate of soda, preparatory to plunging the spoon into it, it seemed to him that the box said distinctly, in a small inward-outward voice: "No, no, no!" Ernie sat down suddenly on the toilet seat. The spoon rattled against the porcelain finish of the washbowl as he laid it down. He held the box firmly in both hands and studied it. Size, shape, materials, blue color, closure, etc., were exactly as they should be. But the white lettering on the blue background read: AQUEOUS FUEL CATALYST Dissociates H 2 O into hemi-quasi-stable H and O, furnishing a serviceable fuel-and-oxydizer mix for most motorcycles, automobiles, trucks, motorboats, airplanes, stationary motors, torque-twisters, translators, and rockets (exhaust velocity up to 6000 meters per second). Operates safely within and outside of all normal atmospheres. No special adaptor needed on oxygenizer-atmosphere motors. Directions : Place one pinch in fuel tank, fill with water. Add water as needed. A-F Catalyst should generally be renewed when objective tests show fuel quality has deteriorated 50 per cent. U.S. and Foreign Patents Pending After reading that several times, with suitable mind-checking and eye-testing in between, Ernie took up a little of the white powder on the end of a nailfile. He had thought of tasting it, but had instantly abandoned the notion and even refrained from sniffing the stuff—after all, the human body is mostly water. After reducing the quantity several times, he gingerly dumped at most four or five grains on the flat edge of the washbowl and then used the broad end of the nailfile to maneuver a large bead of water over to the almost invisible white deposit. He closed the box, put it and the nailfile carefully on the window ledge, lit a match and touched it to the drop, at the last moment ducking his head a little below the level of the washbowl. Nothing happened. After a moment, he slowly withdrew the match, shaking it out, and looked. There was nothing to see. He reached out to touch the stupid squashed ovoid of water. Ouch! He withdrew his fingers much faster than the match, shook them more sharply. Something was there, all right. Heat. Heat enough to hurt. He cautiously explored the boundaries of the heat. It became noticeable about eighteen inches above the drop and almost an inch to each side—an invisible slim vertical cylinder. Crouching close, eyes level with the top of the washbowl, he could make out the flame—a thin finger of crinkled light. He noticed that a corner of the drop was seething—but only a corner, as if the heat were sharply bounded in that direction and perhaps as if the catalyst were only transforming the water to fuel a bit at a time. He reached up and tugged off the light. Now he could see the flame—ghostly, about four inches high, hardly thicker than a string, and colored not blue but pale green. A spectral green needle. He blew at it softly. It shimmied gracefully, but not, he thought, as much as the flame of a match or candle. It had character. He switched on the light. The drop was more than half gone now; the part that was left was all seething. And the bathroom was markedly warmer. "Ernie! Are you going to be much longer?" The knock hadn't been loud and his widowed sister's voice was more apologetic than peremptory, but he jumped, of course. "I am testing something," he started to say and changed it mid-way. It came out, "I am be out in a minute." He turned off the light again. The flame was a little shorter now and it shrank as he watched, about a quarter inch a second. As soon as it died, he switched on the light. The drop was gone. He scrubbed off the spot with a dry washrag, on second thought put a dab of vaseline on the washrag, scrubbed the spot again with that—he didn't like to think of even a grain of the powder getting in the drains or touching any water. He folded the washrag, tucked it in his pocket, put the blue box—after a final check of the lettering—in his other coat pocket, and opened the door. "I was taking some bicarb," he told his sister. "Thuringer sausage at lunch." She nodded absently. Sleep refused even to flirt with Ernie, his mind was full of so many things, especially calculations involving the distance between his car and the house and the length of the garden hose. In desperation, as the white hours accumulated and his thoughts began to squirm, he grabbed up the detective story he'd bought at the corner newsstand. He had read thirty pages before he realized that he was turning them as rapidly as he could focus just once on each facing page. He jumped out of bed. My God, he thought, at that rate he'd finish the book under three minutes and here it wasn't even two o'clock yet! He selected the thickest book on the shelf, an overpoweringly dull historical treatise in small print. He turned two pages, three, then closed it with a clap and looked at the wall with frightened eyes. Ernie Meeker had discovered, inside the birthday box that was himself, the first of the Big Gifts. The trouble was that in that wee-hour, lonely bedroom, it didn't seem like a gift at all. How would he ever keep himself in books, he wondered, if he read them so fast? And think how full to bursting his mind would get—right now, the seven pages of fine-print history were churning in it, vividly clear, along with the first chapters of the new detective story. If he kept on absorbing information that fast, he'd have to be revising all his opinions and beliefs every couple of days at least—maybe every couple of hours. It seemed a dreadful, literally maddening prospect—his mind would ultimately become a universe of squirming macaroni. Even the wallpaper he was staring at, which imitated the grain of wood, had in an instant become so fully part of his consciousness that he felt he could turn his back on it right now and draw a picture of it correct to the tiniest detail. But who would ever want to do such a thing, or want to be able to? It was an abnormal, dangerous, temporary sensitivity, he told himself, generated by the excitement of the crazy discovery he'd made in the bathroom. Like the thoughts of a drowning man, riffling an infinity-paneled adventure-comic of his life as he bolts his last rough ration of air. Or like the feeling a psychotic must have that he's on the verge of visualizing the whole universe, having its ultimate secrets patter down into the palm of his outstretched hand—just before the walls close in. Ernie Meeker was not a drinking man, then. A pint had stood a week on his closet shelf and only been diminished three shots. But now he did a good job on the sturdy remainder. Pretty soon the unbearable, edge-of-doom clarity in his mind faded, the universe-macaroni cooked down to a thick white soup uniform as fog, and the words of the detective story were sliding into his mind individually, or at most in strings of three and four. Which, if it wasn't as it ideally should be in an ambitious man's mind, was at least darn comfortable. He had not rejected the Big Gift of Page-at-a-Glance Reading. Not quite. But he had dislocated for tonight at least the imposed nervous field on which it depended. For want of a better place, Ernie dropped the rubber tube from the bathtub spray into the scrub bucket half full of odorous pink fluid and stared doubtfully at the uncapped gas tank. The tank had been almost empty when he'd last driven his car, he knew, because he'd been waiting until payday to gas up. Now he had used the tube to siphon out what he could of the remainder (he still could taste the stuff!) and he'd emptied the fuel line and carburator, more or less. Further than that, in the way of engine hygiene, Ernie's strictly kitchen mechanics did not go, but he felt that a catalyst used in pinches shouldn't be too particular about contaminants. Besides, the directions on the box hadn't said anything about cleaning the fuel tank, had they? He hesitated. At his feet, the garden hose gurgled noisily over the curb into the gutter; it had vindicated his midnight estimate, proving just long enough. He looked uneasily up and down the dawning street and was relieved to find it still empty. He wished fervently, not for the first time this Saturday morning, that he had a garage. Then he sighed, squared his shoulders a little, and lifted the box out of his pocket. Making to check the directions the umpteenth time, he received a body blow. The white lettering on the box had disappeared. The box didn't proclaim itself sodium bicarbonate again—there was just no lettering at all, only blue background. He turned it over several times. Right there died his tentative plan of eventually sharing his secret with some friend who knew more than himself about motors (he hadn't decided anyway who that would be). It would be just too silly to approach anyone he knew with a more-than-wild story and featureless blue box. For a moment, he came very close to dropping the box between the wide-set bars of the street drain and pouring the pink gas back in the tank. It had hit him, in a way for the first time, just how crazy this all was, how jarringly implausible even on such hypotheses as practical jokes, secret product perhaps military, or mad inventor (except himself). For how the devil should the stuff get into his bathroom disguised as bicarb? That circumstance seemed beyond imagination. Green flames ... vanishing letters ... "torque-twisters, translators" ... a box that talked.... At that point, simple faith came to Ernie's rescue: in the same bathroom, he had seen the green flame; it had burned his fingers. Quickly he dipped up a little of the white powder on the edge of a fifty-cent piece, dumped it in the gas tank without quibbling as to quantity, rapped the coin on the edge of the opening, closed and pocketed the blue box, and picked up the spurting hose and jabbed it into the round hole. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming fast. That had taken real effort. So he was slow in hearing the footsteps behind him. His neighbor's gate was open and Mr. Jones stood open-mouthed a few feet behind him, all ready for his day's work as streetcar motorman and wearing the dark blue uniform that always made him look for a moment unpleasantly like a policeman. Ernie swung the hose around, flipping his thumb over the end to make a spray, and nonchalantly began to water the little rectangle of lawn between sidewalk and curb. The first things he watered were the bottoms of Mr. Jones's pants legs. Mr. Jones voiced no complaint. He backed off several steps, stared intently at Ernie, rather palely, it seemed to the latter. Then he turned and made off for the streetcar tracks at a very fast shuffle, shaking his feet a little now and then and glancing back several times over his shoulder without slowing down. Ernie felt light-headed. He decided there was enough water in the gas tank, capped it, and momentarily continued to water the lawn. "Ernie! Come on in and have breakfast!" He heeded his sister's call, telling himself it would be a good idea "to give the stuff time to mix" before testing the engine. He had divined her question and was ready with an answer. "I've just found out that we're supposed to water our lawns only before seven in the morning or after seven in the evenings. It's the law." It was the day for their monthly drive out to Wheaton to visit Uncle Fabius. On the whole, Ernie was glad his sister was in the car when he turned the key in the starter—it forced him to be calm and collected, though he didn't feel exactly right about exposing her to the danger of being blown up without first explaining to her the risk. But the motor started right up and began purring powerfully. Ernie's sister commented on it favorably. Then she went on to ask, "Did you remember to buy gas yesterday?" "No," he said without thinking; then, realizing his mistake, quickly added, "I'll buy some in Wheaton. There's enough to get us there." "You didn't think so yesterday," she objected. "You said the tank was nearly empty." "I was wrong. Look, the gauge shows it's half full." "But then how ... Ernie, didn't you once tell me the gauge doesn't work?" "Did I?" "Yes. Look, there's a station. Why don't you buy gas now?" "No, I'll wait for Wheaton—I know a place there I can get it cheaper," he insisted, rather lamely, he feared. His sister looked at him steadily. He settled his head between his shoulders and concentrated on driving. His feeling of excitement was spoiled, but a few minutes of silence brought it back. He thought of the blur of green flashes inside the purring motor. If the passing drivers only knew! Uncle Fabius, retired perhaps a few years too early and opinionated, was a trial, but he did know something about the automobile industry. Ernie chose a moment when his sister was out of the room to ask if he'd ever heard of a white powder that would turn water into gasoline or some usable fuel. "Who's been getting at you?" Uncle Fabius demanded sharply, to Ernie's surprise and embarrassment. "That's one of the oldest swindles. They always tell this story about how this man had a white powder or something and demonstrated it once with a pail of water and then disappeared. You're supposed to believe that Detroit or the big oil companies got rid of him. It's just another of those malicious legends, concocted—by Russia, I imagine—to weaken your faith in American Industry, like the everlasting battery or the razor blade that never gets dull. You're looking pale, Ernie—don't tell me you've already put money in this white powder? I suppose someone's approached you with a proposition, though?" With considerable difficulty, Ernie convinced his uncle that he had "just heard the story from a friend." "In that case," Uncle Fabius opined, "you can be sure some fuel-powder swindler has been getting at him . When you see him—and be sure to make that soon—tell him from me that—" and Uncle Fabius began an impassioned ninety-minute defense of big business, small business, prosperity, America, money, know-how, and a number of other institutions that defended pretty easily, so that the situation was wholly normal when Ernie's sister returned. As soon as the car pulled away from the curb on their way back to Chicago, she reminded him about the gas. "Oh, I've already done that," he assured her. "Made a special trip so I wouldn't forget. It was while you were out of the room. Didn't you hear me?" "No," she said, "I didn't," and she looked at him steadily, as she had that morning. He similarly retreated to driving. Stopping for a railroad crossing, he braked too hard and the car stalled. His sister grabbed his arm. "I knew that was going to happen," she said. "I knew that for some reason you lied to me when—" The motor, starting readily again, cut short her remark and Ernie didn't press his small triumph by asking her what she was about to say. To tell the truth, Ernie wasn't feeling as elated about today's fifty-mile drive as he'd imagined he would. Now he thought he could put his finger on the reason: It was the completely ... well, arbitrary way in which the white powder had come into his possession. If he'd concocted it himself, or been given it by a shady promoter, or even seen the box fall out of the pocket of a suspicious-looking man in a trenchcoat, then he'd have felt more able to do something about it, whether in the general line of starting a fuel-powder company or of going to the F.B.I. But just having the stuff drop into his hands from the sky, so to speak, as if in a crazy dream, and for that same reason not feeling able to talk about it and assure himself he wasn't going crazy ... oh, it is rough when you can't share things, really rough; not being able to share depressing news corrodes the spirit, but not being able to share exciting news can sometimes be even more corroding. Maybe, he told himself, he could figure out someone to tell. But who? And how? His mind shied away from the problem, rather decisively. When he checked the blue box that night, the original sodium bicarbonate lettering had returned with all its humdrum paragraphs. Not one word about exhaust velocities. From that moment, the fuel-powder became a trial to Ernie rather than a secret glory. He'd wake in the middle of the night doubting that he had ever really read the mind-dizzying lettering, ever really tested the stuff—perhaps he'd bring from sleep the chilling notion that in the dimness and excitement of Saturday morning he'd put the water in some other car's gas tank, perhaps Mr. Jones's. He could usually argue such ideas away, but they kept coming back. And yet he did no more bathroom testing. Of course the car still ran. He even fueled it once again with the garden hose, sniffing the nozzle to make sure it hadn't somehow got connected to the basement furnace oil-tank. He picked three o'clock in the morning for the act, but nevertheless as he was returning indoors he heard a window in Mr. Jones's house slam loudly. It unsettled him. Coming home the next day, he caught his sister and Mr. Jones consulting about something on the latter's doorsteps, which unsettled him further. He couldn't decide on a safe place to keep the box and took to carrying it around with him day and night. Bill spotted it once down at the office and by an unhappy coincidence needed some bicarb just then for a troubled stomach. Ernie explained on the spur of the moment that he was using the box to carry plaster of Paris, which involved him in further lies that he felt were quite unconvincing as well as making him appear decidedly eccentric, even butter-brained. Bill took to calling him "the sculptor." Meanwhile, besides the problem of the white powder, Ernie was having other unsettling experiences, stemming (though of course he didn't know that) from the other Gifts—and not just the Big Gift of Page-at-a-Glance Reading, though that still returned from time to time to shock his consciousness and send him hurrying for a few quick shots. Like many another car-owning commuter, Ernie found the traffic and parking problems a bit too much for comfort and so used the fast electric train to carry him five times a week to the heart of the city. During those brief, swift, crowded trips Ernie, generally looking steadily out the window at the brown buildings and black stanchions whipping past, enjoyed a kind of anonymity and privacy more refreshing to his spirit than he realized. But now all that had been suddenly changed. People had started to talk to him; total strangers struck up conversations almost every morning and afternoon. Ernie couldn't figure out the reason and wasn't at all sure he liked it—except for Vivian. She was the sort of girl Ernie dreamed about, improperly. Tall, blonde and knowing, excitedly curved but armored in a black suit, friendly and funny but given to making almost cruelly deflating remarks, as if the neatly furled short umbrella dangling from her wrist might better be a black dog whip. She worked in an office too, a fancier one than Ernie's, as he found out from their morning conversations. He hadn't got to the point of asking her to lunch, but he was prodding himself. Why such a girl should ever have asked him for a match in the first place and then put up with his clumsy babblings on subsequent mornings was a mystery to him. He finally asked her about it in what he hoped was a joking way, though she seemed to know a lot more about joking than he did. "Don't you know?" she countered. "I mean what makes you attractive to people?" "Me attractive? No." "Well, I'll tell you then, Ernie, and I've got to admit it's something quite out of the ordinary. I've never noticed it in anyone else. Ernie, I'm sure your knowledge of romantic novels is shamefully deficient, it's clear from your manners, but in the earlier ones—not in style now—the hero is described as tall, manly, broad-shouldered, Anglo-Saxon features, etcetera, etcetera, but there's one thing he always has, something that sounds like poetic over-enthusiasm if you stop to analyze it, a physical impossibility, but that I have to admit you, Ernie, actually have. Flashing eyes." "Flashing eyes? Me?" She nodded solemnly. He thought her long straight lips trembled on the verge of a grin, but he couldn't be sure. "How do you mean, flashing eyes?" he protested. "How can eyes flash, except by reflecting light? In that case, I guess they'd seem to 'flash' more if a person opened them wide but kept blinking them a lot. Is that what I do?" "No, Ernie, though you're doing it now," she told him, shaking her head. "No, Ernie, your eyes just give a tiny flash of their own about every five seconds, like a lighthouse, but barely, barely bright enough for another person to notice. It makes you irresistible. Of course I've never seen you in the dark; maybe they wouldn't flash in the dark." "You're joking." Vivian frowned a little at that remark, as if she were puzzled herself. "Well, maybe I am and maybe I'm not," she said. "In any case, don't get conceited about your Flashing Eyes, because I'm sure you'll never know how to take advantage of them." When he parted from her downtown, pausing a moment to watch her walk away with feline majesty, he muttered "Flashing Eyes!" with a shrug of the shoulders and a skeptical growl. Just the same, he ducked his head as he moved off and he pulled the brim of his hat down sharply.
Cakewalk to Gloryanna by Stecher, L. J., Jr.	"Cakewalk to Gloryanna", Stecher, L. J., Jr., 1953. CAKEWALK TO GLORYANNA BY L. J. STECHER, JR. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of Tomorrow June 1963 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The job was easy. The profit was enormous. The only trouble was—the cargo had a will of its own! Captain Hannah climbed painfully down from the Delta Crucis , hobbled across the spaceport to where Beulah and I were waiting to greet him and hit me in the eye. Beulah—that's his elephant, but I have to take care of her for him because Beulah's baby belongs to me and Beulah has to take care of it—kept us apart until we both cooled down a little. Then, although still somewhat dubious about it, she let us go together across the field to the spaceport bar. I didn't ask Captain Hannah why he had socked me. Although he has never been a handsome man, he usually has the weathered and austere dignity that comes from plying the remote reaches among the stars. Call it the Look of Eagles. Captain Hannah had lost the Look of Eagles. His eyes were swollen almost shut; every inch of him that showed was a red mass of welts piled on more welts, as though he had tangled with a hive of misanthropic bees. The gold-braided hat of his trade was not clamped in its usual belligerent position slightly over one eye. It was riding high on his head, apparently held up by more of the ubiquitous swellings. I figured that he figured that I had something to do with the way he looked. "Shipping marocca to Gloryanna III didn't turn out to be a cakewalk after all?" I suggested. He glared at me in silence. "Perhaps you would like a drink first, and then you would be willing to tell me about it?" I decided that his wince was intended for a nod, and ordered rhial. I only drink rhial when I've been exposed to Captain Hannah. It was almost a pleasure to think that I was responsible, for a change, for having him take the therapy. "A Delta Class freighter can carry almost anything," he said at last, in a travesty of his usual forceful voice. "But some things it should never try." He lapsed back into silence after this uncharacteristic admission. I almost felt sorry for him, but just then Beulah came racking across the field with her two-ton infant in tow, to show her off to Hannah. I walled off my pity. He had foisted those two maudlin mastodons off onto me in one of our earlier deals, and if I had somehow been responsible for his present troubles, it was no more than he deserved. I rated winning for once. "You did succeed in getting the marocca to Gloryanna III?" I asked anxiously, after the elephants had been admired and sent back home. The success of that venture—even if the job had turned out to be more difficult than we had expected—meant an enormous profit to both of us. The fruit of the marocca is delicious and fabulously expensive. The plant grew only on the single planet Mypore II. Transshipped seeds invariably failed to germinate, which explained its rarity. The Myporians were usually, and understandably, bitterly, opposed to letting any of the living plants get shipped off their planet. But when I offered them a sizable piece of cash plus a perpetual share of the profits for letting us take a load of marocca plants to Gloryanna III, they relented and, for the first time in history, gave their assent. In fact, they had seemed delighted. "I got them there safely," said Captain Hannah. "And they are growing all right?" I persisted. "When I left, marocca was growing like mad," said Captain Hannah. I relaxed and leaned back in my chair. I no longer felt the need of rhial for myself. "Tell me about it," I suggested. "It was you who said that we should carry those damn plants to Gloryanna III," he said balefully. "I ought to black your other eye." "Simmer down and have some more rhial," I told him. "Sure I get the credit for that. Gloryanna III is almost a twin to Mypore II. You know that marocca takes a very special kind of environment. Bright sun most of the time—that means an almost cloudless environment. A very equable climate. Days and nights the same length and no seasons—that means no ecliptical and no axial tilt. But our tests showed that the plants had enough tolerance to cause no trouble in the trip in Delta Crucis ." A light dawned. "Our tests were no good?" "Your tests were no good," agreed the captain with feeling. "I'll tell you about it first, and then I'll black your other eye," he decided. "You'll remember that I warned you that we should take some marocca out into space and solve any problems we might find before committing ourselves to hauling a full load of it?" asked Captain Hannah. "We couldn't," I protested. "The Myporians gave us a deadline. If we had gone through all of that rigamarole, we would have lost the franchise. Besides, they gave you full written instructions about what to do under all possible circumstances." "Sure. Written in Myporian. A very difficult language to translate. Especially when you're barricaded in the head." I almost asked him why he had been barricaded in the bathroom of the Delta Crucis , but I figured it was safer to let him tell me in his own way, in his own time. "Well," he said, "I got into parking orbit around Mypore without any trouble. The plastic film kept the water in the hydroponic tanks without any trouble, even in a no-gravity condition. And by the time I had lined up for Gloryanna and Jumped, I figured, like you said, that the trip would be a cakewalk. "Do you remember how the plants always keep their leaves facing the sun? They twist on their stems all day, and then they go on twisting them all night, still pointing at the underground sun, so that they're aimed right at sunrise. So the stem looks like a corkscrew?" I nodded. "Sure. That's why they can't stand an axial tilt. They 'remember' the rate and direction of movement, and keep it up during the night time. So what? We had that problem all figured out." "You think so? That solution was one of yours, too, wasn't it?" He gazed moodily at his beaker of rhial. "I must admit it sounded good to me, too. In Limbo, moving at multiple light-speeds, the whole Universe, of course, turns into a bright glowing spot in our direction of motion, with everything else dark. So I lined up the Delta Crucis perpendicular to her direction of motion, put a once-every-twenty-one hour spin on her to match the rotation rates of Mypore II and Gloryanna III, and uncovered the view ports to let in the light. It gradually brightened until 'noon time', with the ports pointing straight at the light source, and then dimmed until we had ten and one-half hours of darkness. "Of course, it didn't work." "For Heaven's sake, why not?" "For Heaven's sake why should it? With no gravity for reference, how were the plants supposed to know that the 'sun' was supposed to be moving?" "So what did you do?" I asked, when that had sunk in. "If the stem doesn't keep winding, the plants die; and they can only take a few extra hours of night time before they run down." "Oh," said Captain Hannah in quiet tones of controlled desperation, "it was very simple. I just put enough spin on the ship to make artificial gravity, and then I strung a light and moved it every fifteen minutes for ten and one-half hours, until I had gone halfway around the room. Then I could turn the light off and rest for ten and one-half hours. The plants liked it fine. "Of course, first I had to move all the hydroponic tanks from their original positions perpendicular to the axial thrust line of the ship to a radial position. And because somehow we had picked up half of the plants in the northern hemisphere of Mypore and the other half in the southern hemisphere, it turned out that half of the plants had a sinistral corkscrew and the other half had a dextral. So I had to set the plants up in two different rooms, and run an artificial sun for each, going clockwise with one, widdershins with the other. "I won't even talk about what I went through while I was shifting the hydroponic tanks, when all the plastic membranes that were supposed to keep the water in place started to break." "I'd like to know," I said sincerely. He stared at me in silence for a moment. "Well, it filled the cabin with great solid bubbles of water. Water bubbles will oscillate and wobble like soap bubbles," he went on dreamily, "but of course, they're not empty, like soap bubbles. The surface acts a little like a membrane, so that sometimes two of the things will touch and gently bounce apart without joining. But just try touching one of them. You could drown—I almost did. Several times. "I got a fire pump—an empty one. You know the kind; a wide cylinder with a piston with a handle, and a hose that you squirt the water out of, or can suck water in with. The way you use it is, you float up on a big ball of water, with the pump piston down—closed. You carefully poke the end of the hose into the ball of water, letting only the metal tip touch. Never the hose. If you let the hose touch, the water runs up it and tries to drown you. Then you pull up on the piston, and draw all the water into the cylinder. Of course, you have to hold the pump with your feet while you pull the handle with your free hand." "Did it work?" I asked eagerly. "Eventually. Then I stopped to think of what to do with the water. It was full of minerals and manure and such, and I didn't want to introduce it into the ship's tanks." "But you solved the problem?" "In a sense," said the captain. "I just emptied the pump back into the air, ignored the bubbles, repositioned the tanks, put spin on the ship and then ladled the liquid back into the tanks with a bucket." "Didn't you bump into a lot of the bubbles and get yourself dunked a good deal while you were working with the tanks?" He shrugged. "I couldn't say. By that time I was ignoring them. It was that or suicide. I had begun to get the feeling that they were stalking me. So I drew a blank." "Then after that you were all right, except for the tedium of moving the lights around?" I asked him. I answered myself at once. "No. There must be more. You haven't told me why you hid out in the bathroom, yet." "Not yet," said Captain Hannah. "Like you, I figured I had the situation fairly well under control, but like you, I hadn't thought things through. The plastic membranes hadn't torn when we brought the tanks in board the Delta Crucis . It never occurred to me to hunt around for the reasons for the change. But I wouldn't have had long to hunt anyway, because in a few hours the reasons came looking for me. "They were a tiny skeeter-like thing. A sort of midge or junior grade mosquito. They had apparently been swimming in the water during their larval stage. Instead of making cocoons for themselves, they snipped tiny little pieces of plastic to use as protective covers in the pupal stage. I guess they were more like butterflies than mosquitoes in their habits. And now they were mature. "There were thousands and thousands of them, and each one of them made a tiny, maddening whine as it flew." "And they bit? That explains your bumps?" I asked sympathetically. "Oh, no. These things didn't bite, they itched. And they got down inside of everything they could get down inside, and clung. That included my ears and my eyes and my nose. "I broke out a hand sprayer full of a DDT solution, and sprayed it around me to try to clear the nearby air a little, so that I could have room to think. The midges loved it. But the plants that were in reach died so fast that you could watch their leaves curl up and drop off. "I couldn't figure whether to turn up the fans and dissipate the cloud—by spreading it all through the ship—or whether to try to block off the other plant room, and save it at least. So I ended up by not doing anything, which was the right thing to do. No more plants died from the DDT. "So then I did a few experiments, and found that the regular poison spray in the ship's fumigation system worked just fine. It killed the bugs without doing the plants any harm at all. Of course, the fumigation system is designed to work with the fumigator off the ship, because it's poisonous to humans too. "I finally blocked the vents and the door edges in the head, after running some remote controls into there, and then started the fumigation system going. While I was sitting there with nothing much to do, I tried to translate what I could of the Myporian instructions. It was on page eleven that it mentioned casually that the midges—the correct word is carolla—are a necessary part of the life cycle of the marocca. The larvae provide an enzyme without which the plants die. "Of course. I immediately stopped slapping at the relatively few midges that had made their way into the head with me, and started to change the air in the ship to get rid of the poison. I knew it was too late before I started, and for once I was right. "The only live midges left in the ship were the ones that had been with me during the fumigation process. I immediately tried to start a breeding ground for midges, but the midges didn't seem to want to cooperate. Whatever I tried to do, they came back to me. I was the only thing they seemed to love. I didn't dare bathe, or scratch, or even wriggle, for fear of killing more of them. And they kept on itching. It was just about unbearable, but I bore it for three interminable days while the midges died one by one. It was heartbreaking—at least, it was to me. "And it was unnecessary, too. Because apparently the carolla had already laid their eggs, or whatever it is that they do, before I had fumigated them. After my useless days of agony, a new batch came swarming out. And this time there were a few of a much larger thing with them—something like an enormous moth. The new thing just blundered around aimlessly. "I lit out for the head again, to keep away from that intolerable whining. This time I took a luxurious shower and got rid of most of the midges that came through the door with me. I felt almost comfortable, in fact, until I resumed my efforts to catch up on my reading. "The mothlike things—they are called dingleburys—also turn out to provide a necessary enzyme. They are supposed to have the same timing of their life cycle as the carolla. Apparently the shaking up I had given their larvae in moving the tanks and dipping the water up in buckets and all that had inhibited them in completing their cycle the first time around. "And the reason they had the same life cycle as the carolla was that the adult dinglebury will eat only the adult carolla, and it has to fill itself full to bursting before it will reproduce. If I had the translation done correctly, they were supposed to dart gracefully around, catching carolla on the wing and stuffing themselves happily. "I had to find out what was wrong with my awkward dingleburys. And that, of course, meant going out into the ship again. But I had to do that anyway, because it was almost 'daylight', and time for me to start shifting the lights again. "The reason for the dingleburys' problem is fairly obvious. When you set up artificial gravity by spinning a ship, the gravity is fine down near the skin where the plants are. But the gravity potential is very high, and it gets very light up where things fly around, going to zero on the middle line of the ship. And the unfamiliar gravity gradient, together with the Coriolis effect and all, makes the poor dingleburys dizzy, so they can't catch carolla. "And if you think I figured all that out about dingleburys getting dizzy at the time, in that madhouse of a ship, then you're crazy. What happened was that I saw that there was one of the creatures that didn't seem to be having any trouble, but was acting like the book said it should. I caught it and examined it. The poor thing was blind, and was capturing her prey by sound alone. "So I spent the whole day—along with my usual chore of shifting the lights—blindfolding dingleburys. Which is a hell of a sport for a man who is captain of his own ship." I must say that I agreed with him, but it seemed to be a good time for me to keep my mouth shut. "Well, after the dingleburys had eaten and propagated, they became inquisitive. They explored the whole ship, going into places I wouldn't have believed it to be possible for them to reach, including the inside of the main computer, which promptly shorted out. I finally figured that one of the things had managed to crawl up the cooling air exhaust duct, against the flow of air, to see what was going on inside. "I didn't dare to get rid of the things without checking my book, of course, so it was back to the head for me. 'Night' had come again—and it was the only place I could get any privacy. There were plenty of the carolla left to join me outside. "I showered and swatted and started to read. I got as far as where it said that the dingleburys continued to be of importance, and then I'm afraid I fell asleep. "I got up with the sun the next morning. Hell, I had to, considering that it was I who turned the sun on! I found that the dingleburys immediately got busy opening small buds on the stems of the marocca plants. Apparently they were pollinating them. I felt sure that these buds weren't the marocca blossoms from which the fruit formed—I'd seen a lot of those while we were on Mypore II and they were much bigger and showier than these little acorn-sized buds. "Of course, I should have translated some more of my instruction book, but I was busy. "Anyway, the action of the dingleburys triggered the violent growth phase of the marocca plants. Did you know that they plant marocca seedlings, back on Mypore II, at least a hundred feet apart? If you'll recall, a mature field, which was the only kind we ever saw, is one solid mass of green growth. "The book says that it takes just six hours for a marocca field to shift from the seedling stage to the mature stage. It didn't seem that long. You could watch the stuff grow—groping and crawling along; one plant twining with another as they climbed toward the light. "It was then that I began to get worried. If they twined around the light, they would keep me from moving it, and they would shadow it so it wouldn't do its job right. In effect, their growth would put out the sun. "I thought of putting up an electrically charged fence around the light, but the bugs had put most of my loose equipment out of action, so I got a machete. When I took a swing at one of the vines, something bit me on the back of the neck so hard it almost knocked me down. It was one of the dingleburys, and it was as mad as blazes. It seems that one of the things they do is to defend the marocca against marauders. That was the first of my welts, and it put me back in the head in about two seconds. "And what's more, I found that I couldn't kill the damn things. Not if I wanted to save the plants. The growth only stops at the end of six hours, after the blossoms appear and are visited by the dingleburys. No dingleburys, no growth stoppage. "So for the next several hours I had to keep moving those lights, and keep them clear of the vines, and keep the vines from shadowing each other to the point where they curled up and died, and I had to do it gently , surrounded by a bunch of worried dingleburys. "Every time they got a little too worried, or I slipped and bumped into a plant too hard, or looked crosseyed at them, they bit me. If you think I look bad now, you should have seen me just about the time the blossoms started to burst. "I was worried about those blossoms. I felt sure that they would smell terrible, or make me sick, or hypnotize me, or something. But they just turned out to be big, white, odorless flowers. They did nothing for me or to me. They drove the dingleburys wild, though, I'm happy to say. Made them forget all about me. "While they were having their orgy, I caught up on my reading. It was necessary for me to cut back the marocca vines. For one thing, I couldn't get up to the area of the bridge. For another, the main computer was completely clogged. I could use the auxiliary, on the bridge, if I could get to it, but it's a poor substitute. For another thing, I would have to cut the stuff way back if I was ever going to get the plants out of the ship. And I was a little anxious to get my Delta Crucis back to normal as soon as possible. But before cutting, I had to translate the gouge. "It turns out that it's all right to cut marocca as soon as it stops growing. To keep the plants from dying, though, you have to mulch the cuttings and then feed them back to the plants, where the roots store whatever they need against the time of the next explosive period of growth. Of course, if you prefer you can wait for the vines to die back naturally, which takes several months. "There was one little catch, of course. The cuttings from the vines will poison the plants if they are fed back to them without having been mixed with a certain amount of processed mulch. Enzymes again. And there was only one special processor on board. "I was the special processor. That's what the instructions said—I translated very carefully—it required an 'organic processor'. "So I had to eat pounds of that horrible tasting stuff every day, and process it the hard way. "I didn't even have time to scratch my bites. I must have lost weight everywhere but in the swollen places, and they looked worse than they do now. The doctor says it may take a year before the bumps all go away—if they ever do—but I have improved a lot already. "For a while I must have been out of my head. I got so caught up in the rhythm of the thing that I didn't even notice when we slipped out of Limbo into real space near Gloryanna III. It was three days, the Control Tower on Gloryanna III told me, that they tried continuously to raise me on the communications gear before I heard the alarm bell and answered them, so I had to do a good deal of backtracking before I could get into parking orbit around the planet, and then set Delta Crucis down safely. Even as shaky as I was, Delta Crucis behaved like a lady. "I hadn't chopped off all of the new growth, although I had the plants down to manageable size. Some of the blossoms left on the plants had formed fruit, and the fruit had ripened and dried, and the seeds had developed fully. They were popping and spreading fine dust-like spores all over the ship, those last few hours before I landed. "By that time, though, an occasional sneezing fit and watering eyes didn't bother me any. I was far beyond the point where hay fever could add to my troubles. "When I opened the airlock door, though, the spores drifting outside set the customs inspectors to sneezing and swearing more than seemed reasonable at the time." Captain Hannah inhaled a sip of rhial, and seemed to be enjoying the powerful stuff. He acted as if he thought he had finished. "Well, go on," I urged him. "The marocca plants were still in good shape, weren't they?" Hannah nodded. "They were growing luxuriously." He nodded his head a couple of more times, in spite of the discomfort it must have given him. He said, "They made me burn the entire crop right away, of course. They didn't get all of the carolla or dingleburys, though. Or spores." "Gloryanna III is the original home planet of marocca. They hated the stuff, of course, but they liked the profit. Then, when a plague almost wiped out the dingleburys, they introduced khorram furs as a cash crop. It wasn't as lucrative, but it was so much more pleasant that they outlawed marocca. Took them almost fifty years to stamp it out completely. Meanwhile, some clever native shipped a load of the stuff to Mypore II. He took his time, did it without any trouble and made his fortune. And got out again quickly. "The Gloryannans were going to hold my Delta Crucis as security to pay for the cost of stamping out marocca all over again—those spores sprout fast—and for a time I was worried. "Of course, when I showed them our contract—that you alone were responsible for everything once I landed the plants safely on Gloryanna III, they let me go. "They'll send you the bill. They don't figure it will take them more than a few months to complete the job." Captain Hannah stopped talking and stood up, painfully and a little unsteadily. I'm afraid I didn't even notice when he blacked my other eye. I was too busy reaching for the rhial. END
Call Him Nemesis by Westlake, Donald E.	"Call Him Nemesis", Donald E. Westlake, 1970. CALL HIM NEMESIS By DONALD E. WESTLAKE Criminals, beware; the Scorpion is on your trail! Hoodlums fear his fury—and, for that matter, so do the cops! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The man with the handkerchief mask said, "All right, everybody, keep tight. This is a holdup." There were twelve people in the bank. There was Mr. Featherhall at his desk, refusing to okay a personal check from a perfect stranger. There was the perfect stranger, an itinerant garage mechanic named Rodney (Rod) Strom, like the check said. There were Miss English and Miss Philicoff, the girls in the gilded teller cages. There was Mister Anderson, the guard, dozing by the door in his brown uniform. There was Mrs. Elizabeth Clayhorn, depositing her husband's pay check in their joint checking account, and with her was her ten-year-old son Edward (Eddie) Clayhorn, Junior. There was Charlie Casale, getting ten dollars dimes, six dollars nickels and four dollars pennies for his father in the grocery store down the street. There was Mrs. Dolly Daniels, withdrawing money from her savings account again. And there were three bank robbers. The three bank robbers looked like triplets. From the ground up, they all wore scuffy black shoes, baggy-kneed and unpressed khaki trousers, brown cracked-leather jackets over flannel shirts, white handkerchiefs over the lower half of their faces and gray-and-white check caps pulled low over their eyes. The eyes themselves looked dangerous. The man who had spoken withdrew a small but mean-looking thirty-two calibre pistol from his jacket pocket. He waved it menacingly. One of the others took the pistol away from Mister Anderson, the guard, and said to him in a low voice, "Think about retirement, my friend." The third one, who carried a black satchel like a doctor's bag, walked quickly around behind the teller's counter and started filling it with money. It was just like the movies. The man who had first spoken herded the tellers, Mr. Featherhall and the customers all over against the back wall, while the second man stayed next to Mr. Anderson and the door. The third man stuffed money into the black satchel. The man by the door said, "Hurry up." The man with the satchel said, "One more drawer." The man with the gun turned to say to the man at the door, "Keep your shirt on." That was all Miss English needed. She kicked off her shoes and ran pelting in her stocking feet for the door. The man by the door spread his arms out and shouted, "Hey!" The man with the gun swung violently back, cursing, and fired the gun. But he'd been moving too fast, and so had Miss English, and all he hit was the brass plate on Mr. Featherhall's desk. The man by the door caught Miss English in a bear hug. She promptly did her best to scratch his eyes out. Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson went scooting out the front door and running down the street toward the police station in the next block, shouting, "Help! Help! Robbery!" The man with the gun cursed some more. The man with the satchel came running around from behind the counter, and the man by the door tried to keep Miss English from scratching his eyes out. Then the man with the gun hit Miss English on the head. She fell unconscious to the floor, and all three of them ran out of the bank to the car out front, in which sat a very nervous-looking fourth man, gunning the engine. Everyone except Miss English ran out after the bandits, to watch. Things got very fast and very confused then. Two police cars came driving down the block and a half from the precinct house to the bank, and the car with the four robbers in it lurched away from the curb and drove straight down the street toward the police station. The police cars and the getaway car passed one another, with everybody shooting like the ships in pirate movies. There was so much confusion that it looked as though the bank robbers were going to get away after all. The police cars were aiming the wrong way and, as they'd come down with sirens wailing, there was a clear path behind them. Then, after the getaway car had gone more than two blocks, it suddenly started jouncing around. It smacked into a parked car and stopped. And all the police went running down there to clap handcuffs on the robbers when they crawled dazedly out of their car. "Hey," said Eddie Clayhorn, ten years old. "Hey, that was something, huh, Mom?" "Come along home," said his mother, grabbing his hand. "We don't want to be involved." "It was the nuttiest thing," said Detective-Sergeant Stevenson. "An operation planned that well, you'd think they'd pay attention to their getaway car, you know what I mean?" Detective-Sergeant Pauling shrugged. "They always slip up," he said. "Sooner or later, on some minor detail, they always slip up." "Yes, but their tires ." "Well," said Pauling, "it was a stolen car. I suppose they just grabbed whatever was handiest." "What I can't figure out," said Stevenson, "is exactly what made those tires do that. I mean, it was a hot day and all, but it wasn't that hot. And they weren't going that fast. I don't think you could go fast enough to melt your tires down." Pauling shrugged again. "We got them. That's the important thing." "Still and all, it's nutty. They're free and clear, barrelling out Rockaway toward the Belt, and all at once their tires melt, the tubes blow out and there they are." Stevenson shook his head. "I can't figure it." "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," suggested Pauling. "They picked the wrong car to steal." "And that doesn't make sense, either," said Stevenson. "Why steal a car that could be identified as easily as that one?" "Why? What was it, a foreign make?" "No, it was a Chevvy, two-tone, three years old, looked just like half the cars on the streets. Except that in the trunk lid the owner had burned in 'The Scorpion' in big black letters you could see half a block away." "Maybe they didn't notice it when they stole the car," said Pauling. "For a well-planned operation like this one," said Stevenson, "they made a couple of really idiotic boners. It doesn't make any sense." "What do they have to say about it?" Pauling demanded. "Nothing, what do you expect? They'll make no statement at all." The squad-room door opened, and a uniformed patrolman stuck his head in. "The owner of that Chevvy's here," he said. "Right," said Stevenson. He followed the patrolman down the hall to the front desk. The owner of the Chevvy was an angry-looking man of middle age, tall and paunchy. "John Hastings," he said. "They say you have my car here." "I believe so, yes," said Stevenson. "I'm afraid it's in pretty bad shape." "So I was told over the phone," said Hastings grimly. "I've contacted my insurance company." "Good. The car's in the police garage, around the corner. If you'd come with me?" On the way around, Stevenson said, "I believe you reported the car stolen almost immediately after it happened." "That's right," said Hastings. "I stepped into a bar on my route. I'm a wine and liquor salesman. When I came out five minutes later, my car was gone." "You left the keys in it?" "Well, why not?" demanded Hastings belligerently. "If I'm making just a quick stop—I never spend more than five minutes with any one customer—I always leave the keys in the car. Why not?" "The car was stolen," Stevenson reminded him. Hastings grumbled and glared. "It's always been perfectly safe up till now." "Yes, sir. In here." Hastings took one look at his car and hit the ceiling. "It's ruined!" he cried. "What did you do to the tires?" "Not a thing, sir. That happened to them in the holdup." Hastings leaned down over one of the front tires. "Look at that! There's melted rubber all over the rims. Those rims are ruined! What did you use, incendiary bullets?" Stevenson shook his head. "No, sir. When that happened they were two blocks away from the nearest policeman." "Hmph." Hastings moved on around the car, stopping short to exclaim, "What in the name of God is that? You didn't tell me a bunch of kids had stolen the car." "It wasn't a bunch of kids," Stevenson told him. "It was four professional criminals, I thought you knew that. They were using it in a bank holdup." "Then why did they do that ?" Stevenson followed Hastings' pointing finger, and saw again the crudely-lettered words, "The Scorpion" burned black into the paint of the trunk lid. "I really don't know," he said. "It wasn't there before the car was stolen?" "Of course not!" Stevenson frowned. "Now, why in the world did they do that?" "I suggest," said Hastings with heavy sarcasm, "you ask them that." Stevenson shook his head. "It wouldn't do any good. They aren't talking about anything. I don't suppose they'll ever tell us." He looked at the trunk lid again. "It's the nuttiest thing," he said thoughtfully.... That was on Wednesday. The Friday afternoon mail delivery to the Daily News brought a crank letter. It was in the crank letter's most obvious form; that is, the address had been clipped, a letter or a word at a time, from a newspaper and glued to the envelope. There was no return address. The letter itself was in the same format. It was brief and to the point: Dear Mr. Editor: The Scorpion has struck. The bank robbers were captured. The Scorpion fights crime. Crooks and robbers are not safe from the avenging Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS! Sincerely yours, THE SCORPION The warning was duly noted, and the letter filed in the wastebasket. It didn't rate a line in the paper. II The bank robbery occurred in late June. Early in August, a Brooklyn man went berserk. It happened in Canarsie, a section in southeast Brooklyn near Jamaica Bay. This particular area of Canarsie was a residential neighborhood, composed of one and two family houses. The man who went berserk was a Motor Vehicle Bureau clerk named Jerome Higgins. Two days before, he had flunked a Civil Service examination for the third time. He reported himself sick and spent the two days at home, brooding, a bottle of blended whiskey at all times in his hand. As the police reconstructed it later, Mrs. Higgins had attempted to awaken him on the third morning at seven-thirty, suggesting that he really ought to stop being so foolish, and go back to work. He then allegedly poked her in the eye, and locked her out of the bedroom. Mrs. Higgins then apparently called her sister-in-law, a Mrs. Thelma Stodbetter, who was Mr. Higgins' sister. Mrs. Stodbetter arrived at the house at nine o'clock, and spent some time tapping at the still-locked bedroom door, apparently requesting Mr. Higgins to unlock the door and "stop acting like a child." Neighbors reported to the police that they heard Mr. Higgins shout a number of times, "Go away! Can't you let a man sleep?" At about ten-fifteen, neighbors heard shots from the Higgins residence, a two-story one-family pink stucco affair in the middle of a block of similar homes. Mr. Higgins, it was learned later, had suddenly erupted from his bedroom, brandishing a .30-.30 hunting rifle and, being annoyed at the shrieks of his wife and sister, had fired seven shells at them, killing his wife on the spot and wounding his sister in the hand and shoulder. Mrs. Stodbetter, wounded and scared out of her wits, raced screaming out the front door of the house, crying for the police and shouting, "Murder! Murder!" At this point, neighbors called the police. One neighbor additionally phoned three newspapers and two television stations, thereby earning forty dollars in "news-tips" rewards. By chance, a mobile television unit was at that moment on the Belt Parkway, returning from having seen off a prime minister at Idlewild Airport. This unit was at once diverted to Canarsie, where it took up a position across the street from the scene of carnage and went to work with a Zoomar lens. In the meantime, Mister Higgins had barricaded himself in his house, firing at anything that moved. The two cameramen in the mobile unit worked their hearts out. One concentrated on the movements of the police and firemen and neighbors and ambulance attendants, while the other used the Zoomar lens to search for Mr. Higgins. He found him occasionally, offering the at-home audience brief glimpses of a stocky balding man in brown trousers and undershirt, stalking from window to window on the second floor of the house. The show lasted for nearly an hour. There were policemen everywhere, and firemen everywhere, and neighbors milling around down at the corner, where the police had roped the block off, and occasionally Mr. Higgins would stick his rifle out a window and shoot at somebody. The police used loudspeakers to tell Higgins he might as well give up, they had the place surrounded and could eventually starve him out anyway. Higgins used his own good lungs to shout obscenities back and challenge anyone present to hand-to-hand combat. The police fired tear gas shells at the house, but it was a windy day and all the windows in the Higgins house were either open or broken. Higgins was able to throw all the shells back out of the house again. The show lasted for nearly an hour. Then it ended, suddenly and dramatically. Higgins had showed himself to the Zoomar lens again, for the purpose of shooting either the camera or its operator. All at once he yelped and threw the rifle away. The rifle bounced onto the porch roof, slithered down to the edge, hung for a second against the drain, and finally fell barrel first onto the lawn. Meanwhile, Higgins was running through the house, shouting like a wounded bull. He thundered down the stairs and out, hollering, to fall into the arms of the waiting police. They had trouble holding him. At first they thought he was actually trying to get away, but then one of them heard what it was he was shouting: "My hands! My hands!" They looked at his hands. The palms and the palm-side of the fingers were red and blistering, from what looked like severe burns. There was another burn on his right cheek and another one on his right shoulder. Higgins, thoroughly chastened and bewildered, was led away for burn ointment and jail. The television crew went on back to Manhattan. The neighbors went home and telephoned their friends. On-duty policemen had been called in from practically all of the precincts in Brooklyn. Among them was Detective-Sergeant William Stevenson. Stevenson frowned thoughtfully at Higgins as that unhappy individual was led away, and then strolled over to look at the rifle. He touched the stock, and it was somewhat warm but that was all. He picked it up and turned it around. There, on the other side of the stock, burned into the wood, were the crudely-shaped letters, "The Scorpion." You don't get to be Precinct Captain on nothing but political connections. Those help, of course, but you need more than that. As Captain Hanks was fond of pointing out, you needed as well to be both more imaginative than most—"You gotta be able to second-guess the smart boys"—and to be a complete realist—"You gotta have both feet on the ground." If these were somewhat contradictory qualities, it was best not to mention the fact to Captain Hanks. The realist side of the captain's nature was currently at the fore. "Just what are you trying to say, Stevenson?" he demanded. "I'm not sure," admitted Stevenson. "But we've got these two things. First, there's the getaway car from that bank job. The wheels melt for no reason at all, and somebody burns 'The Scorpion' onto the trunk. Then, yesterday, this guy Higgins out in Canarsie. He says the rifle all of a sudden got too hot to hold, and he's got the burn marks to prove it. And there on the rifle stock it is again. 'The Scorpion'." "He says he put that on there himself," said the captain. Stevenson shook his head. "His lawyer says he put it on there. Higgins says he doesn't remember doing it. That's half the lawyer's case. He's trying to build up an insanity defense." "He put it on there himself, Stevenson," said the captain with weary patience. "What are you trying to prove?" "I don't know. All I know is it's the nuttiest thing I ever saw. And what about the getaway car? What about those tires melting?" "They were defective," said Hanks promptly. "All four of them at once? And what about the thing written on the trunk?" "How do I know?" demanded the captain. "Kids put it on before the car was stolen, maybe. Or maybe the hoods did it themselves, who knows? What do they say?" "They say they didn't do it," said Stevenson. "And they say they never saw it before the robbery and they would have noticed it if it'd been there." The captain shook his head. "I don't get it," he admitted. "What are you trying to prove?" "I guess," said Stevenson slowly, thinking it out as he went along, "I guess I'm trying to prove that somebody melted those tires, and made that rifle too hot, and left his signature behind." "What? You mean like in the comic books? Come on, Stevenson! What are you trying to hand me?" "All I know," insisted Stevenson, "is what I see." "And all I know," the captain told him, "is Higgins put that name on his rifle himself. He says so." "And what made it so hot?" "Hell, man, he'd been firing that thing at people for an hour! What do you think made it hot?" "All of a sudden?" "He noticed it all of a sudden, when it started to burn him." "How come the same name showed up each time, then?" Stevenson asked desperately. "How should I know? And why not, anyway? You know as well as I do these things happen. A bunch of teen-agers burgle a liquor store and they write 'The Golden Avengers' on the plate glass in lipstick. It happens all the time. Why not 'The Scorpion'? It couldn't occur to two people?" "But there's no explanation—" started Stevenson. "What do you mean, there's no explanation? I just gave you the explanation. Look, Stevenson, I'm a busy man. You got a nutty idea—like Wilcox a few years ago, remember him? Got the idea there was a fiend around loose, stuffing all those kids into abandoned refrigerators to starve. He went around trying to prove it, and getting all upset, and pretty soon they had to put him away in the nut hatch. Remember?" "I remember," said Stevenson. "Forget this silly stuff, Stevenson," the captain advised him. "Yes, sir," said Stevenson.... The day after Jerome Higgins went berserk, the afternoon mail brought a crank letter to the Daily News : Dear Mr. Editor, You did not warn your readers. The man who shot all those people could not escape the Scorpion. The Scorpion fights crime. No criminal is safe from the Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS. Sincerely yours, THE SCORPION Unfortunately, this letter was not read by the same individual who had seen the first one, two months before. At any rate, it was filed in the same place, and forgotten. III Hallowe'en is a good time for a rumble. There's too many kids around for the cops to keep track of all of them, and if you're picked up carrying a knife or a length of tire chain or something, why, you're on your way to a Hallowe'en party and you're in costume. You're going as a JD. The problem was this schoolyard. It was a block wide, with entrances on two streets. The street on the north was Challenger territory, and the street on the south was Scarlet Raider territory, and both sides claimed the schoolyard. There had been a few skirmishes, a few guys from both gangs had been jumped and knocked around a little, but that had been all. Finally, the War Lords from the two gangs had met, and determined that the matter could only be settled in a war. The time was chosen: Hallowe'en. The place was chosen: the schoolyard. The weapons were chosen: pocket knives and tire chains okay, but no pistols or zip-guns. The time was fixed: eleven P.M. And the winner would have undisputed territorial rights to the schoolyard, both entrances. The night of the rumble, the gangs assembled in their separate clubrooms for last-minute instructions. Debs were sent out to play chicken at the intersections nearest the schoolyard, both to warn of the approach of cops and to keep out any non-combatant kids who might come wandering through. Judy Canzanetti was a Deb with the Scarlet Raiders. She was fifteen years old, short and black-haired and pretty in a movie-magazine, gum-chewing sort of way. She was proud of being in the Auxiliary of the Scarlet Raiders, and proud also of the job that had been assigned to her. She was to stand chicken on the southwest corner of the street. Judy took up her position at five minutes to eleven. The streets were dark and quiet. Few people cared to walk this neighborhood after dark, particularly on Hallowe'en. Judy leaned her back against the telephone pole on the corner, stuck her hands in the pockets of her Scarlet Raider jacket and waited. At eleven o'clock, she heard indistinct noises begin behind her. The rumble had started. At five after eleven, a bunch of little kids came wandering down the street. They were all about ten or eleven years old, and most of them carried trick-or-treat shopping bags. Some of them had Hallowe'en masks on. They started to make the turn toward the schoolyard. Judy said, "Hey, you kids. Take off." One of them, wearing a red mask, turned to look at her. "Who, us?" "Yes, you! Stay out of that street. Go on down that way." "The subway's this way," objected the kid in the red mask. "Who cares? You go around the other way." "Listen, lady," said the kid in the red mask, aggrieved, "we got a long way to go to get home." "Yeah," said another kid, in a black mask, "and we're late as it is." "I couldn't care less," Judy told them callously. "You can't go down that street." "Why not?" demanded yet another kid. This one was in the most complete and elaborate costume of them all, black leotards and a yellow shirt and a flowing: black cape. He wore a black and gold mask and had a black knit cap jammed down tight onto his head. "Why can't we go down there?" this apparition demanded. "Because I said so," Judy told him. "Now, you kids get away from here. Take off." "Hey!" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume. "Hey, they're fighting down there!" "It's a rumble," said Judy proudly. "You twerps don't want to be involved." "Hey!" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume again. And he went running around Judy and dashing off down the street. "Hey, Eddie!" shouted one of the other kids. "Eddie, come back!" Judy wasn't sure what to do next. If she abandoned her post to chase the one kid who'd gotten through, then maybe all the rest of them would come running along after her. She didn't know what to do. A sudden siren and a distant flashing red light solved her problems. "Cheez," said one of the kids. "The cops!" "Fuzz!" screamed Judy. She turned and raced down the block toward the schoolyard, shouting, "Fuzz! Fuzz! Clear out, it's the fuzz!" But then she stopped, wide-eyed, when she saw what was going on in the schoolyard. The guys from both gangs were dancing. They were jumping around, waving their arms, throwing their weapons away. Then they all started pulling off their gang jackets and throwing them away, whooping and hollering. They were making such a racket themselves that they never heard Judy's warning. They didn't even hear the police sirens. And all at once both schoolyard entrances were full of cops, a cop had tight hold of Judy and the rumble was over. Judy was so baffled and terrified that everything was just one great big blur. But in the middle of it all, she did see the little kid in the yellow-and-black costume go scooting away down the street. And she had the craziest idea that it was all his fault. Captain Hanks was still in his realistic cycle this morning, and he was impatient as well. "All right, Stevenson," he said. "Make it fast, I've got a lot to do this morning. And I hope it isn't this comic-book thing of yours again." "I'm afraid it is, Captain," said Stevenson. "Did you see the morning paper?" "So what?" "Did you see that thing about the gang fight up in Manhattan?" Captain Hanks sighed. "Stevenson," he said wearily, "are you going to try to connect every single time the word 'scorpion' comes up? What's the problem with this one? These kid gangs have names, so what?" "Neither one of them was called 'The Scorpions,'" Stevenson told him. "One of them was the Scarlet Raiders and the other gang was the Challengers." "So they changed their name," said Hanks. "Both gangs? Simultaneously? To the same name?" "Why not? Maybe that's what they were fighting over." "It was a territorial war," Stevenson reminded him. "They've admitted that much. It says so in the paper. And it also says they all deny ever seeing that word on their jackets until after the fight." "A bunch of juvenile delinquents," said Hanks in disgust. "You take their word?" "Captain, did you read the article in the paper?" "I glanced through it." "All right. Here's what they say happened: They say they started fighting at eleven o'clock. And they just got going when all at once all the metal they were carrying—knives and tire chains and coins and belt buckles and everything else—got freezing cold, too cold to touch. And then their leather jackets got freezing cold, so cold they had to pull them off and throw them away. And when the jackets were later collected, across the name of the gang on the back of each one had been branded 'The Scorpion.'" "Now, let me tell you something," said Hanks severely. "They heard the police sirens, and they threw all their weapons away. Then they threw their jackets away, to try to make believe they hadn't been part of the gang that had been fighting. But they were caught before they could get out of the schoolyard. If the squad cars had showed up a minute later, the schoolyard wouldn't have had anything in it but weapons and jackets, and the kids would have been all over the neighborhood, nice as you please, minding their own business and not bothering anybody. That's what happened. And all this talk about freezing cold and branding names into jackets is just some smart-alec punk's idea of a way to razz the police. Now, you just go back to worrying about what's happening in this precinct and forget about kid gangs up in Manhattan and comic book things like the Scorpion, or you're going to wind up like Wilcox, with that refrigerator business. Now, I don't want to hear any more about this nonsense, Stevenson." "Yes, sir," said Stevenson.
Captain Chaos by Morrissey, D. Allen	"Captain Chaos", D. Allen Morrissey, 1970. CAPTAIN CHAOS By D. ALLEN MORRISSEY Science equipped David Corbin with borrowed time; sent him winging out in a state of suspension to future centuries ... to a dark blue world whose only defense was to seal tight the prying minds of foolish interlopers. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I heard the voice as I opened my eyes. I was lying down, still not aware of where I was, waiting for the voice. "Your name is David Corbin. Do you understand?" I looked in the direction of the sound. Above my feet a bulkhead loomed. There were round dials set in a row above a speaker. Over the mesh-covered speaker, two knobs glowed red. I ran the words over in my sluggish mind, thinking about an answer. The muscles in my throat tightened up in reflex as I tried to bring some unity into the jumble of thoughts and ideas that kept forming. One word formed out of the rush of anxiety. "No." I shouted a protest against the strangeness of the room. I looked to the right, my eyes following the curving ceiling that started at the cot. The curve met another straight bulkhead on the left. I was in a small room, gray in color, like dull metal. Overhead a bright light burned into my vision. I wondered where in the universe I was. "Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your right." I stared at the speaker in the wall. The mesh-covered hole and the two lights looked like a caricature of a face, set in a panel of dials. I twisted my head to look for the button. I pushed away from the close wall but I couldn't move. I reached down to the tightness that held my body, found the wide strap that held me and fumbled with the buckle. I threw it off and pushed myself up from the hard cot. I heard myself yell in surprise as I floated up towards the light overhead. I was weightless. How do you describe being weightless when you are born into a world bound by gravity. I twisted and shut my eyes in terror. There was no sensation of place, no feeling of up or down, no direction. My back bumped against the ceiling and I opened my eyes to stare at the cot and floor. I was concentrating too hard on remembering to be frightened for long. I pushed away from the warm metal and the floor moved up to meet me. "If you understand, press button A on your right." What should I understand? That I was floating in a room that had a curved wall ... that nothing was right in this hostile room? When I reached the cot I held it and drew myself down. I glanced at the planes of the room, trying to place it with other rooms I could see in my mind. Gray walls with a crazy curved ceiling ... a door to my left that appeared to be air tight. I stared at my familiar hands. I rubbed them across my face, feeling the solidity of flesh and bone, afraid to think too hard about myself. "My name ... my name is...." "Your name is David Corbin." I stared at the speaker. How long did this go on? The name meant nothing to me, but I thought about it, watching the relentless lights that shone below the dials. I stood up slowly and looked at myself. I was naked except for heavy shorts, and there was no clue to my name in the pockets. The room was warm and the air I had been breathing was good but it seemed wrong to be dressed like this. I didn't know why. I thought about insanity, and the room seemed to fit my thoughts. When the voice repeated the message again I had to act. Walking was like treading water that couldn't be seen or felt. I floated against the door, twisting the handle in fear that it wouldn't turn. The handle clanged as I pushed it down and I stared at the opposite wall of a narrow gray passageway. I pushed out into it and grasped the metal rail that ran along the wall. I reasoned it was there to propel yourself through the passageway in this weightless atmosphere. It was effortless to move. I turned on my side like a swimmer and went hand over hand, shooting down the corridor. I braced against forward motion and stopped against a door at the end. Behind me I could see the opened door I had left, and the thought of that questioning voice made me want to move. I swung the door open, catching a glimpse of a room crowded with equipment and.... I will always remember the scream of terror, the paralyzing fright of what I saw through the portholes in the wall of the room. I saw the blackest night, pierced by brilliance that blinded me. There was no depth to the searing brightness of countless stars. They seemed to press against the glass, blobs of fire against a black curtain burning into my eyes and brain. It was space. I looked out at deep space, star systems in clusters. I shut my eyes. When I looked again I knew where I was. Why the little room had been shaped like quarter round. Why I drifted weightlessly. Why I was.... David Corbin. I knew more of the puzzle. Something was wrong. After the first shock of looking out, I accepted the fact that I was in a space ship, yet I couldn't read the maps that were fastened to a table, nor understand the function or design of the compact machinery. WHY, Why, Why? The thought kept pounding at me. I was afraid to touch anything in the room. I pressed against the clear window, wondering if the stars were familiar. I had a brief vivid picture of a night sky on Earth. This was not the same sky. Back in the room where I had awakened, I touched the panel with the glowing eyes. It had asked me if I understood. Now it must tell me why I didn't. It had to help me, that flat metallic voice that repeated the same words. It must tell me.... "Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your right." I pressed the button by the cot. The red lights blinked out as I stood in patient attention, trying to outguess the voice. I recalled a phrase ... some words about precaution. Precaution against forgetting. It was crazy, but I trusted the panel. It was the only thing I saw that could help me, guard me against another shock like seeing outside of the clear portholes. "It is assumed the experiment is a success," the voice said. What experiment? "You have been removed from suspension. Assume manual control of this ship." Control of a ship? Going where? "Do not begin operations until the others are removed from suspension." What others? Tell me what to do. "Rely on instructions for factoring when you check the coordinates. Your maximum deviation from schedule cannot exceed two degrees. Adopt emergency procedures as you see fit. Good luck." The voice snapped off and I laughed hysterically. None of it had made sense, and I cursed whatever madness had put me here. "Tell me what to do," I shouted wildly. I hammered the hard metal until the pain in my hands made me stop. "I can't remember what to do." I held my bruised hands to my mouth, and I knew that was all the message there was. In blind panic I pushed away from the panel. Something tripped me and I fell back in a graceless arc. I pushed away from the floor, barely feeling the pain in my leg, and went into the hall. Pain burned along my leg but I couldn't stop. In the first panic of waking up in strangeness I had missed the other doors in the passage. The first swung back to reveal a deep closet holding five bulky suits. The second room was like my own. A dark haired, deep chested man lay on the cot. His muscular body was secured by a wide belt. He was as still as death, motionless without warmth or breath as I hovered over him. I couldn't remember his face. The next room held another man. He was young and wiry, like an athlete cast in marble, dark haired and big jawed. A glassy eye stared up when I rolled back his eyelid. The eyelid remained open until I closed it and went on. Another room ... another man ... another stranger. This man was tall and raw boned, light of skin and hair, as dead as the others. A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I shivered in spite of the warmth of the room, studying the black box that squatted on a shelf by his head. My hand shook when I touched the metal. I dared not try to operate anything. Revive the others ... instructions without knowledge were useless to me. I stopped looking into the doors in the passageway and went back to the room with the portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts, instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or use in the room. It waited for human hands to make it operate. Not mine. Not now. I went past the room into another, where the curves were more sharp. I could visualize the tapering hull leading to the nose of the ship. This room was filled with equipment that formed a room out of the bordered area I stood in. I sat in the deep chair facing the panel of dials and instruments, in easy reach. I ran my hands over the dials, the rows of smooth colored buttons, wondering. The ports on the side were shielded and I stared out at static energy, hung motionless in a world of searing light. There was no distortion, no movement outside and I glanced back at the dials. What speeds were they recording? What speeds and perhaps, what distance? It was useless to translate the markings. They stood for anything I might guess, and something kept pricking my mind, telling me I had no time to guess. I thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did that mean ... in time ... in time. I went back down the passageway. The fourth small room was the same. Except for the woman. She lay on a cot, young and beautiful, even in the death-like immobility I had come to accept. Her beauty was graceful lines of face and her figure—smooth tapering legs, soft curves that were carved out of flesh colored stone. Yet not stone. I held her small hand, then put it back on the cot. Her attire was brief like the rest of us, shorts and a man's shirt. Golden hair curled up around her lovely face. I wondered if she would ever smile or move that graceful head. I rolled back her eyelid and looked at a deep blue eye that stared back in glassy surprise. Four people in all, depending on a blind helpless fool who didn't know their names or the reason for that dependence. I sat beside her on the cot until I could stand it no longer. Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some answers. I went from the nose to the last bulkhead in a frenzy of floating motion, looking behind each door until I went as far as I could. There were two levels to the ship. They both ended in the lead shield that was set where the swell of the curve was biggest. It meant the engine or engines took up half the ship, cut off from the forward half by the instrument studded shield. I retraced my steps and took a rough estimate of size. The ship, as I called it, was at least four hundred feet long, fifty feet in diameter on the inside. The silence was a force in itself, pressing down from the metal walls, driving me back to the comforting smallness of the room where I had been reborn. I laughed bitterly, thinking about the aptness of that. I had literally been reborn in this room, equipped with half ideas, and no point to start from, no premise to seek. I sensed the place to start from was back in the room. I searched it carefully. Minutes later I realized the apparatus by the cot was different. It was the same type of black box, but out from it was a metal arm, bent in a funny angle. At the tip of the arm, a needle gleamed dully and I rubbed the deep gash on my leg. I bent the arm back until the angle looked right. It was then I realized the needle came to a spot where it could have hit my neck when I lay down. My shout of excitement rang out in the room, as I pictured the action of the extended arm. I lost my sudden elation in the cabin where the girl lay. The box behind her head was completely closed, and it didn't yield to the pressure I applied. It had a cover, but no other opening where an arm could extend. I ran my fingers over the unbroken surface, prying over the thin crack at the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered manually I was lost. I had no knowledge of what to inject or where to look for it. The chamber of the needle that had awakened me was empty. That meant a measured amount. In the laboratory on the lower level I went over the rows of cans and tubes fastened to the shelves. There were earths and minerals, seeds and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor sent along to safeguard the others. Complete amnesia would have been terrible enough but this half knowledge, part awareness and association with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of me. I went back to the cabin where the powerful man lay. I had to risk failure with one of them. I didn't want it to be the girl. I fought down the thought that he might be the key man, remembering the voice that had given the message. It was up to me, and soon. The metal in the box would have withstood a bullet. It couldn't be pried apart, and I searched again and again for a release mechanism. I found it. I swung the massive cover off and set it down. The equipment waited for the touch of a button and it went into operation. I stepped back as the tubes glowed to life and the arm swung down with the gleaming needle. The needle went into the corded neck of the man. The fluid chamber drained under pressure and the arm moved back. I stood by the man for long minutes. Finally it came. He stirred restlessly, closing his hands into fists. The deep chest rose and fell unevenly as he breathed. Finally the eyes opened and he looked at me. I watched him adjust to the room. It was in his eyes, wide at first, moving about the confines of the room back to me. "It looks like we made it," he said. "Yes." He unfastened the belt and sat up. I pushed him back as he floated up finding little humor in the comic expression on his face. "No gravity," he grunted and sat back. "You get used to it fast," I answered. I thought of what to say as he watched me. "How do you feel?" He shrugged at the question. "Fine, I guess. Funny, I can't remember." He saw it in my face, making him stop. "I can't remember dropping off to sleep," he finished. I held his hard arm. "What else? How much do you remember?" "I'm all right," he answered. "There aren't supposed to be any effects from this." "Who is in charge of this ship?" I asked. He tensed suddenly. "You are, sir. Why?" I moved away from the cot. "Listen, I can't remember. I don't know your name or anything about this ship." "What do you mean? What can't you remember?" he asked. He stood up slowly, edging around towards the door. I didn't want to fight him. I wanted him to understand. "Look, I'm in trouble. Nothing fits, except my name." "You don't know me?" "No." "Are you serious?" "Yes, yes. I don't know why but it's happened." He let his breath out in a whistle. "For God's sake. Any bump on your head?" "I feel all right physically. I just can't place enough." "The others. What about the others?" he blurted. "I don't know. You're the first besides myself. I don't know how I stumbled on the way to revive you." He shook his head, watching me like I was a freak. "Let's check the rest right away." "Yes. I've got to know if they are like me. I'm afraid to think they might be." "Maybe it's temporary. We can figure something out." II The second man, the dark haired one, opened his eyes and recognized us. He asked questions in rapid fire excitement. The third man, the tall Viking, was all right until he moved. The weightless sensation made him violently sick. We put him back on the cot, securing him again with the belt, but the sight of us floating made him shake. He was retching without results when we drifted out. I followed him to the girl's quarters. "What about her. Why is she here?" I asked my companion. He lifted the cover from the apparatus. "She's the chemist in the crew." "A girl?" "Dr. Thiesen is an expert, trained for this," he said. I looked at her. She looked anything but like a chemist. "There must be men who could have been sent. I've been wondering why a girl." "I don't know why, Captain. You tried to stop her before. Age and experience were all that mattered to the brass." "It's a bad thing to do." "I suppose. The mission stated one chemist." "What is the mission of this ship?" I asked. He held up his hand. "We'd better wait, sir. Everything was supposed to be all right on this end. First you, then Carl, sick to his stomach." "Okay. I'll hold the questions until we see about her." We were out of luck with the girl. She woke up and she was frightened. We questioned her and she was coherent but she couldn't remember. I tried to smile as I sat on the cot, wondering what she was thinking. "How do you feel?" I asked. Her face was a mask of wide-eyed fear as she shook her head. "Can you remember?" "I don't know." Blue eyes stared at me in fear. Her voice was low. "Do you know my name?" The question frightened her. "Should I? I feel so strange. Give me a minute to think." I let her sit up slowly. "Do you know your name?" She tightened up in my arms. "Yes. It's...." She looked at us for help, frightened by the lack of clothing we wore, by the bleak room. Her eyes circled the room. "I'm afraid," she cried. I held her and she shook uncontrollably. "What's happened to me?" she asked. The dark haired man came into the room, silent and watchful. My companion motioned to him. "Get Carl and meet us in Control." The man looked at me and I nodded. "We'll be there in a moment. I'm afraid we've got trouble." He nodded and pushed away from us. The girl screamed and covered her face with her hands. I turned to the other man. "What's your name?" "Croft. John Croft." "John, what are your duties if any?" "Automatic control. I helped to install it." "Can you run this ship? How about the other two?" He hit his hands together. "You fly it, sir. Can't you think?" "I'm trying. I know the ship is familiar, but I've looked it over. Maybe I'm trying too hard." "You flew her from earth until we went into suspension," he said. "I can't remember when," I said. I held the trembling girl against me, shaking my head. He glanced at the girl. "If the calculations are right it was more than a hundred years ago." We assembled in the control room for a council. We were all a little better for being together. John Croft named the others for me. I searched each face without recognition. The blond man was Carl Herrick, a metallurgist. His lean face was white from his spell but he was better. Paul Sample was a biologist, John said. He was lithe and restless, with dark eyes that studied the rest of us. I looked at the girl. She was staring out of the ports, her hands pressed against the transparent break in the smooth wall. Karen Thiesen was a chemist, now frightened and trying to remember. I wasn't in much better condition. "Look, if it comes too fast for me, for any of us, we'll stop. John, you can lead off." "You ask the questions," he said. I indicated the ship. "Where in creation are we going?" "We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center of our Galaxy." "From Earth? How could we?" "Let's move slowly, sir," he said. "We're moving fast. I don't know if you can picture it, but we're going about one hundred thousand miles an hour." "Through space?" "Yes." "What direction?" Paul cut in. "It's a G type star, like our own sun in mass and luminosity. We hope to find a planetary system capable of supporting life." "I can't grasp it. How can we go very far in a lifetime?" "It can be done in two lifetimes," John said quietly. "You said I had flown this ship. You meant before this suspension." "Yes. That's why we can cross space to a near star." "How long ago was it?" "It was set at about a hundred years, sir. Doesn't that fit at all?" "I can't believe it's possible." Carl caught my eye. "Captain, we save this time without aging at all. It puts us near a calculated destination." "We've lost our lifetime." It was Karen. She had been crying silently while we talked. "Don't think about it," Paul said. "We can still pull this out all right if you don't lose your nerve." "What are we to do?" she asked. John answered for me. "First we've got to find out where we are. I know this ship but I can't fly it." "Can I?" I asked. We set up a temporary plan of action. Paul took Karen to the laboratory in an effort to help her remember her job. Carl went back to divide the rations. I was to study the charts and manuals. It was better than doing nothing, and I went into the navigation room and sat down. Earth was an infinitesimal point somewhere behind us on the galactic plane, and no one else was trained to navigate. The ship thundered to life as I sat there. The blast roared once ... twice, then settled into a muted crescendo of sound that hummed through the walls. I went into the control room and watched John at the panel. "I wish I knew what you were doing," I said savagely. "Give it time." "We can't spare any, can we?" I asked. "I wish we knew. What about her—Dr. Thiesen?" "She's in the lab. I don't think that will do much good. She's got to be shocked out of a mental state like that." "I guess you're right," he said slowly. "She's trained to administer the suspension on the return trip." I let my breath out slowly. "I didn't think about that." "We couldn't even get part way back in a lifetime," he said. "How old are you, John?" "Twenty-eight." "What about me?" "Thirty." He stared at the panel in thought for a minutes. "What about shock treatment? It sounds risky." "I know. It's the only thing I could think of. Why didn't everyone react the same?" "That had me wondering for a while. I don't know. Anyway how could you go about making her remember?" "Throw a crisis, some situation at her, I guess." He shrugged, letting his sure hands rest on the panel of dials. I headed back towards the lab. If I could help her I might help myself. I was past the rooms when the horn blasted through the corridor. I turned automatically with the sound, pushing against the rail, towards the control room. Deep in my mind I could see danger, and without questioning why I knew I had to be at Control when the sound knifed through the stillness. John was shouting as I thrust my way into the room. "Turn the ship. There's something dead ahead." I had a glimpse of his contorted face as I dove at the control board. My hands hit buttons, thumbed a switch and then a sudden force threw me to the right. I slammed into the panel on the right, as the pressure of the change dimmed my vision. Reflex made me look up at the radar control screen. It wasn't operating. John let go of the padded chair, grinning weakly. I was busy for a few seconds, feeding compensation into the gyros. Relief flooded through me like warm liquid. I hung on the intercom for support, drawing air into my heaving lungs. "What—made you—think of that," I asked weakly. "Shock treatment." "I must have acted on instinct." "You did. Even for a sick man that was pretty fast," he laughed. "I can think again, John. I know who I am," I shouted. I threw my arms around his massive shoulders. "You did it." "You gave me the idea, Mister, talking about Dr. Thiesen." "It worked. I'm okay," I said in giddy relief. "I don't have to tell you I was scared as hell. I wish you could have seen your face, the look in your eyes when I woke up." "I wouldn't want to wake up like that again." "You're all right now?" he asked. I grinned and nodded an answer. I saw John as he was at the base, big and competent, sweating in the blazing sun. I thought about the rest of the crew too. "We're heading right for a star...." "It's been dead ahead for hours," he grunted. I leaned over and threw the intercom to open. "This is control. Listen ... everyone. I'm over it. Disregard the warning siren ... we were testing the ship." The lab light blinked on as Paul cut in. "What was it ... hey, you said you're all right." "John did it. He hit the alarm figuring I would react. Listen, Paul. Is any one hurt?" "No. Carl is here too. His stomach flopped again but he's okay. What about food. We're supposed to be checked before we eat." "We'll have to go ahead without it. Any change?" "No, I put her to bed. Shall I bring food?" I glanced at John. He rubbed his stomach. "Yes," I answered. "Bring it when you can. I've got to find out where we are." We had to get off course before we ran into the yellow-white star that had been picked for us. Food was set down by me, grew cold and was carried away and I was still rechecking the figures. We were on a line ten degrees above the galactic plane. The parallactic baseline from Earth to the single star could be in error several degrees, or we could be right on the calculated position of the star. The radar confirmed my findings ... and my worst fears. When we set it for direction and distance, the screen glowed to life and recorded the star dead ahead. In all the distant star clusters, only this G type star was thought to have a planetary system like our own. We were out on a gamble to find a planet capable of supporting life. The idea had intrigued scientists before I had first looked up at the night sky. When I was sure the electronically recorded course was accurate for time, I checked direction and speed from the readings and plotted our position. If I was right we were much closer than we wanted to be. The bright pips on the screen gave us the distance and size of the star while we fed the figures into the calculator for our rate of approach. Spectroscopic tests were run on the sun and checked against the figures that had been calculated on Earth. We analyzed temperature, magnetic fields, radial motion, density and luminosity, checking against the standards the scientists had constructed. It was a G type star like our own. It had more density and temperature and suitable planets or not, we had to change course in a hurry. Carl analyzed the findings while we came to a decision. Somewhere along an orbit that might be two hundred miles across, our hypothetical planet circled this star. That distance was selected when the planets in Earth's solar system had proved to be barren. If the observations on this star were correct, we could expect to find a planet in a state of fertility ... if it existed ... if it were suitable for colonization ... if we could find it.
Captain Chaos by Bond, Nelson S.	"Captain Chaos", Nelson S. Bond, 1957. CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.
Castaways of Eros by Bond, Nelson S.	"Castaways of Eros", Nelson S. Bond, 1957. Castaways of Eros By NELSON S. BOND Two families fought for the title to Eros, and only one could win. One had to outsmart the other—and both had to win over the unscrupulous United Ores Corporation. It was a problem worthy of a Solomon—and it had an ending even those embittered rivals could not foresee. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Bobby couldn't help wishing Pop would stand up just a little bit straighter. Not that he was ashamed of Pop; it wasn't that at all. It was just that the Patrolman stood so straight, his shoulders broad and firm. Standing beside him made Pop look sort of thin and puny; his chest caved in like he was carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders. That was from studying things through a microscope. Anyhow, decided Bobby with a fierce loyalty, that S.S.P. man probably wouldn't even know what to look for if somebody put a microscope in front of him. Even if he was big and sturdy and broad-shouldered in his space blues. Mom said, "Bobby, what are you muttering about? Do stop fidgeting!" Bobby said, "Yessum," and glared at Moira, as if she, in some obscure way, were to blame for his having been reprimanded right out here in the middle of Long Island Spaceport, where everybody could hear and laugh at him. But Moira, studying the handsome S.S.P. man surreptitiously, did not notice. Dick was fixing something in the ship. Eleanor stood quietly beside Mom, crooning softly to The Pooch so it wouldn't be scared by the thunderous blast of rocket motors. Grampaw Moseley had buttonholed an embarrassed young ensign, was complaining to him in loud and certain terms that modern astronavigation practices were, "Rank bellywash, Mister, and a dad-ratted disgrace!" The Patrolman said, "Your name, please, Sir?" "Robert Emmet O'Brien Moseley," said Pop. "Occupation?" "Research physicist, formerly. Now about to become a land-grant settler." "Age of self and party ... former residence...." Overhead, the sky was blue and thin—clear as a bowl of skimmed milk; its vastness limned in sharp relief, to the west and north, the mighty spans and arches, the faery domes and flying buttresses of Great New York. The spacedrome fed a hundred ducts of flight; from one field lifted air locals, giddy, colored motes with gyroscopes aspin. From another, a West Coast stratoliner surged upward to lose itself in thin, dim heights. Vast cradles by the Sound were the nests to which a flock of interplanetary craft made homeward flight. Luggers and barges and cruisers. Bobby saw, with sudden excitement, the sharp, starred prow of the Solar Space Patrol man-o'-war. Here, in this field, the GSC's—the General Spacecraft Cradles. From one of which, as soon as Pop got clearance, their ship would take off. Their ship! Bobby felt an eager quickening of his pulse; his stomach was aswarm with a host of butterflies. Their ship! The space officer said, "I think that takes care of everything, Dr. Moseley. I presume you understand the land-grant laws and obligations?" "Yes, Lieutenant." "Very well, then—" Space-red hands made official motions with a hand-stamp and pen. "Your clearance. And my very best wishes, Sir." "Thank you," said Pop quietly. He turned. "That's all. Ready, Mother? Eleanor? Moira?" Bobby bounded forward. "Can I push the button, can I, Pop? When we start, can I?" Dick was waiting before the open lock of the Cuchulainn . Dick could do anything, everything at once. He took The Pooch into the circle of his left arm, helped his mother aboard, said, "Shut up, kid, you're enough to wake the dead. Watch that guard-panel, Elly. Papers all set, Pop?" And he tickled The Pooch's dimpled cheek with an oily finger. "You act just like your mama," he said irrelevantly, and the baby gurgled. Eleanor cried, "Dick—those dirty hands!" "Everything is in order, Richard," said Pop. "Good. You folks go in and strap down. I'll seal. Here comes the cradle-monkey now." Pop said, "Come along, Robert," and the others went inside. Bobby waited, though, to see the cradle-monkey, the man under whose orders spacecraft lifted gravs. The cradle-monkey was a dour man with gnarled legs and arms and temper. He looked at the Cuchulainn and sniffed; then at Dick. "Family crate, huh?" "That's right." "Well, f'r goddlemighty' sakes, don't try to blast off with y'r side jets burnin'. Take a seven-point-nineteen readin' on y'r Akka gauge, stern rockets only—" "Comets to you, butt-hoister!" grinned Dick. "I've had eight years on the spider run. I can lift this can." "Oh, a rocketeer?" There was new, grudging respect in the groundman's tone. "Well, how was I t' know? Y'ought t' see what some o' them jaloupi-jockeys do to my cradles—burn 'em black! Oh, well—" He backed away from the ship. "Clean ether!" said Dick. He closed the lock. Its seal-brace slid into place, wheezing asthmatically. Bobby's ears rang suddenly with the mild compression of air; when he swallowed, they were all right again. Dick saw him. "What are you doing here, kid? Didn't I hear Pop tell you to come below?" Bobby said, "I'm not a kid. I'm almost sixteen." "Just old enough," promised Dick, "to get your seat warmed if you don't do what you're told. Remember, you're a sailor on a spaceship now. Pop's the Skipper, and I'm First Mate. If you don't obey orders, it's mutiny, and—" "I'm obeying," said Bobby hastily. He followed his brother down the corridor, up the ramp, to the bridge. "Can I push the button when we take off, huh, Dick?" After his high expectations, it wasn't such a great thrill. Dick set the stops and dials, told him which button to press. "When I give the word, kid." Of course, he got to sit in the pilot's bucket-chair, which was something. Moira and Eleanor and Mom to lie down in acceleration hammocks while Pop and Dick sat in observation seats. He waited, all ears and nerves, as the slow seconds sloughed away. Pop set the hypos running; their faint, dull throb was a magic sound in the silence. Then there came a signal from outside. Dick's hand rose in understanding response; fell again. "Now!" Bobby jabbed the button in frantic haste. Suddenly the silence was shattered by a thunderous detonation. There was a massive hand pressing him back into the soft, yielding leather of his chair; the chair retreated on oiled channels, pneumatic compensators hissing faintly, absorbing the shock. Across the room a faulty hammock-hinge squeaked rustily. Then it was over as quickly as it had begun, and he could breathe again, and Dick was lurching across the turret on feet that wobbled queerly because up was down and top was bottom and everything was funny and mixed up. Dick cut in the artificial gravs, checked the meter dials with a hurried glance, smiled. "Dead on it! Want to check, Skipper?" But Pop was standing by the observation pane, eyeing an Earth already ball-like in the vastness of space. Earth, dwindling with each passing moment. Bobby moved to his side and watched; Moira, too, and Eleanor and Mom, and even Dick. Pop touched Mom's hand. He said, "Martha—I'm not sure this is fair to you and the children. Perhaps it isn't right that I should force my dream on all of you. The world we have known and loved lies behind us. Before us lies only uncertainty...." Mom sort of sniffed and reached for a handkerchief. She turned her back to Pop for a minute, and when she turned around again her eyes were red and angry-looking. She said, " You want to go on, don't you, Rob?" Pop nodded. "But I'm thinking of you, Martha." "Of me!" Mom snorted indignantly. "Hear him talk! I never heard such nonsense in my life. Of course I want to go on. No, never mind that! Richard, isn't there a kitchen on this boat?" "A galley, Mom. Below." "Galley ... kitchen ... what's the difference? You two girls come with me. I'll warrant these men are starving. I am!" After that, things became so normal as to be almost disappointing. From his eager reading of such magazines as Martian Tales and Cosmic Fiction Weekly , Bobby had conceived void-travel to be one long, momentous chain of adventure. A super-thrilling serial, punctuated by interludes with space-pirates, narrow brushes with meteors, sabotage, treachery—hair-raising, heroic and horrifying. There was nothing like that to disturb the calm and peaceful journey of the Cuchulainn . Oh, it was enjoyable to stare through the observation panes at the flame-dotted pall of space—until Pop tried to turn his curious interest into educational channels; it was exciting, too, to probe through the corridored recesses of their floating home—except that Dick issued strict orders that nothing must be touched, that he must not enter certain chambers, that he mustn't push his nose into things that didn't concern kids— Which offended Bobby, who was sixteen, or, anyway, fifteen and three-quarters. So they ate and they slept and they ate again. And Pop and Dick spelled each other at the control banks. Moira spent endless hours with comb and mirror, devising elaborate hair-dos which—Bobby reminded her with impudent shrewdness—were so much wasted energy, since they were settling in a place where nobody could see them. And Mom bustled about in the galley, performing miracles with flour and stuff, and in the recreation room, Eleanor minded The Pooch, and lost innumerable games of cribbage to Grampaw Moseley who cheated outrageously and groused, between hands, about the dad-blame nonsensical way Dick was handling the ship. And somehow three Earth days sped by, and they were nearing their destination. The tiny planetoid, Eros. Pop said, "You deserve a great deal of credit, son, for your fine work in rehabilitating the Cuchulainn . It has performed beautifully. You are a good spaceman." Dick flushed. "She's a good ship, Pop, even if she is thirty years old. Some of these old, hand-fashioned jobs are better than the flash junk they're turning off the belts nowadays. You've checked the declension and trajectory?" "Yes. We should come within landing radius in just a few hours. Cut drives at 19.04.22 precisely and make such minor course alterations as are necessary, set brakes." Pop smiled happily. "We're very fortunate, son. A mere fifteen million miles. It's not often Eros is so near Earth." "Don't I know it? It's almost a hundred million at perihelion. But that's not the lucky part. You sure had to pull strings to get the government land grant to Eros. What a plum! Atmosphere ... water ... vegetable life ... all on a hunk of dirt fifty-seven miles in diameter. Frankly, I don't get it! Eros must have terrific mass to have the attributes of a full-sized planet." "It does, Richard. A neutronium core." "Neutronium!" Dick gasped. "Why don't people tell me these things? Roaring craters, Pop, we're rich! Bloated plutocrats!" "Not so fast, son. Eventually, perhaps; not today. First we must establish our claims, justify our right to own Eros. That means work, plenty of hard work. After that, we might be able to consider a mining operation. What's that?" Bobby jumped. It was Mom's voice. But her cry was not one of fear, it was one of excitement. "Rob, look! Off to the—the left, or the port, or whatever you call it! Is that our new home?" Bobby did not need to hear Pop's reply to know that it was. His swift intake of breath was enough, the shine in his eyes as he peered out the observation port. "Eros!" he said. It looked all right to Bobby. A nice, clean little sphere, spinning lazily before their eyes like a top someone had set in motion, then gone away and forgotten. Silver and green and rusty brown, all still faintly blued by distance. The warm rays of old Sol reflected gaily, giddily, from seas that covered half the planetoid's surface, and mountains cut long, jagged shadows into sheltered plains beneath them. It was, thought Bobby, not a bad looking little place. But not anything to get all dewy-eyed about, like Pop was. Dick said softly, "All right, Pop. Let's check and get ready to set 'er down...." II It was not Dick's fault. It was just a tough break that no one had expected, planned for, guarded against. The planetoid was there beneath them; they would land on it. It was as simple at that. Only it wasn't. Nor did they have any warning that the problem was more complex until it was too late to change their plans, too late to halt the irrevocable movements of a grounding spaceship. Dick should have known, of course. He was a spaceman; he had served two tricks on the Earth-Venus-Mars run. But all those planets were large; Eros was just a mote. A spinning top.... Anyway, it was after the final coordinates had been plotted, the last bank control unchangeably set, the rockets cut, that they saw the curved knife-edge of black slicing up over Eros' rim. For a long moment Dick stared at it, a look of angry chagrin in his eyes. "Well, blast me for an Earth-lubbing idiot! Do you see that, Pop?" Pop looked like he had shared Dick's persimmon. "The night-line. We forgot to consider the diurnal revolution." "And now we've got to land in the dark. On strange terrain. Arragh! I should have my head examined. I've got a plugged tube somewhere!" Grampaw Moseley hobbled in, appraised the situation with his incomparable ability to detect something amiss. He snorted and rattled his cane on the floor. "They's absolutely nothin'," he informed the walls, "to this hereditation stuff. Elst why should my own son an' his son be so dag-nabbed stoopid?" "'What can't be cured,'" said Pop mildly, "'must be endured.' We have the forward search-beams, son. They will help." That was sheer optimism. As they neared the planet its gravitational attraction seized them tighter and tighter until they were completely under its compulsion. Dusk swept down upon them, the sunlight dulled, faded, grayed. Then as the ship nosed downward, suddenly all was black. The yellow beam of the search stabbed reluctant shadows, bringing rocky crags and rounded tors into swift, terrifying relief. Dick snapped, "Into your hammocks, everyone! Don't worry. This crate will stand a lot of bust-up. It's tough. A little bit of luck—" But there was perspiration on his forehead, and his fingers played over the control banks like frightened moths. There was no further need for the artificial gravs. Eros exerted, strangely, incredibly, an attractive power almost as potent as Earth's. Dick cut off the gravs, then the hypos. As the last machine-created sound died away from the cabin, Bobby heard the high scream of atmosphere, raging and tearing at the Cuchulainn with angry fingers. Through howling Bedlam they tumbled dizzily and for moments that were ages long. While Dick labored frantically at the controls, while Moira watched with bated breath. Mom said nothing, but her hand sought Pop's; Eleanor cradled The Pooch closer to her. Grampaw scowled. And then, suddenly— "Hold tight! We're grounding!" cried Dick. And instinctively Bobby braced himself for a shock. But there was only a shuddering jar, a lessening of the roar that beat upon their eardrums, a dull, flat thud. A sodden, heavy grinding and the groan of metal forward. Then a false nausea momentarily assailed him. Because for the first time in days the Cuchulainn was completely motionless. Dick grinned shakily. "Well!" he said. "Well!" Pop unbuckled his safety belt, climbed gingerly out of his hammock, moved to the port, slid back its lock-plate. Bobby said, "Can you see anything, Pop? Can you?" And Mom, who could read Pop's expressions like a book, said, "What is it, Rob?" Pop stroked his chin. He said, "Well, we've landed safely, Richard. But I'm afraid we've—er—selected a wet landing field. We seem to be under water!" His hazard was verified immediately. Indisputably. For from the crack beneath the door leading from the control turret to the prow-chambers of the ship, came a dark trickle that spread and puddled and stained and gurgled. Water! Dick cried, "Hey, this is bad! We'd better get out of here—" He leaped to his controls. Once more the plaintive hum of the hypatomics droned through the cabin, gears ground and clashed as the motors caught, something forward exploded dully, distantly. The ship rocked and trembled, but did not move. Again Dick tried to jet the fore-rockets. Again, and yet again. And on the fourth essay, there ran through the ship a violent shudder, broken metal grated shrilly from forward, and the water began bubbling and churning through the crack. Deeper and swifter. Dick cut motors and turned, his face an angry mask. "We can't get loose. The entire nose must be stove in! We're leaking like a sieve. Look, everybody—get into your bulgers. We'll get out through the airlock!" Mom cried, "But—but our supplies, Dick! What are we going to do for food, clothing, furniture—?" "We'll worry about that later. Right now we've got to think of ourselves. That-aboy, Bobby! Thanks for getting 'em out. You girls remember how to climb into 'em? Eleanor—you take that oversized one. That's right. There's room for you and The Pooch—" The water was almost ankle deep in the control room by the time they had all donned spacesuits. Bloated figures in fabricoid bulgers, they followed Dick to the airlock. It was weird, and a little bit frightening, but to Bobby it was thrilling, too. This was the sort of thing you read stories about. Escape from a flooding ship.... They had time—or took time—to gather together a few precious belongings. Eleanor packed a carrier with baby food for The Pooch, Mom a bundle of provisions hastily swept from the galley bins; Pop remembered the medical kit and the tool-box, Grampaw was laden down with blankets and clothing, Dick burdened himself and Bobby with armloads of such things as he saw and forevisioned need for. At the lock, Dick issued final instructions. "The air in the bulgers will carry you right to the surface. We'll gather there, count noses, and decide on our next move. Pop, you go first to lead the way, then Mom, and Eleanor, Grampaw—" Thus, from the heart of the doomed Cuchulainn , they fled. The airlock was small. There was room for but one at a time. The water was waist—no, breast-deep—by the time all were gone save Bobby and Dick. Bobby, whose imagination had already assigned him the command of the foundering ship, wanted to uphold the ancient traditions by being the last to leave. But Dick had other ideas. He shoved Bobby—not too gently—into the lock. Then there was water, black, solid, forbidding, about him. And the outer door opening. He stepped forward. And floated upward, feeling an uneasy, quibbly feeling in his stomach. Almost immediately a hard something clanged! against his impervite helmet; it was a lead-soled bulger boot; then he was bobbing and tossing on shallow black wavelets beside the others. Above him was a blue-black, star-gemmed sky; off to his right, not distant, was a rising smudge that must be the mainland. A dark blob popped out of the water. Dick. Moira reached for the twisted branch. Dick's voice was metallic through the audios of the space-helmet. "All here, Pop? Everybody all right? Swell! Let's strike out for the shore, there. Stick together, now. It isn't far." Pop said, "The ship, Richard?" "We'll find it again. I floated up a marking buoy. That round thing over there isn't Grampaw." Grampaw's voice was raucous, belligerent. "You bet y'r boots it ain't! I'm on my way to terry firmy. The last one ashore's a sissy!" Swimming in a bulger, Bobby found, was silly. Like paddling a big, warm, safe rubber rowboat. The stars winked at him, the soft waves explored his face-plate with curious, white fingers of spray. Pretty soon there was sand scraping his boots ... a long, smooth beach with rolling hills beyond. In the sudden scarlet of dawn, it was impossible to believe the night had even been frightening. Throughout the night, the Moseley clan huddled together there on the beach, waiting, silent, wondering. But when the sun burst over the horizon like a clamoring, brazen gong, they looked upon this land which was their new home—and found it good. The night did not last long. But Pop had told them it would not. "Eros rotates on its axis," he explained, "in about ten hours, forty minutes, Earth time measurement. Therefore we shall have 'days' and 'nights' of five hours; short dawns or twilights. This will vary somewhat, you understand, with the change of seasons." Dick asked, "Isn't that a remarkably slow rotation? For such a tiny planet, I mean? After all, Eros is only one hundred and eighty odd miles in circumference—" "Eros has many peculiarities. Some of them we have discussed before. It approaches Earth nearer than any other celestial body, excepting Luna and an occasional meteor or comet. When first discovered by Witt, in 1898, the world of science marveled at finding a true planetoid with such an uncommon orbit. At perihelion it comes far within the orbit of Mars; at aphelion it is far outside. "During its near approach in 1900-01, Eros was seen to vary in brightness at intervals of five hours and fifteen or twenty minutes. At that time, a few of the more imaginative astronomers offered the suggestion that this variation might be caused by diurnal rotation. After 1931, though, the planetoid fled from Earth. It was not until 1975, the period of its next approach, that the Ronaldson-Chenwith expedition visited it and determined the old presumption to be correct." "We're not the first men to visit Eros, then?" "Not at all. It was investigated early in the days of spaceflight. Two research foundations, the Royal Cosmographic Society and the Interplanetary Service, sent expeditions here. During the Black Douglass period of terrorism, the S.S.P. set up a brief military occupation. The Galactic Metals Corporation at one time attempted to establish mining operations here, but the Bureau refused them permission, for under the Spacecode of '08, it was agreed by the Triune that all asteroids should be settled under land-grant law. "That is why," concluded Pop, "we are here now. As long as I can remember, it has been my dream to take a land-grant colony for my very own. Long years ago I decided that Eros should be my settlement. As you have said, Richard, it necessitated the pulling of many strings. Eros is a wealthy little planet; the man who earns it wins a rich prize. More than that, though—" Pop lifted his face to the skies, now blue with hazy morning. There was something terribly bright and proud in his eyes. "More than that, there is the desire to carve a home out of the wilderness. To be able to one day say, 'Here is my home that I have molded into beauty with my own hands.' Do you know what I mean, son? In this workaday world of ours there are no more Earthly frontiers for us to dare, as did our forefathers. But still within us all stirs the deep, instinctive longing to hew a new home from virgin land—" His words dwindled into silence, and, inexplicably, Bobby felt awed. It was Grampaw Moseley who burst the queer moment into a thousand spluttering fragments. "Talkin' about hewin'," he said, "S'posen we 'hew us a few vittles? Hey?" Dick roused himself. "Right you are, Grampaw," he said. "You can remove your bulgars. I've tested the air; it's fine and warm, just as the report said. Moira, while Mom and Eleanor are fixing breakfast, suppose you lay out our blankets and spare clothing to dry? Grampaw, get a fire going. Pop and Bobby and I will get some wood." Thus Eros greeted its new masters, and the Moseleys faced morning in their new Eden. III Grampaw Moseley wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There were no napkins, which suited him fine. "It warn't," he said, "a bad meal. But it warn't a fust-class un, neither. Them synthos an' concentrates ain't got no more flavor than—" Bobby agreed with him. Syntho ham wasn't too bad. It had a nice, meaty taste. And syntho coffee tasted pretty much like the real thing. But those syntho eggs tasted like nothing under the sun except just plain, awful syntho eggs. Four Eros days—the equivalent of forty-two Earth hours or so—had passed since their crash landing. In that short time, much had been done to make their beach camp-site comfortable. All members of the family were waiting now for Dick to return. Pop said seriously, "I'm afraid you'll have to eat them and like them for a little while, Father. We can't get fresh foods until we're settled; we can't settle until—Ah! Here comes Dick!" "I'll eat 'em," grumbled Grampaw, "but be durned if I'll like 'em. What'd you l'arn, Dicky-boy?" Dick removed his helmet, unzipped himself from his bulger, shook his head. "It looks worse every time I go back. I may not be able to get in the airlock again if the ship keeps on settling. The whole prow split wide open when we hit, the ship is full of water. The flour and sugar and things like that are ruined. I managed to get a few more things out, though. Some tools, guns, wire—stuff like that." "How about the hypatomic?" "Let him eat, Rob," said Mom. "He's hungry." "I can eat and talk at the same time, Mom. I think I can get the hypatomic out. I'd better, anyhow. If we're ever going to raise the ship, we'll need power. And atomic power is the only kind we can get in this wilderness." And he shook his head. "But we can't do it in a day or a week. It will take time." "Time," said Pop easily, "is the one commodity with which we are over-supplied." He thought for a minute. "If that's the way it is, we might as well move." "Move?" demanded Grampaw. "What's the matter with the place we're at?" "For one thing, it's too exposed. An open beach is no place for a permanent habitation. So far we've been very lucky. We've had no storms. But for a permanent camp-site, we must select a spot further inland. A fertile place, where we can start crops. A place with fresh, running water, natural shelter against cold and wind and rain—" "What'll we do?" grinned Dick. "Flip a coin?" "No. Happily, there is a spot like that within an easy walk of here. I discovered it yesterday while studying the terrain." Pop took a stick, scratched a rude drawing on the sand before him. "This is the coastline. We landed on the west coast of this inlet. The land we see across there, that low, flat land, I judge to be delta islands. Due south of us is a fine, fresh-water river, watering fertile valleys to either side. There, I think, we should build." Dick nodded. "Fish from the sea, vegetables from our own farm—is there any game, Pop?" "That I don't know. We haven't seen any. Yet." "We'll find out. Will this place you speak of be close enough to let me continue working on the Cuchulainn ? Yes? Well, that's that. When do we start?" "Why not now? There's nothing to keep us here." They packed their meager belongings while Dick finished his meal; the sun was high when they left the beach. They followed the shore line southward, the ground rising steadily before them. And before evening, they came to a rolling vale through which a sparkling river meandered lazily to the sea. Small wonders unfolded before their eyes. Marching along, they had discovered that there was game on Eros. Not quite Earthly, of course—but that was not to be expected. There was one small, furry beast about the size of a rabbit, only its color was vivid leaf-green. Once, as they passed a wooded glen, a pale, fawnlike creature stole from the glade, watched them with soft, curious eyes. Another time they all started violently as the familiar siren of a Patrol monitor screamed raucously from above them; they looked up to see an irate, orange and jade-green bird glaring down at them. And of course there were insects— "There would have to be insects," Pop said. "There could be no fruitful vegetable life without insects. Plants need bees and crawling ants—or their equivalent—to carry the pollen from one flower to another." They chose a site on the riverside, a half mile or so from, above, and overlooking the sea. They selected it because a spring of pure, bubbling water was nearby, because the woodlands dwindled away into lush fields. And Pop said, "This is it. We'll build our home on yonder knoll. And who knows—" Again there grew that strange look in his eyes. "Who knows but that it may be the shoot from which, a time hence, there may spring many cabins, then finer homes, and buildings, and mansions, until at last there is a great, brave city here on this port by the delta—" "That's it, Pop!" said Dick suddenly. "There's the name for our settlement. Delta Port!"
Charity Case by Harmon, Jim	"Charity Case", Jim Harmon, 1972. Charity Case By JIM HARMON Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Certainly I see things that aren't there and don't say what my voice says—but how can I prove that I don't have my health? When he began his talk with "You got your health, don't you?" it touched those spots inside me. That was when I did it. Why couldn't what he said have been "The best things in life are free, buddy" or "Every dog has his day, fellow" or "If at first you don't succeed, man"? No, he had to use that one line. You wouldn't blame me. Not if you believe me. The first thing I can remember, the start of all this, was when I was four or five somebody was soiling my bed for me. I absolutely was not doing it. I took long naps morning and evening so I could lie awake all night to see that it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. But in the morning the bed would sit there dispassionately soiled and convict me on circumstantial evidence. My punishment was as sure as the tide. Dad was a compact man, small eyes, small mouth, tight clothes. He was narrow but not mean. For punishment, he locked me in a windowless room and told me to sit still until he came back. It wasn't so bad a punishment, except that when Dad closed the door, the light turned off and I was left there in the dark. Being four or five, I didn't know any better, so I thought Dad made it dark to add to my punishment. But I learned he didn't know the light went out. It came back on when he unlocked the door. Every time I told him about the light as soon as I could talk again, but he said I was lying. One day, to prove me a liar, he opened and closed the door a few times from outside. The light winked off and on, off and on, always shining when Dad stuck his head inside. He tried using the door from the inside, and the light stayed on, no matter how hard he slammed the door. I stayed in the dark longer for lying about the light. Alone in the dark, I wouldn't have had it so bad if it wasn't for the things that came to me. They were real to me. They never touched me, but they had a little boy. He looked the way I did in the mirror. They did unpleasant things to him. Because they were real, I talked about them as if they were real, and I almost earned a bunk in the home for retarded children until I got smart enough to keep the beasts to myself. My mother hated me. I loved her, of course. I remember her smell mixed up with flowers and cookies and winter fires. I remember she hugged me on my ninth birthday. The trouble came from the notes written in my awkward hand that she found, calling her names I didn't understand. Sometimes there were drawings. I didn't write those notes or make those drawings. My mother and father must have been glad when I was sent away to reform school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one no one came to. The reform school was nicer. There were others there who'd had it about like me. We got along. I didn't watch their shifty eyes too much, or ask them what they shifted to see. They didn't talk about my screams at night. It was home. My trouble there was that I was always being framed for stealing. I didn't take any of those things they located in my bunk. Stealing wasn't in my line. If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it couldn't be me who did the stealing. There was reason for me to steal, if I could have got away with it. The others got money from home to buy the things they needed—razor blades, candy, sticks of tea. I got a letter from Mom or Dad every now and then before they were killed, saying they had sent money or that it was enclosed, but somehow I never got a dime of it. When I was expelled from reform school, I left with just one idea in mind—to get all the money I could ever use for the things I needed and the things I wanted. It was two or three years later that I skulked into Brother Partridge's mission on Durbin Street. The preacher and half a dozen men were singing Onward Christian Soldiers in the meeting room. It was a drafty hall with varnished camp chairs. I shuffled in at the back with my suitcoat collar turned up around my stubbled jaw. I made my hand shaky as I ran it through my knotted hair. Partridge was supposed to think I was just a bum. As an inspiration, I hugged my chest to make him think I was some wino nursing a flask full of Sneaky Pete. All I had there was a piece of copper alloy tubing inside a slice of plastic hose for taking care of myself, rolling sailors and the like. Who had the price of a bottle? Partridge didn't seem to notice me, but I knew that was an act. I knew people were always watching every move I made. He braced his red-furred hands on the sides of his auctioneer's stand and leaned his splotched eagle beak toward us. "Brothers, this being Thanksgiving, I pray the good Lord that we all are truly thankful for all that we have received. Amen." Some skin-and-bones character I didn't know struggled out of his seat, amening. I could see he had a lot to be thankful for—somewhere he had received a fix. "Brothers," Partridge went on after enjoying the interruption with a beaming smile, "you shall all be entitled to a bowl of turkey soup prepared by Sister Partridge, a generous supply of sweet rolls and dinner rolls contributed by the Early Morning Bakery of this city, and all the coffee you can drink. Let us march out to The Stars and Stripes Forever , John Philip Sousa's grand old patriotic song." I had to laugh at all those bums clattering the chairs in front of me, scampering after water soup and stale bread. As soon as I got cleaned up, I was going to have dinner in a good restaurant, and I was going to order such expensive food and leave such a large tip for the waiter and send one to the chef that they were going to think I was rich, and some executive with some brokerage firm would see me and say to himself, "Hmm, executive material. Just the type we need. I beg your pardon, sir—" just like the razor-blade comic-strip ads in the old magazines that Frankie the Pig sells three for a quarter. I was marching. Man, was I ever marching, but the secret of it was I was only marking time the way we did in fire drills at the school. They passed me, every one of them, and marched out of the meeting room into the kitchen. Even Partridge made his way down from the auctioneer's stand like a vulture with a busted wing and darted through his private door. I was alone, marking time behind the closed half of double doors. One good breath and I raced past the open door and flattened myself to the wall. Crockery was ringing and men were slurping inside. No one had paid any attention to me. That was pretty odd. People usually watch my every move, but a man's luck has to change sometime, doesn't it? Following the wallboard, I went down the side of the room and behind the last row of chairs, closer, closer, and halfway up the room again to the entrance—the entrance and the little wooden box fastened to the wall beside it. The box was old and made out of some varnished wood. There was a slot in the top. There wasn't any sign anywhere around it, but you knew it wasn't a mailbox. My hand went flat on the top of the box. One finger at a time drew up and slipped into the slot. Index, fore, third, little. I put my thumb in my palm and shoved. My hand went in. There were coins inside. I scooped them up with two fingers and held them fast with the other two. Once I dropped a dime—not a penny, milled edge—and I started to reach for it. No, don't be greedy. I knew I would probably lose my hold on all the coins if I tried for that one. I had all the rest. It felt like about two dollars, or close to it. Then I found the bill. A neatly folded bill in the box. Somehow I knew all along it would be there. I tried to read the numbers on the bill with my fingertips, but I couldn't. It had to be a one. Who drops anything but a one into a Skid Row collection box? But still there were tourists, slummers. They might leave a fifty or even a hundred. A hundred! Yes, it felt new, crisp. It had to be a hundred. A single would be creased or worn. I pulled my hand out of the box. I tried to pull my hand out of the box. I knew what the trouble was, of course. I was in a monkey trap. The monkey reaches through the hole for the bait, and when he gets it in his hot little fist, he can't get his hand out. He's too greedy to let go, so he stays there, caught as securely as if he were caged. I was a man, not a monkey. I knew why I couldn't get my hand out. But I couldn't lose that money, especially that century bill. Calm, I ordered myself. Calm. The box was fastened to the vertical tongue-and-groove laths of the woodwork, not the wall. It was old lumber, stiffened by a hundred layers of paint since 1908. The paint was as thick and strong as the boards. The box was fastened fast. Six-inch spike nails, I guessed. Calmly, I flung my whole weight away from the wall. My wrist almost cracked, but there wasn't even a bend in the box. Carefully, I tried to jerk my fist straight up, to pry off the top of the box. It was as if the box had been carved out of one solid piece of timber. It wouldn't go up, down, left or right. But I kept trying. While keeping a lookout for Partridge and somebody stepping out of the kitchen for a pull on a bottle, I spotted the clock for the first time, a Western Union clock high up at the back of the hall. Just as I seen it for the first time, the electricity wound the spring motor inside like a chicken having its neck wrung. The next time I glanced at the clock, it said ten minutes had gone by. My hand still wasn't free and I hadn't budged the box. "This," Brother Partridge said, "is one of the most profound experiences of my life." My head hinged until it lined my eyes up with Brother Partridge. The pipe hung heavy in my pocket, but he was too far from me. "A vision of you at the box projected itself on the crest of my soup," the preacher explained in wonderment. I nodded. "Swimming right in there with the dead duck." "Cold turkey," he corrected. "Are you scoffing at a miracle?" "People are always watching me, Brother," I said. "So now they do it even when they aren't around. I should have known it would come to that." The pipe was suddenly a weight I wanted off me. I would try robbing a collection box, knowing positively that I would get caught, but I wasn't dumb enough to murder. Somebody, somewhere, would be a witness to it. I had never got away with anything in my life. I was too smart to even try anything but the little things. "I may be able to help you," Brother Partridge said, "if you have faith and a conscience." "I've got something better than a conscience," I told him. Brother Partridge regarded me solemnly. "There must be something special about you, for your apprehension to come through miraculous intervention. But I can't imagine what." "I always get apprehended somehow, Brother," I said. "I'm pretty special." "Your name?" "William Hagle." No sense lying. I had been booked and printed before. Partridge prodded me with his bony fingers as if making sure I was substantial. "Come. Let's sit down, if you can remove your fist from the money box." I opened up my fingers and let the coins ring inside the box and I drew out my hand. The bill stuck to the sweat on my fingers and slid out along with the digits. A one, I decided. I had got into trouble for a grubby single. It wasn't any century. I had been kidding myself. I unfolded the note. Sure enough, it wasn't a hundred-dollar bill, but it was a twenty, and that was almost the same thing to me. I creased it and put it back into the slot. As long as it stalled off the cops, I'd talk to Partridge. We took a couple of camp chairs and I told him the story of my life, or most of it. It was hard work on an empty stomach; I wished I'd had some of that turkey soup. Then again I was glad I hadn't. Something always happened to me when I thought back over my life. The same thing. The men filed out of the kitchen, wiping their chins, and I went right on talking. After some time Sister Partridge bustled in and snapped on the overhead lights and I kept talking. The brother still hadn't used the phone to call the cops. "Remarkable," Partridge finally said when I got so hoarse I had to take a break. "One is almost— almost —reminded of Job. William, you are being punished for some great sin. Of that, I'm sure." "Punished for a sin? But, Brother, I've always had it like this, as long as I can remember. What kind of a sin could I have committed when I was fresh out of my crib?" "William, all I can tell you is that time means nothing in Heaven. Do you deny the transmigration of souls?" "Well," I said, "I've had no personal experience—" "Of course you have, William! Say you don't remember. Say you don't want to remember. But don't say you have no personal experience!" "And you think I'm being punished for something I did in a previous life?" He looked at me in disbelief. "What else could it be?" "I don't know," I confessed. "I certainly haven't done anything that bad in this life." "William, if you atone for this sin, perhaps the horde of locusts will lift from you." It wasn't much of a chance, but I was unused to having any at all. I shook off the dizziness of it. "By the Lord Harry, Brother, I'm going to give it a try!" I cried. "I believe you," Partridge said, surprised at himself. He ambled over to the money box on the wall. He tapped the bottom lightly and a box with no top slid out of the slightly larger box. He reached in, fished out the bill and presented it to me. "Perhaps this will help in your atonement," he said. I crumpled it into my pocket fast. Not meaning to sound ungrateful, I'm pretty sure he hadn't noticed it was a twenty. And then the bill seemed to lie there, heavy, a lead weight. It would have been different if I had managed to get it out of the box myself. You know how it is. Money you haven't earned doesn't seem real to you. There was something I forgot to mention so far. During the year between when I got out of the reformatory and the one when I tried to steal Brother Partridge's money, I killed a man. It was all an accident, but killing somebody is reason enough to get punished. It didn't have to be a sin in some previous life, you see. I had gotten my first job in too long, stacking boxes at the freight door of Baysinger's. The drivers unloaded the stuff, but they just dumped it off the truck. An empty rear end was all they wanted. The freight boss told me to stack the boxes inside, neat and not too close together. I stacked boxes the first day. I stacked more the second. The third day I went outside with my baloney and crackers. It was warm enough even for November. Two of them, dressed like Harvard seniors, caps and striped duffer jackets, came up to the crate I was dining off. "Work inside, Jack?" the taller one asked. "Yeah," I said, chewing. "What do you do, Jack?" the fatter one asked. "Stack boxes." "Got a union card?" I shook my head. "Application?" "No," I said. "I'm just helping out during Christmas." "You're a scab, buddy," Long-legs said. "Don't you read the papers?" "I don't like comic strips," I said. They sighed. I think they hated to do it, but I was bucking the system. Fats hit me high. Long-legs hit me low. I blew cracker crumbs into their faces. After that, I just let them go. I know how to take a beating. That's one thing I knew. Then lying there, bleeding to myself, I heard them talking. I heard noises like make an example of him and do something permanent and I squirmed away across the rubbish like a polite mouse. I made it around a corner of brick and stood up, hurting my knee on a piece of brown-splotched pipe. There were noises on the other angle of the corner and so I tested if the pipe was loose and it was. I closed my eyes and brought the pipe up and then down. It felt as if I connected, but I was so numb, I wasn't sure until I unscrewed my eyes. There was a big man in a heavy wool overcoat and gray homburg spread on a damp centerfold from the News . There was a pick-up slip from the warehouse under the fingers of one hand, and somebody had beaten his brains out. The police figured it was part of some labor dispute, I guess, and they never got to me. I suppose I was to blame anyway. If I hadn't been alive, if I hadn't been there to get beaten up, it wouldn't have happened. I could see the point in making me suffer for it. There was a lot to be said for looking at it like that. But there was nothing to be said for telling Brother Partridge about the accident, or murder, or whatever had happened that day. Searching myself after I left Brother Partridge, I finally found a strip of gray adhesive tape on my side, out of the fuzzy area. Making the twenty the size of a thick postage stamp, I peeled back the tape and put the folded bill on the white skin and smoothed the tape back. There was only one place for me to go now. I headed for the public library. It was only about twenty blocks, but not having had anything to eat since the day before, it enervated me. The downstairs washroom was where I went first. There was nobody there but an old guy talking urgently to a kid with thick glasses, and somebody building a fix in one of the booths. I could see charred matches dropping down on the floor next to his tennis shoes, and even a few grains of white stuff. But he managed to hold still enough to keep from spilling more from the spoon. I washed my hands and face, smoothed my hair down, combing it with my fingers. Going over my suit with damp toweling got off a lot of the dirt. I put my collar on the outside of my jacket and creased the wings with my thumbnail so it would look more like a sports shirt. It didn't really. I still looked like a bum, but sort of a neat, non-objectionable bum. The librarian at the main desk looked sympathetically hostile, or hostilely sympathetic. "I'd like to get into the stacks, miss," I said, "and see some of the old newspapers." "Which newspapers?" the old girl asked stiffly. I thought back. I couldn't remember the exact date. "Ones for the first week in November last year." "We have the Times microfilmed. I would have to project them for you." "I didn't want to see the Times ," I said, fast. "Don't you have any newspapers on paper?" I didn't want her to see what I wanted to read up on. "We have the News , bound, for last year." I nodded. "That's the one I wanted to see." She sniffed and told me to follow her. I didn't rate a cart to my table, I guess, or else the bound papers weren't supposed to come out of the stacks. The cases of books, row after row, smelled good. Like old leather and good pipe tobacco. I had been here before. In this world, it's the man with education who makes the money. I had been reading the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. So far I knew a lot about Mark Antony, Atomic Energy, Boron, Brussels, Catapults, Demons, and Divans. I guess I had stopped to look around at some of the titles, because the busy librarian said sharply, "Follow me." I heard my voice say, "A pleasure. What about after work?" I didn't say it, but I was used to my voice independently saying things. Her neck got to flaming, but she walked stiffly ahead. She didn't say anything. She must be awful mad, I decided. But then I got the idea she was flushed with pleasure. I'm pretty ugly and I looked like a bum, but I was young. You had to grant me that. She waved a hand at the rows of bound News and left me alone with them. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to hunt up a table to lay the books on or not, so I took the volume for last year and laid it on the floor. That was the cleanest floor I ever saw. It didn't take me long to find the story. The victim was a big man, because the story was on the second page of the Nov. 4 edition. I started to tear the page out, then only memorized the name and home address. Somebody was sure to see me and I couldn't risk trouble just now. I stuck the book back in line and left by the side door. I went to a dry-cleaner, not the cheapest place I knew, because I wouldn't be safe with the change from a twenty in that neighborhood. My suit was cleaned while I waited. I paid a little extra and had it mended. Funny thing about a suit—it's almost never completely shot unless you just have it ripped off you or burned up. It wasn't exactly in style, but some rich executives wore suits out of style that they had paid a lot of money for. I remembered Fredric March's double-breasted in Executive Suite while Walter Pidgeon and the rest wore Ivy Leagues. Maybe I would look like an eccentric executive. I bought a new shirt, a good used pair of shoes, and a dime pack of single-edged razor blades. I didn't have a razor, but anybody with nerve can shave with a single-edge blade and soap and water. The clerk took my two bucks in advance and I went up to my room. I washed out my socks and underwear, took a bath, shaved and trimmed my hair and nails with the razor blade. With some soap on my finger, I scrubbed my teeth. Finally I got dressed. Everything was all right except that I didn't have a tie. They had them, a quarter a piece, where I got the shoes. It was only six blocks—I could go back. But I didn't want to wait. I wanted to complete the picture. The razor blade sliced through the pink bath towel evenly. I cut out a nice modern-style tie, narrow, with some horizontal stripes down at the bottom. I made a tight, thin knot. It looked pretty good. I was ready to leave, so I started for the door. I went back. I had almost forgotten my luggage. The box still had three unwrapped blades in it. I pocketed it. I hefted the used blade, dulled by all the work it had done. You can run being economical into stinginess. I tossed it into the wastebasket. I had five hamburgers and five cups of coffee. I couldn't finish all of the French fries. "Mac," I said to the fat counterman, who looked like all fat countermen, "give me a Milwaukee beer." He stopped polishing the counter in front of his friend. "Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or Milwaukee, Oregon?" "Wisconsin." He didn't argue. It was cold and bitter. All beer is bitter, no matter what they say on TV. I like beer. I like the bitterness of it. It felt like another, but I checked myself. I needed a clear head. I thought about going back to the hotel for some sleep; I still had the key in my pocket (I wasn't trusting it to any clerk). No, I had had sleep on Thanksgiving, bracing up for trying the lift at Brother Partridge's. Let's see, it was daylight outside again, so this was the day after Thanksgiving. But it had only been sixteen or twenty hours since I had slept. That was enough. I left the money on the counter for the hamburgers and coffee and the beer. There was $7.68 left. As I passed the counterman's friend on his stool, my voice said, "I think you're yellow." He turned slowly, his jaw moving further away from his brain. I winked. "It was just a bet for me to say that to you. I won two bucks. Half of it is yours." I held out the bill to him. His paw closed over the money and punched me on the biceps. Too hard. He winked back. "It's okay." I rubbed my shoulder, marching off fast, and I counted my money. With my luck, I might have given the counterman's friend the five instead of one of the singles. But I hadn't. I now had $6.68 left. "I still think you're yellow," my voice said. It was my voice, but it didn't come from me. There were no words, no feeling of words in my throat. It just came out of the air the way it always did. I ran. Harold R. Thompkins, 49, vice-president of Baysinger's, was found dead behind the store last night. His skull had been crushed by a vicious beating with a heavy implement, Coroner McClain announced in preliminary verdict. Tompkins, who resided at 1467 Claremont, Edgeway, had been active in seeking labor-management peace in the recent difficulties.... I had read that a year before. The car cards on the clanking subway and the rumbling bus didn't seem nearly so interesting to me. Outside the van, a tasteful sign announced the limits of the village of Edgeway, and back inside, the monsters of my boyhood went bloomp at me. I hadn't seen anything like them in years. The slimy, scaly beasts were slithering over the newspaper holders, the ad card readers, the girl watchers as the neat little carbon-copy modern homes breezed past the windows. I ignored the devils and concentrated on reading the withered, washed-out political posters on the telephone poles. My neck ached from holding it so stiff, staring out through the glass. More than that, I could feel the jabberwocks staring at me. You know how it is. You can feel a stare with the back of your neck and between your eyes. They got one brush of a gaze out of me. The things abruptly started their business, trying to act casually as if they hadn't been waiting for me to look at them at all. They had a little human being of some sort. It was the size of a small boy, like the small boy who looked like me that they used to destroy when I was locked up with them in the dark. Except this was a man, scaled down to child's size. He had sort of an ugly, worried, tired, stupid look and he wore a shiny suit with a piece of a welcome mat or something for a necktie. Yeah, it was me. I really knew it all the time. They began doing things to the midget me. I didn't even lift an eyebrow. They couldn't do anything worse to the small man than they had done to the young boy. It was sort of nostalgic watching them, but I really got bored with all that violence and killing and killing the same kill over and over. Like watching the Saturday night string of westerns in a bar. The sunlight through the window was yellow and hot. After a time, I began to dose. The shrieks woke me up. For the first time, I could hear the shrieks of the monster's victim and listen to their obscene droolings. For the very first time in my life. Always before it had been all pantomime, like Charlie Chaplin. Now I heard the sounds of it all. They say it's a bad sign when you start hearing voices. I nearly panicked, but I held myself in the seat and forced myself to be rational about it. My own voice was always saying things everybody could hear but which I didn't say. It wasn't any worse to be the only one who could hear other things I never said. I was as sane as I ever was. There was no doubt about that. But a new thought suddenly impressed itself on me. Whatever was punishing me for my sin was determined that I turn back before reaching 1467 Claremont.
Cinderella Story by Lang, Allen Kim	"Cinderella Story", Allen Kim Lang, 1958. CINDERELLA STORY By ALLEN KIM LANG What a bank! The First Vice-President was a cool cat—the elevator and the money operators all wore earmuffs—was just as phony as a three-dollar bill! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I The First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious bank indeed. "I gotta say, chick, these references of yours really swing," said the Vice-President, Mr. Wanji. "Your last boss says you come on real cool in the secretary-bit." "He was a very kind employer," Orison said. She tried to keep from staring at the most remarkable item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of furry green earmuffs. It was not cold. Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. "What color bread you got eyes for taking down, baby?" he asked. "Beg pardon?" "What kinda salary you bucking for?" he translated, bouncing up and down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots. "I was making one-twenty a week in my last position," Miss McCall said. "You're worth more'n that, just to jazz up the decor," Mr. Wanji said. "What you say we pass you a cee-and-a-half a week. Okay?" He caught Orison's look of bewilderment. "One each, a Franklin and a Grant," he explained further. She still looked blank. "Sister, you gonna work in a bank, you gotta know who's picture's on the paper. That's a hunnerd-fifty a week, doll." "That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji," Orison said. It was indeed. "Crazy!" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with athletic vigor. "You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around this tomb, girlwise." He took her arm and led her toward the bank of elevators. The uniformed operator nodded to Mr. Wanji, bowed slightly to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal than Mr. Wanji's, being midnight blue in color. "Lift us to five, Mac," Mr. Wanji said. As the elevator door shut he explained to Orison, "You can make the Taft Bank scene anywhere between the street floor and floor five. Basement and everything higher'n fifth floor is Iron Curtain Country far's you're concerned. Dig, baby?" "Yes, sir," Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs, now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank. The elevator opened on five to a tiny office, just large enough to hold a single desk and two chairs. On the desk were a telephone and a microphone. Beside them was a double-decked "In" and "Out" basket. "Here's where you'll do your nine-to-five, honey," Mr. Wanji said. "What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?" Orison asked. The Vice-President pointed to the newspaper folded in the "In" basket. "Flip on the microphone and read the paper to it," he said. "When you get done reading the paper, someone will run you up something new to read. Okay?" "It seems a rather peculiar job," Orison said. "After all, I'm a secretary. Is reading the newspaper aloud supposed to familiarize me with the Bank's operation?" "Don't bug me, kid," Mr. Wanji said. "All you gotta do is read that there paper into this here microphone. Can do?" "Yes, sir," Orison said. "While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to ask you about my withholding tax, social security, credit union, coffee-breaks, union membership, lunch hour and the like. Shall we take care of these details now? Or would you—" "You just take care of that chicken-flickin' kinda stuff any way seems best to you, kid," Mr. Wanji said. "Yes, sir," Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall, girl Government spy. She picked up the newspaper from the "In" basket, unfolded it to discover the day's Wall Street Journal , and began at the top of column one to read it aloud. Wanji stood before the desk, nodding his head as he listened. "You blowing real good, kid," he said. "The boss is gonna dig you the most." Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the one into the other. Mr. Wanji flicked his fingers in a good-by, then took off upstairs in the elevator. By lunchtime Orison had finished the Wall Street Journal and had begun reading a book an earmuffed page had brought her. The book was a fantastic novel of some sort, named The Hobbit . Reading this peculiar fare into the microphone before her, Miss McCall was more certain than ever that the Taft Bank was, as her boss in Washington had told her, the front for some highly irregular goings-on. An odd business for a Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a microphone for an invisible audience. Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing never to put a penny into this curiousest of banks. Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude. Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together, eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, reading rapidly and becoming despite herself engrossed in the saga of Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit. She switched off the microphone, put on her light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed, silent, hat-clasping gentlemen. What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association. Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment house—the Windsor Arms—and ordered a meal and a single Martini. Her boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought. She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker. Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs, several didn't. Item: the Vice-President's name was Mr. Wanji: Oriental? Item: the top eight floors of the Taft Bank Building seemed to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she thought. In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results of her first day's spying. No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock was set; the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her? Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs had her phone tapped. "Testing," a baritone voice muttered. Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. "Beg pardon?" she said. "Testing," the male voice repeated. "One, two, three; three, two, one. Do you read me? Over." Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it. The room was empty. "Testing," the voice repeated. "What you're testing," Orison said in a firm voice, "is my patience. Who are you?" "Department of Treasury Monitor J-12," the male voice said. "Do you have anything to report, Miss McCall?" "Where are you, Monitor?" she demanded. "That's classified information," the voice said. "Please speak directly to your pillow, Miss McCall." Orison lay down cautiously. "All right," she whispered to her pillow. "Over here," the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow beside her. Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. "A radio?" she asked. "Of a sort," Monitor J-12 agreed. "We have to maintain communications security. Have you anything to report?" "I got the job," Orison said. "Are you ... in that pillow ... all the time?" "No, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Only at report times. Shall we establish our rendezvous here at eleven-fifteen, Central Standard Time, every day?" "You make it sound so improper," Orison said. "I'm far enough away to do you no harm, Miss McCall," the monitor said. "Now, tell me what happened at the bank today." Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. "That's about it, so far," she said. "Good report," J-12 said from the pillow. "Sounds like you've dropped into a real snakepit, beautiful." "How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?" Orison asked. "Native optimism," the voice said. "Good night." J-12 signed off with a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone. Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by registered mail. II At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current Wall Street Journal , Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not wearing earmuffs. "My name," the stranger said, "is Dink Gerding. I am President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our little family." "I'm Orison McCall," she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? Maybe higher heels? "We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall," Dink Gerding said. He took the chair to the right of her desk. "It's nothing," Orison said, switching off the microphone. "On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important," he said. "Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well," Orison said. "You'll be reading silently before long," Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, as though this explained everything. "By the way, your official designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here and dictate it?" "Please do," Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank. "Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?" Mr. Gerding asked, as though following her train of thought. "No, sir," she said. "Though I've been associated with a rather large financial organization." "You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy your using it." "Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?" "That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?" Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and still so young. "We've hardly met," she said. "But we're on a first-name basis already," he pointed out. "Dance?" "I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, playing, from the elevator. "Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a curtsy? Orison wondered. "Thank you," she said. He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding. Orison finished the Wall Street Journal by early afternoon. A page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of yesterday's Congressional Record . She launched into the Record , thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. "You read so well , darling," someone said across the desk. Orison looked up. "Oh, hello," she said. "I didn't hear you come up." "I walk ever so lightly," the woman said, standing hip-shot in front of the desk, "and pounce ever so hard." She smiled. Opulent, Orison thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats. "I'm Orison McCall," she said, and tried to smile back without showing teeth. "Delighted," the visitor said, handing over an undelighted palm. "I'm Auga Vingt. Auga, to my friends." "Won't you sit down, Miss Vingt?" "So kind of you, darling," Auga Vingt said, "but I shan't have time to visit. I just wanted to stop and welcome you as a Taft Bank co-worker. One for all, all for one. Yea, Team. You know." "Thanks," Orison said. "Common courtesy," Miss Vingt explained. "Also, darling, I'd like to draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding—you know, the shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little eyes scratched out. Word to the wise, n'est-ce pas ?" "Sorry you have to leave so suddenly," Orison said, rolling her Wall Street Journal into a club and standing. "Darling." "So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here. You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft, all sorts of annoyance. Understand me, darling?" "You make it very clear," Orison said. "Now you'd best hurry back to your stanchion, Bossy, before the hay's all gone." "Isn't it lovely, the way you and I reached an understanding right off?" Auga asked. "Well, ta-ta." She turned and walked to the elevator, displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba motion. The elevator stopped to pick up the odious Auga. A passenger, male, stepped off. "Good morning, Mr. Gerding," Miss Vingt said, bowing. "Carry on, Colonel," the stranger replied. As the elevator door closed, he stepped up to Orison's desk. "Good morning. Miss McCall," he said. "What is this?" Orison demanded. "Visiting-day at the zoo?" She paused and shook her head. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "It's just that ... Vingt thing...." "Auga is rather intense," the new Mr. Gerding said. "Yeah, intense," Orison said. "Like a kidney-stone." "I stopped by to welcome you to the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company family, Miss McCall," he said. "I'm Kraft Gerding, Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already." "Yes, sir," Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch of frosted furze; and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's spike-topped Pickelhauben ; but the ears were in evidence, and seemed normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed—what continental manners these bankers had!—and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it. Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and said, "I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you, Miss McCall. Quite proper, I know. But I must warn you against mixing business with pleasure." Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. "I quit!" she shouted. "You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy, for all I care. I'm not going to perch up here, target for every uncaged idiot in finance, and listen to another word." "Dearest lady, my humblest pardon," Kraft Gerding said, bowing again, a bit lower. "Your work is splendid; your presence is Taft Bank's most charming asset; my only wish is to serve and protect you. To this end, dear lady, I feel it my duty to warn you against my brother. A word to the wise...." " N'est-ce pas? " Orison said. "Well, Buster, here's a word to the foolish. Get lost." Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. "Until we meet again?" "I'll hold my breath," Orison promised. "The elevator is just behind you. Push a button, will you? And bon voyage ." Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with a cold, quick bow, then disappeared into the mysterious heights above fifth floor. First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding. Surely, Orison thought, recovering the Wall Street Journal from her wastebasket and smoothing it, no one would convert a major Midwestern bank into a lunatic asylum. How else, though, could the behavior of the Earmuffs be explained? Could madmen run a bank? Why not, she thought. History is rich in examples of madmen running nations, banks and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits upper floors. Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the sudden buzz of her telephone. She picked it up. " Wanji e-Kal, Datto. Dink ger-Dink d'summa. " Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before replying, "I'm a local girl. Try me in English." "Oh. Hi, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Guess I goofed. I'm in kinda clutch. This is Wanji. I got a kite for Mr. Dink Gerding. If you see him, tell him the escudo green is pale. Got that, doll?" "Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding." Orison clicked the phone down. What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots of Treasury Intelligence puzzle it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk, she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could only fire her. Orison folded the paper and put it in the "Out" basket. Someone would be here in a moment with something new to read. She'd best get going. The elevator? No. The operators had surely been instructed to keep her off the upstairs floors. But the building had a stairway. III The door on the sixth floor was locked. Orison went on up the stairs to seven. The glass of the door there was painted black on the inside, and the landing was cellar-dark. Orison closed her eyes for a moment. There was a curious sound. The buzzing of a million bees, barely within the fringes of her hearing. Somehow, a very pleasant sound. She opened her eyes and tried the knob. The door opened. Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room extended through the entire seventh floor, its windows boarded shut, its ceiling a mass of fluorescent lamps. Set about the floor were galvanized steel tanks, rectangular and a little bigger than bathtubs. Orison counted the rows of tanks. Twelve rows, nine tiers. One hundred and eight tanks. She walked closer. The tubs were laced together by strands of angel-hair, delicate white lattices scintillating with pink. She walked to the nearest of the tubs and looked in. It was half full of a greenish fluid, seething with tiny pink bubbles. For a moment Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the liquid. Then she screamed. The pink bubbles, the tiny flesh-colored flecks glinting light from the spun-sugar bridges between the tanks, were spiders. Millions upon millions of spiders, each the size of a mustard-seed; crawling, leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison put her hands over her ears and screamed again, backing toward the stairway door. Into a pair of arms. "I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said. Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder Gerding. "It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders," he said. "Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were we to toss you into one of these tanks...." Orison struggled against her two sumo -sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the floor. "... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted all around you. Our Microfabridae are petrovorous, Miss McCall. Of course, once they discovered your teeth, and through them a skeleton of calcium, a delicacy they find most toothsome, you'd be filleted within minutes." "Elder Compassion wouldn't like your harming the girl, Sire," one of the earmuffed sumo -wrestlers protested. "Elder Compassion has no rank," Kraft Gerding said. "Miss McCall, you must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders." "Dink ... Dink!" Orison shouted. "My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of damsels in distress," Kraft said. "Someone, after all, has to mind the bank." "I came to bring a message to Dink," Orison said. "Let me go, you acromegalic apes!" "The message?" Kraft Gerding demanded. "Something about escudo green. Put me down!" Suddenly she was dropped. Her mountainous keepers were on the floor as though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms around Orison. "They can't harm you," he said. She turned to press her face against his chest. "You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn your brain back on. All right, now?" "All right," she said, still trembling. "They were going to throw me to the spiders." "Kraft told you that?" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the kneeling man. "Stand up, Elder Brother." "I...." Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's jaw. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor. "If you'd care to stand again, Elder Brother, you may attempt to recover your dignity without regard for the difference in our rank." Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink through half-closed eyes. "No? Then get out of here, all of you. Samma! " Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator. "I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison," Dink said. "Why did you do it?" "Have you read the story of Bluebeard?" Orison asked. She stood close to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. "I had to see what it was you kept up here so secretly, what it was that I was forbidden to see. My excuse was to have been that I was looking for you, to deliver a message from Mr. Wanji. He said I was to tell you that the escudo green is pale." "You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless," Dink said. "Now, what is this thing you have about spiders?" "I've always been terrified of them," Orison said. "When I was a little girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came home and took it down with a broom. Even then, I didn't have appetite for supper." "Strange," Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked one of the tiny pink creatures from a web-bridge. "This is no spider, Orison," he said. She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped in the palm of his hand. "These are Microfabridae, more nearly related to shellfish than to spiders," he said. "They're stone-and-metal eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison." He extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, flesh-colored against his flesh, was nearly invisible, scuttling around the bowl of his hand. "Pretty little fellow, isn't he?" Dink asked. "Here. You hold him." "I'd rather not," she protested. "I'd be happier if you did," Dink said. Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm. "He's like a baby crawdad," Orison said. "A sort of crustacean," Dink agreed. "We use them in a commercial process we're developing. That's why we keep this floor closed off and secret. We don't have a patent on the use of Microfabridae, you see." "What do they do?" Orison asked. "That's still a secret," Dink said, smiling. "I can't tell even you that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary." "What's he doing now?" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae. "They like gold," Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, comfortably close. "They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. We'd better get you down where you belong." Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring. It was pitted where the Microfabridus had been nibbling. "Strange, using crawdads in a bank," she said. She stood silent for a moment. "I thought I heard music," she said. "I heard it when I came in. Something like the sighing of wind in winter trees." "That's the hymn of the Microfabridae," Dink said. "They all sing together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices." He took her arm. "If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world." Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to the music that seemed on the outermost edge of her hearing. Wildness, storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace and harbor. She heard the wash of giant waves in the song, the crash of breakers against granite, cold and insatiable. And behind this, the quiet of sheltered tide-pools, the soft lub of sea-arms landlocked. "It's an ancient song," Dink said. "The Microfabridae have been singing it for a million years." He released her, and opened a wood-covered wooden box. He scooped up a cupful of the sand inside. "Hold out your hands," he told Orison. He filled them with the sand. "Throw our singers some supper for their song," he said. Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the mineral fishfood around inside it. The Microfabridae leaped from the liquid like miniature porpoises, seizing the grains of sand in mid-air. "They're so very strange," Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she thought she saw Ben Franklin again, winking at her through the bubbling life. Nonsense, she thought, brushing her hands.
Circus by Nourse, Alan Edward	"Circus", Alan Edward Nourse, 1960. Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction Stories by Alan E. Nourse published in 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. Circus "Just suppose," said Morgan, "that I did believe you. Just for argument." He glanced up at the man across the restaurant table. "Where would we go from here?" The man shifted uneasily in his seat. He was silent, staring down at his plate. Not a strange-looking man, Morgan thought. Rather ordinary, in fact. A plain face, nose a little too long, fingers a little too dainty, a suit that doesn't quite seem to fit, but all in all, a perfectly ordinary looking man. Maybe too ordinary, Morgan thought. Finally the man looked up. His eyes were dark, with a hunted look in their depths that chilled Morgan a little. "Where do we go? I don't know. I've tried to think it out, and I get nowhere. But you've got to believe me, Morgan. I'm lost, I mean it. If I can't get help, I don't know where it's going to end." "I'll tell you where it's going to end," said Morgan. "It's going to end in a hospital. A mental hospital. They'll lock you up and they'll lose the key somewhere." He poured himself another cup of coffee and sipped it, scalding hot. "And that," he added, "will be that." The place was dark and almost empty. Overhead, a rotary fan swished patiently. The man across from Morgan ran a hand through his dark hair. "There must be some other way," he said. "There has to be." "All right, let's start from the beginning again," Morgan said. "Maybe we can pin something down a little better. You say your name is Parks—right?" The man nodded. "Jefferson Haldeman Parks, if that helps any. Haldeman was my mother's maiden name." "All right. And you got into town on Friday—right?" Parks nodded. "Fine. Now go through the whole story again. What happened first?" The man thought for a minute. "As I said, first there was a fall. About twenty feet. I didn't break any bones, but I was shaken up and limping. The fall was near the highway going to the George Washington Bridge. I got over to the highway and tried to flag down a ride." "How did you feel? I mean, was there anything strange that you noticed?" " Strange! " Parks' eyes widened. "I—I was speechless. At first I hadn't noticed too much—I was concerned with the fall, and whether I was hurt or not. I didn't really think about much else until I hobbled up to that highway and saw those cars coming. Then I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought I was crazy. But a car stopped and asked me if I was going into the city, and I knew I wasn't crazy." Morgan's mouth took a grim line. "You understood the language?" "Oh, yes. I don't see how I could have, but I did. We talked all the way into New York—nothing very important, but we understood each other. His speech had an odd sound, but—" Morgan nodded. "I know, I noticed. What did you do when you got to New York?" "Well, obviously, I needed money. I had gold coin. There had been no way of knowing if it would be useful, but I'd taken it on chance. I tried to use it at a newsstand first, and the man wouldn't touch it. Asked me if I thought I was the U.S. Treasury or something. When he saw that I was serious, he sent me to a money lender, a hock shop, I think he called it. So I found a place—" "Let me see the coins." Parks dropped two small gold discs on the table. They were perfectly smooth and perfectly round, tapered by wear to a thin blunt edge. There was no design on them, and no printing. Morgan looked up at the man sharply. "What did you get for these?" Parks shrugged. "Too little, I suspect. Two dollars for the small one, five for the larger." "You should have gone to a bank." "I know that now. I didn't then. Naturally, I assumed that with everything else so similar, principles of business would also be similar." Morgan sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Well, then what?" Parks poured some more coffee. His face was very pale, Morgan thought, and his hands trembled as he raised the cup to his lips. Fright? Maybe. Hard to tell. The man put down the cup and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "First, I went to the mayor's office," he said. "I kept trying to think what anyone at home would do in my place. That seemed a good bet. I asked a policeman where it was, and then I went there." "But you didn't get to see him." "No. I saw a secretary. She said the mayor was in conference, and that I would have to have an appointment. She let me speak to another man, one of the mayor's assistants." "And you told him?" "No. I wanted to see the mayor himself. I thought that was the best thing to do. I waited for a couple of hours, until another assistant came along and told me flatly that the mayor wouldn't see me unless I stated my business first." He drew in a deep breath. "So I stated it. And then I was gently but firmly ushered back into the street again." "They didn't believe you," said Morgan. "Not for a minute. They laughed in my face." Morgan nodded. "I'm beginning to get the pattern. So what did you do next?" "Next I tried the police. I got the same treatment there, only they weren't so gentle. They wouldn't listen either. They muttered something about cranks and their crazy notions, and when they asked me where I lived, they thought I was—what did they call it?—a wise guy! Told me to get out and not come back with any more wild stories." "I see," said Morgan. Jefferson Parks finished his last bite of pie and pushed the plate away. "By then I didn't know quite what to do. I'd been prepared for almost anything excepting this. It was frightening. I tried to rationalize it, and then I quit trying. It wasn't that I attracted attention, or anything like that, quite the contrary. Nobody even looked at me, unless I said something to them. I began to look for things that were different , things that I could show them, and say, see, this proves that I'm telling the truth, look at it—" He looked up helplessly. "And what did you find?" "Nothing. Oh, little things, insignificant little things. Your calendars, for instance. Naturally, I couldn't understand your frame of reference. And the coinage, you stamp your coins; we don't. And cigarettes. We don't have any such thing as tobacco." The man gave a short laugh. "And your house dogs! We have little animals that look more like rabbits than poodles. But there was nothing any more significant than that. Absolutely nothing." "Except yourself," Morgan said. "Ah, yes. I thought that over carefully. I looked for differences, obvious ones. I couldn't find any. You can see that, just looking at me. So I searched for more subtle things. Skin texture, fingerprints, bone structure, body proportion. I still couldn't find anything. Then I went to a doctor." Morgan's eyebrows lifted. "Good," he said. Parks shrugged tiredly. "Not really. He examined me. He practically took me apart. I carefully refrained from saying anything about who I was or where I came from; just said I wanted a complete physical examination, and let him go to it. He was thorough, and when he finished he patted me on the back and said, 'Parks, you've got nothing to worry about. You're as fine, strapping a specimen of a healthy human being as I've ever seen.' And that was that." Parks laughed bitterly. "I guess I was supposed to be happy with the verdict, and instead I was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic, it defied reason, it was infuriating." Morgan nodded sourly. "Because you're not a human being," he said. "That's right. I'm not a human being at all." "How did you happen to pick this planet, or this sun?" Morgan asked curiously. "There must have been a million others to choose from." Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his stubbled chin unhappily. "I didn't make the choice. Neither did anyone else. Travel by warp is a little different from travel by the rocket you fiction writers make so much of. With a rocket vehicle you pick your destination, make your calculations, and off you go. The warp is blind flying, strictly blind. We send an unmanned scanner ahead. It probes around more or less hit-or-miss until it locates something, somewhere, that looks habitable. When it spots a likely looking place, we keep a tight beam on it and send through a manned scout." He grinned sourly. "Like me. If it looks good to the scout, he signals back, and they leave the warp anchored for a sort of permanent gateway until we can get a transport beam built. But we can't control the directional and dimensional scope of the warp. There are an infinity of ways it can go, until we have a guide beam transmitting from the other side. Then we can just scan a segment of space with the warp, and the scanner picks up the beam." He shook his head wearily. "We're new at it, Morgan. We've only tried a few dozen runs. We're not too far ahead of you in technology. We've been using rocket vehicles just like yours for over a century. That's fine for a solar system, but it's not much good for the stars. When the warp principle was discovered, it looked like the answer. But something went wrong, the scanner picked up this planet, and I was coming through, and then something blew. Next thing I knew I was falling. When I tried to make contact again, the scanner was gone!" "And you found things here the same as back home," said Morgan. "The same! Your planet and mine are practically twins. Similar cities, similar technology, everything. The people are the same, with precisely the same anatomy and physiology, the same sort of laws, the same institutions, even compatible languages. Can't you see the importance of it? This planet is on the other side of the universe from mine, with the first intelligent life we've yet encountered anywhere. But when I try to tell your people that I'm a native of another star system, they won't believe me !" "Why should they?" asked Morgan. "You look like a human being. You talk like one. You eat like one. You act like one. What you're asking them to believe is utterly incredible." " But it's true. " Morgan shrugged. "So it's true. I won't argue with you. But as I asked before, even if I did believe you, what do you expect me to do about it? Why pick me , of all the people you've seen?" There was a desperate light in Parks' eyes. "I was tired, tired of being laughed at, tired of having people looking at me as though I'd lost my wits when I tried to tell them the truth. You were here, you were alone, so I started talking. And then I found out you wrote stories." He looked up eagerly. "I've got to get back, Morgan, somehow. My life is there, my family. And think what it would mean to both of our worlds—contact with another intelligent race! Combine our knowledges, our technologies, and we could explore the galaxy!" He leaned forward, his thin face intense. "I need money and I need help. I know some of the mathematics of the warp principle, know some of the design, some of the power and wiring principles. You have engineers here, technologists, physicists. They could fill in what I don't know and build a guide beam. But they won't do it if they don't believe me. Your government won't listen to me, they won't appropriate any money." "Of course they won't. They've got a war or two on their hands, they have public welfare, and atomic bombs, and rockets to the moon to sink their money into." Morgan stared at the man. "But what can I do?" "You can write ! That's what you can do. You can tell the world about me, you can tell exactly what has happened. I know how public interest can be aroused in my world. It must be the same in yours." Morgan didn't move. He just stared. "How many people have you talked to?" he asked. "A dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand." "And how many believed you?" "None." "You mean nobody would believe you?" " Not one soul. Until I talked to you." And then Morgan was laughing, laughing bitterly, tears rolling down his cheeks. "And I'm the one man who couldn't help you if my life depended on it," he gasped. "You believe me?" Morgan nodded sadly. "I believe you. Yes. I think your warp brought you through to a parallel universe of your own planet, not to another star, but I think you're telling the truth." "Then you can help me." "I'm afraid not." "Why not?" "Because I'd be worse than no help at all." Jefferson Parks gripped the table, his knuckles white. "Why?" he cried hoarsely. "If you believe me, why can't you help me?" Morgan pointed to the magazine lying on the table. "I write, yes," he said sadly. "Ever read stories like this before?" Parks picked up the magazine, glanced at the bright cover. "I barely looked at it." "You should look more closely. I have a story in this issue. The readers thought it was very interesting," Morgan grinned. "Go ahead, look at it." The stranger from the stars leafed through the magazine, stopped at a page that carried Roger Morgan's name. His eyes caught the first paragraph and he turned white. He set the magazine down with a trembling hand. "I see," he said, and the life was gone out of his voice. He spread the pages viciously, read the lines again. The paragraph said: "Just suppose," said Martin, "that I did believe you. Just for argument." He glanced up at the man across the table. "Where do we go from here?"
Coming of the Gods by Whitehorn, Chester	"Coming of the Gods", Chester Whitehorn, 1960. COMING OF THE GODS By CHESTER WHITEHORN Never had Mars seen such men as these, for they came from black space, carrying weird weapons—to fight for a race of which they had never heard. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Ro moved cautiously. He knew the jungles of Mars well, knew the dangers, the swift death that could come to an unwary traveler. Many times he had seen fellow Martians die by the razor fangs of Gin, the swamp snake. Their clear red skin had become blotched and purple, their eyeballs popped, their faces swollen by the poison that raced through their veins. And Ro had seen the bones of luckless men vomited from the mouths of the Droo, the cannibal plants. And others there had been, some friends of his, who had become game for beasts of prey, or been swallowed by hungry, sucking pools of quicksand. No, the jungles of Mars were not to be taken casually, no matter how light in heart one was at the prospect of seeing home once more. Ro was returning from the north. He had seen the great villages of thatched huts, the strange people who lived in these huts instead of in caves, and wore coverings on their feet and shining rings in their ears. And having quenched his curiosity about these people and their villages, he was satisfied to travel home again. He was a man of the world now, weary of exploring and ready to settle down. He was anxious to see his family again, his father and mother and all his brothers and sisters; to sit round a fire with them at the entrance to their cave and tell of the wondrous places he'd visited. And, most of all, he wanted to see Na, graceful, dark eyed Na, whose fair face had disturbed his slumber so often, appearing in his dreams to call him home. He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the jungle's edge. Before him lay a broad expanse of plain. And far in the distance rose the great cliffs and the hills that were his home. His handsome face broadened into a smile and he quickened his pace to a trot. There was no need for caution now. The dangers on the plain were few. The sun beat down on his bare head and back. His red skin glistened. His thick black hair shone healthily. Mile after mile fell behind him. His long, well muscled legs carried him swiftly toward the distant hills. His movements were graceful, easy, as the loping of Shee, the great cat. Then, suddenly, he faltered in his stride. He stopped running and, shielding his eyes from the sun's glare, stared ahead. There was a figure running toward him. And behind that first figure, a second gave chase. For a long moment Ro studied the approaching creatures. Then he gasped in surprise. The pursued was a young woman, a woman he knew. Na! The pursuer was a squat, ugly rat man, one of the vicious Oan who lived in the cliffs. Ro exclaimed his surprise, then his rage. His handsome face was grim as he searched the ground with his eyes. When he found what he sought—a round rock that would fit his palm—he stooped, and snatching up the missile, he ran forward. At great speed, he closed the gap between him and the approaching figures. He could see the rat man plainly now—his fanged, frothy mouth; furry face and twitching tail. The Oan, however, was too intent on his prey to notice Ro at first, and when he did, it was too late. For the young Martian had let fly with the round stone he carried. The Oan squealed in terror and tried to swerve from his course. The fear of one who sees approaching death was in his movements and his cry. He had seen many Oan die because of the strength and accuracy in the red men's arms. Despite his frantic contortions, the stone caught him in the side. His ribs and backbone cracked under the blow. He was dead before he struck the ground. With hardly a glance at his fallen foe, Ro ran on to meet the girl. She fell into his arms and pressed her cheek to his bare shoulder. Her dark eyes were wet with gladness. Warm tears ran down Ro's arm. Finally Na lifted her beautiful head. She looked timidly at Ro, her face a mask of respect. The young Martian tried to be stern in meeting her gaze, as was the custom among the men of his tribe when dealing with women; but he smiled instead. "You're home," breathed Na. "I have traveled far to the north," answered Ro simply, "and seen many things. And now I have returned for you." "They must have been great things you saw," Na coaxed. "Yes, great and many. But that tale can wait. Tell me first how you came to be playing tag with the Oan." Na lowered her eyes. "I was caught in the forest below the cliffs. The Oan spied me and I ran. The chase was long and tiring. I was almost ready to drop when you appeared." "You were alone in the woods!" Ro exclaimed. "Since when do the women of our tribe travel from the cliffs alone?" "Since a long time," she answered sadly. Then she cried. And between sobs she spoke: "Many weeks ago a great noise came out of the sky. We ran to the mouths of our caves and looked out, and saw a great sphere of shining metal landing in the valley below. Many colored fire spat from one end of it. "The men of our tribe snatched up stones, and holding one in their hands and one beneath their armpits, they climbed down to battle or greet our visitors. They had surrounded the sphere and were waiting, when suddenly an entrance appeared in the metal and two men stepped out. "They were strange men indeed; white as the foam on water, and clothed in strange garb from the neck down, even to coverings on their feet. They made signs of peace—with one hand only, for they carried weapons of a sort in the other. And the men of our tribe made the same one-handed sign of peace, for they would not risk dropping their stones. Then the white men spoke; but their tongue was strange, and our men signaled that they could not understand. The white men smiled, and a great miracle took place. Suddenly to our minds came pictures and words. The white men spoke with their thoughts. "They came from a place called Earth, they said. And they came in peace. Our men found they could think very hard and answer back with their own thoughts. And there was much talk and happiness, for friendly visitors were always welcome. "There were two more white ones who came from the sphere. One was a woman with golden hair, and the other, a man of age, with hair like silver frost. "There was a great feast then, and our men showed their skill at throwing. Then the white men displayed the power of their strange weapons by pointing them at a tree and causing flame to leap forth to burn the wood in two. We were indeed glad they came in peace. "That night we asked them to sleep with us in the caves, but they made camp in the valley instead. The darkness passed swiftly and silently, and with the dawn we left our caves to rejoin our new friends. But everywhere a red man showed himself, he cried out and died by the flame from the white men's weapons. "I looked into the valley and saw hundreds of Oan. They had captured our friends in the night and were using their weapons to attack us. There was a one-sided battle that lasted three days. Finally, under cover of night, we were forced to leave the caves. One by one we went, and those of us who lived still travel alone." Ro groaned aloud as Na finished her tale. His homecoming was a meeting with tragedy, instead of a joyful occasion. "What of my father?" he asked hopefully. "He was a great warrior. Surely he didn't fall to the Oan?" "He had no chance to fight," Na answered. "Two of your brothers died with him on that first morning." Ro squared his shoulders and set his jaw. He wiped a hint of tears from his eyes. "They shall pay," he murmured, and started off toward the cliffs again. Na trailed behind him. Her face was grave with concern. "They are very many," she said. "Then there will be more to kill," answered Ro without turning. "They have the weapons of the white ones." "And the white ones, as well. They probably keep them alive to repair the weapons if they become useless. But when I have slain a few Oan, I will set the white ones free. They will help me to make more weapons. Together we will fight the rat men." Na smiled. Ro was angry, but anger did not make him blind. He would make a good mate. The sun was setting when the two Martians reached the cliffs. Below them was the valley in which lay the metal sphere. Ro could see it dimly outlined in the shadows, as Na had said. A distance away, in another clearing, he could see many Oan, flitting ghost-like from place to place. There were no fires, for the Oan were more beast than man and feared flame; but Ro could make out four prone figures. They appeared to be white blots in the dimness. One had long, golden hair, like spun sunbeams; another's head was covered with a thatch like a cap of snow on a mountain peak. "You say they came from a place called Earth?" Ro asked Na in wonder. "They traveled through space in their 'ship,'" Na answered. "They called themselves an expedition." Ro was silent then. In a short time it would be dark enough to go down into the valley. When he had rescued the white ones, he would learn more about them. He turned away from the valley to study Na. She was very beautiful. Her dark eyes seemed to sparkle and her hair shone in the twilight. He understood why she had crept into his dreams. The darkness settled quickly. Soon Ro could barely make out the girl's features. It was time for him to leave. He took a pouch from his waist and shook out a gold arm band. This he clasped on Na's wrist. "All men will know now that you are the mate of Ro," he whispered. And he kissed her, as was the custom of his tribe when a man took a wife. Without another word he disappeared over the edge of the cliff. They had already made plans for their next meeting. There was no need for a prolonged farewell. They would be together soon—on the far side of the cliff—if all went well. In his left hand and under his armpit Ro carried stones. They were of a good weight and would make short work of any Oan who was foolish enough to cross his path. His right arm he kept free for climbing. His fingers found crevices to hold to in the almost smooth wall. His toes seemed to have eyes to pierce the darkness in finding footholds. The climb was long and dangerous. Ro's skin glistened with sweat. He had lived in the cliffs all his life, and had made many perilous climbs, but never one on so dark a night. It seemed an eternity before he rested at the bottom. Feeling his way cautiously, he moved toward the camp. He could sense the presence of many Oan close by. The hair at the base of his neck prickled. He prayed he wouldn't be seen. An alarm now would spoil his plan. Ahead of him, he saw a clearing. That would be his destination. On the far side he would find the white ones. He took the stone from his armpit and moved on. Suddenly he halted. A dim figure approached. It was one of the Oan, a guard. He was coming straight at Ro. The young Martian shrank back. "The rat men have eyes to cut the night." It was a memory of his mother's voice. She had spoken those words when he was a child, to keep him from straying too far. The Oan was only a few feet away now, but his eyes were not cutting the night. Ro could see his large ears, hear his twitching tail. In a moment the beast would stumble over him. Like a phantom, Ro arose from his crouch. The rat man was startled, frozen with fear. Ro drove his right arm around. The stone in his hand cracked the Oan's skull like an eggshell. Ro caught the body as it fell, lowered it noiselessly to the ground. Breathing more easily, Ro moved on. He reached the edge of the small clearing without making a sound. Strewn on the ground were shapeless heaps. They would be the slumbering rat men. Ro suppressed an urge to spring amongst them and slay them as they slept. He lay flat on his stomach and inched his way ahead. It was slow work, but safer. When a sound reached his ears he drew himself together and feigned sleep. In the dusk he appeared no different than the others. His chest was scratched in a thousand places when he reached the far side, but he felt no pain. His heart was singing within him. His job was almost simple now. The difficult part was done. Straining his eyes, he caught sight of a golden mass some feet away. Crouching low, he darted toward it. In a moment his outstretched hands contacted a soft body. It seemed to shrink from his touch. A tiny gasp reached his ears. "Be still," he thought. He remembered Na's words: ' We spoke with our thoughts. ' "Be still. I've come to free you." And then, because it seemed so futile, he whispered the words aloud. Then his mind seemed to grow light, as though someone was sharing the weight of his brain. An urgent message to hurry—hurry reached him. It was as though he was feeling words, words spoken in the light, sweet voice of a girl. Pictures that were not actually pictures entered his mind. Waves of thought that took no definite form held a plain meaning. His groping hands found the girl's arm and moved down to the strips of hide that bound her wrists. He fumbled impatiently with the heavy knots. "Don't move when you are free," he warned the girl as he worked. "I must release the others first. When all is ready I will give a signal with my thoughts and you will follow me." Once again his mind grew light. The girl's thoughts assured him she would follow his instructions. Time passed quickly. To Ro, it seemed that his fingers were all thumbs. His breathing was heavy as he struggled with the knots. But finally the golden-haired girl was free. Ro was more confident as he moved to untie the others. He worked more easily as each came free and he started on the next. When they were ready, Ro signaled the four white people to follow him. They rose quietly and trailed him into the woods. The girl whispered something to one of the men. Ro turned and glared at her through the shadows. The progress they made was slow, but gradually the distance between them and Oan camp grew. Ro increased his pace when silence was no longer necessary. The four white people stumbled ahead more quickly. "We journey out of the valley and around the face of the cliffs," Ro told them. "After a short while, we will meet Na." "Who is Na?" asked the girl. "She is the one I have chosen for my mate," Ro answered. The white girl was silent. They traveled quite a distance without communicating. Each was busy with his own thoughts. Finally the man with the silver hair asked, "Why did you risk your life to rescue us?" "With your help I will avenge the death of my father and brothers and the men of my tribe." He stopped walking and stared around him for a landmark. They had traveled far along the foot of the cliff. According to the plan Na should have met them minutes ago. Then he gave a glad cry. Squinting ahead he saw an approaching figure. It was—His cry took on a note of alarm. The figure was bent low under the weight of a burden. It was a rat man, and slung across his shoulders was a girl. Ro's body tensed and quivered. A low growl issued from deep in his throat. He charged forward. The Oan saw him coming and straightened, allowing the girl to fall. He set his twisted legs and bared his fangs. The fur on his back stood out straight as he prepared to meet the young Martian's attack. Ro struck his foe head on. They went down in a frenzied bundle of fury. The rat man's tail lashed out to twist around Ro's neck. With frantic strength, Ro tore it away before it could tighten. Ignoring the Oan's slashing teeth, the young Martian pounded heavy fists into his soft stomach. Suddenly shifting his attack, Ro wrapped his legs around the rat man's waist. His hands caught a furry throat and tightened. Over and over they rolled. The Oan clawed urgently at the Martian's choking fingers. His chest made strange noises as it pleaded for the air that would give it life. But Ro's hands were bands of steel, tightening, ever tightening their deadly grip. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. The rat man quivered and lay still. Ro dismounted the limp body. His face wore a wildly triumphant expression. It changed as he remembered the girl. He ran to her side. Na was just opening her eyes. She stared around her fearfully, then smiled as she recognized Ro. The young Martian breathed a sigh of relief. Na turned her head and saw the body of the rat man. She shuddered. "I was coming down the side of the mountain," she said. "I saw him standing at the foot. The shadows were deceiving. I thought it was you. It wasn't until too late that I discovered my mistake." Ro gathered the girl in his arms. He spoke softly to her to help her forget. When she had recovered from her shock, the small group traveled on. Ro led them about a mile further along the base of the cliff, then up, to a cleverly concealed cave. "We will stay here," he told the others, "until we are ready to attack the Oan." "But there are only six of us," one of the white men protested. "There are hundreds of the beasts. We wouldn't have a chance." Ro smiled. "We will speak of that when it is dawn again," he said with his thoughts. "Now we must rest." He sat in a corner of the cave and leaned back against the wall. His eyes were half shut and he pretended to doze. Actually he was studying the white ones. The man with the silver hair seemed very old and weak, but very wise. The other men had hair as black as any Martian's, but their skin was pure white. They were handsome, Ro thought, in a barbaric sort of way. One was lean and determined, the other, equally determined, but stouter and less impressive. Ro then centered his attention on the girl. Her golden hair gleamed proudly, even in the dusk. She was very beautiful, almost as lovely as Na. "Tell me," he asked suddenly, "where is this strange place you come from? And how is it that you can speak and cause others to speak with their minds?" It was the old man who answered. "We come from a place called Earth, many millions of miles away through space. My daughter, Charlotte, my two assistants, Carlson—" the lean man nodded—"Grimm—" the stouter man acknowledged the introduction—"and myself are an expedition. We came here to Mars to study." Ro introduced himself and Na. "What manner of a place is this Earth?" he asked, after the formalities. "Our part of Earth, America, is a great country. Our cities are built of steel and stone, and we travel about in space boats. Now tell me, what is it like here on Mars? Surely the whole planet isn't wilderness. What year is it?" "You have seen what it is like here," Ro answered. "As for 'year,' I don't understand." "A year is a measure of time," the old man explained. "When we left Earth it was the year twenty-two hundred." "We have nothing like that here," said Ro, still puzzled. "But tell me, about this speaking with the mind. Perhaps I shall understand that." "It's simple telepathy. We have mastered the science on Earth. It takes study from childhood, but once you have mastered the art, it is quite simple to transmit or receive thoughts from anyone. A mere matter of concentration. We—who speak different tongues—understand each other because of action we have in mind as we speak. We want the other to walk, we think of the other walking. A picture is transmitted and understood. It is a message in a Universal language." Ro sighed. "I am afraid we are very backward here on Mars," he said wearily. "I would like to learn more, but we must sleep now. Tomorrow will be a very busy day." Ro slipped his arm about Na's shoulder and drew her closer. With their heads together they slept. Ro awakened with the dawn. He was startled to find that Na had left his side. He rose quickly and strode to the mouth of the cave. Na met him at the entrance. She was returning from a clump of trees a short distance away. Her arms were loaded with Manno, the fruit of Mars, and clusters of wild berries and grapes. "You see," she said, "I will make you a good mate. Our table will be well provided for." "You will make no mate at all," Ro said sternly, "and there will be no table if you wander off. Your next meeting with the Oan may not be so fortunate." He glared at her for a moment, then smiled and helped her with her burden. The others in the cave awakened. Ro noticed that Charlotte had slept beside Carlson, but moved away shyly now that it was daylight. He noticed, too, that Grimm was seeing the same thing and seemed annoyed. Ro smiled. These young white men were no different than Martians where a girl was concerned. When they had finished breakfast, they sat around the floor of the cave and spoke. It was Carlson who asked, "How do you expect the six of us to attack the rat men?" "The Oan are cowards," Ro answered. "They are brave only because they have your weapons. But now that you are free, you can make more of these sticks that shoot fire." Grimm laughed. "It takes intricate machinery to construct a ray gun," he said. "Here in this wilderness we have sticks and stones to work with." Ro sprang to his feet to tower above the man. His handsome face was twisted in anger. "You're lying," he shouted aloud, forgetting that the white man couldn't understand his words. "You're lying because you are afraid. You refuse to help me avenge my people because you are more of a coward than the Oan." Grimm climbed to his feet and backed away. Ro advanced on him, his fists clenched. The old man also rose. He placed a restraining hand on Ro's arm. "He's lying," said Ro with his thoughts. "Tell him I'm speaking the truth, professor," said Grimm aloud. The professor repeated Grimm's words with his thoughts. "It would be impossible to make new guns here," he said. "But there is another way. I have thought about it all night." Ro turned quickly. "What is it?" he demanded. "The space sphere. There are weapons on our ship that are greater than ray guns. With those we could defeat the rat men." The professor shrugged, turned away. "But how could we get into the ship? It is too well guarded." Ro fell silent. He walked to the mouth of the cave and stared out. When he turned back to the others, his attention was centered on Na. "Perhaps the attraction you seem to hold for the Oan can be put to good use," he said aloud. "The sphere is a distance away from the Oan camp. All of the rat men cannot be guarding it. Perhaps, by revealing yourself, you can lure the guards away from their post." He repeated his plan to the others. "But they'll kill her," gasped Charlotte. "She will be a woman alone," said Ro. "The Oan prefer to capture women when they can." "Then she'll be captured," the professor said. "It's much too risky." Ro laughed. "Do you think I will let her go alone? I will be close by. Na can lead the rat men through a narrow part of the valley. I will be above on the cliffs, waiting to pelt them with stones. Carlson or Grimm can be with me to roll an avalanche of rocks on their heads. "In the meantime, you can take over the unguarded sphere. The rest will be easy." The professor smacked his fist into his palm. "It might work at that. Grimm can go with you. Carlson and Charlotte will go with me." "Why me?" Grimm demanded. "Why not Carlson? Or are you saving him for your daughter?" Carlson grabbed Grimm by the shoulder and spun him around. He drove a hard fist into the stout man's face. Grimm stumbled backward. He fell at the cave's entrance. His hand, sprawled behind him to stop his fall, closed over a rock. He flung it at Carlson from a sitting position. It caught Carlson in the shoulder. Gritting his teeth, Carlson charged at Grimm. But Ro moved more swiftly. He caught the white man and forced him back. "This is no time for fighting," he said. "When the Oan are defeated you can kill each other. But not until then." Grimm brushed himself off as he got to his feet "Okay," he sneered. "I'll go with the red man. But when we meet again, it will be a different story." Carlson turned to Ro. "I'll go with you," he said. "Grimm can go with Charlotte and the professor." When they had detailed their plan, the party left the cave. Ro led them into the thickest part of the forest and toward the Oan camp. They moved swiftly. Before long they were at the narrow entrance to the valley. It was about a hundred yards long and twenty feet wide. The walls of the cliff rose almost straight up on both sides. "We leave you here," said Ro to the professor. "Na will lead you to the sphere. She will remain hidden until you have circled away from her. Then she will reveal herself." Ro looked at Na for a long moment before they parted. He grew very proud of what he saw. There was no fear in her eyes. Her small chin was firm. He turned to Carlson. The young Earthman was looking at Charlotte in much the same way. "Come on," Ro said. "If we spend the rest of the morning here, the Oan will try some strategy of their own." Carlson seemed to come out of a trance. He swung around to trail Ro up the sloping part of the mountain. They climbed in silence. Once Ro stopped to look down into the valley. But Na and the others were gone. He felt a pang of regret as he turned to move upward. When they had reached the top, he and Carlson set to work piling rocks and boulders at the edge of the cliff. They chose the point directly over the narrowest part of the valley. If all went well, the Oan would be trapped. They would die under a hailstorm of rock. "You would have liked a more tender goodbye with Charlotte," Ro said to Carlson as they worked. "Was it fear of Grimm that prevented it?" Carlson straightened. He weighed Ro's words before answering. Finally he said, "I didn't want to make trouble. It was a bad time, and senseless, besides. Charlotte and I are planning to be married when we return to America. It's not as though Grimm was still in the running. I'm sure he'll see reason when we tell him. It's foolish to be enemies." "Why don't you take her for your wife here on Mars? That would end the trouble completely." Carlson seemed surprised. "It wouldn't be legal. Who would perform the ceremony?" Ro seemed puzzled, then he laughed. "Last night I thought that we on Mars are backward. Now I'm not so sure. When we find our mates here, we take her. There is no one to speak of 'legal' or 'ceremony.' After all, it's a personal matter. Who can tell us whether it is 'legal' or not? What better ceremony than a kiss and a promise?" He bent back to his work chuckling. "I could argue the point," Carlson laughed. "I could tell you about a place called Hollywood. Marriage and divorce is bad enough there. Under your system, it would really be a mess. But I won't say anything. Here on Mars your kiss and a promise is probably as binding as any ceremony." Ro didn't speak. He didn't concentrate and transmit his thoughts, but kept them to himself. The pictures he'd received from Carlson were confusing. The business at hand was more grim and important than untangling the puzzle.
Complexity and Humanity by Yochai Benkler	"Complexity and Humanity", Yochai Benkler, None. COMPLEXITY AND HUMANITY We have all seen the images. Volunteers pitching in. People working day and night; coming up with the most ingenious, improvised solutions to everything from food and shelter to communications and security. Working together; patching up the fabric that is rent. Disaster, natural or otherwise, is a breakdown of systems. For a time, chaos reigns. For a time, what will happen in the next five minutes, five hours, and five days is unknown. All we have to rely on are our wits, fortitude, and common humanity Contemporary life is not chaotic, in the colloquial sense we apply to disaster zones. It is, however, complex and rapidly changing; much more so than life was in the past; even the very near past. Life, of course, was never simple. But the fact that day-to-day behaviors in Shenzhen and Bangalore have direct and immediate effects on people from Wichita to Strasbourg, from Rio de Janeiro to Sydney, or that unscrupulous lenders and careless borrowers in the United States can upend economic expectations everywhere else in the world, no matter how carefully others have planned, means that there are many more moving parts that affect each other. And from this scale of practical effects, complexity emerges. New things too were ever under the sun; but the systematic application of knowledge to the creation of new knowledge, innovation to innovation, and information to making more information has become pervasive; and with it the knowledge that next year will be very different than this. The Web, after all, is less than a generation old. These two features−the global scale of interdependence of human action, and the systematic acceleration of innovation, make contemporary life a bit like a slow motion disaster, in one important respect. Its very unpredictability makes it unwise to build systems that take too much away from what human beings do best: look, think, innovate, adapt, discuss, learn, and repeat. That is why we have seen many more systems take on a loose, human centric model in the last decade and a half: from the radical divergence of Toyota’s production system from the highly structured model put in place by Henry Ford, to the Internet’s radical departure from the AT&T system that preceded it, and on to the way Wikipedia constructs human knowledge on the fly, incrementally, in ways that would have been seen, until recently, as too chaotic ever to work (and are still seen so be many). But it is time we acknowledge that systems work best by making work human. Modern Times Modern times were hard enough. Trains and planes, telegraph and telephone, all brought many people into the same causal space. The solution to this increased complexity in the late 19th, early 20th century was to increase the role of structure and improve its design. During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, this type of rationalization took the form of ever-more complex managed systems, with crisp specification of roles, lines of authority, communication and control. In business, this rationalization was typified by Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific Management, later embodied in Henry Ford’s assembly line. The ambition of these approaches was to specify everything that needed doing in minute detail, to enforce it through monitoring and rewards, and later to build it into the very technology of work−the assembly line. The idea was to eliminate human error and variability in the face of change by removing thinking to the system, and thus neutralizing the variability of the human beings who worked it. Few images captured that time, and what it did to humanity, more vividly than Charlie Chaplin’s assembly line worker in Modern Times. At the same time, government experienced the rise of bureaucratization and the administrative state. Nowhere was this done more brutally than in the totalitarian states of mid-century. But the impulse to build fully-specified systems, designed by experts, monitored and controlled so as to limit human greed and error and to manage uncertainty, was basic and widespread. It underlay the development of the enormously successful state bureaucracies that responded to the Great Depression with the New Deal. It took shape in the Marshall Plan to pull Europe out of the material abyss into which it had been plunged by World War II, and shepherded Japan’s industrial regeneration from it. In technical systems too, we saw in mid-century marvels like the AT&T telephone system and the IBM mainframe. For a moment in history, these large scale managed systems were achieving efficiencies that seemed to overwhelm competing models: from the Tennessee Valley Authority to Sputnik, from Watson’s IBM to General Motors. Yet, to list these paragons from today’s perspective is already to presage the demise of the belief in their inevitable victory. The increasing recognition of the limits of command-and-control systems led to a new approach; but it turned out to be a retrenchment, not an abandonment, of the goal of perfect rationalization of systems design, which assumed much of the human away. What replaced planning and control in these systems was the myth of perfect markets. This was achieved through a hyper-simplification of human nature, wedded to mathematical modeling of what hyper-simplified selfish rational actors, looking only to their own interests, would do under diverse conditions. This approach was widespread and influential; it still is. And yet it led to such unforgettable gems as trying to understand why people do, or do not, use condoms by writing sentences like: “The expected utility (EU) of unsafe sex for m and for f is equal to the benefits (B) of unsafe sex minus its expected costs, and is given by EUm = B - C(1-Pm)(Pf) and EUf = B - C(1-Pf)(Pm),” and believing that you will learn anything useful about lust and desire, recklessness and helplessness, or how to slow down the transmission of AIDS. Only by concocting such a thin model of humanity−no more than the economists’ utility curve−and neglecting any complexities of social interactions that could not be conveyed through prices, could the appearance of rationalization be maintained. Like bureaucratic rationalization, perfect-market rationalization also had successes. But, like its predecessor, its limits as an approach to human systems design are becoming cleare Work, Trust and Play Pricing perfectly requires perfect information. And perfect information, while always an illusion, has become an ever receding dream in a world of constant, rapid change and complex global interactions. What we are seeing instead is the rise of human systems that increasingly shy away from either control or perfect pricing. Not that there isn’t control. Not that there aren’t markets. And not that either of these approaches to coordinating human action will disappear. But these managed systems are becoming increasingly interlaced with looser structures, which invite and enable more engaged human action by drawing on intrinsic motivations and social relations. Dress codes and a culture of play in the workplace in Silicon Valley, like the one day per week that Google employees can use to play at whatever ideas they like, do not exist to make the most innovative region in the United States a Ludic paradise, gratifying employees at the expense of productivity, but rather to engage the human and social in the pursuit of what is, in the long term, the only core business competency−innovation. Wikipedia has eclipsed all the commercial encyclopedias except Britannica not by issuing a large IPO and hiring the smartest guys in the room, but by building an open and inviting system that lets people learn together and pursue their passion for knowledge, and each other’s company. The set of human systems necessary for action in this complex, unpredictable set of conditions, combining rationalization with human agency, learning and adaptation, is as different from managed systems and perfect markets as the new Toyota is from the old General Motors, or as the Internet now is from AT&T then. The hallmarks of these newer systems are: (a) location of authority and practical capacity to act at the edges of the system, where potentialities for sensing the environment, identifying opportunities and challenges to action and acting upon them, are located; (b) an emphasis on the human: on trust, cooperation, judgment and insight; (c) communication over the lifetime of the interaction; and (d) loosely-coupled systems: systems in which the regularities and dependencies among objects and processes are less strictly associated with each other; where actions and interactions can occur through multiple systems simultaneously, have room to fail, maneuver, and be reoriented to fit changing conditions and new learning, or shift from one system to another to achieve a solution. Consider first of all the triumph of Toyota over the programs of Taylor and Ford. Taylorism was typified by the ambition to measure and specify all human and material elements of the production system. The ambition of scientific management was to offer a single, integrated system where all human variance (the source of slothful shirking and inept error) could be isolated and controlled. Fordism took that ambition and embedded the managerial knowledge in the technological platform of the assembly line, guided by a multitude of rigid task specifications and routines. Toyota Production System, by comparison, has a substantially smaller number of roles that are also more loosely defined, with a reliance on small teams where each team member can perform all tasks, and who are encouraged to experiment, improve, fail, adapt, but above all communicate. The system is built on trust and a cooperative dynamic. The enterprise functions through a managerial control system, but also through social cooperation mechanisms built around teamwork and trust. However, even Toyota might be bested in this respect by the even more loosely coupled networks of innovation and supply represented by Taiwanese original-design manufacturers. But let us also consider the system in question that has made this work possible, the Internet, and compare it to the design principles of the AT&T network in its heyday. Unlike the Internet, AT&T’s network was fully managed. Mid-century, the company even retained ownership of the phones at the endpoints, arguing that it needed to prohibit customers from connecting unlicensed phones to the system (ostensibly to ensure proper functioning of the networking and monitoring of customer behavior, although it didn’t hurt either that this policy effectively excluded competitors). This generated profit, but any substantial technical innovations required the approval of management and a re-engineering of the entire network. The Internet, on the other hand, was designed to be as general as possible. The network hardware merely delivers packets of data using standardized addressing information. The hard processing work−manipulating a humanly-meaningful communication (a letter or a song, a video or a software package) and breaking it up into a stream of packets−was to be done by its edge devices, in this case computers owned by users. This system allowed the breathtaking rate of innovation that we have seen, while also creating certain vulnerabilities in online security. These vulnerabilities have led some to argue that a new system to manage the Internet is needed. We see first of all that doubts about trust and security on the Internet arise precisely because the network was originally designed for people who could more-or-less trust each other, and offloaded security from the network to the edges. As the network grew and users diversified, trust (the practical belief that other human agents in the system were competent and benign, or at least sincere) declined. This decline was met with arguments in favor of building security into the technical system, both at its core, in the network elements themselves, and at its periphery, through “trusted computing.” A “trusted computer” will, for example, not run a program or document that its owner wants to run, unless it has received authorization from some other locus: be it the copyright owner, the virus protection company, or the employer. This is thought to be the most completely effective means of preventing copyright infringement or system failure, and preserving corporate security (these are the main reasons offered for implementing such systems). Trusted computing in this form is the ultimate reversal of the human-centric, loosely-coupled design approach of the Internet. Instead of locating authority and capacity to act at the endpoints, where human beings are located and can make decisions about what is worthwhile, it implements the belief that machines−technical systems−are trustworthy, while their human users are malevolent, incompetent, or both. Reintroducing the Human Taylorism, the Bell system and trusted computing are all efforts to remove human agency from action and replace it with well-designed, tightly-bound systems. That is, the specifications and regularities of the system are such that they control or direct action and learning over time. Human agency, learning, communication and adaptation are minimized in managed systems, if not eliminated, and the knowledge in the system comes from the outside, from the designer, in the initial design over time, and through observation of the system’s performance by someone standing outside its constraints−a manager or systems designer. By contrast, loosely-coupled systems affirmatively eschew this level of control, and build in room for human agency, experimentation, failure, communication, learning and adaptation. Loose-coupling is central to the new systems. It is a feature of system design that leaves room for human agency over time, only imperfectly constraining and enabling any given action by the system itself. By creating such domains of human agency, system designers are accepting the limitations of design and foresight, and building in the possibilities of learning over time through action in the system, by agents acting within To deal with the new complexity of contemporary life we need to re-introduce the human into the design of systems. We must put the soul back into the system. If years of work on artificial intelligence have taught us anything, it is that what makes for human insight is extremely difficult to replicate or systematize. At the center of these new systems, then, sits a human being who has a capacity to make judgments, experiment, learn and adapt. But enabling human agency also provides scope of action for human frailty. Although this idea is most alien to the mainstream of system design in the twentieth century, we must now turn our attention to building systems that support human sociality−our ability to think of others and their needs, and to choose for ourselves goals consistent with a broader social concern than merely our own self-interest. The challenge of the near future is to build systems that will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid the worst of what human beings are capable of, and elicit what is best. Free software, Wikipedia, Creative Commons and the thousands of emerging human practices of productive social cooperation in the networked information economy give us real existence proofs that human-centric systems can not merely exist, but thrive, as can the human beings and social relations that make them.
Conditionally Human by Miller, Walter M.	"Conditionally Human", Walter M. Miller, 1960. Conditionally Human By WALTER M. MILLER, JR. Illustrated by DAVID STONE [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] They were such cute synthetic creatures, it was impossible not to love them. Of course, that was precisely why they were dangerous! There was no use hanging around after breakfast. His wife was in a hurt mood, and he could neither endure the hurt nor remove it. He put on his coat in the kitchen and stood for a moment with his hat in his hands. His wife was still at the table, absently fingering the handle of her cup and staring fixedly out the window at the kennels behind the house. He moved quietly up behind her and touched her silk-clad shoulder. The shoulder shivered away from him, and her dark hair swung shiningly as she shuddered. He drew his hand back and his bewildered face went slack and miserable. "Honeymoon's over, huh?" She said nothing, but shrugged faintly. "You knew I worked for the F.B.A.," he said. "You knew I'd have charge of a district pound. You knew it before we got married." "I didn't know you killed them," she said venomously. "I won't have to kill many. Besides, they're only animals." " Intelligent animals!" "Intelligent as a human imbecile, maybe." "A small child is an imbecile. Would you kill a small child?" "You're taking intelligence as the only criterion of humanity," he protested hopelessly, knowing that a logical defense was useless against sentimentality. "Baby—" "Don't call me baby! Call them baby!" Norris backed a few steps toward the door. Against his better judgment, he spoke again. "Anne honey, look! Think of the good things about the job. Sure, everything has its ugly angles. But think—we get this house rent-free; I've got my own district with no bosses around; I make my own hours; you'll meet lots of people that stop in at the pound. It's a fine job, honey!" She sipped her coffee and appeared to be listening, so he went on. "And what can I do? You know how the Federation handles employment. They looked over my aptitude tests and sent me to Bio-Administration. If I don't want to follow my aptitudes, the only choice is common labor. That's the law ." "I suppose you have an aptitude for killing babies?" she said sweetly. Norris withered. His voice went desperate. "They assigned me to it because I liked babies. And because I have a B.S. in biology and an aptitude for dealing with people. Can't you understand? Destroying unclaimed units is the smallest part of it. Honey, before the evolvotron, before Anthropos went into the mutant-animal business, people used to elect dogcatchers. Think of it that way—I'm just a dogcatcher." Her cool green eyes turned slowly to meet his gaze. Her face was delicately cut from cold marble. She was a small woman, slender and fragile, but her quiet contempt made her loom. He backed closer to the door. "Well, I've got to get on the job." He put on his hat and picked at a splinter on the door. He frowned studiously at the splinter. "I—I'll see you tonight." He ripped the splinter loose when it became obvious that she didn't want to be kissed. He grunted a nervous good-by and stumbled down the hall and out of the house. The honeymoon was over, all right. He climbed in the kennel-truck and drove east toward the highway. The suburban street wound among the pastel plasticoid cottages that were set approximately two to an acre on the lightly wooded land. With its population legally fixed at three hundred million, most of the country had become one big suburb, dotted with community centers and lined with narrow belts of industrial development. Norris wished there were someplace where he could be completely alone. As he approached an intersection, he saw a small animal sitting on the curb, wrapped in its own bushy tail. Its oversized head was bald on top, but the rest of its body was covered with blue-gray fur. Its tiny pink tongue was licking daintily at small forepaws with prehensile thumbs. It was a cat-Q-5. It glanced curiously at the truck as Norris pulled to a halt. He smiled at it from the window and called, "What's your name, kitten?" The cat-Q-5 stared at him impassively for a moment, let out a stuttering high-pitched wail, then: "Kiyi Rorry." "Whose child are you, Rorry?" he asked. "Where do you live?" The cat-Q-5 took its time about answering. There were no houses near the intersection, and Norris feared that the animal might be lost. It blinked at him, sleepily bored, and resumed its paw-washing. He repeated the questions. "Mama kiyi," said the cat-Q-5 disgustedly. "That's right, Mama's kitty. But where is Mama? Do you suppose she ran away?" The cat-Q-5 looked startled. It stuttered for a moment, and its fur crept slowly erect. It glanced around hurriedly, then shot off down the street at a fast scamper. He followed it in the truck until it darted onto a porch and began wailing through the screen, "Mama no run ray! Mama no run ray!" Norris grinned and drove on. A class-C couple, allowed no children of their own, could get quite attached to a cat-Q-5. The felines were emotionally safer than the quasi-human chimp-K series called "neutroids." When a pet neutroid died, a family was broken with grief; but most couples could endure the death of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid. His grin faded as he wondered which Anne would choose. The Norrises were class-C—defective heredity. He found himself in Sherman III Community Center—eight blocks of commercial buildings, serving the surrounding suburbs. He stopped at the message office to pick up his mail. There was a memo from Chief Franklin. He tore it open nervously and read it in the truck. It was something he had been expecting for several days. Attention All District Inspectors: Subject: Deviant Neutroid. You will immediately begin a systematic and thorough survey of all animals whose serial numbers fall in the Bermuda-K-99 series for birth dates during July 2234. This is in connection with the Delmont Negligency Case. Seize all animals in this category, impound, and run proper sections of normalcy tests. Watch for mental and glandular deviation. Delmont has confessed to passing only one non-standard unit, but there may be others. He disclaims memory of deviant's serial number. This could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigations when one animal is found. Be thorough. If allowed to reach age-set or adulthood, such a deviant could be dangerous to its owner or to others. Hold all seized K-99s who show the slightest abnormality in the normalcy tests. Forward to central lab. Return standard units to their owners. Accomplish entire survey project within seven days. C. Franklin Norris frowned at the last sentence. His district covered about two hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around three hundred animals a month. He tried to estimate how many of July's influx had been K-99s from Bermuda Factory. Forty, at least. Could he do it in a week? And there were only eleven empty neutroid cages in his kennel. The other forty-nine were occupied by the previous inspector's "unclaimed" inventory—awaiting destruction. He wadded the memo in his pocket, then nosed the truck onto the highway and headed toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of Anthropos, Inc. They should be able to give him a list of all July's Bermuda K-99 serial numbers that had entered his territory, together with the retailers to whom the animals had been sold. A week's deadline for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight squeeze. He was halfway to Wylo City when the radiophone buzzed on his dashboard. He pulled into the slow lane and answered quickly, hoping for Anne's voice. A polite professional purr came instead. "Inspector Norris? This is Doctor Georges. We haven't met, but I imagine we will. Are you extremely busy at the moment?" Norris hesitated. "Extremely," he said. "Well, this won't take long. One of my patients—a Mrs. Sarah Glubbes—called a while ago and said her baby was sick. I must be getting absent-minded, because I forgot she was class C until I got there." He hesitated. "The baby turned out to be a neutroid. It's dying. Eighteenth order virus." "So?" "Well, she's—uh—rather a peculiar woman, Inspector. Keeps telling me how much trouble she had in childbirth, and how she can't ever have another one. It's pathetic. She believes it's her own. Do you understand?" "I think so," Norris replied slowly. "But what do you want me to do? Can't you send the neutroid to a vet?" "She insists it's going to a hospital. Worst part is that she's heard of the disease. Knows it can be cured with the proper treatment—in humans. Of course, no hospital would play along with her fantasy and take a neutroid, especially since she couldn't pay for its treatment." "I still don't see—" "I thought perhaps you could help me fake a substitution. It's a K-48 series, five-year-old, three-year set. Do you have one in the pound that's not claimed?" Norris thought for a moment. "I think I have one . You're welcome to it, Doctor, but you can't fake a serial number. She'll know it. And even though they look exactly alike, the new one won't recognize her. It'll be spooky." There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. "I'll try it anyway. Can I come get the animal now?" "I'm on the highway—" "Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind completely if—" "All right, I'll call my wife and tell her to open the pound for you. Pick out the K-48 and sign for it. And listen—" "Yes?" "Don't let me catch you falsifying a serial number." Doctor Georges laughed faintly. "I won't, Norris. Thanks a million." He hung up quickly. Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal. But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later have to be killed. He called Anne. Her voice was dull. She seemed depressed, but not angry. When he finished talking, she said, "All right, Terry," and hung up. By noon, he had finished checking the shipping lists at the wholesale house in Wylo City. Only thirty-five of July's Bermuda-K-99s had entered his territory, and they were about equally divided among five pet shops, three of which were in Wylo City. After lunch, he called each of the retail dealers, read them the serial numbers, and asked them to check the sales records for names and addresses of individual buyers. By three o'clock, he had the entire list filled out, and the task began to look easier. All that remained was to pick up the thirty-five animals. And that , he thought, was like trying to take a year-old baby away from its doting mother. He sighed and drove to the Wylo suburbs to begin his rounds. Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the porch for a moment, smiling at her weakly. The smile was not returned. "Doctor Georges came," she told him. "He signed for the—" She stopped to stare at him. "Darling, your face! What happened?" Gingerly he touch the livid welts down the side of his cheek. "Just scratched a little," he muttered. He pushed past her and went to the phone in the hall. He sat eying it distastefully for a moment, not liking what he had to do. Anne came to stand beside him and examine the scratches. Finally he lifted the phone and dialed the Wylo exchange. A grating mechanical voice answered, "Locator center. Your party, please." "Sheriff Yates," Norris grunted. The robot operator, which had on tape the working habits of each Wylo City citizen, began calling numbers. It found the off-duty sheriff on its third try, in a Wylo pool hall. "I'm getting so I hate that infernal gadget," Yates grumbled. "I think it's got me psyched. What do you want, Norris?" "Cooperation. I'm mailing you three letters charging three Wylo citizens with resisting a Federal official—namely me —and charging one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neutroids for a pound inspection—" Yates bellowed lusty laughter into the phone. "It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection with the Delmont case." Yates stopped laughing. "Oh. Well, I'll take care of it." "It's a rush-order, Sheriff. Can you get the warrants tonight and pick up the animals in the morning?" "Easy on those warrants, boy. Judge Charleman can't be disturbed just any time. I can get the newts to you by noon, I guess, provided we don't have to get a helicopter posse to chase down the mothers." "That'll be all right. And listen, Yates—fix it so the charges will be dropped if they cooperate. Don't shake those warrants around unless they just won't listen to reason. But get those neutroids." "Okay, boy. Gotcha." Norris gave him the names and addresses of the three unwilling mothers. As soon as he hung up, Anne touched his shoulders and said, "Sit still." She began smoothing a chilly ointment over his burning cheek. "Hard day?" she asked. "Not too hard. Those were just three out of fifteen. I got the other twelve. They're in the truck." "That's good," she said. "You've got only twelve empty cages." He neglected to tell her that he had stopped at twelve for just this reason. "Guess I better get them unloaded," he said, standing up. "Can I help you?" He stared at her for a moment, saying nothing. She smiled a little and looked aside. "Terry, I'm sorry—about this morning. I—I know you've got a job that has to be—" Her lip quivered slightly. Norris grinned, caught her shoulders, and pulled her close. "Honeymoon's on again, huh?" she whispered against his neck. "Come on," he grunted. "Let's unload some neutroids, before I forget all about work." They went out to the kennels together. The cages were inside a sprawling concrete barn, which was divided into three large rooms—one for the fragile neuter humanoid creatures, and another for the lesser mutants, such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that never matured into sheep. The third room contained a small gas chamber with a conveyor belt leading from it to a crematory-incinerator. Norris kept the third locked lest his wife see its furnishings. The doll-like neutroids began their mindless chatter as soon as their keepers entered the building. Dozens of blazing blond heads began dancing about their cages. Their bodies thwacked against the wire mesh as they leaped about their compartments with monkey grace. Their human appearance was broken by only two distinct features: short beaverlike tails decorated with fluffy curls of fur, and an erect thatch of scalp-hair that grew up into a bright candleflame. Otherwise, they appeared completely human, with baby-pink skin, quick little smiles, and cherubic faces. They were sexually neuter and never grew beyond a predetermined age-set which varied for each series. Age-sets were available from one to ten years human equivalent. Once a neutroid reached its age-set, it remained at the set's child-development level until death. "They must be getting to know you pretty well," Anne said, glancing around at the cages. Norris was wearing a slight frown as he inspected the room. "They've never gotten this excited before." He walked along a row of cages, then stopped by a K-76 to stare. " Apple cores! " He turned to face his wife. "How did apples get in there?" She reddened. "I felt sorry for them, eating that goo from the mechanical feeder. I drove down to Sherman III and bought six dozen cooking apples." "That was a mistake." She frowned irritably. "We can afford it." "That's not the point. There's a reason for the mechanical feeders." He paused, wondering how he could tell her the truth. He blundered on: "They get to love whoever feeds them." "I can't see—" "How would you feel about disposing of something that loved you?" Anne folded her arms and stared at him. "Planning to dispose of any soon?" she asked acidly. "Honeymoon's off again, eh?" She turned away. "I'm sorry, Terry. I'll try not to mention it again." He began unloading the truck, pulling the frightened and squirming doll-things forth one at a time with a snare-pole. They were one-man pets, always frightened of strangers. "What's the Delmont case, Terry?" Anne asked while he worked. "Huh?" "I heard you mention it on the phone. Anything to do with why you got your face scratched?" He nodded sourly. "Indirectly, yes. It's a long story." "Tell me." "Well, Delmont was a green-horn evolvotron operator at the Bermuda plant. His job was taking the unfertilized chimpanzee ova out of the egg-multiplier, mounting them in his machine, and bombarding the gene structure with sub-atomic particles. It's tricky business. He flashes a huge enlargement of the ovum on the electron microscope screen—large enough so he can see the individual protein molecules. He has an artificial gene pattern to compare it with. It's like shooting sub-atomic billiards. He's got to fire alpha-particles into the gene structure and displace certain links by just the right amount. And he's got to be quick about it before the ovum dies from an overdose of radiation from the enlarger. A good operator can get one success out of seven tries. "Well, Delmont worked a week and spoiled over a hundred ova without a single success. They threatened to fire him. I guess he got hysterical. Anyway, he reported one success the next day. It was faked. The ovum had a couple of flaws—something wrong in the central nervous system's determinants, and in the glandular makeup. Not a standard neutroid ovum. He passed it on to the incubators to get a credit, knowing it wouldn't be caught until after birth." "It wasn't caught at all?" Anne asked. "Funny thing, he was afraid it wouldn't be. He got to worrying about it, thought maybe a mental-deviant would pass, and that it might be dangerous. So he went back to its incubator and cut off the hormone flow into its compartment." "Why that?" "So it would develop sexuality. A neutroid would be born a female if they didn't give it suppressive doses of male hormone prenatally. That keeps ovaries from developing and it comes out neuter. But Delmont figured a female would be caught and stopped before the final inspection. They'd dispose of her without even bothering to examine for the other defects. And he could blame the sexuality on an equipment malfunction. He thought it was pretty smart. Trouble was they didn't catch the female. She went on through; they all look female." "How did they find out about it now?" "He got caught last month, trying it again. And he confessed to doing it once before. No telling how many times he really did it." Norris held up the final kicking, squealing, tassel-haired doll from the back of the kennel-truck. He grinned at his wife. "This little fellow, for instance. It might be a potential she. It might also be a potential murderer. All these kiddos are from the machines in the section where Delmont worked." Anne snorted and caught the baby-creature in her arms. It struggled and tried to bite, but subsided a little when she disentangled it from the snare. "Kkr-r-reee," it cooed nervously. "Kkr-r-reee!" "You tell him you're no murderer," Anne purred to it. Norris watched disapprovingly while she fondled it. One thing he had learned: to steer clear of emotional attachments. It was eight months old and looked like a child of two years—a year short of its age-set. And it was designed to be as affectionate as a human child. "Put it in the cage, Anne," he said quietly. She looked up and shook her head. "It belongs to somebody else. If it fixes a libido attachment on you, you're actually robbing its owner. They can't love many people at once." She snorted, but installed the thing in its cage. "Anne—" Norris hesitated, hating to approach the subject. "Do you—want one—for yourself? I can sign an unclaimed one over to you to keep in the house. It won't cost us anything." Slowly she shook her head, and her pale eyes went moody and luminous. "I'm going to have one of my own," she said. He stood in the back of the truck, staring down at her. "Do you realize what—" "I know what I'm saying. We're class-C on account of heart-trouble in both our families. Well, I don't care, Terry. I'm not going to waste a heart over one of these pathetic little artificial animals. We're going to have a baby." "You know what they'd do to us?" "If they catch us, yes—compulsory divorce, sterilization. But they won't catch us. I'll have it at home, Terry. Not even a doctor. We'll hide it." "I won't let you do such a thing." She faced him angrily. "Oh, this whole rotten world !" she choked. Suddenly she turned and fled out of the building. She was sobbing. Norris climbed slowly down from the truck and wandered on into the house. She was not in the kitchen nor the living room. The bedroom door was locked. He shrugged and went to sit on the sofa. The television set was on, and a newscast was coming from a local station. "... we were unable to get shots of the body," the announcer was saying. "But here is a view of the Georges residence. I'll switch you to our mobile unit in Sherman II, James Duncan reporting." Norris frowned with bewilderment as the scene shifted to a two-story plasticoid house among the elm trees. It was after dark, but the mobile unit's powerful floodlights made daylight of the house and its yard and the police 'copters sitting in a side lot. An ambulance was parked in the street. A new voice came on the audio. "This is James Duncan, ladies and gentlemen, speaking to you from our mobile unit in front of the late Doctor Hiram Georges' residence just west of Sherman II. We are waiting for the stretcher to be brought out, and Police Chief Erskine Miler is standing here beside me to give us a word about the case. Doctor Georges' death has shocked the community deeply. Most of you local listeners have known him for many years—some of you have depended upon his services as a family physician. He was a man well known, well loved. But now let's listen to Chief Miler." Norris sat breathing quickly. There could scarcely be two Doctor Georges in the community, but only this morning.... A growling drawl came from the audio. "This's Chief Miler speaking, folks. I just want to say that if any of you know the whereabouts of a Mrs. Sarah Glubbes, call me immediately. She's wanted for questioning." "Thank you, Chief. This is James Duncan again. I'll review the facts for you briefly again, ladies and gentlemen. At seven o'clock, less than an hour ago, a woman—allegedly Mrs. Glubbes—burst into Doctor Georges' dining room while the family was at dinner. She was brandishing a pistol and screaming, 'You stole my baby! You gave me the wrong baby! Where's my baby?' "When the doctor assured her that there was no other baby, she fired, shattering his salad plate. Glancing off it, the bullet pierced his heart. The woman fled. A peculiar feature of the case is that Mrs. Glubbes, the alleged intruder, has no baby . Just a minute—just a minute—here comes the stretcher now." Norris turned the set off and went to call the police. He told them what he knew and promised to make himself available for questioning if it became necessary. When he turned from the phone, Anne was standing in the bedroom doorway. She might have been crying a little, but she concealed it well. "What was all that?" she asked. "Woman killed a man. I happened to know the motive." "What was it?" "Neutroid trouble." "You meet up with a lot of unpleasantness in this business, don't you?" "Lot of unpleasant emotions tangled up in it," he admitted. "I know. Well, supper's been keeping hot for two hours. Shall we eat?" They went to bed at midnight, but it was after one when he became certain that his wife was asleep. He lay in darkness for a time, listening to her even breathing. Then he cautiously eased himself out of bed and tiptoed quietly through the door, carrying his shoes and trousers. He put them on in the kitchen and stole silently out to the kennels. A half moon hung low in a misty sky, and the wind was chilly out of the north. He went into the neutroid room and flicked a switch. A few sleepy chatters greeted the light. One at a time, he awoke twenty-three of the older doll-things and carried them to a large glass-walled compartment. These were the long-time residents; they knew him well, and they came with him willingly—like children after the Piper of Hamlin. When he had gotten them in the glass chamber, he sealed the door and turned on the gas. The conveyor would automatically carry them on to the incinerator. Now he had enough cages for the Bermuda-K-99s. He hurriedly quit the kennels and went to sit on the back steps. His eyes were burning, but the thought of tears made him sicker. It was like an assassin crying while he stabbed his victim. It was more honest just to retch. When he tiptoed back inside, he got as far as the hall. Then he saw Anne's small figure framed in the bedroom window, silhouetted against the moonlit yard. She had slipped into her negligee and was sitting on the narrow windowstool, staring silently out at the dull red tongue of exhaust gases from the crematory's chimney. Norris backed away. He went to the parlor and lay down on the couch. After a while he heard her come into the room. She paused in the center of the rug, a fragile mist in the darkness. He turned his face away and waited for the rasping accusation. But soon she came to sit on the edge of the sofa. She said nothing. Her hand crept out and touched his cheek lightly. He felt her cool finger-tips trace a soft line up his temple. "It's all right, Terry," she whispered. He kept his face averted. Her fingers traced a last stroke. Then she padded quietly back to the bedroom. He lay awake until dawn, knowing that it would never be all right, neither the creating nor the killing, until he—and the whole world—completely lost sanity. And then everything would be all right, only it still wouldn't make sense. Anne was asleep when he left the house. The night mist had gathered into clouds that made a gloomy morning of it. He drove on out in the kennel-truck, meaning to get the rest of the Bermuda-K-99s so that he could begin his testing. Still he felt the night's guilt, like a sticky dew that refused to depart with morning. Why should he have to kill the things? The answer was obvious. Society manufactured them because killing them was permissible. Human babies could not be disposed of when the market became glutted. The neutroids offered solace to childless women, kept them satisfied with a restricted birth rate. And why a restricted birth rate? Because by keeping the population at five billions, the Federation could insure a decent living standard for everybody. Where there was giving, Norris thought glumly, there was also taking away. Man had always deluded himself by thinking that he "created," but he created nothing. He thought that he had created—with his medical science and his end to wars—a longer life for the individual. But he found that he had only taken the lives of the unborn and added them to the years of the aged. Man now had a life expectancy of eighty, except that he had damn little chance of being born to enjoy it. A neutroid filled the cradle in his stead. A neutroid that never ate as much, or grew up to be unemployed. A neutroid could be killed if things got tough, but could still satisfy a woman's craving to mother something small. Norris gave up thinking about it. Eventually he would have to adjust to it. He was already adjusted to a world that loved the artificial mutants as children. He had been brought up in it. Emotion came in conflict with the grim necessities of his job. Somehow he would have to love them in the parlor and kill them in the kennel. It was only a matter of adjustment. At noon, he brought back another dozen K-99s and installed them in his cages. There had been two highly reluctant mothers, but he skipped them and left the seizure to the local authorities. Yates had already brought in the three from yesterday. "No more scratches?" Anne asked him while they ate lunch. They did not speak of the night's mass-disposal. Norris smiled mechanically. "I learned my lesson yesterday. If they bare their fangs, I get out without another word. Funny thing though—I've got a feeling one mother pulled a fast one." "What happened?" "Well, I told her what I wanted and why. She didn't like it, but she let me in. I started out with her newt, but she wanted a receipt. So I gave her one; took the serial number off my checklist. She looked at it and said, 'Why, that's not Chichi's number!' I looked at the newt's foot, and sure enough it wasn't. I had to leave it. It was a K-99, but not even from Bermuda." "I thought they were all registered," Anne said. "They are. I told her she had the wrong neutroid, but she got mad. Went and got the sales receipt. It checked with her newt, and it was from O'Reilley's pet shop—right place, wrong number. I just don't get it." "Nothing to worry about, is it Terry?" He looked at her peculiarly. "Ever think what might happen if someone started a black market in neutroids?" They finished the meal in silence. After lunch he went out again to gather up the rest of the group. By four o'clock, he had gotten all that were to be had without the threat of a warrant. The screams and pleas and tears of the owners left him gloomily despising himself. If Delmont's falsification had been widespread, he might have to turn several of the thirty-five over to central lab for dissection and ultimate destruction. That would bring the murderous wrath of their owners down upon him. He began to understand why bio-inspectors were frequently shifted from one territory to another. On the way home, he stopped in Sherman II to check on the missing number. It was the largest of the Sherman communities, covering fifty blocks of commercial buildings. He parked in the outskirts and took a sidewalk escalator toward O'Reilley's address. It was on a dingy sidestreet, reminiscent of past centuries, a street of small bars and bowling alleys and cigar stores. There was even a shop with three gold balls above the entrance, but the place was now an antique store. A light mist was falling when he stepped off the escalator and stood in front of the pet shop. A sign hung out over the sidewalk, announcing: J. "DOGGY" O'REILLEY PETS FOR SALE DUMB BLONDES AND GOLDFISH MUTANTS FOR THE CHILDLESS BUY A BUNDLE OF JOY Norris frowned at the sign and wandered inside. The place was warm and gloomy. He wrinkled his nose at the strong musk of animal odors. O'Reilley's was not a shining example of cleanliness. Somewhere a puppy was yapping, and a parrot croaked the lyrics of A Chimp to Call My Own , which Norris recognized as the theme song of a popular soap-opera about a lady evolvotron operator. He paused briefly by a tank of silk-draped goldfish. The shop had a customer. An elderly lady was haggling with a wizened manager over the price of a half grown second-hand dog-F. She was shaking her last dog's death certificate under his nose and demanding a guarantee of the dog's alleged F-5 intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible, but he demurred when it came to swearing on a ledger. The dog was saying, "Don' sell me, Dada. Don' sell me." Norris smiled sardonically to himself. The non-human pets were smarter than the neutroids. A K-108 could speak a dozen words, and a K-99 never got farther than "mamma," "pappa," and "cookie." Anthropos was afraid to make the quasi-humans too intelligent, lest sentimentalists proclaim them really human. He wandered on toward the back of the building, pausing briefly by the cash register to inspect O'Reilley's license, which hung in a dusty frame on the wall behind the counter. "James Fallon O'Reilley ... authorized dealer in mutant animals ... all non-predatory mammals including chimpanzee-K series ... license expires June 1, 2235." It seemed in order, although the expiration date was approaching. He started toward a bank of neutroid cages along the opposite wall, but O'Reilley was mincing across the floor to meet him. The customer had gone. The little manager wore an elfin professional smile, and his bald head bobbled in a welcoming nod. "Good day, sir, good day! May I show you a dwarf kangaroo, or a—" He stopped and adjusted his spectacles. He blinked and peered as Norris flashed his badge. His smile waned. "I'm Agent Norris, Mr. O'Reilley. Called you yesterday for that rundown on K-99 sales." O'Reilley looked suddenly nervous. "Oh, yes. Find 'em all?" Norris shook his head. "No. That's why I stopped by. There's some mistake on—" he glanced at his list—"on K-99-LJZ-351. Let's check it again." O'Reilley seemed to cringe. "No mistake. I gave you the buyer's name." "She has a different number." "Can I help it if she traded with somebody?" "She didn't. She bought it here. I saw the receipt." "Then she traded with one of my other customers!" snapped the old man. "Two of your customers have the same name—Adelia Schultz? Not likely. Let's see your duplicate receipt book." O'Reilley's wrinkled face set itself into a stubborn mask. "Doubt if it's still around." Norris frowned. "Look, pop, I've had a rough day. I could start naming some things around here that need fixing—sanitary violations and such. Not to mention that sign—'dumb blondes.' They outlawed that one when they executed that shyster doctor for shooting K-108s full of growth hormones, trying to raise himself a harem to sell. Besides, you're required to keep sales records until they've been micro-filmed. There hasn't been a microfilming since July." The wrinkled face twitched with frustrated anger. O'Reilley shuffled to the counter while Norris followed. He got a fat binder from under the register and started toward a wooden stairway. "Where you going?" Norris called. "Get my old glasses," the manager grumbled. "Can't see through these new things." "Leave the book here and I'll check it," Norris offered. But O'Reilley was already limping quickly up the stairs. He seemed not to hear. He shut the door behind him, and Norris heard the lock click. The bio-agent waited. Again the thought of a black market troubled him. Unauthorized neutroids could mean lots of trouble.
Confidence Game by Harmon, Jim	"Confidence Game", Jim Harmon, 1972. Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! Doc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him. "Tonight," Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled and important as parchment, "tonight Man will reach the Moon. The golden Moon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night when this is to happen." "Sure," the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc's arthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. "No argument. Sure, up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in the teeth!" I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose, one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned that during all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled, but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winos in Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have been wanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame, layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side. One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of the greasy collar of the human. "I hope you'll forgive him, sir," I said, not meeting the man's eyes. "He's my father and very old, as you can see." I laughed inside at the absurd, easy lie. "Old events seem recent to him." The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight. "'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. But Great-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl. Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help?" I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse three doors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happen if we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, for all I knew. Martians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. They were just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated tourists and especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hated Martians. They were aliens . They weren't men like Doc and me. Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful and true. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was having his. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I first found him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt we kept getting closer each of the times. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-specked flophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one of those little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. "Fifteen cents a bed," he said mechanically. "We'll use one bed," I told him. "I'll give you twenty cents." I felt the round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. "Fifteen cents a bed," he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. "We can always make it over to the mission," I lied. The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. "Awright, since we ain't full up. In ad vance." I placed the quarter on the desk. "Give me a nickel." The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknown before I could move, what with holding up Doc. "You've got your nerve," he said at me with a fine mist of dew. "Had a quarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents." He saw the look on my face. "I'll give you a room for the two bits. That's better'n a bed for twenty." I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. I reached across the desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against the register hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed. "Give me a nickel," I said. "What nickel?" His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me. "You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I say so. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle?" I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumble and that did scare me. I had to get him alone. "Where's the room?" I asked. The room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feet high. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a wino singing on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn't have any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone. I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his face to shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all the bedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burning eyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was so dirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggy scalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible's gas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never needed to shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that I didn't need to. The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered, uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at a jagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving it an unreal distortion. Doc began to mumble louder. I knew I had to move. I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, I moved. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and found my notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus both my mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so I concentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow their habit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They were suddenly distinguishable. " Outsider ... Thoth ... Dyzan ... Seven ... Hsan ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Two boxes ... Ralston ... Richard Wentworth ... Jimmy Christopher ... Kent Allard ... Ayem ... Oh, are ... see ...." His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence. The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both dropped from my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew that these words were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I needed to know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I got to thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old man around North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work I had once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to high screaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have a nickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasy dirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leave Doc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving that crawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across his face. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and let him bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over his lumpy skull. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm back across his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places like that. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back, drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealing mouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearing a powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and the upper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized it wasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that. It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin. I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobody would help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if they think you are blotto. "Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work?" I kept my eyes down. I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. "Just a dime for a cup of coffee." I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe two and a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used, perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. "Do you want it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?" I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realized that anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hate tourists. "Just coffee, ma'am." She was younger than I was, so I didn't have to call her that. "A little more for food, if you could spare it." I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. "I'll buy you a dinner," she said carefully, "provided I can go with you and see for myself that you actually eat it." I felt my face flushing red. "You wouldn't want to be seen with a bum like me, ma'am." "I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat." It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choice whatever. "Okay," I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It was pale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both hands to feel its warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stool beside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, but there she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible tourist . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I could do. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow and was able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good. Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink of exhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but I knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affected my metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't the same, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a pure sensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have the price of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottles with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in them—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. "Now what do you want to eat?" the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an Earth human. I was a man , of course, not an alien like a Martian. Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as an Earthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? That proved it, didn't it? "Hamburger," I said. "Well done." I knew that would probably be all they had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, but then I didn't have the local prejudices. I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering how clean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was so dirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed every hour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernails and raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba, almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank a glass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waiting for me. "Could I have a few to take with me, miss?" I pleaded. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly I just felt it. "That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am'," she said. "I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know." That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. "No, miss," I said. "It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey," she corrected. She was a schoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as Miss Last Name. Then there was something in her voice.... "What's your name?" she said to me. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had a name, of course . Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet and thought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell the girl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that was my name. "Kevin," I told her. "John Kevin." "Mister Kevin," she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity like waterhose mist on a summer afternoon, "I wonder if you could help me ." "Happy to, miss," I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar. "What do you think of this?" I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, "The Scarlet Book" revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber diner and Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman was trying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. "I had half a dozen hamburgers, a cup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go and a pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if the lady didn't pay you." "She didn't," he stammered. "Why do you think I was trying to get that bill out of your hand?" I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the counterman put down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacant bar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on the sidewalk, only in the doorways. First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neon light was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a window somewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing and the one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they had changed around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a thing . My heart hammered at my lungs. I knew this last time had been different. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first time Doc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was a start. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom. His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed "springs"—metal webbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen had dissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into a meaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, I became lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag of hamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring any hungry rats out of the walls. I knelt beside Doc. "An order, my boy, an order," he whispered. I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders? He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen, before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebook against the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. "Concentrate," Doc said hoarsely. "Concentrate...." I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind of concentration. The words "First Edition" were what I was thinking about most. The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, "The bullet struck me as I was pulling on my boot...." I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quite familiar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately. Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all these months—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpled dressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils and whitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything I hated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was a snowbird. "My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into these rooms," the thin man remarked, "but never before have they used instantaneous materialization." The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. "I say—I say, I would like to see you explain this, my dear fellow." "I have no data," the thin man answered coolly. "In such instance, one begins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must ask this unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a serious illness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the place and time from which he comes." The surprise stung. "How did you know?" I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. "To maintain a logical approach, I must reject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—and despite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiences recently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses or retire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I might say super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time, clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been reading an article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand it into one of his novels of scientific romance." I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. "But the other—" "Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Your cranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject my theories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you have suffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth. Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. You are at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why else then would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitary state?" He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because I couldn't trust to my own senses as he did. "You don't exist," I said slowly, painfully. "You are fictional creations." The doctor flushed darkly. "You give my literary agent too much credit for the addition of professional polish to my works." The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something that looked vaguely like an ice-skate. "Interesting. Perhaps if our visitor would tell us something of his age with special reference to the theory and practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be better equipped to judge whether we exist." There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I had ever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perception to Relativity and the positron and negatron. "Interesting." He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke. "Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensory Perception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be. The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that we know them. The great literary creations assume reality." I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would be the goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosed redhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed the detective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight of unknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. "Withdrawal symptoms." The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly building up behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. He was not really a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. "Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering my professional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously." Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two great and good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened. My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust mote in sunlight and stepped toward it.... ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. She inclined the lethal silver toy. "Let me see those papers, Kevin." I handed her the doctor's manuscript. Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. "It's all right. It's all right. It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've read this myself." Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror. "Don't move, Kevin," she said. "I'll have to shoot you—maybe not to kill, but painfully." I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But I had known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but there was something else. "I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair," I told her. She shook her head. "I don't know what you think it does to you." It was getting hard for me to think. "Who are you?" She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable, North American Mounted Police. I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. "What do you want?" "Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc found a method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical, topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept it secret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he had his crusades. How can you make money with time travel?" I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knew was that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. "It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money," Miss Casey said, "even if you know what horse will come in and what stock will prosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part of Doc's character. He was a scholar." Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scared me. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. I needed some coffee. "He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazines for his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—until he started obtaining books that did not exist ." I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair, snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down the soothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dress that looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber. The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad, unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthy hands touch her scrubbed pink ones. I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the thing on the floor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked for a fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway. "Call me Andre," the Martian said. "A common name but foreign. It should serve as a point of reference." I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. Sometimes I wondered if they really could. "You won't need the gun," Andre said conversationally. "I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want?" "I'll begin as Miss Casey did—by telling you things. Hundreds of people disappeared from North America a few months ago." "They always do," I told him. "They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received a book from Doc," the Martian said. Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, but managed to hold onto the gun and stand up. "Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again," I warned him, "and I'll kill the girl." Martians were supposed to be against the destruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, but it was worth a try. "Kevin," Andre said, "why don't you take a bath?" The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. I tried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean no matter how often I bathed. No words formed. "But, Kevin," Andre said, "you aren't that dirty." The blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the thing on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction and miss it. I knew something. "I don't wash because I drink coffee." "It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it?" he asked. "Of course," I said, and added absurdly, "That's why I don't wash." "You mean," Andre said slowly, ploddingly, "that if you bathed, you would be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as any other solitary vice that makes people wash frequently." I was knocked to my knees. "Kevin," the Martian said, "drinking coffee represents a major vice only in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which are you? " Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth. " What is Doc's full name? " I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said, "Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior." From the bed, Doc said a word. "Son." Then he disappeared. I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, in search of what. "He didn't use that," Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all in my mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind. I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all I had now. That and the thing he left. "The rest is simple," Andre said. "Doc O'Malley bought up all the stock in a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying members with certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the Book of Dyzan or the Book of Thoth or the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan or the Necronomican itself on human beings?" "But they don't exist," I said wearily. "Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than your Victorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reached back into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper than psychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powers of ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books, the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic, without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achieved such a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex, even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing on the inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached a state of pure thought." "The North American government has to have this secret, Kevin," the girl said. "You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians." Andre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands. I knew I could not let Doc's—Dad's—time travel thing fall into anyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books had disappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but I don't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it. I kicked the thing to pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe you can't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniums before Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and time travel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew we weren't now. Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn't mind her touching me. "I'm glad," she said. Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief? I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn't want the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose, direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I could kick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't really confident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without material needs would not grow and roast coffee.
Conspiracy on Callisto by Pohl, Frederik	"Conspiracy on Callisto", Frederik Pohl, 1966. Conspiracy on Callisto By JAMES MacCREIGH Revolt was flaring on Callisto, and Peter Duane held the secret that would make the uprising a success or failure. Yet he could make no move, could favor no side—his memory was gone—he didn't know for whom he fought. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Duane's hand flicked to his waist and hung there, poised. His dis-gun remained undrawn. The tall, white-haired man—Stevens—smiled. "You're right, Duane," he said. "I could blast you, too. Nobody would win that way, so let's leave the guns where they are." The muscles twitched in Peter Duane's cheeks, but his voice, when it came, was controlled. "Don't think we're going to let this go," he said. "We'll take it up with Andrias tonight. We'll see whether you can cut me out!" The white-haired man's smile faded. He stepped forward, one hand bracing him against the thrust of the rocket engines underneath, holding to the guide rail at the side of the ship's corridor. He said, "Duane, Andrias is your boss, not mine. I'm a free lance; I work for myself. When we land on Callisto tonight I'll be with you when you turn our—shall I say, our cargo ?—over to him. And I'll collect my fair share of the proceeds. That's as far as it goes. I take no orders from him." A heavy-set man in blue appeared at the end of the connecting corridor. He was moving fast, but stopped short when he saw the two men. "Hey!" he said. "Change of course—get to your cabins." He seemed about to walk up to them, then reconsidered and hurried off. Neither man paid any attention. Duane said, "Do I have to kill you?" It was only a question as he asked it, without threatening. A muted alarm bell sounded through the P.A. speakers, signaling a one-minute warning. The white-haired man cocked his eyebrow. "Not at all," he said. He took the measure of his slim, red-headed opponent. Taller, heavier, older, he was still no more uncompromisingly belligerent than Duane, standing there. "Not at all," he repeated. "Just take your ten thousand and let it go at that. Don't make trouble. Leave Andrias out of our private argument." "Damn you!" Duane flared. "I was promised fifty thousand. I need that money. Do you think—" "Forget what I think," Stevens said, his voice clipped and angry. "I don't care about fairness, Duane, except to myself. I've done all the work on this—I've supplied the goods. My price is set, a hundred thousand Earth dollars. What Andrias promised you is no concern of mine. The fact is that, after I've taken my share, there's only ten thousand left. That's all you get!" Duane stared at him a long second, then nodded abruptly. "I was right the first time," he said. "I'll have to kill you!" Already his hand was streaking toward the grip of his dis-gun, touching it, drawing it forth. But the white-haired man was faster. His arms swept up and pinioned Duane, holding him impotent. "Don't be a fool," he grated. "Duane—" The P.A. speaker rattled, blared something unintelligible. Neither man heard it. Duane lunged forward into the taller man's grip, sliding down to the floor. The white-haired man grappled furiously to keep his hold on Peter's gun arm, but Peter was slipping away. Belatedly, Stevens went for his own gun. He was too late. Duane's was out and leveled at him. " Now will you listen to reason?" Duane panted. But he halted, and the muzzle of his weapon wavered. The floor swooped and surged beneath him as the thrust of the mighty jets was cut off. Suddenly there was no gravity. The two men, locked together, floated weightlessly out to the center of the corridor. "Course change!" gasped white-haired Stevens. "Good God!" The ship had reached the midpoint of its flight. The bells had sounded, warning every soul on it to take shelter, to strap themselves in their pressure bunks against the deadly stress of acceleration as the ship reversed itself and began to slow its headlong plunge into Callisto. But the two men had not heeded. The small steering rockets flashed briefly. The men were thrust bruisingly against the side of the corridor as the rocket spun lazily on its axis. The side jets flared once more to halt the spin, when the one-eighty turn was completed, and the men were battered against the opposite wall, still weightless, still clinging to each other, still struggling. Then the main-drive bellowed into life again, and the ship began to battle against its own built-up acceleration. The corridor floor rose up with blinking speed to smite them— And the lights went out in a burst of crashing pain for Peter Duane. Someone was talking to him. Duane tried to force an eye open to see who it was, and failed. Something damp and clinging was all about his face, obscuring his vision. But the voice filtered in. "Open your mouth," it said. "Please, Peter, open your mouth. You're all right. Just swallow this." It was a girl's voice. Duane was suddenly conscious that a girl's light hand was on his shoulder. He shook his head feebly. The voice became more insistent. "Swallow this," it said. "It's only a stimulant, to help you throw off the shock of your—accident. You're all right, otherwise." Obediently he opened his mouth, and choked on a warm, tingly liquid. He managed to swallow it, and lay quiet as deft feminine hands did something to his face. Suddenly light filtered through his closed eyelids, and cool air stirred against his damp face. He opened his eyes. A slight red-headed girl in white nurse's uniform was standing there. She stepped back a pace, a web of wet gauze bandage in her hands, looking at him. "Hello," he whispered. "You—where am I?" "In the sick bay," she said. "You got caught out when the ship changed course. Lucky you weren't hurt, Peter. The man you were with—the old, white-haired one, Stevens—wasn't so lucky. He was underneath when the jets went on. Three ribs broken—his lung was punctured. He died in the other room an hour ago." Duane screwed his eyes tight together and grimaced. When he opened them again there was alertness and clarity in them—but there was also bafflement. "Girl," he said, "who are you? Where am I?" "Peter!" There was shock and hurt in the tone of her voice. "I'm—don't you know me, Peter?" Duane shook his head confusedly. "I don't know anything," he said. "I—I don't even know my own name." "Duane, Duane," a man's heavy voice said. "That won't wash. Don't play dumb on me." "Duane?" he said. "Duane...." He swiveled his head and saw a dark, squat man frowning at him. "Who are you?" Peter asked. The dark man laughed. "Take your time, Duane," he said easily. "You'll remember me. My name's Andrias. I've been waiting here for you to wake up. We have some business matters to discuss." The nurse, still eyeing Duane with an odd bewilderment, said: "I'll leave you alone for a moment. Don't talk too much to him, Mr. Andrias. He's still suffering from shock." "I won't," Andrias promised, grinning. Then, as the girl left the room, the smile dropped from his face. "You play rough, Duane," he observed. "I thought you'd have trouble with Stevens. I didn't think you'd find it necessary to put him out of the way so permanently. Well, no matter. If you had to kill him, it's no skin off my nose. Give me a release on the merchandise. I've got your money here." Duane waved a hand and pushed himself dizzily erect, swinging his legs over the side of the high cot. A sheet had been thrown over him, but he was fully dressed. He examined his clothing with interest—gray tunic, gray leather spaceman's boots. It was unfamiliar. He shook his head in further confusion, and the motion burst within his skull, throbbing hotly. He closed his eyes until it subsided, trying to force his brain to operate, to explain to him where and what he was. He looked at the man named Andrias. "Nobody seems to believe me," he said, "but I really don't know what's going on. Things are moving too fast for me. Really, I—why, I don't even know my own name! My head—it hurts. I can't think clearly." Andrias straightened, turned a darkly-suspicious look on Duane. "Don't play tricks on me," he said savagely. "I haven't time for them. I won't mince words with you. Give me a release on the cargo now, before I have to get rough. This is a lot more important to me than your life is." "Go to hell," Duane said shortly. "I'm playing no tricks." There was an instant's doubt in Andrias' eyes, then it flashed away. He bent closer, peered at Duane. "I almost think—" he began. Then he shook his head. "No," he said. "You're lying all right. You killed Stevens to get his share—and now you're trying to hold me up. That's your last chance that just went by, Duane. From now on, I'm running this show!" He spun around and strode to the door, thrust it open. "Dakin!" he bellowed. "Reed!" Two large, ugly men in field-gray uniforms, emblazoned with the shooting-star insignia of Callisto's League police, came in, looking to Andrias for instructions. "Duane here is resisting arrest," Andrias said. "Take him along. We'll fix up the charges later." "You can't do that," Duane said wearily. "I'm sick. If you've got something against me, save it. Wait till my head clears. I'm sure I can explain—" "Explain, hell." The dark man laughed. "If I wait, this ship will be blasting off for Ganymede within two hours. I'll wait—but so will the ship. It's not going anywhere till I give it clearance. I run Callisto; I'll give the orders here!" II Whoever this man Andrias was, thought Duane, he was certainly a man of importance on Callisto. As he had said, he gave the orders. The crew of the rocket made no objection when Andrias and his men took Duane off without a word. Duane had thought the nurse, who seemed a good enough sort, might have said something on his behalf. But she was out of sight as they left. A curt sentence to a gray-clad official on the blast field where the rocket lay, and the man nodded and hurried off, to tell the rocket's captain that the ship was being refused clearance indefinitely. A long, powerful ground car slid up before them. Andrias got in front, while the two uniformed men shoved Duane into the back of the car, climbed in beside him. Andrias gave a curt order, and the car shot forward. The driver, sitting beside Andrias, leaned forward and readied a hand under the dashboard. The high wail of a siren came instantly from the car's roof, and what traffic was on the broad, straight highway into which they had turned pulled aside to let them race through. Ahead lay the tall spires of a city. Graceful, hundreds of feet high, they seemed dreamlike yet somehow oddly familiar to Duane. Somewhere he had seen them before. He dragged deep into his mind, plumbing the cloudy, impenetrable haze that had settled on it, trying to bring forth the memories that he should have had. Amnesia, they called it; complete forgetting of the happenings of a lifetime. He'd heard of it—but never dreamed it could happen to him! My name, it seems, is Peter Duane , he thought. And they tell me that I killed a man! The thought was starkly incredible to him. A white-haired man, it had been; someone named Stevens. He tried to remember. Yes, there had been a white-haired man. And there had been an argument. Something to do with money, with a shipment of goods that Stevens had supplied to Duane. There has even been talk of killing.... But—murder! Duane looked at his hands helplessly. Andrias, up ahead, was turning around. He looked sharply at Duane, for a long second. An uncertainty clouded his eyes, and abruptly he looked forward again without speaking. "Who's this man Andrias?" Duane whispered to the nearest guard. The man stared at him. "Governor Andrias," he said, "is the League's deputy on Callisto. You know—the Earth-Mars League. They put Governor Andrias here to—well, to govern for them." "League?" Duane asked, wrinkling his brow. He had heard something about a League once, yes. But it was all so nebulous.... The other guard stirred, leaned over. "Shut up," he said heavily. "You'll have plenty of chance for talking later." But the chance was a long time in coming. Duane found himself, an hour later, still in the barred room into which he'd been thrust. The guards had brought him there, at Andrias' order, and left him. That had been all. This was not a regular jail, Duane realized. It was more like a palace, something out of Earth's Roman-empire days, all white stone and frescoed walls. Duane wished for human companionship—particularly that of the nurse. Of all the people he'd met since awakening in that hospital bed, only she seemed warm and human. The others were—brutal, deadly. It was too bad, Duane reflected, that he'd failed to remember her. She'd seemed hurt, and she had certainly known him by first name. But perhaps she would understand. Duane sat down on a lumpy, sagging bed and buried his head in his hands. Dim ghosts of memory were wandering in his mind. He tried to conjure them into stronger relief, or to exorcise them entirely. Somewhere, some time, a man had said to him, " Andrias is secretly arming the Callistan cutthroats for revolt against the League. He wants personal power—he's prepared to pay any price for it. He needs guns, Earth guns smuggled in through the League patrol. If he can wipe out the League police garrison—those who are loyal to the League, still, instead of to Andrias—he can sit back and laugh at any fleet Earth and Mars can send. Rockets are clumsy in an atmosphere. They're helpless. And if he can arm enough of Callisto's rabble, he can't be stopped. That's why he'll pay for electron rifles with their weight in gold. " Duane could remember the scene clearly. Could almost see the sharp, aquiline face of the man who had spoken to him. But there memory stopped. A fugitive recollection raced through his mind. He halted it, dragged it back, pinned it down.... They had stopped in Darkside, the spaceport on the side of Luna that keeps perpetually averted from Earth, as if the moon knows shame and wants to hide the rough and roaring dome city that nestles in one of the great craters. Duane remembered sitting in a low-ceilinged, smoke-heavy room, across the table from a tall man with white hair. Stevens! " Four thousand electron rifles ," the man had said. " Latest government issue. Never mind how I got them; they're perfect. You know my price. Take it or leave it. And it's payable the minute we touch ground on Callisto. " There had been a few minutes of haggling over terms, then a handshake and a drink from a thin-necked flagon of pale-yellow liquid fire. He and the white-haired man had gone out then, made their way by unfrequented side streets to a great windowless building. Duane remembered the white-hot stars overhead, shining piercingly through the great transparent dome that kept the air in the sealed city of Darkside, as they stood at the entrance of the warehouse and spoke in low tones to the man who answered their summons. Then, inside. And they were looking at a huge chamber full of stacked fiber boxes—containing nothing but dehydrated dairy products and mining tools, by the stencils they bore. Duane had turned to the white-haired man with a puzzled question—and the man had laughed aloud. He dragged one of the boxes down, ripped it open with the sharp point of a handling hook. Short-barreled, flare-mouthed guns rolled out, tumbling over the floor. Eight of them were in that one box, and hundreds of boxes all about. Duane picked one up, broke it, peered into the chamber where the tiny capsule of U-235 would explode with infinite violence when the trigger was pulled, spraying radiant death three thousand yards in the direction the gun was aimed.... And that memory ended. Duane got up, stared at his haggard face in the cracked mirror over the bed. " They say I'm a killer ," he thought. " Apparently I'm a gun-runner as well. Good lord—what am I not? " His reflection—white, drawn face made all the more pallid by the red hair that blazed over it—stared back at him. There was no answer there. If only he could remember— "All right, Duane." The deep voice of a guard came to him as the door swung open. "Stop making eyes at yourself." Duane looked around. The guard beckoned. "Governor Andrias wants to speak to you—now. Let's not keep the governor waiting." A long, narrow room, with a long carpet leading from the entrance up to a great heavy desk—that was Andrias' office. Duane felt a click in his memory as he entered. One of the ancient Earth dictators had employed just such a psychological trick to overawe those who came to beg favors of him. Muslini, or some such name. The trick failed to work. Duane had other things on his mind; he walked the thirty-foot length of the room, designed to imbue him with a sense of his own unimportance, as steadily as he'd ever walked in the open air of his home planet. Whichever planet that was. The guard had remained just inside the door, at attention. Andrias waved him out. "Here I am," said Duane. "What do you want?" Andrias said, "I've had the ship inspected and what I want is on it. That saves your life, for now. But the cargo is in your name. I could take it by force, if I had to. I prefer not to." He picked up a paper, handed it to Duane. "In spite of your behavior, you can keep alive. You can even collect the money for the guns—Stevens' share as well as your own. This is a release form, authorizing my men to take four hundred and twenty cases of dehydrated foods and drilling supplies from the hold of the Cameroon —the ship you came on. Sign it, and we'll forget our argument. Only, sign it now and get it over with. I'm losing patience, Duane." Duane said, without expression, "No." Dark red flooded into Andrias' sallow face. His jaws bunched angrily and there was a ragged thread of incomplete control to his voice as he spoke. "I'll have your neck for this, Duane," he said softly. Duane looked at the man's eyes. Death was behind them, peeping out. Mentally he shrugged. What difference did it make? "Give me the pen," he said shortly. Andrias exhaled a deep breath. You could see the tension leave him, the mottled anger fade from his face and leave it without expression. He handed the paper to Duane without a word. He gave him a pen, watched him scrawl his name. "That," he said, "is better." He paused a moment ruminatively. "It would have been better still if you'd not stalled me so long. I find that hard to forgive in my associates." "The money," Peter said. If he were playing a part—pretending he knew what he was doing—he might as well play it to the hilt. "When do I get it?" Andrias picked up the paper and looked carefully at the signature. He creased it thoughtfully, stowed it in a pocket before answering. "Naturally," he said, "there will have to be a revision of terms. I offered a hundred and ten thousand Earth-dollars. I would have paid it—but you made me angry. You'll have to pay for that." Duane said, "I've paid already. I've been dragged from pillar to post by you. That's enough. Pay me what you owe me, if you want any more of the same goods!" That was a shot in the dark—and it missed the mark. Andrias' eyes widened. "You amaze me, Duane," he said. He rose and stepped around the desk, confronting Duane. "I almost think you really have lost your memory, Duane," he said. "Otherwise, surely you would know that this is all the rifles I need. With them I'll take whatever else I want!" Duane said, "You're ready, then...." He took time to think it over, but he knew that no thought was required. Already the hands that he had locked behind him were clenched, taut. Already the muscles of his legs were tensing. "You're ready," he repeated. "You've armed the Callistan exiles—the worst gutter scum on nine planets. You're set to betray the League that gave you power here.... Well, that changes things. I can't let you do it!" He hurled himself at Andrias, hands sweeping around to grapple for the dark man's throat. Andrias, off-balance, staggered backward. But his own hands were diving for the twin heat guns that hung at his waist. Duane saw his danger, and reacted. His foot twisted around Andrias' ankle; his hands at the other's throat gripped tighter. He lunged forward, slamming the hard top of his head into the other's face, feeling flesh and cartilage give as Andrias' nose mashed flat. His own head pin-wheeled dizzily, agonizingly, as the jar revived the pain of his earlier accident. But Andrias, unconscious already, tumbled back with Duane on top of him. His head made an audible, spine-chilling thud as it hit the carpeted floor. Duane got up, retrieving the two heat guns, and stared at him. " They tell me I killed Stevens the same way ," he thought. " I'm getting in a rut! " But Andrias was not dead, though he was out as cold as the void beyond Pluto. The thick carpeting had saved him from a broken head. Duane stepped over the unconscious man and looked around the room. It was furnished severely, to the point of barrenness. Two chairs before Andrias' ornate, bare-topped desk and one luxurious chair behind it; a tasseled bell cord within easy reach of Andrias' chair; the long carpet. That was all it contained. The problem of getting out was serious, he saw. How could one— III Methodically he ransacked the drawers of Andrias' desk. Papers, a whole arsenal of hand guns, Callistan money by the bale, ominously black-covered notebooks with cryptic figures littering their pages—those were the contents. A coldly impersonal desk, without the familiar trivia most men accumulate. There was nothing, certainly, that would get him out of a building that so closely resembled a fortress. He tumbled the things back into the drawers helter-skelter, turned Andrias over and searched his pockets. More money—the man must have had a fortune within reach at all times—and a few meaningless papers. Duane took the release he had signed and tore it to shreds. But that was only a gesture. When Andrias came to, unless Duane had managed to get away and accomplish something, the mere lack of written permission would not keep him from the rocket's lethal cargo! When Andrias came to.... An idea bloomed in Duane's brain. He looked, then, at unconscious Andrias—and the idea withered again. He had thought of forcing Andrias himself to front for him, at gun's point, in the conventional manner of escaping prisoners. But fist fights, fiction to the contrary notwithstanding, leave marks on the men who lose them. Andrias' throat was speckled with the livid marks of Duane's fingers; Duane's head, butting Andrias in the face, had drawn a thick stream of crimson from his nostrils, turned his sharp nose askew. No guard of Andrias' would have been deceived for an instant, looking at that face—even assuming that Andrias could have been forced to cooperate by the threat of a gun. Which, considering the stake Andrias had in this play, was doubtful.... He stood up and looked around. He had to act quickly. Already Andrias' breath was audible; he saw the man grimace and an arm flopped spasmodically on the floor. Consciousness was on its way back. Duane touched the heat gun he'd thrust into his belt; drew it and held it poised, while he sought to discover what was in his own mind. He'd killed a man already, they said. Was he then a killer—could he shoot Andrias now, in cold blood, with so much to gain and nothing to lose? He stood there a moment. Then, abruptly, he reversed the weapon and chopped it down on Andrias' skull. There was a sharp grunt from the still unconscious man, but no other sign. Only—the first tremors of movement that had shown on him halted, and did not reappear. " No ," Duane thought. " Whatever they say, I'm not a killer! " But still he had to get out. How? Once more he stared around the room, catalogued its contents. The guard would be getting impatient. Perhaps any minute he would tap the door, first timorously, then with heavier strokes. The guard! There was a way! Duane eyed the length of the room. Thirty feet—it would take him a couple of seconds to run it at full speed. Was that fast enough? There was only one way to find out. He walked around the desk to the bell cord. He took a deep breath, tugged it savagely, and at once was in speedy motion, racing toward the door, his footsteps muffled in the deep, springy carpet. Almost as he reached it, he saw it begin to open. He quickly sidestepped and was out of the guard's sight, behind the door, as the man looked in. Quick suspicion flared in his eyes, then certainty as he saw Andrias huddled on the floor. He opened his mouth to cry out— But Duane's arm was around his throat, and he had no breath to spare. Duane's foot lashed out and the door slammed shut; Duane's balled left fist came up and connected with the guard's chin. Abruptly the man slumped. Duane took a deep breath and let the man drop to the floor. But he paused only a second; now he had two unconscious men on his hands and he dared let neither revive until he was prepared. He grasped the guard's arm and dragged him roughly the length of the room. He leaped on top of the desk, brutally scarring its gleaming top with the hard spikes of his boots. His agile fingers unfastened the long bell cord without causing it to ring and, bearing it, he dropped again to the floor. Tugging and straining, he got the limp form of Andrias into his own chair, bound him with the bell cord, gagged him with the priceless Venus-wool scarf Andrias wore knotted about his throat. He tested his bindings with full strength, and smiled. Those would hold, let Andrias struggle as he would. The guard he stripped of clothing, bound and gagged with his own belt and spaceman's kerchief. He dragged him around behind the desk, thrust him under it out of sight. Andrias' chair he turned so that the unconscious face was averted from the door. Should anyone look in, then, the fact of Andrias' unconsciousness might not be noticed. Then he took off his own clothes, quickly assumed the field-gray uniform of the guard. It fit like the skin of a fruit. He felt himself bulging out of it in a dozen places. The long cape the guard wore would conceal that, perhaps. In any case, there was nothing better. Trying to make his stride as martial as possible, he walked down the long carpet to the door, opened it and stepped outside.
Cosmic Yo-Yo by Rocklynne, Ross	"Cosmic Yo-Yo", Ross Rocklynne, 1950. COSMIC YO-YO By ROSS ROCKLYNNE "Want an asteroid in your backyard? We supply cheap. Trouble also handled without charge." Interplanetary Hauling Company. (ADVT.) [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Bob Parker, looking through the photo-amplifiers at the wedge-shaped asteroid, was plainly flabbergasted. Not in his wildest imaginings had he thought they would actually find what they were looking for. "Cut the drive!" he yelled at Queazy. "I've got it, right on the nose. Queazy, my boy, can you imagine it? We're in the dough. Not only that, we're rich! Come here!" Queazy discharged their tremendous inertia into the motive-tubes in such a manner that the big, powerful ship was moving at the same rate as the asteroid below—47.05 miles per second. He came slogging back excitedly, put his eyes to the eyepiece. He gasped, and his big body shook with joyful ejaculations. "She checks down to the last dimension," Bob chortled, working with slide-rule and logarithm tables. "Now all we have to do is find out if she's made of tungsten, iron, quartz crystals, and cinnabar! But there couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so this has to be it!" He jerked a badly crumpled ethergram from his pocket, smoothed it out, and thumbed his nose at the signature. "Whee! Mr. Andrew S. Burnside, you owe us five hundred and fifty thousand dollars!" Queazy straightened. A slow, likeable smile wreathed his tanned face. "Better take it easy," he advised, "until I land the ship and we use the atomic whirl spectroscope to determine the composition of the asteroid." "Have it your way," Bob Parker sang, happily. He threw the ethergram to the winds and it fell gently to the deck-plates. While Queazy—so called because his full name was Quentin Zuyler—dropped the ship straight down to the smooth surface of the asteroid, and clamped it tight with magnetic grapples, Bob flung open the lazarette, brought out two space-suits. Moments later, they were outside the ship, with star-powdered infinity spread to all sides. In the ship, the ethergram from Andrew S. Burnside, of Philadelphia, one of the richest men in the world, still lay on the deck-plates. It was addressed to: Mr. Robert Parker, President Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co., 777 Main Street, Satterfield City, Fontanaland, Mars. The ethergram read: Received your advertising literature a week ago. Would like to state that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet following specifications: 506 feet length, long enough for wedding procession; 98 feet at base, tapering to 10 feet at apex; 9-12 feet thick; topside smooth-plane, underside rough-plane; composed of iron ore, tungsten, quartz crystals, and cinnabar. Must be in my back yard before 11:30 A.M. my time, for important wedding June 2, else order is void. Will pay $5.00 per ton. Bob Parker had received that ethergram three weeks ago. And if The Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co., hadn't been about to go on the rocks (chiefly due to the activities of Saylor & Saylor, a rival firm) neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering ethergram to Burnside stating that they would fill the order. It was, plainly, a hair-brained request. And yet, if by some chance there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only three weeks. The "asteroid in your back yard" idea had been Bob Parker's originally. Now it was a fad that was sweeping Earth, and Burnside wasn't the first rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid. Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on that brainstorm, chiefly the firm of the Saylor brothers—which persons Bob Parker intended to punch in the nose some day. And would have before this if he hadn't been lanky and tall while they were giants. Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to get it to its destination, for fear that the Saylor brothers might get wind of what was going on, and try to beat them out of their profits. Which was not so far-fetched, because the firm of Saylor & Saylor made no pretense of being scrupulous. Now they scuffed along the smooth-plane topside of the asteroid, the magnets in their shoes keeping them from stepping off into space. They came to the broad base of the asteroid-wedge, walked over the edge and "down" the twelve-foot thickness. Here they squatted, and Bob Parker happily clamped the atomic-whirl spectroscope to the rough surface. By the naked eye, they could see iron ore, quartz crystals, cinnabar, but he had the spectroscope and there was no reason why he shouldn't use it. He satisfied himself as to the exterior of the asteroid, and then sent the twin beams deep into its heart. The beams crossed, tore atoms from molecules, revolved them like an infinitely fine powder. The radiations from the sundered molecules traveled back up the beams to the atomic-whirl spectroscope. Bob watched a pointer which moved slowly up and up—past tungsten, past iridium, past gold— Bob Parker said, in astonishment, "Hell! There's something screwy about this business. Look at that point—" Neither he nor Queazy had the opportunity to observe the pointer any further. A cold, completely disagreeable feminine voice said, "May I ask what you interlopers are doing on my asteroid?" Bob started so badly that the spectroscope's settings were jarred and the lights in its interior died. Bob twisted his head around as far as he could inside the "aquarium"—the glass helmet, and found himself looking at a space-suited girl who was standing on the edge of the asteroid "below." "Ma'am," said Bob, blinking, "did you say something?" Queazy made a gulping sound and slowly straightened. He automatically reached up as if he would take off his hat and twist it in his hands. "I said," remarked the girl, "that you should scram off of my asteroid. And quit poking around at it with that spectroscope. I've already taken a reading. Cinnabar, iron ore, quartz crystals, tungsten. Goodbye." Bob's nose twitched as he adjusted his glasses, which he wore even inside his suit. He couldn't think of anything pertinent to say. He knew that he was slowly working up a blush. Mildly speaking, the girl was beautiful, and though only her carefully made-up face was visible—cool blue eyes, masterfully coiffed, upswept, glinting brown hair, wilful lips and chin—Bob suspected the rest of her compared nicely. Her expression darkened as she saw the completely instinctive way he was looking at her and her radioed-voice rapped out, "Now you two boys go and play somewhere else! Else I'll let the Interplanetary Commission know you've infringed the law. G'bye!" She turned and disappeared. Bob awoke from his trance, shouted desperately, "Hey! Wait! You! " He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they hadn't yet examined. It was a rough plane, completing the rigid qualifications Burnside had set down. "Wait a minute," Bob Parker begged nervously. "I want to make some conversation, lady. I'm sure you don't understand the conditions—" The girl turned and drew a gun from a holster. It was a spasticizer, and it was three times as big as her gloved hand. "I understand conditions better than you do," she said. "You want to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth. Unfortunately, this is my home, by common law. Come back in a month. I don't expect to be here then." "A month!" Parker burst the word out. He started to sweat, then his face became grim. He took two slow steps toward the girl. She blinked and lost her composure and unconsciously backed up two steps. About twenty steps away was her small dumbbell-shaped ship, so shiny and unscarred that it reflected starlight in highlights from its curved surface. A rich girl's ship, Bob Parker thought angrily. A month would be too late! He said grimly, "Don't worry. I don't intend to pull any rough stuff. I just want you to listen to reason. You've taken a whim to stay on an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. But to us—to me and Queazy here—it means our business. We got an order for this asteroid. Some screwball millionaire wants it for a backyard wedding see? We get five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it! If we don't take this asteroid to Earth before June 2, we go back to Satterfield City and work the rest of our lives in the glass factories. Don't we, Queazy?" Queazy said simply, "That's right, miss. We're in a spot. I assure you we didn't expect to find someone living here." The girl holstered her spasticizer, but her completely inhospitable expression did not change. She put her hands on the bulging hips of her space-suit. "Okay," she said. "Now I understand the conditions. Now we both understand each other. G'bye again. I'm staying here and—" she smiled sweetly "—it may interest you to know that if I let you have the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than death! So that's that." Bob recognized finality when he saw it. "Come on, Queazy," he said fuming. "Let this brat have her way. But if I ever run across her without a space-suit on I'm going to give her the licking of her life, right where it'll do the most good!" He turned angrily, but Queazy grabbed his arm, his mouth falling open. He pointed off into space, beyond the girl. "What's that?" he whispered. "What's wha— Oh! " Bob Parker's stomach caved in. A few hundred feet away, floating gently toward the asteroid, came another ship—a ship a trifle bigger than their own. The girl turned, too. They heard her gasp. In another second, Bob was standing next to her. He turned the audio-switch to his headset off, and spoke to the girl by putting his helmet against hers. "Listen to me, miss," he snapped earnestly, when she tried to draw away. "Don't talk by radio. That ship belongs to the Saylor brothers! Oh, Lord, that this should happen! Somewhere along the line, we've been double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't hesitate to pull any rough stuff. We're in this together, understand? We got to back each other up." The girl nodded dumbly. Suddenly she seemed to be frightened. "It's—it's very important that this—this asteroid stay right where it is," she said huskily. "What—what will they do?" Bob Parker didn't answer. The big ship had landed, and little blue sparks crackled between the hull and the asteroid as the magnetic clamps took hold. A few seconds later, the airlocks swung down, and five men let themselves down to the asteroid's surface and stood surveying the three who faced them. The two men in the lead stood with their hands on their hips; their darkish, twin faces were grinning broadly. "A pleasure," drawled Wally Saylor, looking at the girl. "What do you think of this situation Billy?" "It's obvious," drawled Billy Saylor, rocking back and forth on his heels, "that Bob Parker and company have double-crossed us. We'll have to take steps." The three men behind the Saylor twins broke into rough, chuckling laughter. Bob Parker's gorge rose. "Scram," he said coldly. "We've got an ethergram direct from Andrew S. Burnside ordering this asteroid." "So have we," Wally Saylor smiled—and his smile remained fixed, dangerous. He started moving forward, and the three men in back came abreast, forming a semi-circle which slowly closed in. Bob Parker gave back a step, as he saw their intentions. "We got here first," he snapped harshly. "Try any funny stuff and we'll report you to the Interplanetary Commission!" It was Bob Parker's misfortune that he didn't carry a weapon. Each of these men carried one or more, plainly visible. But he was thinking of the girl's spasticizer—a paralyzing weapon. He took a hair-brained chance, jerked the spasticizer from the girl's holster and yelled at Queazy. Queazy got the idea, urged his immense body into motion. He hurled straight at Billy Saylor, lifted him straight off the asteroid and threw him away, into space. He yelled with triumph. At the same time, the spasticizer Bob held was shot cleanly out of his hand by Wally Saylor. Bob roared, started toward Wally Saylor, knocked the smoking gun from his hand with a sweeping arm. Then something crushing seemed to hit him in the stomach, grabbing at his solar plexus. He doubled up, gurgling with agony. He fell over on his back, and his boots were wrenched loose from their magnetic grip. Vaguely, before the flickering points of light in his brain subsided to complete darkness, he heard the girl's scream of rage—then a scream of pain. What had happened to Queazy he didn't know. He felt so horribly sick, he didn't care. Then—lights out. Bob Parker came to, the emptiness of remote starlight in his face. He opened his eyes. He was slowly revolving on an axis. Sometimes the Sun swept across his line of vision. A cold hammering began at the base of his skull, a sensation similar to that of being buried alive. There was no asteroid, no girl, no Queazy. He was alone in the vastness of space. Alone in a space-suit. "Queazy!" he whispered. "Queazy! I'm running out of air!" There was no answer from Queazy. With sick eyes, Bob studied the oxygen indicator. There was only five pounds pressure. Five pounds! That meant he had been floating around out here—how long? Days at least—maybe weeks! It was evident that somebody had given him a dose of spastic rays, enough to screw up every muscle in his body to the snapping point, putting him in such a condition of suspended animation that his oxygen needs were small. He closed his eyes, trying to fight against panic. He was glad he couldn't see any part of his body. He was probably scrawny. And he was hungry! "I'll starve," he thought. "Or suffocate to death first!" He couldn't keep himself from taking in great gulps of air. Minutes, then hours passed. He was breathing abnormally, and there wasn't enough air in the first place. He pleaded continually for Queazy, hoping that somehow Queazy could help, when probably Queazy was in the same condition. He ripped out wild curses directed at the Saylor brothers. Murderers, both of them! Up until this time, he had merely thought of them as business rivals. If he ever got out of this— He groaned. He never would get out of it! After another hour, he was gasping weakly, and yellow spots danced in his eyes. He called Queazy's name once more, knowing that was the last time he would have strength to call it. And this time the headset spoke back! Bob Parker made a gurgling sound. A voice came again, washed with static, far away, burbling, but excited. Bob made a rattling sound in his throat. Then his eyes started to close, but he imagined that he saw a ship, shiny and small, driving toward him, growing in size against the backdrop of the Milky Way. He relapsed, a terrific buzzing in his ears. He did not lose consciousness. He heard voices, Queazy's and the girl's, whoever she was. Somebody grabbed hold of his foot. His "aquarium" was unbuckled and good air washed over his streaming face. The sudden rush of oxygen to his brain dizzied him. Then he was lying on a bunk, and gradually the world beyond his sick body focussed in his clearing eyes and he knew he was alive—and going to stay that way, for awhile anyway. "Thanks, Queazy," he said huskily. Queazy was bending over him, his anxiety clearing away from his suddenly brightening face. "Don't thank me," he whispered. "We'd have both been goners if it hadn't been for her. The Saylor brothers left her paralyzed like us, and when she woke up she was on a slow orbit around her ship. She unstrapped her holster and threw it away from her and it gave her enough reaction to reach the ship. She got inside and used the direction-finder on the telaudio and located me first. The Saylors scattered us far and wide." Queazy's broad, normally good-humored face twisted blackly. "The so and so's didn't care if we lived or died." Bob saw the girl now, standing a little behind Queazy, looking down at him curiously, but unhappily. Her space-suit was off. She was wearing lightly striped blue slacks and blue silk blouse and she had a paper flower in her hair. Something in Bob's stomach caved in as his eyes widened on her. The girl said glumly, "I guess you men won't much care for me when you find out who I am and what I've done. I'm Starre Lowenthal—Andrew S. Burnside's granddaughter!" Bob came slowly to his feet, and matched Queazy's slowly growing anger. "Say that again?" he snapped. "This is some kind of dirty trick you and your grandfather cooked up?" "No!" she exclaimed. "No. My grandfather didn't even know there was an asteroid like this. But I did, long before he ordered it from you—or from the Saylor brothers. You see—well, my granddad's about the stubbornest old hoot-owl in this universe! He's always had his way, and when people stand in his way, that's just a challenge to him. He's been badgering me for years to marry Mac, and so has Mac—" "Who's Mac?" Queazy demanded. "My fiancé, I guess," she said helplessly. "He's one of my granddad's protégés. Granddad's always financing some likely young man and giving him a start in life. Mac has become pretty famous for his Mercurian water-colors—he's an artist. Well, I couldn't hold out any longer. If you knew my grandfather, you'd know how absolutely impossible it is to go against him when he's got his mind set! I was just a mass of nerves. So I decided to trick him and I came out to the asteroid belt and picked out an asteroid that was shaped so a wedding could take place on it. I took the measurements and the composition, then I told my grandfather I'd marry Mac if the wedding was in the back yard on top of an asteroid with those measurements and made of iron ore, tungsten, and so forth. He agreed so fast he scared me, and just to make sure that if somebody did find the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able to get it back to Earth, I came out here and decided to live here. Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them, by common law.... So I had everything figured out—except," she added bitterly, "the Saylor brothers! I guess Granddad wanted to make sure the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies." Bob swore under his breath. He went reeling across to a port, and was gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating only a few hundred feet away. He swung around, looked at Queazy. "How long were we floating around out there?" "Three weeks, according to the chronometer. The Saylor boys gave us a stiff shot." " Ouch! " Bob groaned. Then he looked at Starre Lowenthal with determination. "Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm going to put this to you plainly. We can catch up with the Saylor brothers even if they are three weeks ahead of us. The Saylor ship and ours both travel on the HH drive—inertia-less. But the asteroid has plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a fling at getting the asteroid back!" Her eyes sparkled. "You mean—" she cried. Then her attractive face fell. "Oh," she said. " Oh! And when you get it back, you'll land it." "That's right," Bob said grimly. "We're in business. For us, it's a matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is your marriage—sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three can work as a team if you're willing. We'll fight the other problem out later. Okay?" She smiled tremulously. "Okay, I guess." Queazy looked from one to another of them. He waved his hand scornfully at Bob. "You're plain nuts," he complained. "How do you propose to go about convincing the Saylor brothers they ought to let us have the asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry long-range weapons. And we couldn't ram the Saylor brothers' ship—not without damaging our own ship just as much. Go ahead and answer that." Bob looked at Queazy dismally. "The old balance-wheel," he groaned at Starre. "He's always pulling me up short when I go off half-cocked. All I know is, that maybe we'll get a good idea as we go along. In the meantime, Starre—ahem—none of us has eaten in three weeks...?" Starre got the idea. She smiled dazzlingly and vanished toward the galley. Bob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five days out, as the ship hurled itself at breakneck speed toward Earth; probably that distracting emotion was the real reason he couldn't attach any significance to Starre's dumbbell-shaped ship, which trailed astern, attached by a long cable. Starre apparently knew he was in love with her, too, for on the fifth day Bob was teaching her the mechanics of operating the hauler, and she gently lifted his hand from a finger-switch. "Even I know that isn't the control to the Holloway vacuum-feeder, Bob. That switch is for the—ah—the anathern tube, you told me. Right?" "Right," he said unsteadily. "Anyway, Starre, as I was saying, this ship operates according to the reverse Fitzgerald Contraction Formula. All moving bodies contract in the line of motion. What Holloway and Hammond did was to reverse that universal law. They caused the contraction first—motion had to follow! The gravitonic field affects every atom in the ship with the same speed at the same time. We could go from zero speed to our top speed of two thousand miles a second just like that!" He snapped his fingers. "No acceleration effects. This type of ship, necessary in our business, can stop flat, back up, ease up, move in any direction, and the passengers wouldn't have any feeling of motion at—Oh, hell!" Bob groaned, the serious glory of her eyes making him shake. He took her hand. "Starre," he said desperately, "I've got to tell you something—" She jerked her hand away. "No," she exclaimed in an almost frightened voice. "You can't tell me. There's—there's Mac," she finished, faltering. "The asteroid—" "You have to marry him?" Her eyes filled with tears. "I have to live up to the bargain." "And ruin your whole life," he ground out. Suddenly, he turned back to the control board, quartered the vision plate. He pointed savagely to the lower left quarter, which gave a rearward view of the dumbbell ship trailing astern. "There's your ship, Starre." He jabbed his finger at it. "I've got a feeling—and I can't put the thought into concrete words—that somehow the whole solution of the problem of grabbing the asteroid back lies there. But how? How? " Starre's blue eyes followed the long cable back to where it was attached around her ship's narrow midsection. She shook her head helplessly. "It just looks like a big yo-yo to me." "A yo-yo?" "Yes, a yo-yo. That's all." She was belligerent. "A yo-yo !" Bob Parker yelled the word and almost hit the ceiling, he got out of the chair so fast. "Can you imagine it! A yo-yo!" He disappeared from the room. "Queazy!" he shouted. " Queazy, I've got it! " It was Queazy who got into his space-suit and did the welding job, fastening two huge supra-steel "eyes" onto the dumbbell-shaped ship's narrow midsection. Into these eyes cables which trailed back to two winches in the big ship's nose were inserted, welded fast, and reinforced. The nose of the hauler was blunt, perfectly fitted for the job. Bob Parker practiced and experimented for three hours with this yo-yo of cosmic dimensions, while Starre and Queazy stood over him bursting into strange, delighted squeals of laughter whenever the yo-yo reached the end of its double cable and started rolling back up to the ship. Queazy snapped his fingers. "It'll work!" His gray eyes showed satisfaction. "Now, if only the Saylor brothers are where we calculated!" They weren't where Bob and Queazy had calculated, as they had discovered the next day. They had expected to pick up the asteroid on their mass-detectors a few hundred thousand miles outside of the Moon's orbit. But now they saw the giant ship attached like a leech to the still bigger asteroid—inside the Moon's orbit! A mere two hundred thousand miles from Earth! "We have to work fast," Bob stammered, sweating. He got within naked-eye distance of the Saylor brothers' ship. Below, Earth was spread out, a huge crescent shape, part of the Eastern hemisphere vaguely visible through impeding clouds and atmosphere. The enemy ship was two miles distant, a black shadow occulting part of the brilliant sky. It was moving along a down-spiraling path toward Earth. Queazy's big hand gripped his shoulder. "Go to it, Bob!" Bob nodded grimly. He backed the hauler up about thirty miles, then sent it forward again, directly toward the Saylor brothers' ship at ten miles per second. And resting on the blunt nose of the ship was the "yo-yo." There was little doubt the Saylors' saw their approach. But, scornfully, they made no attempt to evade. There was no possible harm the oncoming ship could wreak. Or at least that was what they thought, for Bob brought the hauler's speed down to zero—and Starre Lowenthal's little ship, possessing its own inertia, kept on moving! It spun away from the hauler's blunt nose, paying out two rigid lengths of cable behind it as it unwound, hurled itself forward like a fantastic spinning cannon ball. "It's going to hit!" The excited cry came from Starre. But Bob swore. The dumbbell ship reached the end of its cables, falling a bare twenty feet short of completing its mission. It didn't stop spinning, but came winding back up the cable, at the same terrific speed with which it had left. Bob sweated, having only fractions of seconds in which to maneuver for the "yo-yo" could strike a fatal blow at the hauler too. It was ticklish work completely to nullify the "yo-yo's" speed. Bob used exactly the same method of catching the "yo-yo" on the blunt nose of the ship as a baseball player uses to catch a hard-driven ball in his glove—namely, by matching the ball's speed and direction almost exactly at the moment of impact. And now Bob's hours of practice paid dividends, for the "yo-yo" came to rest snugly, ready to be released again. All this had happened in such a short space of time that the Saylor brothers must have had only a bare realization of what was going on. But by the time the "yo-yo" was flung at them again, this time with better calculations, they managed to put the firmly held asteroid between them and the deadly missile. But it was clumsy evasion, for the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing it, and its inertia was great. And as soon as the little ship came spinning back to rest, Bob flung the hauler to a new vantage point and again the "yo-yo" snapped out. And this time—collision! Bob yelled as he saw the stern section of the Saylor brothers' ship crumple like tissue paper crushed between the hand. The dumbbell-shaped ship, smaller, and therefore stauncher due to the principle of the arch, wound up again, wobbling a little. It had received a mere dent in its starboard half. Starre was chortling with glee. Queazy whispered, "Attaboy, Bob! This time we'll knock 'em out of the sky!" The "yo-yo" came to rest and at the same moment a gong rang excitedly. Bob knew what that meant. The Saylor brothers were trying to establish communication. Queazy was across the room in two running strides. He threw in the telaudio and almost immediately, Wally Saylor's big body built up in the plate. Wally Saylor's face was quivering with wrath. "What do you damned fools think you're trying to do?" he roared. "You've crushed in our stern section. You've sliced away half of our stern jets. Air is rushing out! You'll kill us!" "Now," Bob drawled, "you're getting the idea." "I'll inform the Interplanetary Commission!" screamed Saylor. " If you're alive," Bob snarled wrathfully. "And you won't be unless you release the asteroid." "I'll see you in Hades first!" "Hades," remarked Bob coldly, "here you come!" He snapped the hauler into its mile-a-second speed again, stopped it at zero. And the "yo-yo" went on its lone, destructive sortie. For a fraction of a second Wally Saylor exhibited the countenance of a doomed man. In the telaudio plate, he whirled, and diminished in size with a strangled yell. The "yo-yo" struck again, but Bob Parker maneuvered its speed in such a manner that it struck in the same place as before, but not as heavily, then rebounded and came spinning back with perfect, sparkling precision. And even before it snugged itself into its berth, it was apparent that the Saylor brothers had given up. Like a wounded terrier, their ship shook itself free of the asteroid, hung in black space for a second, then vanished with a flaming puff of released gravitons from its still-intact jets. The battle was won!
Counterweight by Sohl, Jerry	"Counterweight", Jerry Sohl, 1958. COUNTERWEIGHT By JERRY SOHL Every town has crime—but especially a town that is traveling from star to star! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, November 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Sure I'm a Nilly, and I've died seven times, always in the blackness of the outer reaches, and I'm not alone, although there aren't very many of us, never were. It made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship because he was a trained observer. They wanted facts, not gibberish. But to ask a man to give up two years of his life—well, that was asking a lot. Two years in a sardine can. Still, it had an appeal Keith Ellason knew he couldn't deny, a newsman's joy of the clean beat, a planetary system far afield, a closeup view of the universe, history in the making. Interstellar Chief Rexroad knocked the dottle from his pipe in a tray, saying, "Transworld Press is willing to let you have a leave of abscence, if you're interested." He knew Secretary Phipps from years of contacting, and now Phipps said, "Personally, I don't want to see anybody else on the job. You've got a fine record in this sort of thing." Keith Ellason smiled, but just barely. "You should have called me for the first trip." Phipps nodded. "I wish we had had you on the Weblor I ." "Crewmen," Rexroad said, "make poor reporters." The Weblor I had taken off on the first trip to Antheon five years before with a thousand families, reached the planet with less than five hundred surviving colonists. Upon the return to Earth a year later, the crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The decision of Interstellar was that the colonists started a revolution far out in space, that it was fanned by the ignorance of Captain Sessions in dealing with such matters. "Space affects men in a peculiar way," Phipps said. "We have conquered the problem of small groups in space—witness the discovery of Antheon, for example—but when there are large groups, control is more difficult." "Sessions," Rexroad said, "was a bully. The trouble started at about the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his life." "As I recall," Ellason said, "there was something about stunners." Phipps rubbed his chin. "No weapons were allowed on the ship, but you must remember the colonists were selected for their intelligence and resourcefulness. They utilized these attributes to set up weapon shops to arm themselves." "The second trip is history," Rexroad said. "And a puzzle." Ellason nodded. "The ship disappeared." "Yes. We gave control to the colonists." "Assuming no accident in space," Phipps said, "it was a wrong decision. They probably took over the ship." "And now," Ellason said, "you're going to try again." Rexroad said very gravely, "We've got the finest captain in Interplanetary. Harvey Branson. No doubt you've heard of him. He's spent his life in our own system, and he's handpicking his own crew. We have also raised prerequisites for applicants. We don't think anything is going to happen, but if it does, we want to get an impersonal, unprejudiced view. That's where you come in. You do the observing, the reporting. We'll evaluate it on your return." "If I return," said Ellason. "I suppose that's problematical," Phipps said, "but I think you will. Captain Branson and his fifty crewmen want to return as badly as you do." He grinned. "You can write that novel you're always talking about on your return trip on the Weblor II ." Being a Nilly is important, probably as important as running the ship, and I think it is this thought that keeps us satisfied, willing to be what we are. The Weblor II had been built in space, as had its predecessor, the Weblor I , at a tremendous cost. Basically, it was an instrument which would open distant vistas to colonization, reducing the shoulder-to-shoulder pressure of a crowded solar system. A gigantic, hollow spike, the ship would never land anywhere, but would circle Antheon as it circled Earth, shuttling its cargo and passengers to the promised land, the new frontier. A space-borne metropolis, it would be the home for three thousand persons outward bound, only the crew on the return trip. It was equipped with every conceivable facility and comfort—dining rooms, assembly hall, individual and family compartments, recreation areas, swimming pool, library, theater. Nothing had been overlooked. The captain's briefing room was crowded, the air was heavy with the breathing of so many men, and the ventilators could not quite clear the air of tobacco smoke that drifted aimlessly here and there before it was caught and whisked away. In the tradition of newspaperman and observer, Keith Ellason tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, pressing against a bulkhead, but Captain Branson's eyes sought his several times as Branson listened to final reports from his engineers, record keepers, fuel men, computermen, and all the rest. He grunted his approval or disapproval, made a suggestion here, a restriction there. There was no doubt that Branson was in charge, yet there was a human quality about him that Ellason liked. The captain's was a lean face, well tanned, and his eyes were chunks of blue. "Gentlemen," Branson said at last, as Ellason knew he would, "I want to introduce Keith Ellason, whose presence Interstellar has impressed upon us. On loan from Transworld, he will have an observer status." He introduced him to the others. All of them seemed friendly; Ellason thought it was a good staff. Branson detained him after the others had gone. "One thing, Mr. Ellason. To make it easier for you, I suggest you think of this journey strictly from the observer viewpoint. There will be no story for Transworld at the end." Ellason was startled. While he had considered the possibility, he had not dwelt on it. Now it loomed large in his mind. "I don't understand, Captain Branson. It seems to me—" "Let me put it differently. Let me say that you will not understand why I say that until the journey ends." He smiled. "Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it." Ellason left the captain's quarters with an odd taste in his mouth. Now why had Branson said that? Why hadn't Rexroad or Phipps said something, if it was important? He made himself comfortable in his seven-foot-by-seven-foot cubicle, which is to say he dropped on his bed, found it more comfortable than he thought it would be, put his arms behind his head, stared at the ceiling. Metal walls, no windows, one floor vent, one ceiling vent, and a solitary ceiling molding tube-light. This would be his home for a year, just as there were homes like it for three thousand others, except that the family rooms would be larger. His quarters were near the front of the spike near the officers' quarters. He felt rather than heard the dull rumble. It was a sound he knew would be with him for two years—one year going and one year returning. He looked at his watch, picked up his notebook and made an entry. The ship right now would be slipping ever so slowly away from Earth. He got up. He'd have to go forward to the observation dome to see that. Last view of Earth for two years. The penetration of space by large groups is the coming out from under the traditions of thousands of years, and as these planet-orginated rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they are humanity adrift, rudderless, for whom the stars are no longer bearings but nonexistent things, and values are altered if they are not shown the way. The theft of Carver Janssen's attache case occurred on the thirty-first day out. In Ellason's mind the incident, though insignificant from the standpoint of the ship as a whole, could very well be the cause of dissension later on. His notes covering it were therefore very thorough. Janssen's case contained vegetable and flower seeds—thousands of them, according to the Captain's Bulletin, the ship's daily newsletter which went to all hands and passengers. In the Bulletin the captain appealed to the thief to return the case to Mr. Janssen. He said it was significant that all en route had passed stability tests, and that it was to the ship's discredit that someone with criminal tendencies should have been permitted aboard. Ellason had to smile at that. What did Captain Branson think of those colonists who killed each other on the Weblor I ? They had passed stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year. When Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, "Of course I realize it takes only a little thing like this to set things off. I know people get tired of seeing each other, playing the same tapes, looking at the stars from the observation dome, walking down the same corridors, reading the same books, eating the same meals, though God knows we try to vary it as much as we can. Space creates rough edges. But the point is, we know all this, and knowing it, we shouldn't let it happen. We've got to find that thief." "What would he want seeds for? Have you thought of that?" "Of course. They'd have real value on Antheon." Ellason sought out Carver Janssen. He was a middle-aged man with a tired face and sad eyes. He said, "Now what am I going to Antheon for? I could only take along so much baggage and I threw out some comfort items to make room for the seeds. I'm a horticulturist, and Interstellar asked me to go along. But what use am I now? Where am I going to get seeds like those? Do you know how long it took me to collect them? They're not ordinary seeds, Mr. Ellason." There was an appeal from Janssen in the next day's newsletter describing the seeds, telling of their value, and requesting their return in the interests of the Antheon colony and of humanity. On the thirty-fourth day a witness turned up who said he had seen a man emerging from Janssen's compartment with the black case. "I didn't think anything of it at the time," Jamieson Dievers said. Branson asked him to describe the man. "Oh, he was about six feet tall, stocky build, and he wore a red rubber mask that covered his head completely." "Didn't you think that was important?" Branson asked in an outraged voice. "A man wearing a red mask?" Dievers shrugged. "This is a spaceship. How would I know whether a red mask—or a blue or green one—does or doesn't belong on a spaceship?" Although Dievers' account appeared in the newsletter, it was largely discounted. "If it is true," Branson told Ellason, "the theft must be the work of a psychotic. But I don't believe Jamieson Dievers. It may well be he's the psychotic." He snorted. "Red rubber mask! I think I'll have Dievers put through psychiatry." Attendant to taking notes on this incident, Ellason noted a strange thing. Janssen lived in that part of the ship known as the First Quadrant, and those who lived in that quadrant—more than seven hundred men, women and children—felt that the thief must surely live in Quadrant Two or Four. Elias Cromley, who had the compartment next to Janssen's, sounded the consensus when he said, "Surely a man wouldn't steal from his own quadrant, now would he, Mr. Ellason?" And so, Ellason observed in his notebook, are wars created. Seen in space, stars are unmoving, silent, sterile bright eyes ever watchful and accusing. To men unused to it, such a sight numbs, compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he exists, which is any overt act, sometimes violent. On the forty-fifth day June Failright, the young wife of one of the passenger meteorologists, ran screaming down one of the long corridors of the Third Quadrant. She told the captain she had been attacked in her compartment while her husband was in the ship's library. She was taken to one of the ship's doctors, who confirmed it. She said the culprit was a husky man wearing a red rubber mask, and though her description of what he had done did not appear in the story in the newsletter, it lost no time in penetrating every compartment of the ship. Ellason was present when a delegation from the Third Quadrant called on Captain Branson, demanding action. Branson remained seated behind his desk, unperturbed, saying, "I have no crewmen to spare for police duty." The delegation commenced speaking vehemently, to be quieted by Branson's raised hand. "I sympathize," Branson said, "but it is up to each quadrant to deal with its problems, whatever they may be. My job is to get us to Antheon." The group left in a surly mood. "You wonder at my reluctance, Mr. Ellason," Captain Branson said. "But suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught, and further incidents occur. What then? It soon becomes the crew's fault. And soon the colonists will begin thinking these things might be the crew's doing in the first place." "Yes," Ellason said, "but what if the intruder is a crewman?" "I know my men," Branson said flatly. "You could have a shake-down for the mask and the seed case." "Do you think it is a member of the crew?" Branson's eyes were bright. "No, I trust my men. I won't violate that trust." Ellason left, feeling uneasy. If he were Branson, he'd initiate an investigation, if nothing else than to prove the crew guiltless. Why couldn't Branson see the wisdom of setting an example for the colonists? As a Nilly, I knew that space breeds hate. There is a seed of malevolence in every man. It sometimes blossoms out among the stars. On the Weblor II it was ready for ripening. Raymond Palugger was killed in the ship's hospital on the sixty-first day. Palugger, a Fourth Quadrant passenger, had complained of feeling ill, had been hospitalized with a diagnosis of ileus. He had put his money belt in the drawer of the small stand beside his bed. A man in a red mask was seen hurrying from the hospital area, and a staff investigation revealed that Palugger had died trying to prevent the theft of the belt. Captain Branson did not wait for the newsletter. Through the ship's speaker system, he reported that Palugger had a fortune in credits in the belt and had died of a severe beating. He said that since the incident occurred in the staff section of the ship, his crew would be forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the mask, the seed case, the money and the man. "I will not countenance such an act by a crewman," Branson said. "If and when he is found, he will be severely dealt with. But he might not be a member of the crew. I am ordering an assembly of all passengers at nine tomorrow morning in the auditorium. I will speak to you all then." Faces were angry, tongues were sharp at the meeting, eyes suspicious and tempers short. Above it all was the overpowering presence of Captain Branson speaking to them. "It is not my desire to interfere in passenger affairs," he said. "Insofar as the ship is concerned, it is my duty to make certain no crewman is guilty. This I am doing. But my crew is not and cannot be a police force for you. It is up to you people to police and protect yourselves." "How can we protect ourselves without stunners?" one colonist called out. "Has Red Mask a gun?" Branson retorted. "It seems to me you have a better weapon than any gun." "What's that?" "This ship is only so wide, so long and so deep. If every inch is searched, you'll find your man. He has to be somewhere aboard." The colonists quieted. Benjamin Simpson, one of the older men, was elected president of the newly formed Quadrant Council. One man from each of the quadrants was named to serve under him. Each of these men in turn selected five others from his own group. Those assembled waited in the hall while each team of six inspected the compartments of the others. These compartments were then locked, everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was conducted. It took twenty hours. No mask was found. No mask, no case, no money, no man. The captain reported that his search had been equally fruitless. At another assembly the following day it was decided to make the inspection teams permanent, to await further moves on the part of Red Mask. The Quadrant Council held periodic meetings to set up a method of trial for him when he was caught. It was all recorded in the newsletter and by Keith Ellason. We Nillys know about hate and about violence. We know too that where there is hate there is violence, and where there is violence there is death. During sleep time on the seventy-ninth day Barbara Stoneman, awakened by a strange sound, sat up in the bed of her compartment to find a man in a red mask in her room. Her cries brought neighbors into the corridor. The flight of the man was witnessed by many, and several men tried to stop him. But the intruder was light on his feet and fast. He escaped. The Quadrant Council confronted the captain, demanding weapons. "Are you out of your minds?" Branson exclaimed. Tom Tilbury, Fourth Quadrant leader, said, "We want to set up a police force, Captain. We want stunners." "There's no law against it," Branson said, "but it's a rule of mine that no weapons are to be issued en route." "If we had had a gun, we'd have got Red Mask," Tilbury said. "And I might have a murder on my conscience." Tilbury said, "We've also thought of that. Suppose you supply us with half-power stunners? That way we can stun but not kill." They got their guns. Now there were twenty-four policemen on duty in the corridors—eight on at a time. Ellason observed that for the first time the passengers seemed relaxed. Let Red Mask move against armed men, they said. Yeah, let him see what happens now. Red Mask did. On the 101st day he was seen in a corridor in Quadrant Four. Emil Pierce, policeman on duty, managed to squeeze off several shots at his retreating figure. Red Mask was seen again on the 120th day, on the 135th day, and the 157th day. He was seen, shot at, but not hit. He was also unable to commit any crime. We've got him on the run, the colonists said. He's afraid to do anything, now that we've got police protection, they said smugly. The Quadrant Council congratulated itself. The passengers were proud of themselves. A special congratulatory message from Captain Branson appeared one day in the Bulletin newsletter. The colonists settled down to living out the rest of the voyage until the landing on Antheon. But on the 170th day calamity struck. Red Mask appropriated one of the stunners, made his way down one whole corridor section in Quadrant Two, put occupants to sleep as he went, taking many articles of value and leaving disorder behind. Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in his book. The things taken were keepsakes, photographs and items of personal value. It seemed to be the work of a madman. If Red Mask wanted to make everyone furious, he certainly succeeded. "What does he want that stuff for?" Casey Stromberg, a passenger doctor, asked. "I can see him taking my narcotics, my doctor's kit—but my dead wife's picture? That I don't understand." It was the same with others. "The man's insane, Mr. Ellason. Positively insane." Many people said it. The council issued orders that all passengers from now on would be required to lock their compartments at all times. More guns were obtained from the captain. More policemen were appointed. Ellason was busy noting it all in his book. It became filled with jottings about innocent people being accidentally stunned when trigger-happy policemen thought their movements suspicious, about one man's suspicion of another and the ensuing search of compartments, people who saw Red Mask here, saw him there. Hardly a day went by without some new development. "Oh, yes, Mr. Ellason, we're going to get him," said Tilbury, now chief of police, cracking his knuckles, his eyes glowing at the thought. "We're bound to get him. We've got things worked out to the finest detail. He won't be able to get through our fingers now. Just let him make so much as a move." "And what will you do when you get him?" "Kill him," Tilbury said, licking his lips, his eyes glowing more fiercely than ever. "Without a trial?" "Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr. Ellason, but you don't think any jury'd let him live after all the things he's done, do you?" Red Mask was stunned in Quadrant Four in a corridor by a policeman named Terryl Placer on the 201st day. The criminal was carried to the assembly room surrounded by guards, for he surely would have been mauled, if not killed, by angry colonists who crowded around. In the assembly hall his mask was whipped off. The crowd gasped. Nobody knew him. Ellason's first thought was that he must be a stowaway, but then he remembered the face, and Captain Branson, who came to have a look at him, unhappily admitted the man was a member of the crew. His name was Harrel Critten and he was a record keeper third class. "Well, Critten," Branson roared at him, "what have you got to say for yourself?" "Go to hell," Critten said quietly. As if it were an afterthought, he spat at the captain. Branson looked as if he were going to kill the man himself right there and then. It was a long trial—from the 220th to the 241st day—and there didn't seem to be much doubt about the outcome, for Critten didn't help his own cause during any of it. Lemuel Tarper, who was appointed prosecutor, asked him, "What did you do with the loot, Critten?" Critten looked him square in the eye and said, "I threw it out one of the escape chutes. Does that answer your question?" "Threw it away?" Tarper and the crowd were incredulous. "Sure," Critten said. "You colonists got the easy life as passengers, just sitting around. I had to work my head off keeping records for you lazy bastards." The verdict was, of course, death. They executed Harrel Critten on the morning of the 270th day with blasts from six stunners supplied with full power. It was witnessed by a great crowd in the assembly hall. A detail from the ship's crew disposed of his body through a chute. It was all duly recorded in Keith Ellason's notebooks. Dying is easy for a Nilly. Especially if it's arranged for beforehand, which it always is. The Weblor II was only one day out of orbit when Captain Branson sent for Ellason and introduced him to the executed man. "Hello," Critten said, grinning from ear to ear. "I figured as much," Ellason said. "I've been doing a lot of thinking." "You're perhaps a little too good as an observer," Branson said. "Or maybe it was because you really weren't one of the colonists. But no matter, Critten did a good job. He was trained by an old friend of mine for this job, Gelthorpe Nill. Nill used to be in counter-espionage when there were wars." "You were excellent," Ellason said. "Can't say I enjoyed the role," said Critten, "but I think it saved lives." "Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness and boredom that caused the killings on the Weblor I , so they had you trained to be a scapegoat. Is that right?" Critten nodded. "When great numbers are being transported, they are apt to magnify each little event because so little happens. It was my job to see that they directed none of their venom against each other or the crew, only toward me." Branson smiled. "It made the time pass quickly and interestingly for the passengers." "To say nothing of me," Critten said. "And you, Mr. Ellason, were along to observe it all," Captain Branson put in. "Interstellar wanted an accurate picture of this. If it worked, they told me they'd use it on other trips to Antheon." Ellason nodded. "No time for brooding, for differences of opinion on small matters. Just time to hate Mr. Critten. Unanimously." "Probably," Critten said, "you are wondering about the execution." "Naturally." "We removed the charges before the guns were used." "And Carver Janssen's case?" "He'll get it back when he's shuttled to Antheon. And all the other items will be returned. They're all tagged with their owner's names. Captain Branson will say they were found somewhere on the ship. You see, I was a liar." "How about that assault on June Failright?" Critten grinned again. "She played right into our hands. She ran out into the hall claiming I'd attacked her, which I did not. She was certainly amazed when the ship's physicians agreed with her. Of course Captain Branson told them to do that." "And the murder?" "Raymond Palugger died in the hospital all right, but he died from his illness on the operating table. We turned it into an advantage by making it look suspicious." Ellason brightened. "And by that time everybody was seeing Red Mask everywhere and the colonists organized against him." "Gave them something to do," Branson said. "Every time things got dull, I livened them up. I got a stunner and robbed along the corridor. That really stirred them. Lucky nobody got hurt during any of it, including that Stoneman woman. I was trying to rob her when she woke up." Branson cleared his throat. "Ah, Ellason about that story. You understand you can't write it, don't you?" Ellason said regretfully that he did understand. "The colonists will never know the truth," Branson went on. "There will be other ships outward bound." Critten sighed. "And I'll have to be caught again." Yes, we're anonymous, nameless, we Nillys, for that's what we call each other, and are a theme, with variations, in the endless stretches of deep space, objects of hatred and contempt, professional heels, dying once a trip when the time is ripe, antidote to boredom, and we'll ply our trade, our little tragedies, on a thousand ships bringing humanity to new worlds.
Cultural Exchange by Laumer, Keith	"Cultural Exchange", Keith Laumer, 1959. CULTURAL EXCHANGE BY KEITH LAUMER It was a simple student exchange—but Retief gave them more of an education than they expected! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I Second Secretary Magnan took his green-lined cape and orange-feathered beret from the clothes tree. "I'm off now, Retief," he said. "I hope you'll manage the administrative routine during my absence without any unfortunate incidents." "That seems a modest enough hope," Retief said. "I'll try to live up to it." "I don't appreciate frivolity with reference to this Division," Magnan said testily. "When I first came here, the Manpower Utilization Directorate, Division of Libraries and Education was a shambles. I fancy I've made MUDDLE what it is today. Frankly, I question the wisdom of placing you in charge of such a sensitive desk, even for two weeks. But remember. Yours is purely a rubber-stamp function." "In that case, let's leave it to Miss Furkle. I'll take a couple of weeks off myself. With her poundage, she could bring plenty of pressure to bear." "I assume you jest, Retief," Magnan said sadly. "I should expect even you to appreciate that Bogan participation in the Exchange Program may be the first step toward sublimation of their aggressions into more cultivated channels." "I see they're sending two thousand students to d'Land," Retief said, glancing at the Memo for Record. "That's a sizable sublimation." Magnan nodded. "The Bogans have launched no less than four military campaigns in the last two decades. They're known as the Hoodlums of the Nicodemean Cluster. Now, perhaps, we shall see them breaking that precedent and entering into the cultural life of the Galaxy." "Breaking and entering," Retief said. "You may have something there. But I'm wondering what they'll study on d'Land. That's an industrial world of the poor but honest variety." "Academic details are the affair of the students and their professors," Magnan said. "Our function is merely to bring them together. See that you don't antagonize the Bogan representative. This will be an excellent opportunity for you to practice your diplomatic restraint—not your strong point, I'm sure you'll agree." A buzzer sounded. Retief punched a button. "What is it, Miss Furkle?" "That—bucolic person from Lovenbroy is here again." On the small desk screen, Miss Furkle's meaty features were compressed in disapproval. "This fellow's a confounded pest. I'll leave him to you, Retief," Magnan said. "Tell him something. Get rid of him. And remember: here at Corps HQ, all eyes are upon you." "If I'd thought of that, I'd have worn my other suit," Retief said. Magnan snorted and passed from view. Retief punched Miss Furkle's button. "Send the bucolic person in." A tall broad man with bronze skin and gray hair, wearing tight trousers of heavy cloth, a loose shirt open at the neck and a short jacket, stepped into the room. He had a bundle under his arm. He paused at sight of Retief, looked him over momentarily, then advanced and held out his hand. Retief took it. For a moment the two big men stood, face to face. The newcomer's jaw muscles knotted. Then he winced. Retief dropped his hand and motioned to a chair. "That's nice knuckle work, mister," the stranger said, massaging his hand. "First time anybody ever did that to me. My fault though. I started it, I guess." He grinned and sat down. "What can I do for you?" Retief said. "You work for this Culture bunch, do you? Funny. I thought they were all ribbon-counter boys. Never mind. I'm Hank Arapoulous. I'm a farmer. What I wanted to see you about was—" He shifted in his chair. "Well, out on Lovenbroy we've got a serious problem. The wine crop is just about ready. We start picking in another two, three months. Now I don't know if you're familiar with the Bacchus vines we grow...?" "No," Retief said. "Have a cigar?" He pushed a box across the desk. Arapoulous took one. "Bacchus vines are an unusual crop," he said, puffing the cigar alight. "Only mature every twelve years. In between, the vines don't need a lot of attention, so our time's mostly our own. We like to farm, though. Spend a lot of time developing new forms. Apples the size of a melon—and sweet—" "Sounds very pleasant," Retief said. "Where does the Libraries and Education Division come in?" Arapoulous leaned forward. "We go in pretty heavy for the arts. Folks can't spend all their time hybridizing plants. We've turned all the land area we've got into parks and farms. Course, we left some sizable forest areas for hunting and such. Lovenbroy's a nice place, Mr. Retief." "It sounds like it, Mr. Arapoulous. Just what—" "Call me Hank. We've got long seasons back home. Five of 'em. Our year's about eighteen Terry months. Cold as hell in winter; eccentric orbit, you know. Blue-black sky, stars visible all day. We do mostly painting and sculpture in the winter. Then Spring; still plenty cold. Lots of skiing, bob-sledding, ice skating; and it's the season for woodworkers. Our furniture—" "I've seen some of your furniture," Retief said. "Beautiful work." Arapoulous nodded. "All local timbers too. Lots of metals in our soil and those sulphates give the woods some color, I'll tell you. Then comes the Monsoon. Rain—it comes down in sheets. But the sun's getting closer. Shines all the time. Ever seen it pouring rain in the sunshine? That's the music-writing season. Then summer. Summer's hot. We stay inside in the daytime and have beach parties all night. Lots of beach on Lovenbroy; we're mostly islands. That's the drama and symphony time. The theatres are set up on the sand, or anchored off-shore. You have the music and the surf and the bonfires and stars—we're close to the center of a globular cluster, you know...." "You say it's time now for the wine crop?" "That's right. Autumn's our harvest season. Most years we have just the ordinary crops. Fruit, grain, that kind of thing; getting it in doesn't take long. We spend most of the time on architecture, getting new places ready for the winter or remodeling the older ones. We spend a lot of time in our houses. We like to have them comfortable. But this year's different. This is Wine Year." Arapoulous puffed on his cigar, looked worriedly at Retief. "Our wine crop is our big money crop," he said. "We make enough to keep us going. But this year...." "The crop isn't panning out?" "Oh, the crop's fine. One of the best I can remember. Course, I'm only twenty-eight; I can't remember but two other harvests. The problem's not the crop." "Have you lost your markets? That sounds like a matter for the Commercial—" "Lost our markets? Mister, nobody that ever tasted our wines ever settled for anything else!" "It sounds like I've been missing something," said Retief. "I'll have to try them some time." Arapoulous put his bundle on the desk, pulled off the wrappings. "No time like the present," he said. Retief looked at the two squat bottles, one green, one amber, both dusty, with faded labels, and blackened corks secured by wire. "Drinking on duty is frowned on in the Corps, Mr. Arapoulous," he said. "This isn't drinking . It's just wine." Arapoulous pulled the wire retainer loose, thumbed the cork. It rose slowly, then popped in the air. Arapoulous caught it. Aromatic fumes wafted from the bottle. "Besides, my feelings would be hurt if you didn't join me." He winked. Retief took two thin-walled glasses from a table beside the desk. "Come to think of it, we also have to be careful about violating quaint native customs." Arapoulous filled the glasses. Retief picked one up, sniffed the deep rust-colored fluid, tasted it, then took a healthy swallow. He looked at Arapoulous thoughtfully. "Hmmm. It tastes like salted pecans, with an undercurrent of crusted port." "Don't try to describe it, Mr. Retief," Arapoulous said. He took a mouthful of wine, swished it around his teeth, swallowed. "It's Bacchus wine, that's all. Nothing like it in the Galaxy." He pushed the second bottle toward Retief. "The custom back home is to alternate red wine and black." Retief put aside his cigar, pulled the wires loose, nudged the cork, caught it as it popped up. "Bad luck if you miss the cork," Arapoulous said, nodding. "You probably never heard about the trouble we had on Lovenbroy a few years back?" "Can't say that I did, Hank." Retief poured the black wine into two fresh glasses. "Here's to the harvest." "We've got plenty of minerals on Lovenbroy," Arapoulous said, swallowing wine. "But we don't plan to wreck the landscape mining 'em. We like to farm. About ten years back some neighbors of ours landed a force. They figured they knew better what to do with our minerals than we did. Wanted to strip-mine, smelt ore. We convinced 'em otherwise. But it took a year, and we lost a lot of men." "That's too bad," Retief said. "I'd say this one tastes more like roast beef and popcorn over a Riesling base." "It put us in a bad spot," Arapoulous went on. "We had to borrow money from a world called Croanie. Mortgaged our crops. Had to start exporting art work too. Plenty of buyers, but it's not the same when you're doing it for strangers." "Say, this business of alternating drinks is the real McCoy," Retief said. "What's the problem? Croanie about to foreclose?" "Well, the loan's due. The wine crop would put us in the clear. But we need harvest hands. Picking Bacchus grapes isn't a job you can turn over to machinery—and anyway we wouldn't if we could. Vintage season is the high point of living on Lovenbroy. Everybody joins in. First, there's the picking in the fields. Miles and miles of vineyards covering the mountain sides, and crowding the river banks, with gardens here and there. Big vines, eight feet high, loaded with fruit, and deep grass growing between. The wine-carriers keep on the run, bringing wine to the pickers. There's prizes for the biggest day's output, bets on who can fill the most baskets in an hour.... The sun's high and bright, and it's just cool enough to give you plenty of energy. Come nightfall, the tables are set up in the garden plots, and the feast is laid on: roast turkeys, beef, hams, all kinds of fowl. Big salads. Plenty of fruit. Fresh-baked bread ... and wine, plenty of wine. The cooking's done by a different crew each night in each garden, and there's prizes for the best crews. "Then the wine-making. We still tramp out the vintage. That's mostly for the young folks but anybody's welcome. That's when things start to get loosened up. Matter of fact, pretty near half our young-uns are born after a vintage. All bets are off then. It keeps a fellow on his toes though. Ever tried to hold onto a gal wearing nothing but a layer of grape juice?" "Never did," Retief said. "You say most of the children are born after a vintage. That would make them only twelve years old by the time—" "Oh, that's Lovenbroy years; they'd be eighteen, Terry reckoning." "I was thinking you looked a little mature for twenty-eight," Retief said. "Forty-two, Terry years," Arapoulous said. "But this year it looks bad. We've got a bumper crop—and we're short-handed. If we don't get a big vintage, Croanie steps in. Lord knows what they'll do to the land. Then next vintage time, with them holding half our grape acreage—" "You hocked the vineyards?" "Yep. Pretty dumb, huh? But we figured twelve years was a long time." "On the whole," Retief said, "I think I prefer the black. But the red is hard to beat...." "What we figured was, maybe you Culture boys could help us out. A loan to see us through the vintage, enough to hire extra hands. Then we'd repay it in sculpture, painting, furniture—" "Sorry, Hank. All we do here is work out itineraries for traveling side-shows, that kind of thing. Now, if you needed a troop of Groaci nose-flute players—" "Can they pick grapes?" "Nope. Anyway, they can't stand the daylight. Have you talked this over with the Labor Office?" "Sure did. They said they'd fix us up with all the electronics specialists and computer programmers we wanted—but no field hands. Said it was what they classified as menial drudgery; you'd have thought I was trying to buy slaves." The buzzer sounded. Miss Furkle's features appeared on the desk screen. "You're due at the Intergroup Council in five minutes," she said. "Then afterwards, there are the Bogan students to meet." "Thanks." Retief finished his glass, stood. "I have to run, Hank," he said. "Let me think this over. Maybe I can come up with something. Check with me day after tomorrow. And you'd better leave the bottles here. Cultural exhibits, you know." II As the council meeting broke up, Retief caught the eye of a colleague across the table. "Mr. Whaffle, you mentioned a shipment going to a place called Croanie. What are they getting?" Whaffle blinked. "You're the fellow who's filling in for Magnan, over at MUDDLE," he said. "Properly speaking, equipment grants are the sole concern of the Motorized Equipment Depot, Division of Loans and Exchanges." He pursed his lips. "However, I suppose there's no harm in telling you. They'll be receiving heavy mining equipment." "Drill rigs, that sort of thing?" "Strip mining gear." Whaffle took a slip of paper from a breast pocket, blinked at it. "Bolo Model WV/1 tractors, to be specific. Why is MUDDLE interested in MEDDLE's activities?" "Forgive my curiosity, Mr. Whaffle. It's just that Croanie cropped up earlier today. It seems she holds a mortgage on some vineyards over on—" "That's not MEDDLE's affair, sir," Whaffle cut in. "I have sufficient problems as Chief of MEDDLE without probing into MUDDLE'S business." "Speaking of tractors," another man put in, "we over at the Special Committee for Rehabilitation and Overhaul of Under-developed Nations' General Economies have been trying for months to get a request for mining equipment for d'Land through MEDDLE—" "SCROUNGE was late on the scene," Whaffle said. "First come, first served. That's our policy at MEDDLE. Good day, gentlemen." He strode off, briefcase under his arm. "That's the trouble with peaceful worlds," the SCROUNGE committeeman said. "Boge is a troublemaker, so every agency in the Corps is out to pacify her. While my chance to make a record—that is, assist peace-loving d'Land—comes to naught." He shook his head. "What kind of university do they have on d'Land?" asked Retief. "We're sending them two thousand exchange students. It must be quite an institution." "University? D'Land has one under-endowed technical college." "Will all the exchange students be studying at the Technical College?" "Two thousand students? Hah! Two hundred students would overtax the facilities of the college." "I wonder if the Bogans know that?" "The Bogans? Why, most of d'Land's difficulties are due to the unwise trade agreement she entered into with Boge. Two thousand students indeed!" He snorted and walked away. Retief stopped by the office to pick up a short cape, then rode the elevator to the roof of the 230-story Corps HQ building and hailed a cab to the port. The Bogan students had arrived early. Retief saw them lined up on the ramp waiting to go through customs. It would be half an hour before they were cleared through. He turned into the bar and ordered a beer. A tall young fellow on the next stool raised his glass. "Happy days," he said. "And nights to match." "You said it." He gulped half his beer. "My name's Karsh. Mr. Karsh. Yep, Mr. Karsh. Boy, this is a drag, sitting around this place waiting...." "You meeting somebody?" "Yeah. Bunch of babies. Kids. How they expect—Never mind. Have one on me." "Thanks. You a Scoutmaster?" "I'll tell you what I am. I'm a cradle-robber. You know—" he turned to Retief—"not one of those kids is over eighteen." He hiccupped. "Students, you know. Never saw a student with a beard, did you?" "Lots of times. You're meeting the students, are you?" The young fellow blinked at Retief. "Oh, you know about it, huh?" "I represent MUDDLE." Karsh finished his beer, ordered another. "I came on ahead. Sort of an advance guard for the kids. I trained 'em myself. Treated it like a game, but they can handle a CSU. Don't know how they'll act under pressure. If I had my old platoon—" He looked at his beer glass, pushed it back. "Had enough," he said. "So long, friend. Or are you coming along?" Retief nodded. "Might as well." At the exit to the Customs enclosure, Retief watched as the first of the Bogan students came through, caught sight of Karsh and snapped to attention, his chest out. "Drop that, mister," Karsh snapped. "Is that any way for a student to act?" The youth, a round-faced lad with broad shoulders, grinned. "Heck, no," he said. "Say, uh, Mr. Karsh, are we gonna get to go to town? We fellas were thinking—" "You were, hah? You act like a bunch of school kids! I mean ... no! Now line up!" "We have quarters ready for the students," Retief said. "If you'd like to bring them around to the west side, I have a couple of copters laid on." "Thanks," said Karsh. "They'll stay here until take-off time. Can't have the little dears wandering around loose. Might get ideas about going over the hill." He hiccupped. "I mean they might play hookey." "We've scheduled your re-embarkation for noon tomorrow. That's a long wait. MUDDLE's arranged theater tickets and a dinner." "Sorry," Karsh said. "As soon as the baggage gets here, we're off." He hiccupped again. "Can't travel without our baggage, y'know." "Suit yourself," Retief said. "Where's the baggage now?" "Coming in aboard a Croanie lighter." "Maybe you'd like to arrange for a meal for the students here." "Sure," Karsh said. "That's a good idea. Why don't you join us?" Karsh winked. "And bring a few beers." "Not this time," Retief said. He watched the students, still emerging from Customs. "They seem to be all boys," he commented. "No female students?" "Maybe later," Karsh said. "You know, after we see how the first bunch is received." Back at the MUDDLE office, Retief buzzed Miss Furkle. "Do you know the name of the institution these Bogan students are bound for?" "Why, the University at d'Land, of course." "Would that be the Technical College?" Miss Furkle's mouth puckered. "I'm sure I've never pried into these details." "Where does doing your job stop and prying begin, Miss Furkle?" Retief said. "Personally, I'm curious as to just what it is these students are travelling so far to study—at Corps expense." "Mr. Magnan never—" "For the present. Miss Furkle, Mr. Magnan is vacationing. That leaves me with the question of two thousand young male students headed for a world with no classrooms for them ... a world in need of tractors. But the tractors are on their way to Croanie, a world under obligation to Boge. And Croanie holds a mortgage on the best grape acreage on Lovenbroy." "Well!" Miss Furkle snapped, small eyes glaring under unplucked brows. "I hope you're not questioning Mr. Magnan's wisdom!" "About Mr. Magnan's wisdom there can be no question," Retief said. "But never mind. I'd like you to look up an item for me. How many tractors will Croanie be getting under the MEDDLE program?" "Why, that's entirely MEDDLE business," Miss Furkle said. "Mr. Magnan always—" "I'm sure he did. Let me know about the tractors as soon as you can." Miss Furkle sniffed and disappeared from the screen. Retief left the office, descended forty-one stories, followed a corridor to the Corps Library. In the stacks he thumbed through catalogues, pored over indices. "Can I help you?" someone chirped. A tiny librarian stood at his elbow. "Thank you, ma'am," Retief said. "I'm looking for information on a mining rig. A Bolo model WV tractor." "You won't find it in the industrial section," the librarian said. "Come along." Retief followed her along the stacks to a well-lit section lettered ARMAMENTS. She took a tape from the shelf, plugged it into the viewer, flipped through and stopped at a squat armored vehicle. "That's the model WV," she said. "It's what is known as a continental siege unit. It carries four men, with a half-megaton/second firepower." "There must be an error somewhere," Retief said. "The Bolo model I want is a tractor. Model WV M-1—" "Oh, the modification was the addition of a bulldozer blade for demolition work. That must be what confused you." "Probably—among other things. Thank you." Miss Furkle was waiting at the office. "I have the information you wanted," she said. "I've had it for over ten minutes. I was under the impression you needed it urgently, and I went to great lengths—" "Sure," Retief said. "Shoot. How many tractors?" "Five hundred." "Are you sure?" Miss Furkle's chins quivered. "Well! If you feel I'm incompetent—" "Just questioning the possibility of a mistake, Miss Furkle. Five hundred tractors is a lot of equipment." "Was there anything further?" Miss Furkle inquired frigidly. "I sincerely hope not," Retief said. III Leaning back in Magnan's padded chair with power swivel and hip-u-matic concontour, Retief leafed through a folder labelled "CERP 7-602-Ba; CROANIE (general)." He paused at a page headed Industry. Still reading, he opened the desk drawer, took out the two bottles of Bacchus wine and two glasses. He poured an inch of wine into each and sipped the black wine meditatively. It would be a pity, he reflected, if anything should interfere with the production of such vintages.... Half an hour later he laid the folder aside, keyed the phone and put through a call to the Croanie Legation. He asked for the Commercial Attache. "Retief here, Corps HQ," he said airily. "About the MEDDLE shipment, the tractors. I'm wondering if there's been a slip up. My records show we're shipping five hundred units...." "That's correct. Five hundred." Retief waited. "Ah ... are you there, Retief?" "I'm still here. And I'm still wondering about the five hundred tractors." "It's perfectly in order. I thought it was all settled. Mr. Whaffle—" "One unit would require a good-sized plant to handle its output," Retief said. "Now Croanie subsists on her fisheries. She has perhaps half a dozen pint-sized processing plants. Maybe, in a bind, they could handle the ore ten WV's could scrape up ... if Croanie had any ore. It doesn't. By the way, isn't a WV a poor choice as a mining outfit? I should think—" "See here, Retief! Why all this interest in a few surplus tractors? And in any event, what business is it of yours how we plan to use the equipment? That's an internal affair of my government. Mr. Whaffle—" "I'm not Mr. Whaffle. What are you going to do with the other four hundred and ninety tractors?" "I understood the grant was to be with no strings attached!" "I know it's bad manners to ask questions. It's an old diplomatic tradition that any time you can get anybody to accept anything as a gift, you've scored points in the game. But if Croanie has some scheme cooking—" "Nothing like that, Retief. It's a mere business transaction." "What kind of business do you do with a Bolo WV? With or without a blade attached, it's what's known as a continental siege unit." "Great Heavens, Retief! Don't jump to conclusions! Would you have us branded as warmongers? Frankly—is this a closed line?" "Certainly. You may speak freely." "The tractors are for transshipment. We've gotten ourselves into a difficult situation, balance-of-payments-wise. This is an accommodation to a group with which we have rather strong business ties." "I understand you hold a mortgage on the best land on Lovenbroy," Retief said. "Any connection?" "Why ... ah ... no. Of course not, ha ha." "Who gets the tractors eventually?" "Retief, this is unwarranted interference!" "Who gets them?" "They happen to be going to Lovenbroy. But I scarcely see—" "And who's the friend you're helping out with an unauthorized transshipment of grant material?" "Why ... ah ... I've been working with a Mr. Gulver, a Bogan representative." "And when will they be shipped?" "Why, they went out a week ago. They'll be half way there by now. But look here, Retief, this isn't what you're thinking!" "How do you know what I'm thinking? I don't know myself." Retief rang off, buzzed the secretary. "Miss Furkle, I'd like to be notified immediately of any new applications that might come in from the Bogan Consulate for placement of students." "Well, it happens, by coincidence, that I have an application here now. Mr. Gulver of the Consulate brought it in." "Is Mr. Gulver in the office? I'd like to see him." "I'll ask him if he has time." "Great. Thanks." It was half a minute before a thick-necked red-faced man in a tight hat walked in. He wore an old-fashioned suit, a drab shirt, shiny shoes with round toes and an ill-tempered expression. "What is it you wish?" he barked. "I understood in my discussions with the other ... ah ... civilian there'd be no further need for these irritating conferences." "I've just learned you're placing more students abroad, Mr. Gulver. How many this time?" "Two thousand." "And where will they be going?" "Croanie. It's all in the application form I've handed in. Your job is to provide transportation." "Will there be any other students embarking this season?" "Why ... perhaps. That's Boge's business." Gulver looked at Retief with pursed lips. "As a matter of fact, we had in mind dispatching another two thousand to Featherweight." "Another under-populated world—and in the same cluster, I believe," Retief said. "Your people must be unusually interested in that region of space." "If that's all you wanted to know, I'll be on my way. I have matters of importance to see to." After Gulver left, Retief called Miss Furkle in. "I'd like to have a break-out of all the student movements that have been planned under the present program," he said. "And see if you can get a summary of what MEDDLE has been shipping lately." Miss Furkle compressed her lips. "If Mr. Magnan were here, I'm sure he wouldn't dream of interfering in the work of other departments. I ... overheard your conversation with the gentleman from the Croanie Legation—" "The lists, Miss Furkle." "I'm not accustomed," Miss Furkle said, "to intruding in matters outside our interest cluster." "That's worse than listening in on phone conversations, eh? But never mind. I need the information, Miss Furkle." "Loyalty to my Chief—" "Loyalty to your pay-check should send you scuttling for the material I've asked for," Retief said. "I'm taking full responsibility. Now scat." The buzzer sounded. Retief flipped a key. "MUDDLE, Retief speaking...." Arapoulous's brown face appeared on the desk screen. "How-do, Retief. Okay if I come up?" "Sure, Hank. I want to talk to you." In the office, Arapoulous took a chair. "Sorry if I'm rushing you, Retief," he said. "But have you got anything for me?" Retief waved at the wine bottles. "What do you know about Croanie?" "Croanie? Not much of a place. Mostly ocean. All right if you like fish, I guess. We import our seafood from there. Nice prawns in monsoon time. Over a foot long." "You on good terms with them?" "Sure, I guess so. Course, they're pretty thick with Boge." "So?" "Didn't I tell you? Boge was the bunch that tried to take us over here a dozen years back. They'd've made it too, if they hadn't had a lot of bad luck. Their armor went in the drink, and without armor they're easy game." Miss Furkle buzzed. "I have your lists," she said shortly. "Bring them in, please." The secretary placed the papers on the desk. Arapoulous caught her eye and grinned. She sniffed and marched from the room. "What that gal needs is a slippery time in the grape mash," Arapoulous observed. Retief thumbed through the papers, pausing to read from time to time. He finished and looked at Arapoulous. "How many men do you need for the harvest, Hank?" Retief inquired. Arapoulous sniffed his wine glass and looked thoughtful. "A hundred would help," he said. "A thousand would be better. Cheers." "What would you say to two thousand?" "Two thousand? Retief, you're not fooling?" "I hope not." He picked up the phone, called the Port Authority, asked for the dispatch clerk. "Hello, Jim. Say, I have a favor to ask of you. You know that contingent of Bogan students. They're traveling aboard the two CDT transports. I'm interested in the baggage that goes with the students. Has it arrived yet? Okay, I'll wait." Jim came back to the phone. "Yeah, Retief, it's here. Just arrived. But there's a funny thing. It's not consigned to d'Land. It's ticketed clear through to Lovenbroy." "Listen, Jim," Retief said. "I want you to go over to the warehouse and take a look at that baggage for me." Retief waited while the dispatch clerk carried out the errand. The level in the two bottles had gone down an inch when Jim returned to the phone. "Hey, I took a look at that baggage, Retief. Something funny going on. Guns. 2mm needlers, Mark XII hand blasters, power pistols—" "It's okay, Jim. Nothing to worry about. Just a mix-up. Now, Jim, I'm going to ask you to do something more for me. I'm covering for a friend. It seems he slipped up. I wouldn't want word to get out, you understand. I'll send along a written change order in the morning that will cover you officially. Meanwhile, here's what I want you to do...." Retief gave instructions, then rang off and turned to Arapoulous. "As soon as I get off a couple of TWX's, I think we'd better get down to the port, Hank. I think I'd like to see the students off personally."
Dangerous Quarry by Harmon, Jim	"Dangerous Quarry", Jim Harmon, 1972. DANGEROUS QUARRY BY JIM HARMON One little village couldn't have a monopoly on all the bad breaks in the world. They did, though! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] They say automation makes jobs, especially if "they" are trying to keep their own job of selling automation machines. I know the Actuarvac made one purple passion of a job for me, the unpleasantly fatal results of which are still lingering with me. Thad McCain, my boss at Manhattan-Universal Insurance, beamed over the sprawling automatic brain's silver gauges and plastic toggles as proudly as if he had just personally gave birth to it. "This will simplify your job to the point of a pleasant diversion, Madison." "Are you going to keep paying me for staying with my little hobby?" I asked, suspiciously eyeing my chrome competitor. "The Actuarvac poses no threat to your career. It will merely keep you from flying off on wild-goose chases. It will unvaryingly separate from the vast body of legitimate claims the phony ones they try to spike us for. Then all that remains is for you to gather the accessory details, the evidence to jail our erring customers." "Fine," I said. I didn't bother to inform him that that was all my job had ever been. McCain shuffled his cards. They were cards for the machine, listing new individual claims on company policies. Since the two-month-old machine was literate and could read typewriting, the cards weren't coded or punched. He read the top one. "Now this, for instance. No adjuster need investigate this accident. The circumstances obviously are such that no false claim could be filed. Of course, the brain will make an unfailing analysis of all the factors involved and clear the claim automatically and officially." McCain threaded the single card into the slot for an example to me. He then flicked the switch and we stood there watching the monster ruminate thoughtfully. It finally rang a bell and spit the card back at Manhattan-Universal's top junior vice-president. He took it like a man. "That's what the machine is for," he said philosophically. "To detect human error. Hmm. What kind of a shove do you get out of this?" He handed me the rejected claim card. I took it, finding a new, neatly typed notation on it. It said: Investigate the Ozark village of Granite City. "You want me to project it in a movie theater and see how it stands it all alone in the dark?" I asked. "Just circle up the wagon train and see how the Indians fall," McCain said anxiously. "It's too general. What does the nickel-brained machine mean by investigating a whole town? I don't know if it has crooked politics, a polygamy colony or a hideout for supposedly deported gangsters. I don't care much either. It's not my business. How could a whole town be filing false life and accident claims?" "Find that out," he said. "I trust the machine. There have been cases of mass collusion before. Until you get back, we are making no more settlements with that settlement." Research. To a writer that generally means legally permissible plagiarism. For an insurance adjuster, it means earnest work. Before I headed for the hills, or the Ozark Mountains, I walked a few hundred feet down the hall and into the manual record files. The brain abstracted from empirical data but before I planed out to Granite City I had to find the basis for a few practical, nasty suspicions. Four hours of flipping switches and looking at microfilm projections while a tawny redhead in a triangular fronted uniform carried me reels to order gave me only two ideas. Neither was very original. The one that concerned business was that the whole village of Granite City must be accident-prone. I rejected that one almost immediately. While an accident-prone was in himself a statistical anomaly, the idea of a whole town of them gathered together stretched the fabric of reality to the point where even an invisible re-weaver couldn't help it. There was an explanation for the recent rise in the accident rate down there. The rock quarry there had gone into high-level operation. I knew why from the floor, walls, ceiling border, table trimmings in the records room. They were all granite. The boom in granite for interior and exterior decoration eclipsed earlier periods of oak, plastics, wrought iron and baked clay completely. The distinctive grade of granite from Granite City was being put into use all over the planet and in the Officer's Clubs on the Moon and Mars. Yet the rise in accident, compared to the rise in production, was out of all proportion. Furthermore, the work at the quarry could hardly explain the excessive accident reports we had had from the village as far back as our records went. We had paid off on most of the claims since they seemed irrefutably genuine. All were complete with eye-witness reports and authenticated circumstances. There was one odd note in the melodic scheme: We had never had a claim for any kind of automobile accident from Granite City. I shut off the projector. It may be best to keep an open mind, but I have found in practice that you have to have some kind of working theory which you must proceed to prove is either right or wrong. Tentatively, I decided that for generations the citizens of Granite City had been in an organized conspiracy to defraud Manhattan-Universal and its predecessors of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars in false accident claims. Maybe they made their whole livelihood off us before the quarry opened up. I used my pocket innercom and had my secretary get me a plane reservation and a gun. After so many profitable decades, Granite City wasn't going to take kindly to my spoil-sport interference. The Absinthe Flight to Springfield was jolly and relatively fast. Despite headwinds we managed Mach 1.6 most of the way. My particular stewardess was a blonde, majoring in Video Psychotherapy in her night courses. I didn't have much time to get acquainted or more than hear the outline of her thesis on the guilt purgings effected by The Life and Legend of Gary Cooper. The paunchy businessman in the next lounge was already nibbling the ear of his red-haired hostess. He was the type of razorback who took the girls for granted and aimed to get his money's worth. I gave Helen, the blonde, a kiss on the cheek and began flipping through the facsimiles in my briefcase as we chute-braked for a landing at the Greater Ozarks. It took me a full five minutes to find out that I couldn't take a copter to Granite City. Something about downdrafts in the mountains. Since that put me back in the days of horsepower, I trotted over to the automobile rental and hired a few hundred of them under the hood of a Rolls. That was about the only brand of car that fit me. I hadn't been able to get my legs into any other foreign car since I was fifteen, and I have steadfastly refused to enter an American model since they all sold out their birthrights as passenger cars and went over to the tractor-trailer combinations they used only for cargo trucks when I was a boy. Dragging around thirty feet of car is sheer nonsense, even for prestige. It was a tiresome fifty-mile drive, on manual all the way after I left the radar-channel area of the city. Up and down, slowing for curves, flipping into second for the hills. The whole trip hardly seemed worth it when I saw the cluster of painted frame buildings that was Granite City. They looked like a tumble of dingy building blocks tossed in front of a rolled-up indigo sports shirt. That was Granite Mountain in the near foreground. But I remembered that over the course of some forty years the people in these few little stacks of lumber had taken Manhattan-Universal for three quarters of a megabuck. I turned off onto the gravel road, spraying my fenders with a hail of a racket. Then I stepped down hard on my brakes, bracing myself to keep from going through the windscreen. I had almost sideswiped an old man sitting at the side of the road, huddled in his dusty rags. "Are you okay?" I yelled, thumbing down the window. "I've suffered no harm at your hands—or your wheels, sir. But I could use some help," the old man said. "Could I trouble you for a lift when you leave town?" I wasn't too sure about that. Most of these guys who are on the hobo circuit talking like they owned some letters to their names besides their initials belonged to some cult or other. I try to be as tolerant as I can, and some of my best friends are thugs, but I don't want to drive with them down lonely mountain roads. "We'll see what we can work out," I said. "Right now can you tell me where I can find Marshal Thompson?" "I can," he said. "But you will have to walk there." "Okay. It shouldn't be much of a walk in Granite City." "It's the house at the end of the street." "It is," I said. "Why shouldn't I drive up there? The street's open." The old man stared at me with red-shot eyes. "Marshal Thompson doesn't like people to run automobiles on the streets of Granite City." "So I'll just lock the car up and walk over there. I couldn't go getting tire tracks all over your clean streets." The old man watched as I climbed down and locked up the Rolls. "You would probably get killed if you did run the car here, you know," he said conversationally. "Well," I said, "I'll be getting along." I tried to walk sideways so I could keep an eye on him. "Come back," he said, as if he had doubts. The signs of a menacing conspiracy were growing stronger, I felt. I had my automatic inside my shirt, but I decided I might need a less lethal means of expression. Without breaking stride, I scooped up a baseball-size hunk of bluish rock from the road and slipped it into my small change pocket. I have made smarter moves in my time. As I approached the house at the end of the lane, I saw it was about the worse construction job I had seen in my life. It looked as architecturally secure as a four-year-old's drawing of his home. The angles were measurably out of line. Around every nail head were two nails bent out of shape and hammered down, and a couple of dozen welts in the siding where the hammer had missed any nail. The paint job was spotty and streaked. Half the panes in the windows were cracked. I fought down the dust in my nose, afraid of the consequences of a sneeze to the place. My toe scuffed the top porch step and I nearly crashed face first into the front door. I had been too busy looking at the house, I decided. I knocked. Moments later, the door opened. The lean-faced man who greeted me had his cheeks crisscrossed with razor nicks and his shirt on wrong side out. But his eyes were bright and sparrow alert. "Are you Mr. Marshal Thompson, the agent for Manhattan-Universal Insurance?" I put to him. "I'm the marshal, name of Thompson. But you ain't the first to take my title for my Christian name. You from the company?" "Yes," I said. "Were you expecting me?" Thompson nodded. "For forty-one years." Thompson served the coffee in the chipped cups, favoring only slightly his burned fingers. Catching the direction of my glance, he said, "Company is worth a few scalds, Mr. Madison." I accepted the steaming cup and somehow it very nearly slipped out of my hands. I made a last microsecond retrieve. The marshal nodded thoughtfully. "You're new here." "First time," I said, sipping coffee. It was awful. He must have made a mistake and put salt into it instead of sugar. "You think the claims I've been filing for my people are false?" "The home office has some suspicions of that," I admitted. "I don't blame them, but they ain't. Look, the company gambles on luck, doesn't it?" "No. It works on percentages calculated from past experience." "But I mean it knows that there will be, say, a hundred fatal car crashes in a day. But it doesn't know if maybe ninety of them will be in Iowa and only ten in the rest of the country." "There's something to that. We call it probability, not luck." "Well, probability says that more accidents are going to occur in Granite City than anywhere else in the country, per capita." I shook my head at Thompson. "That's not probability. Theoretically, anything can happen but I don't—I can't—believe that in this town everybody has chanced to be an accident prone. Some other factor is operating. You are all deliberately faking these falls and fires—" "We're not," Thompson snapped. "Or else something is causing you to have this trouble. Maybe the whole town is a bunch of dope addicts. Maybe you grow your own mescalin or marijuana; it's happened before." Thompson laughed. "Whatever is going on, I'm going to find it out. I don't care what you do, but if I can find a greater risk here and prove it, the Commission will let us up our rates for this town. Probably beyond the capacity of these people, I'm afraid." "That would be a real tragedy, Mr. Madison. Insurance is vital to this town. Nobody could survive a year here without insurance. People pay me for their premiums before they pay their grocery bills." I shrugged, sorrier than I could let on. "I won't be able to pay for my own groceries, marshal, if I don't do the kind of job the company expects. I'm going to snoop around." "All right," he said grudgingly, "but you'll have to do it on foot." "Yes, I understood you didn't like cars on your streets. At least not the cars of outsiders." "That doesn't have anything to do with it. Nobody in Granite City owns a car. It would be suicide for anybody to drive a car, same as it would be to have a gas or oil stove, instead of coal, or to own a bathtub." I took a deep breath. "Showers," Thompson said. "With nonskid mats and handrails." I shook hands with him. "You've been a great help." "Four o'clock," he said. "Roads are treacherous at night." "There's always a dawn." Thompson met my eyes. "That's not quite how we look at it here." II The quarry was a mess. I couldn't see any in the way they sliced the granite out of the mountain. The idea of a four-year-old—a four-year-old moron—going after a mound of raspberry ice cream kept turning up in my mind as I walked around. The workmen were gone; it was after five local time. But here and there I saw traces of them. Some of them were sandwich wrappers and cigarette stubs, but most of the traces were smears of blood. Blood streaked across sharp rocks, blood oozing from beneath heavy rocks, blood smeared on the handles and working surfaces of sledge hammers and tools. The place was as gory as a battlefield. "What are you looking for, bud?" The low, level snarl had come from a burly character in a syn-leather jacket and narrow-brimmed Stetson. "The reason you have so many accidents here," I said frankly. "I'm from the insurance company. Name's Madison." "Yeah, I know." I had supposed he would. "I'm Kelvin, the foreman here," the big man told me, extending a ham of a fist to be shook. "Outside, doing my Army time, I noticed that most people don't have as many slipups as we do here. Never could figure it out." "This rock is part of it—" "What do you mean by that!" Kelvin demanded savagely. "I mean the way you work it. No system to it. No stratification, no plateau work..." "Listen, Madison, don't talk about what you don't know anything about. The stuff in these walls isn't just rock; it isn't even plain granite. Granite City exports some of the finest grade of the stone in the world. And it's used all over the world. We aren't just a bunch of meatheaded ditch diggers—we are craftsmen. We have to figure a different way of getting out every piece of stone." "It's too bad." "What's too bad?" "That you chose the wrong way so often," I said. Kelvin breathed a virile grade of tobacco into my face. "Listen, Madison, we have been working this quarry for generations, sometimes more of us working than other times. Today most of us are working getting the stone out. That's the way we like it. We don't want any outsider coming in and interfering with that." "If this quarry has anything to do with defrauding Manhattan-Universal, I can tell you that I will do something about that!" As soon as my teeth clicked back together, the sickening feeling hit me that I shouldn't have said that. The general store was called a supermarket, but it wasn't particularly superior. I took a seat at the soda fountain and took a beer, politely declining the teen-age clerk's offer of a shot of white lightning from the Pepsi-Cola fountain syrup jug for a quarter. Behind me were three restaurant tables and one solitary red-upholstered booth. Two men somewhere between forty and sixty sat at the nearest table playing twenty-one. Over the foam of my stein I saw the old man I had almost run down in the road. He marched through the two-thirds of the building composed of rows of can goods and approached the fat man at the cash register. "Hello, Professor," the fat man said. "What can we do for you?" "I'd like to mail a letter," he said in an urgent voice. "Sure, Professor, I'll send it right off on the facsimile machine as soon as I get a free moment." "You're sure you can send it? Right away?" "Positive. Ten cents, Professor." The professor fumbled in his pants' pocket and fished out a dime. He fingered it thoughtfully. "I suppose the letter can wait," he said resignedly. "I believe I will buy a pair of doughnuts, Mr. Haskel." "Why not get a hamburger, Professor? Special sale today. Only a dime. And since you're such a good customer I'll throw in a cup of coffee and the two sinkers for nothing." "That's—kind of you," the old man said awkwardly. Haskel shrugged. "A man has to eat." The man called "the professor" came over and sat down two stools away, ignoring me. The clerk dialed his hamburger and served it. I stayed with my beer and my thoughts. More and more, I was coming to believe that Granite City wasn't a job for an investigative adjuster like myself but a psychological adjuster. Crime is a structural flaw in a community, yes. But when the whole society is criminal, distorted, you can't isolate the flaw. The whole village was meat for a sociologist; let him figure out why otherwise decent citizens felt secure in conspiracy to defraud an honored corporation. I didn't feel that I was licked or that the trip had been a failure. I had merely established to my intuitive satisfaction that the job was not in my field. I glanced at the old man. The proprietor of the store knew him and evidently thought him harmless enough to feed. "I think I can make it down the mountain before dark, Old Timer," I called over to him. "You can come along if you like." The acne-faced kid behind the counter stared at me. I looked over and caught the bright little eyes of Haskel, the proprietor, too. Finally, the old professor turned on his stool, his face pale and his eyes sad and resigned. "I doubt very much if either of us will be leaving, Mr. Madison," he said. "Now." I took my beer and the professor his coffee over to the single booth. We looked at each other across the shiny table and our beverage containers. "I am Doctor Arnold Parnell of Duke University," the professor said. "I left on my sabbatical five months ago. I have been here ever since." I looked at his clothes. "You must not have been very well fixed for a year's vacation, Professor." "I," he said, "have enough traveler's checks with me to paper a washroom. Nobody in this town will cash them for me." "I can understand why you want to go somewhere where people are more trusting in that case." "They know the checks are good. It's me they refuse to trust to leave this place. They think they can't let me go." "I don't see any shackles on you," I remarked. "Just because you can't see them," he growled, "doesn't mean they aren't there. Marshal Thompson has the only telephone in the village. He has politely refused to let me use it. I'm a suspicious and undesirable character; he's under no obligation to give me telephone privileges, he says. Haskel has the Post Office concession—the Telefax outfit behind the money box over there. He takes my letters but I never see him send them off. And I never get a reply." "Unfriendly of them," I said conservatively. "But how can they stop you from packing your dental floss and cutting out?" "Haskel has the only motor vehicle in town—a half-ton pick-up, a minuscule contrivance less than the size of a passenger car. He makes about one trip a week down into the city for supplies and package mail. He's been the only one in or out of Granite City for five months." It seemed incredible—more than that, unlikely, to me. "How about the granite itself? How do they ship it out?" "It's an artificial demand product, like diamonds," Professor Parnell said. "They stockpile it and once a year the executive offices for the company back in Nashville runs in a portable monorail railroad up the side of the mountain to take it out. That won't be for another four months, as nearly as I can find out. I may not last that long." "How are you living?" I asked. "If they won't take your checks—" "I do odd jobs for people. They feed me, give me a little money sometimes." "I can see why you want to ride out with me," I said. "Haven't you ever thought of just walking out?" "Fifty miles down a steep mountain road? I'm an old man, Mr. Madison, and I've gotten even older since I came to Granite City." I nodded. "You have any papers, any identification, to back this up?" Wordlessly, he handed over his billfold, letters, enough identification to have satisfied Allen Pinkerton or John Edgar Hoover. "Okay," I drawled. "I'll accept your story for the moment. Now answer me the big query: Why are the good people of Granite City doing this to you? By any chance, you wouldn't happen to know of a mass fraud they are perpetrating on Manhattan-Universal?" "I know nothing of their ethical standards," Parnell said, "but I do know that they are absolutely subhuman !" "I admit I have met likelier groups of human beings in my time." "No, understand me. These people are literally subhuman—they are inferior to other human beings." "Look, I know the Klan is a growing organization but I can't go along with you." "Madison, understand me, I insist. Ethnologically speaking, it is well known that certain tribes suffer certain deficiencies due to diet, climate, et cetera. Some can't run, sing, use mathematics. The people of Granite City have the most unusual deficency on record, I admit. Their psionic senses have been impaired. They are completely devoid of any use of telepathy, precognition, telekinesis." "Because they aren't supermen, that doesn't mean that they are submen," I protested. "I don't have any psionic abilities either." "But you do!" Parnell said earnestly. "Everybody has some psionics ability, but we don't realize it. We don't have the fabulous abilities of a few recorded cases of supermen, but we have some, a trace. Granite City citizens have no psionic ability whatsoever, not even the little that you and I and the rest of the world have!" "You said you were Duke University, didn't you?" I mused. "Maybe you know what you are talking about; I've never been sure. But these people can't suffer very much from their lack of what you call psi ability." "I tell you they do," he said hoarsely. "We never realize it but we all have some power of precognition. If we didn't, we would have a hundred accidents a day—just as these people do . They can't foresee the bump in the road the way we can, or that that particular match will flare a little higher and burn their fingers. There are other things, as well. You'll find it is almost impossible to carry on a lengthy conversation with any of them—they have no telepathic ability, no matter how slight, to see through the semantic barrier. None of them can play ball. They don't have the unconscious psionic ability to influence the ball in flight. All of us can do that, even if the case of a 'Poltergeist' who can lift objects is rare." "Professor, you mean these people are holding you here simply so you won't go out and tell the rest of the world that they are submen?" "They don't want the world to know why they are psionically subnormal," he said crisply. "It's the granite ! I don't understand why myself. I'm not a physicist or a biologist. But for some reason the heavy concentration and particular pattern of the radioactive radiation in its matrix is responsible for both inhibiting the genes that transmit psi powers from generation to generation and affecting those abilities in the present generation. A kind of psionic sterility." "How do you know this?" "We haven't the time for all that. But think about it. What else could it be? It's that granite that they are shipping all over the world, spreading the contamination. I want to stop that contamination. To the people of Granite City that means ruining their only industry, putting them all out of work. They are used to this psionic sterility; they don't see anything so bad about it. Besides, like everybody else, they have some doubts that there really are such things as telepathy and the rest to be affected." "Frankly," I said, hedging only a little, "I don't know what to make of your story. This is something to be decided by somebody infallible—like the Pope or the President or Board Chairman of Manhattan-Universal. But the first thing to do is get you out of here. We had better get back to my car. I've got good lights to get down the mountain." Parnell jumped up eagerly, and brushed over his china mug, staining the tabletop with brown caffeine. "Sorry," he said. "I should have been precognizant of that. I try to stay away from the rock as much as possible, but it's getting to me." I should have remembered something then. But, naturally, I didn't.
Dark Side Lite by David Edelstein	"Dark Side Lite", David Edelstein, 1999. Dark Side Lite Those poor souls who've been camping out in front of theaters for six weeks: Who can blame them for saying, "To hell with the critics, we know it will be great!"? The doors will open, and they'll race to grab the best seats and feel a surge of triumph as their butts sink down. We've made it: Yeeehaww!! They'll cheer when the familiar John Williams fanfare erupts and the title-- Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace --rises out of the screen and the backward-slanted opening "crawl" begins: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ..." Yaaahhhhhhh!!! Then, their hearts pounding, they'll settle back to read the rest of the titles: "Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute." Taxation of trade routes: Waaahoooo!!!! How long will they go with it? At what point will they realize that what they've heard is, alas, true, that the picture really is a stiff? Maybe they never will. Maybe they'll want to love The Phantom Menace so much--because they have so much emotional energy invested in loving it, and in buying the books, magazines, dolls, cards, clothes, soap, fast food, etc.--that the realization will never sink in. In successful hypnosis, the subject works to enter a state of heightened susceptibility, to surrender to a higher power. Maybe they'll conclude that common sense is the enemy of the Force and fight it to the death. Look, I wanted to love The Phantom Menace , too. I was an adolescent boy and would enjoy being one again for a couple of hours. But the movie has a way of deflating all but the most delusional of hopes. If someone had given Ed Wood $115 million to remake Plan Nine From Outer Space it might have looked like this, although Wood's dialogue would surely have been more memorable. The first thing that will strike you is that George Lucas, who wrote and directed the movie, has forgotten how to write and direct a movie. Having spent the two decades since the original Star Wars (1977) concocting skeletons of screenplays that other people flesh out, and overseeing productions that other people storyboard and stage, he has come to lack what one might Michelangelistically term "the spark of life." If the first Star Wars was a box of Cracker Jacks that was all prizes, The Phantom Menace is a box of Cracker Jacks that's all diagrams of prizes. It's there on paper, but it's waiting to be filled in and jazzed up. Advance word has been cruel to the actors, but advance word has it only half right. Yes, they're terrible, but Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, and Natalie Portman are not terrible actors, they've just been given scenes that no human could be expected to play. As a sage Jedi Master called Qui-Gon Jinn, Neeson must maintain a Zen-like detachment from the universe around him--probably not a challenge when that universe will be added in later by computers. "I don't sense anything," he tells his uneasy young apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor), as the two sit waiting to conduct trade negotiations with a bunch of gray, fish-faced Federation officers who talk like extras in a samurai movie. McGregor furrows his brow. "There's something ... elusive," he says, working to enunciate like a young Alec Guinness but succeeding only in nullifying his natural Scots charm. "Master," he adds, "you said I should be mindful of the future." Neeson thinks a bit. "I do sense an unusual amount of fear for something as trivial as this trade dispute." A hologram of Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the "Sith," commands the Federation to sic its battle droids on the Jedi ambassadors before they can apprise Queen Amidala (Portman) of the imminent invasion of the peaceful planet of Naboo. In come the battle droids and out come the light sabers, which still hum like faulty fluorescents. Clack, clack, clack. Lucas can't edit fight scenes so that they're fluid--he cuts on the clack. You get the gist, though. The Jedi make their getaway, but with gas and tolls and droid destroyers, it takes them over an hour to land on Naboo, by which time the queen and the Galactic Senate have already got the grim message. For one thing, communications have been disrupted: "A communications disruption can mean only one thing," says someone. "Invasion." Queen Amidala, done up like a white-faced Chinese empress in hanging beads and glass balls and a hat with curly horns, speaks in tones from which emotion has been expunged, perhaps on the theory that subjects won't argue with a ruler who puts them to sleep: "I ... will ... not ... condone ... a ... course ... of ... action ... that ... will ... lead ... us ... to ... war," she drones. Meanwhile, the Jedi whiz through the underwater core of a planet in a man-of-warlike submersible pursued by 3-D dragony beasties and a giant catfish with extra movable parts. Potentially thrilling stuff, but Neeson and McGregor remain peculiarly unruffled. "The Force will guide us," says Neeson blandly, and the director seems to share his lack of urgency. There's Zen detachment and there's Quaalude detachment, and The Phantom Menace falls into the second camp: It really does take place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. When R2-D2 showed up, I thought: At last, a character with the potential for intimacy! Say this for Lucas, he doesn't whip up a lot of bogus energy, the way the makers of such blockbusters as The Mummy (1999) and Armageddon (1998) do. It's as if he conceived The Phantom Menace as a Japanese No pageant and has purposely deadened his actors, directing them to stand stiffly in the dead center of the screen against matte paintings of space or some futuristic metropolis and deliver lines alternately formal or bemusing. ("This is an odd move for the Trade Federation.") Lucas considers himself an "independent" filmmaker and an artist of integrity. Had he not been such a pretentious overlord, a platoon of screenwriters would doubtless have been engaged to rewrite him and make the movie halfway human. A buddy specialist would have punched up the Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi badinage, and a black dialogue specialist would have given the comic-relief character, Jar Jar Binks, a man-size dinosaur with pop eyes and a vaguely West Indian patois, something fresher than "Ex-squeeze me!" and a lot of Butterfly McQueen-style simpering and running away from battles. Those of us who complain about the assembly-line production of "blockbuster" scripts need an occasional reminder that assembly lines can do much to make empty thrill machines more lively. The Phantom Menace didn't need to be barren of feeling, but it took a real writer, Lawrence Kasdan ( The Big Chill , 1983), to draft the best and most inspiring of the Star Wars movies, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and a real director, Irvin Kershner, to breathe Wagnerian grandeur into Lucas' cartoonish fantasies. Having lived with the saga for so many years, the audience was prepared to set aside some of its narrative expectations here to plumb the origins of Lucas' universe. In The Phantom Menace , however, the Jedi already exist and the Force is taken for granted--we're still in the middle of the damn story. The only dramatic interest comes from a young Tatooine slave named Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), whom we know will grow up to father Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and then surrender to the dark side of the Force and become Darth Vader. But that transformation won't happen until the third episode; meanwhile, Anakin is a conventionally industrious juvenile with a penchant for building droids from scratch and "pod racing"--an activity that he demonstrates in one of the movie's most impressive but irrelevant special effects set pieces, a whiplash hyperdrive permutation of the chariot race in Ben-Hur (1959). Later in the film, when Anakin goes before something called the Jedi Council and meets Yoda and Samuel L. Jackson (together again!), Lucas dramatizes the interrogation so ineptly that you either have to take Yoda's word that there's something wrong with the boy ("Clouded this boy's future is") or to conclude that Yoda, like us, is moving backward through time and has already seen Episodes 4 through 6. Anakin, he says smugly, has fear in him, and fear leads to anger and anger to the dark side--which would mean, as I interpret it, that only people without fear (i.e., people who don't exist) are suitable candidates for Jedi knighthood (perhaps Yoda will enlarge his definition of fear in subsequent episodes). There's also some quasireligious, quasiscientific blather to the effect that the boy was conceived without a father by "metachorians"--symbiont, microscopic life forms that will speak to you if you "quiet your mind." In other words, the Force. So, it's not nebulous, after all! It can be measured. It can be quantified. It can even, perhaps, be merchandised. Yes, the effects are first-rate, occasionally breathtaking. But the floating platforms in the Galactic Senate do little to distract you from parliamentary machinations that play like an especially dull day on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The final military engagement, in which long-headed attack droids are rolled onto the field as the spokes of a giant wheel, would be awesome if Lucas didn't routinely cut away from the battle just when he seems on the verge of actually thrilling you. The chief villain, bombastically named Darth Maul, is a horned, red, Kabuki-style snake demon with orange pingpong-ball eyes who challenges the Jedi to a couple of clackety light-saber battles. His appearances are underscored by demonic chants; he might as well wear a neon beanie that flashes "Bad Guy." Like all revisionist historians, Lucas cheats like mad. If Darth Vader had built C-3PO as a young man, how come he never paid much attention to him in the other movies--and vice versa? As Yoda himself puts it, in another context, "See through you we can." Still, it's worth reprinting a blistering e-mail sent to my wife by a relative, after she'd let him know that I hated The Phantom Menace : Surprise, Surprise. Star Wars was never reviewed well by critics. Sometimes a basic story that rests on great special effects and stupid dialogue can be very entertaining--it's called a cult movie, and no critic can have an effect on the obvious outcome that this is going to be the highest grossing movie ever. I myself stood in line for five hours and already have tickets to see it three times, and I know I'll enjoy it. Why? Because it plays on my childhood imagination. And I'm sure it's not as bad as Return of the Jedi , which was the weakest one--but I still liked it and saw it a dozen times. I get tired of being told I'm not going to like it because it doesn't adhere to certain basic critic criteria. I say bpthhhh (sticking my tongue out to review)--don't be sending me anything dissing my movie:):):) I'll be curious to know whether he sees The Phantom Menace a dozen times, or even the three for which he has paid. (I could imagine seeing it three times only if they sold adrenaline shots at the concession stand.) Or maybe he'll come out of the movie and say: "No, you didn't get it, Mr. Snot-Nosed-Criteria Critic Person. It's not supposed to be exciting. It's laying the foundation for the next chapter, when Anakin and Obi-Wan defeat the Mandalorian warriors in the Clone Wars and Anakin marries Queen Amidala. And listen, I'm getting in line even earlier for tickets to Episode 2 . The Force is with me, butt-head."
Diamonds in the Rough by John Pastier	"Diamonds in the Rough", John Pastier, 1996. Diamonds in the Rough Fourscore and seven years ago, the first steel and concrete baseball palace opened for business. Philadelphia's Shibe Park, home to the Athletics and later the Phillies, was one of 13 urban ballparks built in the seven-year period now regarded as the golden age of ballpark architecture. All but three (Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Tiger Stadium) have since been razed. Replacing parks built of wood, these ballyards set new standards for size, fire safety, intimacy, and convenience. As places to watch ballgames, they were vastly superior to the post-World War II parks, especially the facilities designed in the late '60s and '70s that doubled as football stadiums. But these concrete monsters, plopped into vast parking lots in Houston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, lack the character of the classic parks. Chicago's New Comiskey Park, which opened in 1991, attempted to address the character question with a superficial postmodern facade that in some ways resembled the exterior of the golden-era park it replaced. New Comiskey was marketed as an old-fashioned park with all the modern conveniences. But inside, it was still a symmetrical concrete monster, and it sat in the middle of a 7,000-car parking lot rather than in an urban neighborhood. A year later, a new--yet more genuinely old--ballpark arrived to dispel the gloom. Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards revived the idea of a quirkily asymmetrical, relatively intimate, steel-structured, city-friendly ballpark. "Once this opens," predicted Commissioner of Baseball Bart Giamatti, "everyone will want one like it." And so it came to be: Camden Yards' successors in Cleveland, Arlington (Texas), and Denver, and those designed for Milwaukee, Seattle, and San Francisco, take their cues from Baltimore's conceptual breakthrough. Even totally nontraditional parks, like those in Phoenix, Miami, and Tampa Bay, emulate the asymmetry of the Camden Yards outfield. It's almost as though a disembodied voice intoned, "If you build it, they will copy." While Camden Yards and its offspring are almost universally praised, some of them don't deserve the hype. The most annoying hype is that all the new parks are intimate, and that every seat is better at the new place than the old. Intimacy has two aspects--actual size and the subjective perception of size and scale. A good architect can ace the second part of the test through convincing forms, good proportions, and attractive materials. The exposed steelwork, brick, stone, tile, and well-placed wall openings of the new parks beat the cold and sterile stadiums of a generation ago. For the new parks' charms, we should be thankful. But in actual size, the new ballyards are not intimate. All their amenities--elevators, wider concourses, abundant toilets (especially for women), bathrooms, escalators, plentiful food stands, and luxury suites--make them far larger than the parks they claim to emulate. These parks are larger than even the multipurpose hulks we all love to hate. Compare, for instance, the spanking new Ballpark at Arlington (49,100 seats), which rests on 13.6 acres, to Seattle's Kingdome, a 58,000-seat multipurpose stadium that opened in 1976 and covers 9.3 acres. (Ebbets Field, home to the Brooklyn Dodgers, occupied a mere 5.7 acres and seated 32,000.) Or compare heights: New Comiskey Park's roof is 146 feet above field level; old Comiskey Park was about 75 feet high. This is not ballpark trivia, but an indicator of fan experience: Upper-deck seats in the new, taller stadiums are farther away from the action. At Arlington, the fan sitting in the middle-row, upper-deck seat closest to home plate is 224 feet from the batter, compared to 125 feet at Tiger Stadium, a park with 4,300 more seats. Why are upper-deck seats in the new parks so far from the game? Two reasons: column placement and luxury seating. In the old parks, the structural columns stood within the seating areas, placing the upper-deck seats closer to the game. The trade-off was that these columns obstructed the view of some fans. Today's architects "remedy" the problem by placing the columns behind the seating areas, thus moving the upper decks back from the field. (It should be noted that the new parks' claim that they have no impaired-view seats is an overstatement.) Added tiers devoted to luxury seating at the new parks also push the upper deck away from the field. The retreat of that deck is a century-long process, but it can be stemmed. The Orioles pressed for several design changes that lowered Camden Yards' top deck and produced a middle-row viewing distance of 199 feet, about eight rows closer than Arlington's. Design references to golden-age ballparks are only one parallel between that period and ours. We are also matching that era's frenzied pace of construction: Twenty-six of Major League Baseball's 32 franchises occupy a park that is less than 10 years old; has been, or will be, extensively remodeled; or hope to move into a new one soon. One of the classic parks' merits was that they were unsubsidized. Team owners bought land and paid for stadium construction--some even built trolley lines to transport fans to the games. In all but two cases during the last 65 years, taxpayers have covered most or all of the costs of stadium building. The San Francisco Giants are planning a similar arrangement for their bayfront stadium, assembling about $240 million in private funds and persuading the city to pay for some of the infrastructure. The Giants say that other team owners are rooting against their scheme, because it calls into question the profligate public subsidies. Some of the subsidies exceed capital and maintenance costs: If the White Sox fail to draw 1.5 million annual fans at New Comiskey Park in the 11th through 20th years of their lease, the state of Illinois is contractually obliged to cover the shortfall at the gate by buying upto 300,000 tickets. You'd expect that the public would get something, perhaps affordable seats, in return for subsidizing stadiums. Instead, the cheap seats in the new parks are scarcer. The Seattle Mariners' proposed park, for instance, will contain about one-fourth as many general-admission seats as the present location. This erosion of low-cost seats is a long-running trend. So too is the dramatic increase in luxury seating, which is the primary real reason for the ballpark-building boom. The real gold mines are the posh luxury suites that lease for between $30,000 and $200,000 a year (payable in advance). A comparable moneymaker is the club deck, just above the first-tier seating. These pricey sections are occupied usually on a season-ticket basis, and offer the best sightlines, roomier seats, and wait staff who peddle gourmet fare. The gilding doesn't end there: New parks also include members-only stadium clubs and on-premises bars and restaurants. Naturally, owners don't advertise their new parks as a means of making life better for elite ticketholders. They say that only a new stadium will allow them to make enough money to stay in town or to field a competitive team and to allow fans to savor that old-time baseball flavor in greater comfort and convenience. Local taxpayers tend to lay off this pitch--they have voted these measures down in Illinois, Washington state, California, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Politically savvy owners usually bypass the voters and tap state governments directly for the money. Larger and more lavish stadiums translate into greater land and construction costs. Operable roofs, such as those in Toronto's SkyDome, Phoenix's BankOne Ballpark, and those proposed for Seattle and Milwaukee, are budget-busters. Since most teams put up little (if any) of their own money, they have scant incentive to economize on the parks. In Seattle, Mariner management has demanded an operable roof even though the city has the driest weather in MLB outside California. The real problem with the Seattle climate is cold weather in spring and fall, but the unsealed roof won't make the park warmer or totally free of wind. Lately, the cost of stadiums has ranged from about $300 million to $500 million. The multipurpose stadium that the Yankees want built on Manhattan's lower west side tentatively carries a $1 billion price tag. Add the financing and maintenance costs, and even a midpriced project goes through the retractable roof. At one point, the cost of the Brewers' proposed stadium grew from $250 million to $845 million, and that's not counting the value of the land. The good news is that not every owner is demanding a castle for his team. All Pittsburgh Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy wants is a "35,000-to-37,000-seat park with natural grass and no roof, bells, or whistles." Though his attitude is commendable, the proposed park will still cost about $200 million, and perhaps an equal amount in interest. Why should the public chip in? Taxpayer subsidies don't produce cheaper tickets--they produce more expensive tickets. The average admission price (not counting club seats and suites) rises about 35 percent when a team moves into new digs. And independent economists (i.e., those not hired by stadium proponents) discount the claim that new stadiums spur regional economic growth. But one compelling argument for subsidies is that new stadiums can pull their cities together when properly designed and sited. This requires a downtown or neighborhood location where lots of fans can take the bus or the train to the game; where they can walk to the stadium from work, hotels, restaurants, or bars; and where getting to the game is a communal event that is part of a broader urban experience. This is the case with older parks such as Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, and the new ones in Toronto, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Denver. "If you put them in the wrong place, it's a colossal waste of money," says the planning director of the city of Cleveland. "But if you put them in the right place, the benefits are phenomenal," Recent attendance patterns show that urban parks generate much better patronage than suburban ones or those in neither/nor locations. There are also strong indicators that suggest new urban parks have "legs," retaining more of their patrons after the novelty wears off. But some teams deliberately seek isolated locations, where they can better monopolize parking revenues and game-related food, drink, and souvenir business. This is why the White Sox moated their park with 100 acres of parking, why the Milwaukee Brewers refuse to build downtown, and why the Mariners insisted on the most remote of Seattle's three ballpark-siting options. Modern conveniences aside, the new baseball shrines are a mixed bag. Most are visually impressive, boast interestingly shaped playing fields, and start off as box-office hits. But too many of them are large and expensive, tend to live on the dole, and are hampered by seat layouts that create a caste system among fans. At their best, they strengthen their cities; at their worst, they exploit them. The decision-making process behind the financing and building of new ballparks has become predictable, as have the designs. But the good news is that our stadium boom is far from over. If owners and public agencies can be persuaded to take a longer view of stadium economics and community concerns, we may yet see parks that better unite traditional character with modern convenience.
Dirty Laundry by David Edelstein	"Dirty Laundry", David Edelstein, 1998. Dirty Laundry Now and then, a documentary film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're striving, at least in theory, to capture? Unmade Beds , Nicholas Barker's " 'real life' feature film," has proudly worn its mongrel status as a "directed" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast, excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside. This is not cinema vérité , and nothing has been left to chance. The director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates, followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film "an exercise in mendacity," Barker goes on, "I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate larger dramatic truths." Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and commentary ("I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really don't want to have anything to do with it"--a New York publicist), it threatens to become a cause célèbre --and to be coming soon to a theater near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of "difficult" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing. Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard pervert people's lives in the name of "larger dramatic truths." Those truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however, Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males. Michael turns out to be the film's most sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy 54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are "mutts." Sounding like one of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco , Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a pathetic little loser--a mutt. Aimee, on the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds. Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has always been fat--and she's "OK with it," and a man just has to accept it. This is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if you call them back? If you express too much interest? "Or," the viewer thinks, "if you're 225 pounds?" The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks ("I'm up to two dicks a day"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks. Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article) is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint. Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and steps into the shower and soaps up. Barker might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection. The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and elaborately lighted) and reminding them, "In this scene she points out that you should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action." Call me square, but I find this antithetical to the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for $10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial, following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was "true to her character." But what separates documentary from fiction is that real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than the one they set out to portray. So what are Barker's "larger dramatic truths"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and, in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably, that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and then, hey, he's a documentarian. Unmade Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you. Anything to keep from turning into one of those people. The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue. Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them to be educated in the best schools. ("Furniture's temporary; education is permanent.") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts. We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor, or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out. The Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of '70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy, dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic awareness of the family's desperation. "Are we middle-class now?" ask the children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van, cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly Hills. Grading on the steep curve established by summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact , Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo 66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at. And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard production designers but can't fake class. I don't know who the credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel (Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be: The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clichés. Whereas the original Steed, Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible, acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far beneath him! When he sputters lines like "Time to die!" one imagines Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings.
Disturbing Sun by Richardson, Robert S. (Robert Shirley)	"Disturbing Sun", Robert S. (Robert Shirley) Richardson, 1964. DISTURBING SUN By PHILIP LATHAM Illustrated by Freas [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This, be it understood, is fiction—nothing but fiction—and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth whatever to it. It's obviously utterly impossible ... isn't it? An interview with Dr. I. M. Niemand, Director of the Psychophysical Institute of Solar and Terrestrial Relations, Camarillo, California. In the closing days of December, 1957, at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand delivered a paper entitled simply, "On the Nature of the Solar S-Regions." Owing to its unassuming title the startling implications contained in the paper were completely overlooked by the press. These implications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr. Niemand by Philip Latham. LATHAM. Dr. Niemand, what would you say is your main job? NIEMAND. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all I can between activity on the Sun and various forms of activity on the Earth. LATHAM. What do you mean by activity on the Sun? NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity. LATHAM. Just what is a sunspot? NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can only describe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than its surroundings. That's why it looks dark. It isn't so hot. Therefore not so bright. LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of eleven years? NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of about eleven years. That word about makes quite a difference. LATHAM. In what way? NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course of sunspot activity. Sunspots are mighty treacherous things. LATHAM. Haven't there been a great many correlations announced between sunspots and various effects on the Earth? NIEMAND. Scores of them. LATHAM. What is your opinion of these correlations? NIEMAND. Pure bosh in most cases. LATHAM. But some are valid? NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation between sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio fade-outs ... auroras ... things like that. LATHAM. Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating solar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines. NIEMAND. Yes, I suppose some people would say so. LATHAM. You have broken new ground? NIEMAND. That's true. LATHAM. In what way have your investigations differed from those of others? NIEMAND. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots themselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have been studying on the Earth. It's something like the eruptions in rubeola. Attention is concentrated on the bright red papules because they're such a conspicuous symptom of the disease. Whereas the real cause is an invisible filterable virus. In the solar case it turned out to be these S-Regions. LATHAM. Why S-Regions? NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose. LATHAM. You say an S-Region is invisible? NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected by suitable instrumental methods. It is extremely doubtful, however, if the radiation we detect is the actual cause of the disturbing effects observed. LATHAM. Just what are these effects? NIEMAND. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as the world, in fact. Yet strangely enough it's hard to describe them in exact terms. LATHAM. Can you give us a general idea? NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from "Julius Caesar" where Cassius is bewailing the evil times that beset ancient Rome? I believe it went like this: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings." LATHAM. I'm afraid I don't see— NIEMAND. Well, Shakespeare would have been nearer the truth if he had put it the other way around. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves but in our stars" or better "in the Sun." LATHAM. In the Sun? NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in the world is the origin of human evil. Philosophers have wrestled with it ever since the days of Job. And like Job they have usually given up in despair, convinced that the origin of evil is too deep for the human mind to solve. Generally they have concluded that man is inherently wicked and sinful and that is the end of it. Now for the first time science has thrown new light on this subject. LATHAM. How is that? NIEMAND. Consider the record of history. There are occasional periods when conditions are fairly calm and peaceful. Art and industry flourished. Man at last seemed to be making progress toward some higher goal. Then suddenly— for no detectable reason —conditions are reversed. Wars rage. People go mad. The world is plunged into an orgy of bloodshed and misery. LATHAM. But weren't there reasons? NIEMAND. What reasons? LATHAM. Well, disputes over boundaries ... economic rivalry ... border incidents.... NIEMAND. Nonsense. Men always make some flimsy excuse for going to war. The truth of the matter is that men go to war because they want to go to war. They can't help themselves. They are impelled by forces over which they have no control. By forces outside of themselves. LATHAM. Those are broad, sweeping statements. Can't you be more specific? NIEMAND. Perhaps I'd better go back to the beginning. Let me see.... It all started back in March, 1955, when I started getting patients suffering from a complex of symptoms, such as profound mental depression, anxiety, insomnia, alternating with fits of violent rage and resentment against life and the world in general. These people were deeply disturbed. No doubt about that. Yet they were not psychotic and hardly more than mildly neurotic. Now every doctor gets a good many patients of this type. Such a syndrome is characteristic of menopausal women and some men during the climacteric, but these people failed to fit into this picture. They were married and single persons of both sexes and of all ages. They came from all walks of life. The onset of their attack was invariably sudden and with scarcely any warning. They would be going about their work feeling perfectly all right. Then in a minute the whole world was like some scene from a nightmare. A week or ten days later the attack would cease as mysteriously as it had come and they would be their old self again. LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain of modern life? NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at ucla . Even as a boy I can remember my grandfather deploring the stress and strain of modern life when he was a country doctor practicing in Indiana. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributions anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions as those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have found savages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among the mountain tribes of the Elgonyi and the Aruntas of Australia. No, Mr. Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junk pile along with demoniac possession and blood letting. LATHAM. You must have done something for your patients— NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come to his office seeking help. First I gave them a thorough physical examination. I turned up some minor ailments—a slight heart murmur or a trace of albumin in the urine—but nothing of any significance. On the whole they were a remarkably healthy bunch of individuals, much more so than an average sample of the population. Then I made a searching inquiry into their personal life. Here again I drew a blank. They had no particular financial worries. Their sex life was generally satisfactory. There was no history of mental illness in the family. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be the matter with them was that there were times when they felt like hell. LATHAM. I suppose you tried tranquilizers? NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of the meprobamate type there was some slight improvement. I want to emphasize, however, that I do not believe in prescribing shotgun remedies for a patient. To my way of thinking it is a lazy slipshod way of carrying on the practice of medicine. The only thing for which I do give myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailed record of their symptoms taking special care to note the time of exacerbation—increase in the severity of the symptoms—as accurately as possible. LATHAM. And this gave you a clue? NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the attack struck with almost the impact of a physical blow. The prodromal symptoms were usually slight ... a sudden feeling of uneasiness and guilt ... hot and cold flashes ... dizziness ... double vision. Then this ghastly sense of depression coupled with a blind insensate rage at life. One man said he felt as if the world were closing in on him. Another that he felt the people around him were plotting his destruction. One housewife made her husband lock her in her room for fear she would injure the children. I pored over these case histories for a long time getting absolutely nowhere. Then finally a pattern began to emerge. LATHAM. What sort of pattern? NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks all occurred during the daytime, between the hours of about seven in the morning and five in the evening. Then there were these coincidences— LATHAM. Coincidences? NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same moment. At first I thought nothing of it but as my records accumulated I became convinced it could not be attributed to chance. A mathematical analysis showed the number of coincidences followed a Poisson distribution very closely. I couldn't possibly see what daylight had to do with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are most disturbed around the time of full moon, but a search of medical literature failed to reveal any connection with the Sun. LATHAM. What did you do? NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did, however, take pains to impress upon them the necessity of keeping an exact record of the onset of an attack. The better records they kept the more conclusive was the evidence. Men and women were experiencing nearly simultaneous attacks of rage and depression all over southern California, which was as far as my practice extended. One day it occurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be stricken simultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? It was this idea that prompted me to get in touch with an old colleague of mine I had known at UC medical school, Dr. Max Hillyard, who was in practice in Utica, New York. LATHAM. With what result? NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would think I had gone completely crazy. Imagine my surprise and gratification on receiving an answer by return mail to the effect that he also had been getting an increasing number of patients suffering with the same identical symptoms as my own. Furthermore, upon exchanging records we did find that in many cases patients three thousand miles apart had been stricken simultaneously— LATHAM. Just a minute. I would like to know how you define "simultaneous." NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the east coast, for example, not earlier or later than five minutes of an attack on the west coast. That is about as close as you can hope to time a subjective effect of this nature. And now another fact emerged which gave us another clue. LATHAM. Which was? NIEMAND. In every case of a simultaneous attack the Sun was shining at both New York and California. LATHAM. You mean if it was cloudy— NIEMAND. No, no. The weather had nothing to do with it. I mean the Sun had to be above the horizon at both places. A person might undergo an attack soon after sunrise in New York but there would be no corresponding record of an attack in California where it was still dark. Conversely, a person might be stricken late in the afternoon in California without a corresponding attack in New York where the Sun had set. Dr. Hillyard and I had been searching desperately for a clue. We had both noticed that the attacks occurred only during the daylight hours but this had not seemed especially significant. Here we had evidence pointing directly to the source of trouble. It must have some connection with the Sun. LATHAM. That must have had you badly puzzled at first. NIEMAND. It certainly did. It looked as if we were headed back to the Middle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since it was our only lead we had no other choice but to follow it regardless of the consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyard happened to have a contact that proved invaluable to us. Several years before Hillyard had gotten to know a young astrophysicist, Henry Middletown, who had come to him suffering from a severe case of myositis in the arms and shoulders. Hillyard had been able to effect a complete cure for which the boy was very grateful, and they had kept up a desultory correspondence. Middletown was now specializing in radio astronomy at the government's new solar observatory on Turtle Back Mountain in Arizona. If it had not been for Middletown's help I'm afraid our investigation would never have gotten past the clinical stage. LATHAM. In what way was Middletown of assistance? NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being completely ignorant of what was going on in another field. Someday we will have to establish a clearing house in science instead of keeping it in tight little compartments as we do at present. Well, Hillyard and I packed up for Arizona with considerable misgivings. We were afraid Middletown wouldn't take our findings seriously but somewhat to our surprise he heard our story with the closest attention. I guess astronomers have gotten so used to hearing from flying saucer enthusiasts and science-fiction addicts that nothing surprises them any more. When we had finished he asked to see our records. Hillyard had them all set down for easy numerical tabulation. Middletown went to work with scarcely a word. Within an hour he had produced a chart that was simply astounding. LATHAM. Can you describe this chart for us? NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for Middletown's experience in charting other solar phenomena it would never have occurred to us to do it. First, he laid out a series of about thirty squares horizontally across a sheet of graph paper. He dated these beginning March 1, 1955, when our records began. In each square he put a number from 1 to 10 that was a rough index of the number and intensity of the attacks reported on that day. Then he laid out another horizontal row below the first one dated twenty-seven days later. That is, the square under March 1st in the top row was dated March 28th in the row below it. He filled in the chart until he had an array of dozens of rows that included all our data down to May, 1958. When Middletown had finished it was easy to see that the squares of highest index number did not fall at random on the chart. Instead they fell in slightly slanting parallel series so that you could draw straight lines down through them. The connection with the Sun was obvious. LATHAM. In what way? NIEMAND. Why, because twenty-seven days is about the synodic period of solar rotation. That is, if you see a large spot at the center of the Sun's disk today, there is a good chance if it survives that you will see it at the same place twenty-seven days later. But that night Middletown produced another chart that showed the connection with the Sun in a way that was even more convincing. LATHAM. How was that? NIEMAND. I said that the lines drawn down through the days of greatest mental disturbance slanted slightly. On this second chart the squares were dated under one another not at intervals of twenty-seven days, but at intervals of twenty-seven point three days. LATHAM. Why is that so important? NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot zone is not twenty-seven days but twenty-seven point three days. And on this chart the lines did not slant but went vertically downward. The correlation with the synodic rotation of the Sun was practically perfect. LATHAM. But how did you get onto the S-Regions? NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between the chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over the years from his radio observations. Now when he compared the two charts the resemblance between the two was unmistakable. The pattern shown by the chart of mental disturbance corresponded in a striking way with the solar chart but with this difference. The disturbances on the Earth started two days later on the average than the disturbances due to the S-Regions on the Sun. In other words, there was a lag of about forty-eight hours between the two. But otherwise they were almost identical. LATHAM. But if these S-Regions of Middletown's are invisible how could he detect them? NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an optical telescope, but are detected with ease by a radio telescope. Middletown had discovered them when he was a graduate student working on radio astronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches with the more powerful equipment at Turtle Back Mountain. The formation of an S-Region is heralded by a long series of bursts of a few seconds duration, when the radiation may increase up to several thousand times that of the background intensity. These noise storms have been recorded simultaneously on wavelengths of from one to fifteen meters, which so far is the upper limit of the observations. In a few instances, however, intense bursts have also been detected down to fifty cm. LATHAM. I believe you said the periods of mental disturbance last for about ten or twelve days. How does that tie-in with the S-Regions? NIEMAND. Very closely. You see it takes about twelve days for an S-Region to pass across the face of the Sun, since the synodic rotation is twenty-seven point three days. LATHAM. I should think it would be nearer thirteen or fourteen days. NIEMAND. Apparently an S-Region is not particularly effective when it is just coming on or just going off the disk of the Sun. LATHAM. Are the S-Regions associated with sunspots? NIEMAND. They are connected in this way: that sunspot activity and S-Region activity certainly go together. The more sunspots the more violent and intense is the S-Region activity. But there is not a one-to-one correspondence between sunspots and S-Regions. That is, you cannot connect a particular sunspot group with a particular S-Region. The same thing is true of sunspots and magnetic storms. LATHAM. How do you account for this? NIEMAND. We don't account for it. LATHAM. What other properties of the S-Regions have you discovered? NIEMAND. Middletown says that the radio waves emanating from them are strongly circularly polarized. Moreover, the sense of rotation remains constant while one is passing across the Sun. If the magnetic field associated with an S-Region extends into the high solar corona through which the rays pass, then the sense of rotation corresponds to the ordinary ray of the magneto-ionic theory. LATHAM. Does this mean that the mental disturbances arise from some form of electromagnetic radiation? NIEMAND. We doubt it. As I said before, the charts show a lag of about forty-eight hours between the development of an S-Region and the onset of mental disturbance. This indicates that the malignant energy emanating from an S-Region consists of some highly penetrating form of corpuscular radiation, as yet unidentified. [A] LATHAM. A question that puzzles me is why some people are affected by the S-Regions while others are not. NIEMAND. Our latest results indicate that probably no one is completely immune. All are affected in some degree. Just why some should be affected so much more than others is still a matter of speculation. LATHAM. How long does an S-Region last? NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a dozen solar rotations. Then it dies out and for a time we are free from this malignant radiation. Then a new region develops in perhaps an entirely different region of the Sun. Sometimes there may be several different S-Regions all going at once. LATHAM. Why were not the S-Regions discovered long ago? NIEMAND. Because the radio exploration of the Sun only began since the end of World War II. LATHAM. How does it happen that you only got patients suffering from S-radiation since about 1955? NIEMAND. I think we did get such patients previously but not in large enough numbers to attract attention. Also the present sunspot cycle started its rise to maximum about 1954. LATHAM. Is there no way of escaping the S-radiation? NIEMAND. I'm afraid the only sure way is to keep on the unilluminated side of the Earth which is rather difficult to do. Apparently the corpuscular beam from an S-Region is several degrees wide and not very sharply defined, since its effects are felt simultaneously over the entire continent. Hillyard and Middletown are working on some form of shielding device but so far without success. LATHAM. What is the present state of S-Region activity? NIEMAND. At the present moment there happens to be no S-Region activity on the Sun. But a new one may develop at any time. Also, the outlook for a decrease in activity is not very favorable. Sunspot activity continues at a high level and is steadily mounting in violence. The last sunspot cycle had the highest maximum of any since 1780, but the present cycle bids fair to set an all time record. LATHAM. And so you believe that the S-Regions are the cause of most of the present trouble in the world. That it is not ourselves but something outside ourselves— NIEMAND. That is the logical outcome of our investigation. We are controlled and swayed by forces which in many cases we are powerless to resist. LATHAM. Could we not be warned of the presence of an S-Region? NIEMAND. The trouble is they seem to develop at random on the Sun. I'm afraid any warning system would be worse than useless. We would be crying WOLF! all the time. LATHAM. How may a person who is not particularly susceptible to this malignant radiation know that one of these regions is active? NIEMAND. If you have a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, if you are unable to concentrate, if you feel suddenly depressed and discouraged about yourself, or are filled with resentment toward the world, then you may be pretty sure that an S-Region is passing across the face of the Sun. Keep a tight rein on yourself. For it seems that evil will always be with us ... as long as the Sun shall continue to shine upon this little world. THE END [A] Middletown believes that the Intense radiation recently discovered from information derived from Explorer I and III has no connection with the corpuscular S-radiation.
Divided we stand by Tim Maughan	"Divided we stand", Tim Maughan, 2017. Divided we stand Sara lets the Lyft park itself in the drive, lets out a sigh, and tweets wish me luck plus some emojis before slipping her phone into a hoody pocket. Curtains twitch, and before she can get her bag out of the back Mom is there, right there next to her, their hands touching on the handle as they compete for control. "It's OK Mom, I got it." "You should have let us come pick you up." "It's fine, there was no need. I didn't want to put any-" "But you shouldn't be wasting money, not with how much rent you pay and-" Jesus. Not this already. "Mom. I can afford a cab ride. I'm not that much of a failure." Mom sighs, shoulders falling, looks at Sara directly. "I'm sorry honey." She looks old, Sara thinks, watching a resigned tiredness flicker across her face in a way she'd not noticed before. Like she's exhausted by conflict, surrendered to it. "Now, don't I get a hug?" Sara smiles. They hold each other for a few long seconds, rubbing and squeezing each other as the Lyft silently backs itself out of the driveway. When they part it's Mom's hand that's on the bag's handle. Inside she unwraps herself from scarves and layers, the heat in the house almost a shock after the cold air. Michigan in February. Mom is already halfway up the stairs, bag in tow, headed for her room. "Mom, just leave that and I'll…" "Your father's in the front room," she says, just before she disappears from view. "Go say hi." For a few seconds Sara is alone in the hallway, the smell of cooking meat coming from one doorway, the sound of rolling news from another. She shakes her head, kicks off shoes, tucks hair behind her ears. Braces herself. He's sat in the living room, reclining in the Lazy Boy. He doesn't hear her enter - her socked feet silent on the pile carpet floor, his attention lost in the screen that fills most of the wall. Fox News. She braces herself again. "Hey Dad." His head jerks to look at her. "Hey! When did you get here?" He starts to push himself up. "Don't get up Dad, it's fine. Really." She takes a seat on the couch. "I just got here, like two minutes ago." "Good flight?" "Yeah. Fine. Y'know. Same as always." He smiles back at her, nods knowingly. Their first words in nearly a year. Fine. So far. She relaxes. Of course it is. How bad could it be? "I thought I was gonna come pick you up from the airport?" "Ah, no. I got a cab. I didn't want to bother you." "Bother me? You think I'm too old and infirm to pick my own daughter up from the airport?" "No Dad, of course not." The war spills out of Fox News, casualty figures scrolling across monochrome drone footage, attack helicopters circling over Caracas apartment blocks, pundits with bronzed skin and immaculate blond hair smiling from four-way split screens. "So you just got a cab?" "Yeah." "How much did that cost?" "Not much. Really. I can afford-" "Cabs are expensive. You shouldn't be wasting your money." "It wasn't expensive. It wasn't a cab, it was a Lyft." "One of those driverless things?" "Yeah." Ad break. An elderly couple ride a tandem bicycle through a park, laughing and smiling in Instagram-perfect sunshine, as a calm, relaxing voice lists the potentially lethal side effects of a diabetes drug. Dad shakes his head. "I don't know how you can use those things. I don't trust them." "Dad, they're perfectly safe." "That's not what I mean. They're stealing people's jobs." There's a brief second, a fleeting moment, where Sara can bite her lip, let it go. She misses it. "But I thought it was immigrants that are stealing people's jobs?" "You might think it's funny little lady, but let me tell you - you remember Kyle and Max, Bill Cooper's boys? Live up off Lafayette, past the Checkers?" "Nope." "Well let me tell you," He shifts in the recliner, with some obvious pain and effort, to face her. "Both of 'em lost their jobs just this last year. Both of 'em were truckers. Both of 'em been driving trucks since high school. Now the damn trucks are driving themselves and they're both out of work. And they got families to support. Kids." "Well I'm sure they'll be fine." She regrets the sarcasm as soon as she hears it in her own voice, but she still can't stop herself, like it's expected, like it's part of the routine. Part of their schtick. "They just got to get themselves out there, huh Dad? Pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That's the American way, right?" "I'm glad you think this is funny, I really do. But what you New York types need to realise is-" "Ed!" Mom had appeared in the doorway. "Please! Both of you. No fighting today, please." "Sheryl-" "No. I don't want to hear you two as much as disagreeing about anything today, unless it's about the game. And even then you'd better keep it civil. Otherwise you can both go hungry. Understand?" Awkward pause. "Fine." "Sorry Mom." Sara turns back to the TV, to watching the war, to trying to work out which one it is. It had always been this way, ever since she was about thirteen. Up until then it just seemed like constant warmth, as though she didn't have any childhood concept of Dad apart from him getting home from work, then her sitting on his knee, eating cookies and watching football highlights until Mom came in and scolded them both for ruining their appetites before dinner. And then everything changed. Suddenly there was rap music and nose rings, sneaking out of the house to see her friends and not wanting to go to church. Suddenly he was no longer this lovable bear-man that ruffled her hair and gave her candy and explained defensive plays to her, but this huge obelisk of injustice that just wanted to crush her high school life into dust. It was constant warfare; every opinion she had became a battle, every decision she made a conflict. Getting away to college gave her escape, but bred resentment too; he hated that she went to New York, even though NYU was a good school, and her decision to stay there after she finished made things even worse. And then politics got all crazy, weirder then ever, and it became impossible for them to talk without it erupting into fights almost instantly. It was bad enough when the smart, young guy she liked was president and Dad constantly spewed his hate for him at her, but somehow it got even worse when the old, racist, women hating war-starter he liked won. Twice. So they didn't talk much now, barely online, never on the phone. Since her second year of school he'd never been to NYC to visit her. She came back when she could face it; sometimes for birthdays, sometimes for Thanksgiving. Maybe for Christmas. But somehow always, like now, for the Super Bowl. Like football was the one thing they still had, that one thing they could still sit in the same room together for. Shouting at players, screaming at the ref, laughing at the ads. Dad is in the bathroom, and Sara has had enough of Fox and whichever war this is. She reaches over and grabs the remote from the arm of his chair, and tries to find something else to watch. The government had scrapped all the rules about how the internet worked, and for most people like her parents it had suddenly gotten a lot cheaper to get their TV through Facebook, so all she can find is Fox, Breitbart News, Family Values TV, Info Wars, The Rebel, Glenn Beck, The Voice of America, America First, The Bible Today and lots of hunting and sports channels she doesn't even recognise. It's signed in to her Dad's FB account, and the last thing she wants is to try and log in on hers before he gets back from the john. Yeah. There was no way that would end up with them keeping it civil. In her pocket her phone vibrates, purrs against her skin, reminding her it's there, making sure she's not forgotten where her real friends are, that there's a world outside, beyond Dad and his TV. She takes it out and cradles it in her hands, the dark screen fleetingly reflecting back her face before it jumps awake at her very touch, opening up to bathe her in blue light, in comfort and warmth and the familiar. For the first time since she got home she feels herself relax. Dinner is Mom's meatloaf, with gravy and mashed potatoes. Cornbread and broccoli. Every mouthful tastes like nostalgia, and Sara can feel herself being encompassed by a bubble, this barrier of warm air and long forgotten simplicity enveloping her body, protecting her from the confusion of the world outside. "How's work, honey?" Mom asks. "Yeah, going OK." Sara works for a non-profit in Brooklyn that helps big organisations to transition to renewable energy. The pay is lousy but it feels important. "We just got the last few schools in the city to agree to put solar panels on their roofs. Big deal for us. I've been working on them for the last two years." Mom says nothing, just looks down at her plate. Dad finishes chewing his mouthful, swallows, wipes his beard with a napkin. Sighs, barely controlled anger simmering behind his face. "Solar panels cause cancer." Sara laughs, covering her mouth as she nearly chokes on chewed food. "What? No they don't Dad." "They do. The material they use to coat them reacts to sunlight, and produces an airborne carcinogen. It's based on a particular kind of rare earth. It's a bit like teflon. The Chinese have known about this for decades but have kept it covered up, because they-" "Dad, no. Just no. Trust me." "-because they are the world's largest manufacturers of solar panels. But the research has been done. The scientific evidence is out there. Look it up." "Look it up?" Sara shakes her head, not knowing where to even start. "Dad, who is telling you this stuff?" "No one is telling me it, Sara. I read it. It's in the news. I mean, really, I'm surprised you've not seen it. It was all over Facebook." "Maybe on yours, but it's not all over my Facebook." She doesn't have the heart to tell him she muted him six months ago. "Well, I don't read the news and I don't know any science," says Mom, "But I do know this: after they opened that solar farm up near Mary, within just a few years her and two of her neighbours had cancer. I mean I don't know anything for sure honey, but given the risk are you sure it's safe to be putting these panels on top of schools?" "There's no risk, Mom. None at all. Dad, I wish you'd stop believing everything you see on Facebook." "Well, maybe you should read things yourself before passing judgement on them." He pushes himself up from his seat, steps away from the table. Sara sighs, thinking she's upset him that much that he's actually abandoning his dinner, but he stops to grab something off a nearby shelf. His iPad. He heads back and takes his seat again. Oh, here we fucking go she thinks to herself. He stabs at the screen, looks for a while, stabs again. Flips it over and hands it to her. "Here. Read." Reluctantly, she takes it. His Facebook feed. Somewhere in the middle of it is the article, a very to the point CHINESE SOLAR PANELS CAUSE CANCER headline. But she can't even focus on it, because the rest of the screen is filled with distractions, looping videos and animated gifs, all adverts, and all for guns. Or security systems. Panic rooms. Back up power generators. Emergency rations. More guns. "Jesus Christ Dad, these ads!" "No blasphemy at the dinner table, please honey" says Mom. "What about them?" "Just… just look at them. They're terrifying. They're like… like adverts for the end of the world! You know they show you this stuff just to make you scared, right? Just to keep you paranoid." "They show me this stuff because they've got products to sell. That's how the economy works. That's how we create jobs. Godammit Sara, are you telling me you hate advertising now? Do you just hate everything about America?" Sara looks over to Mom, who looks like she's on the brink of tears. Suddenly she finds she's also lost the will to fight. Gently she closes the iPad and puts it down on the table, next to her plate. "No, of course not Dad. Maybe I'll read this later, after the game." After dinner she helps Mom clean-up, the two of them loading the dishwasher in near silence. She's leaning against the counter, scrolling through Twitter on her phone, when Mom finally speaks. "You should go easy on your father, you know. He's worried about a lot of things." "What things? Solar panel cancer?" "Don't joke Sara, I'm serious. There's a lot that bothers him. The state of the world. The future. All these damn wars." "We're all worried about all that, Mom." "He's worried about his health. I'm worried about his health. Probably more than he is." Sara looks up from her phone, genuine concern. "Is he OK?" "I don't know. He won't go to the doctor. Hasn't been in months. He's worried about his insurance." "I had no idea-" "Yeah, well you know your father. Doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't want to burden other people with his problems. Hates pity." She pauses, looks out the window into the yard. When she turns back to Sara her eyes are damp. "This is why I was so excited about you coming back. Why he was so excited! I thought it'd take his mind of all this. He was so excited to see you. You know he loves watching the game with you, Sara." "I know. I'm sorry I-" "And the ads! The Super Bowl ads! You know how much he loves watching the new ads with you. It's a stupid thing, sure, but he loves it. Talks about it all the time. It's like a tradition to him. That's why he got so upset over dinner when you got angry at his ads. It's something special he has with you, he doesn't want to lose it." Sara slips her phone into her pocket, genuine guilt. Feels like a spoiled kid. "I didn't realise. I'm sorry." Mom smiles, walks over and kisses her on the forehead. "It's OK honey. Don't feel bad. Just go. Just go sit in there with him and watch some TV. Please." It's the second down on the Falcon's 60 yard line with 30 yards to cover, and the Lions need one touchdown to equalise. Sara and her Dad are sat in the front room, working their way through a family sized pack of Oreos, when the ad break starts. Dawn. Red skies over the desert. A Chevrolet truck pulls up next to a large, trailer. Low shot next to the front tire, as a cowboy booted foot drops down from the door, disturbing dust. Cut to: internal shot of the trailer, darkness split by morning light through the opening door. The figure enters, flicks on lights. The room is full of equipment, computers. The figure takes a seat, puts on a headset, thumbs on screens. Rests their hands on two large joysticks on the desk. Cut to: airfield, the desert. The distinctive silhouette of a Predator drone taxis across the screen, rising heat shimmering the air around it. Cut to: interior of the trailer. The faceless figure works controls, the joysticks, touch screens. Voiceover: They say you need to get up pretty early to get past America's finest. But the truth is we never sleep. Cut to: a uniformed guard on top of the border wall. He looks up and gives a salute to the drone as it soars above him, out and across the desert. Cut to: drone footage. Grainy, monochrome. A group of figures move slowly through the desert. The camera tracks them. Zooms in. The pilot punches buttons. The figures become highlighted by a computer overlay, text appears next to them. ILLEGAL ENTRY ATTEMPT SUSPECTED. GROUND PATROLS ALERTED. "Fuck this," says Sara, getting up from her seat. "Sara!" says Mom. "No I'm sorry, I can't. I can't sit here and watch this… this bullshit. This propaganda." She storms out of the room. "Sara!" Mom makes to get up. "No, just leave her," says Dad, gently, his eyes still fixed on the screen. "Just let her go." Out in the kitchen Sara sits at the table and wants to scream. She's angry, mainly with herself. She should never have fucking come here. She should have known better. There was never any fucking way anything good was going to come from this. As much as Mom wants to romanticise things, to make them sound cute and adorable, the truth is shit with Dad has never been right since she was a teenager. Too much resentment, too much bad blood, too much control and rebellion. They hadn't agreed on anything - they hadn't managed to have a simple conversation that didn't descend into fighting - in 15 goddamn years, and no amount of eating cookies and watching fucking Super Bowl ads on the TV was going to fix that. She sighs, wipes a tear from her cheek. On autopilot she takes her phone from her pocket, feels its reassuring warmth in her hand, and swipes open Twitter. Everybody seems to be talking about the same thing. omg im crying holy shit that chevrolet ad /fire emoji that was sooooo beautiful who knew chevrolet were so woke i can't believe they did that, so amazing Hang on, are they taking about the same ad? Hastily she opens her FB TV app, pulls up the game. The ad is just finishing. She hits the 10-second rewind icon a couple of times, then leans the phone on its side against a ketchup bottle. Cut to: drone footage. Grainy, monochrome. A group of figures move slowly through the desert. The camera tracks them. Zooms in. The pilot punches buttons. The figures become highlighted by a computer overlay, text appears next to them. ILLEGAL ENTRY ATTEMPT SUSPECTED. GROUND PATROLS ALERTED. Cut to: on the ground, in the desert. The group of figures are revealed to be a Mexican family, maybe two. Men, women, children. They look tired, hungry. They stop to rest, sipping the little water they have left from tattered plastic bottles. A little way away from the main group sits a small child, a girl. Maybe 8 years old. She is drawing shapes in the dust with a stick. She's drawn quite a bit it looks like, but from our angle we can't see what. Cut to: drone footage. The pilot is watching the group. As he tracks away from the main party to where the girl is sat, the camera reveals what she has drawn. A large, child's rendition of the American flag. Underneath it, it childlike handwriting, some words. 'I have a dream' Text flashes across the screen. ALERT CANCELLED. ALL PATROLS: STAND DOWN Cut to: the drone, banking and turning, flying away. Cut to: exterior shot of the trailer. The still anonymous pilot exits, walks back towards his jeep. Voiceover: Keeping America safe means never sleeping, but keeping America great means never forgetting who we are, and how we got here. The jeep starts up, pulls away from the camera in a cloud of dust. Fade to black. Chevrolet logo. White text against black. 'We know what really makes America great' Sara finds herself in the front room, sobbing. "Honey?" Dad pauses the TV, looks up at her. It looks like he's been crying too. "Sara?" "Did you - did you watch it?" "The Chevrolet ad?" "Yeah." "Yeah, we did." Embarrassed, he wipes a tear from his cheek. "It was… it was very moving." She falls on him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest. "I'm sorry Dad. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be so mean-" "It's OK, honey. It really is." "No, no it's not. We always fight. And I know that's mainly my fault-" 'Well, now, c'mon-" "No, it is. It's my fault. I got myself into thinking we can never agree on anything, that we can never see eye to eye. That we've got nothing in common anymore." She lifts her head to look up at him. "But I know that's wrong. That I shouldn't assume things about you. That there's still things that can bring us together." He grins back at her. "Like Super Bowl ads?" She laughs. "I guess. But you know what I mean, really." "I know honey. And I'm sorry too. I didn't mean what I said earlier. I know you don't really hate this country." He gestures to the couch next to him. "Why don't you sit down, huh? We can watch the rest of the game together." She straightens herself up, wipes her eyes. Suddenly feels a little self conscious. "Sure. Let me just go freshen up first." "Of course honey." Mom and Dad watch Sara leave the room, and then look at each other. "Well." "Well indeed." "What did I tell you? You two just needed to spend some time together. Some quality time." "I guess so. What did I ever do to deserve a woman as hot and as smart as you, huh Sheryl?" Mom stands up and makes to leave the room, leaning down to kiss him as she passes. "I ask myself that question every day." Alone, seen only by the TV, Dad smiles to himself. He picks up the remote, but instead of hitting play, he finds himself hitting rewind. Cut to: drone footage. Grainy, monochrome. A group of figures move slowly through the desert. The camera tracks them. Zooms in. The pilot punches buttons. The figures become highlighted by a computer overlay, text appears next to them. ILLEGAL ENTRY ATTEMPT SUSPECTED. GROUND PATROLS ALERTED. Cut to: on the ground, in the desert. The group of figures are all men. Dirty, scruffy, furtive. Like they mean business.They carry guns, pistols, and assault riffles. Bad hombres. One of them pulls open a bag, looks inside. Cut to: close up of the inside of the bag. Inside are packets of white powder. Suddenly, one of the party looks up, shouts something in Spanish. They all go to grab their guns. But it's too late. From three different directions, three different Chevrolet jeeps appear, screeching to a halt, kicking up dust. From them jump Border Patrol agents and Minutemen militia, guns drawn and ready. The gang of men don't even put up a fight. They know they're surrounded, they drop their weapons and pathetically raise their hands. All except one. The guy with the bag full of drugs. He's got nothing to lose. He reaches for his rifle. Cut to: Border Patrol agents, opening fire. Text flashes across the screen. ALERT CANCELLED. THREAT NEUTRALISED. Cut to: the drone, banking and turning, flying away. Cut to: exterior shot of the trailer. The still anonymous pilot exits, walks back towards his jeep. Voiceover: Keeping America safe means never sleeping, but keeping America great means never forgetting who we are, and what keeps us strong. The jeep starts up, pulls away from the camera in a cloud of dust. Fade to black. Chevrolet logo. White text against black. 'We know what really makes America great' Dad wipes another team from his eye. "I think we're going to be OK," he says to himself. "I think we're going to be just fine." This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.
Doctor Universe by Jacobi, Carl	"Doctor Universe", Carl Jacobi, 1950. Doctor Universe By CARL JACOBI Grannie Annie, who wrote science fiction under the nom de plume of Annabella C. Flowers, had stumbled onto a murderous plot more hair-raising than any she had ever concocted. And the danger from the villain of the piece didn't worry her—I was the guy he was shooting at. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I was killing an hour in the billiard room of the Spacemen's Club in Swamp City when the Venusian bellboy came and tapped me on the shoulder. "Beg pardon, thir," he said with his racial lisp, "thereth thome one to thee you in the main lounge." His eyes rolled as he added, "A lady!" A woman here...! The Spacemen's was a sanctuary, a rest club where in-coming pilots and crewmen could relax before leaving for another voyage. The rule that no females could pass its portals was strictly enforced. I followed the bellhop down the long corridor that led to the main lounge. At the threshold I jerked to a halt and stared incredulously. Grannie Annie! There she stood before a frantically gesticulating desk clerk, leaning on her faded green umbrella. A little wisp of a woman clad in a voluminous black dress with one of those doily-like caps on her head, tied by a ribbon under her chin. Her high-topped button shoes were planted firmly on the varpla carpet and her wrinkled face was set in calm defiance. I barged across the lounge and seized her hand. "Grannie Annie! I haven't seen you in two years." "Hi, Billy-boy," she greeted calmly. "Will you please tell this fish-face to shut up." The desk clerk went white. "Mithter Trenwith, if thith lady ith a friend of yourth, you'll have to take her away. It'th abtholutely againth the ruleth...." "Okay, okay," I grinned. "Look, we'll go into the grille. There's no one there at this hour." In the grille an equally astonished waiter served us—me a lime rickey and Grannie Annie her usual whisky sour—I waited until she had tossed the drink off at a gulp before I set off a chain of questions: "What the devil are you doing on Venus? Don't you know women aren't allowed in the Spacemen's ? What happened to the book you were writing?" "Hold it, Billy-boy." Laughingly she threw up both hands. "Sure, I knew this place had some antiquated laws. Pure fiddle-faddle, that's what they are. Anyway, I've been thrown out of better places." She hadn't changed. To her publishers and her readers she might be Annabella C. Flowers, author of a long list of science fiction novels. But to me she was still Grannie Annie, as old-fashioned as last year's hat, as modern as an atomic motor. She had probably written more drivel in the name of science fiction than anyone alive. But the public loved it. They ate up her stories, and they clamored for more. Her annual income totaled into six figures, and her publishers sat back and massaged their digits, watching their earnings mount. One thing you had to admit about her books. They may have been dime novels, but they weren't synthetic. If Annabella C. Flowers wrote a novel, and the locale was the desert of Mars, she packed her carpet bag and hopped a liner for Craterville. If she cooked up a feud between two expeditions on Callisto, she went to Callisto. She was the most completely delightful crackpot I had ever known. "What happened to Guns for Ganymede ?" I asked. "That was the title of your last, wasn't it?" Grannie spilled a few shreds of Martian tobacco onto a paper and deftly rolled herself a cigarette. "It wasn't Guns , it was Pistols ; and it wasn't Ganymede , it was Pluto ." I grinned. "All complete, I'll bet, with threats against the universe and beautiful Earth heroines dragged in by the hair." "What else is there in science fiction?" she demanded. "You can't have your hero fall in love with a bug-eyed monster." Up on the wall a clock chimed the hour. The old woman jerked to her feet. "I almost forgot, Billy-boy. I'm due at the Satellite Theater in ten minutes. Come on, you're going with me." Before I realized it, I was following her through the lounge and out to the jetty front. Grannie Annie hailed a hydrocar. Five minutes later we drew up before the big doors of the Satellite . They don't go in for style in Swamp City. A theater to the grizzled colonials on this side of the planet meant a shack on stilts over the muck, zilcon wood seats and dingy atobide lamps. But the place was packed with miners, freight-crew-men—all the tide and wash of humanity that made Swamp City the frontier post it is. In front was a big sign. It read: ONE NIGHT ONLY DOCTOR UNIVERSE AND HIS NINE GENIUSES THE QUESTION PROGRAM OF THE SYSTEM As we strode down the aisle a mangy-looking Venusian began to pound a tinpan piano in the pit. Grannie Annie pushed me into a seat in the front row. "Sit here," she said. "I'm sorry about all this rush, but I'm one of the players in this shindig. As soon as the show is over, we'll go somewhere and talk." She minced lightly down the aisle, climbed the stage steps and disappeared in the wings. "That damned fossilized dynamo," I muttered. "She'll be the death of me yet." The piano struck a chord in G, and the curtain went rattling up. On the stage four Earthmen, two Martians, two Venusians, and one Mercurian sat on an upraised dais. That is to say, eight of them sat. The Mercurian, a huge lump of granite-like flesh, sprawled there, palpably uncomfortable. On the right were nine visi sets, each with its new improved pantascope panel and switchboard. Before each set stood an Earthman operator. A tall man, clad in a claw-hammer coat, came out from the wings and advanced to the footlights. "People of Swamp City," he said, bowing, "permit me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Universe, and these are my nine experts." There was a roar of applause from the Satellite audience. When it had subsided, the man continued: "As most of you are familiar with our program, it will be unnecessary to give any advance explanation. I will only say that on this stage are nine visi sets, each tuned to one of the nine planets. At transmitting sets all over these planets listeners will appear and voice questions. These questions, my nine experts will endeavor to answer. For every question missed, the sender will receive a check for one thousand planetoles . "One thing more. As usual we have with us a guest star who will match her wits with the experts. May I present that renowned writer of science fiction, Annabella C. Flowers." From the left wing Grannie Annie appeared. She bowed and took her place on the dais. The Doctor's program began. The operator of the Earth visi twisted his dials and nodded. Blue light flickered on the pantascope panel to coalesce slowly into the face of a red-haired man. Sharp and dear his voice echoed through the theater: " Who was the first Earthman to titter the sunward side of Mercury? " Doctor Universe nodded and turned to Grannie Annie who had raised her hand. She said quietly: "Charles Zanner in the year 2012. In a specially constructed tracto-car." And so it went. Questions from Mars, from Earth, from Saturn flowed in the visi sets. Isolated miners on Jupiter, dancers in swank Plutonian cafes strove to stump the experts. With Doctor Universe offering bantering side play, the experts gave their answers. When they failed, or when the Truthicator flashed a red light, he announced the name of the winner. It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had brought me here. And then I began to notice things. The audience in the Satellite seemed to have lost much of its original fervor. They applauded as before but they did so only at the signal of Doctor Universe. The spell created by the man was complete. Pompous and erect, he strode back and forth across the stage like a general surveying his army. His black eyes gleamed, and his thin lips were turned in a smile of satisfaction. When the last question had been answered I joined the exit-moving crowd. It was outside under the street marquee that a strange incident occurred. A yellow-faced Kagor from the upper Martian desert country shuffled by, dragging his cumbersome third leg behind him. Kagors, of course, had an unpleasant history of persecution since the early colonization days of the Red Planet. But the thing that happened there was a throw back to an earlier era. Someone shouted, "Yah, yellow-face! Down with all Kagors!" As one man the crowd took up the cry and surged forward. The helpless Kagor was seized and flung to the pavement. A knife appeared from nowhere, snipped the Martian's single lock of hair. A booted foot bludgeoned into his mouth. Moments later an official hydrocar roared up and a dozen I.P. men rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to shout derisive epithets. Grannie Annie came out from behind the box office then. She took my arm and led me around a corner and through a doorway under a sign that read THE JET. Inside was a deep room with booths along one wall. The place was all but deserted. In a booth well toward the rear the old lady surveyed me with sober eyes. "Billy-boy, did you see the way that crowd acted?" I nodded. "As disgraceful an exhibition as I've ever seen. The I.P. men ought to clamp down." "The I.P. men aren't strong enough." She said it quietly, but there was a glitter in her eyes and a harsh line about her usually smiling lips. "What do you mean?" For a moment the old lady sat there in silence; then she leaned back, closed her eyes, and I knew there was a story coming. "My last book, Death In The Atom , hit the stands last January," she began. "When it was finished I had planned to take a six months' vacation, but those fool publishers of mine insisted I do a sequel. Well, I'd used Mars and Pluto and Ganymede as settings for novels, so for this one I decided on Venus. I went to Venus City, and I spent six weeks in-country. I got some swell background material, and I met Ezra Karn...." "Who?" I interrupted. "An old prospector who lives out in the deep marsh on the outskirts of Varsoom country. To make a long story short, I got him talking about his adventures, and he told me plenty." The old woman paused. "Did you ever hear of the Green Flames?" she asked abruptly. I shook my head. "Some new kind of ..." "It's not a new kind of anything. The Green Flame is a radio-active rock once found on Mercury. The Alpha rays of this rock are similar to radium in that they consist of streams of material particles projected at high speed. But the character of the Gamma rays has never been completely analyzed. Like those set up by radium, they are electromagnetic pulsations, but they are also a strange combination of Beta or cathode rays with negatively charged electrons. "When any form of life is exposed to these Gamma rays from the Green Flame rock, they produce in the creature's brain a certain lassitude and lack of energy. As the period of exposure increases, this condition develops into a sense of impotence and a desire for leadership or guidance. Occasionally, as with the weak-willed, there is a spirit of intolerance. The Green Flames might be said to be an inorganic opiate, a thousand times more subtle and more powerful than any known drug." I was sitting up now, hanging on to the woman's every word. "Now in 2710, as you'd know if you studied your history, the three planets of Earth, Venus, and Mars were under governmental bondage. The cruel dictatorship of Vennox I was short-lived, but it lasted long enough to endanger all civilized life. "The archives tell us that one of the first acts of the overthrowing government was to cast out all Green Flames, two of which Vennox had ordered must be kept in each household. The effect on the people was immediate. Representative government, individual enterprise, freedom followed." Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor. "To go back to my first trip to Venus. As I said, I met Ezra Karn, an old prospector there in the marsh. Karn told me that on one of his travels into the Varsoom district he had come upon the wreckage of an old space ship. The hold of that space ship was packed with Green Flames!" If Grannie expected me to show surprise at that, she was disappointed. I said, "So what?" "So everything, Billy-boy. Do you realize what such a thing would mean if it were true? Green Flames were supposedly destroyed on all planets after the Vennox regime crashed. If a quantity of the rock were in existence, and it fell into the wrong hands, there'd be trouble. "Of course, I regarded Karn's story as a wild dream, but it made corking good story material. I wrote it into a novel, and a week after it was completed, the manuscript was stolen from my study back on Earth." "I see," I said as she lapsed into silence. "And now you've come to the conclusion that the details of your story were true and that someone is attempting to put your plot into action." Grannie nodded. "Yes," she said. "That's exactly what I think." I got my pipe out of my pocket, tamped Martian tobacco into the bowl and laughed heartily. "The same old Flowers," I said. "Tell me, who's your thief ... Doctor Universe?" She regarded me evenly. "What makes you say that?" I shrugged. "The way the theater crowd acted. It all ties in." The old woman shook her head. "No, this is a lot bigger than a simple quiz program. The theater crowd was but a cross-section of what is happening all over the System. There have been riots on Earth and Mars, police officials murdered on Pluto and a demand that government by representation be abolished on Jupiter. The time is ripe for a military dictator to step in. "And you can lay it all to the Green Flames. It seems incredible that a single shipload of the ore could effect such a wide ranged area, but in my opinion someone has found a means of making that quantity a thousand times more potent and is transmiting it en masse ." If it had been anyone but Grannie Annie there before me, I would have called her a fool. And then all at once I got an odd feeling of approaching danger. "Let's get out of here," I said, getting up. Zinnng-whack! "All right!" On the mirror behind the bar a small circle with radiating cracks appeared. On the booth wall a scant inch above Grannie's head the fresco seemed to melt away suddenly. A heat ray! Grannie Annie leaped to her feet, grasped my arm and raced for the door. Outside a driverless hydrocar stood with idling motors. The old woman threw herself into the control seat, yanked me in after her and threw over the starting stud. An instant later we were plunging through the dark night. Six days after leaving Swamp City we reached Level Five, the last outpost of firm ground. Ahead lay the inner marsh, stretching as far as the eye could reach. Low islands projected at intervals from the thick water. Mold balls, two feet across, drifted down from the slate-gray sky like puffs of cotton. We had traveled this far by ganet , the tough little two headed pack animal of the Venus hinterland. Any form of plane or rocket would have had its motor instantly destroyed, of course, by the magnetic force belt that encircled the planet's equator. Now our drivers changed to boatmen, and we loaded our supplies into three clumsy jagua canoes. It was around the camp fire that night that Grannie took me into her confidence for the first time since we had left Swamp City. "We're heading directly for Varsoom country," she said. "If we find Ezra Karn so much the better. If we don't, we follow his directions to the lost space ship. Our job is to find that ore and destroy it. You see, I'm positive the Green Flames have never been removed from the ship." Sleep had never bothered me, yet that night I lay awake for hours tossing restlessly. The thousand sounds of the blue marsh droned steadily. And the news broadcast I had heard over the portable visi just before retiring still lingered in my mind. To a casual observer that broadcast would have meant little, a slight rebellion here, an isolated crime there. But viewed from the perspective Grannie had given me, everything dovetailed. The situation on Jupiter was swiftly coming to a head. Not only had the people on that planet demanded that representative government be abolished, but a forum was now being held to find a leader who might take complete dictatorial control. Outside a whisper-worm hissed softly. I got up and strode out of my tent. For some time I stood there, lost in thought. Could I believe Grannie's incredible story? Or was this another of her fantastic plots which she had skilfully blended into a novel? Abruptly I stiffened. The familiar drone of the marsh was gone. In its place a ringing silence blanketed everything. And then out in the gloom a darker shadow appeared, moving in undulating sweeps toward the center of the camp. Fascinated, I watched it advance and retreat, saw two hyalescent eyes swim out of the murk. It charged, and with but a split second to act, I threw myself flat. There was a rush of mighty wings as the thing swept over me. Sharp talons raked my clothing. Again it came, and again I rolled swiftly, missing the thing by the narrowest of margins. From the tent opposite a gaunt figure clad in a familiar dress appeared. Grannie gave a single warning: "Stand still!" The thing in the darkness turned like a cam on a rod and drove at us again. This time the old woman's heat gun clicked, and a tracery of purple flame shot outward. A horrible soul-chilling scream rent the air. A moment later something huge and heavy scrabbled across the ground and shot aloft. Grannie Annie fired with deliberate speed. I stood frozen as the diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me. "In heaven's name, what was it?" "Hunter-bird," Grannie said calmly. "A form of avian life found here in the swamp. Harmless in its wild state, but when captured, it can be trained to pursue a quarry until it kills. It has a single unit brain and follows with a relentless purpose." "Then that would mean...?" "That it was sent by our enemy, the same enemy that shot at us in the cafe in Swamp City. Exactly." Grannie Annie halted at the door of her tent and faced me with earnest eyes. "Billy-boy, our every move is being watched. From now on it's the survival of the fittest." The following day was our seventh in the swamp. The water here resembled a vast mosaic, striped and cross-striped with long winding ribbons of yellowish substance that floated a few inches below the surface. The mold balls coming into contact with the evonium water of the swamp had undergone a chemical change and evolved into a cohesive multi-celled marine life that lived and died within a space of hours. The Venusians paddled with extreme care. Had one of them dipped his hand into one of those yellow streaks, he would have been devoured in a matter of seconds. At high noon by my Earth watch I sighted a low white structure on one of the distant islands. Moments later we made a landing at a rude jetty, and Grannie Annie was introducing me to Ezra Karn. He was not as old a man as I had expected, but he was ragged and unkempt with iron gray hair falling almost to his shoulders. He was dressed in varpa cloth, the Venus equivalent of buckskin, and on his head was an enormous flop-brimmed hat. "Glad to meet you," he said, shaking my hand. "Any friend of Miss Flowers is a friend of mine." He ushered us down the catwalk into his hut. The place was a two room affair, small but comfortable. The latest type of visi set in one corner showed that Karn was not isolated from civilization entirely. Grannie Annie came to the point abruptly. When she had explained the object of our trip, the prospector became thoughtful. "Green Flames, eh?" he repeated slowly. "Well yes, I suppose I could find that space ship again. That is, if I wanted to." "What do you mean?" Grannie paused in the act of rolling herself a cigarette. "You know where it is, don't you?" "Ye-s," Karn nodded. "But like I told you before, that ship lies in Varsoom country, and that isn't exactly a summer vacation spot." "What are the Varsoom?" I asked. "A native tribe?" Karn shook his head. "They're a form of life that's never been seen by Earthmen. Strictly speaking, they're no more than a form of energy." "Dangerous?" "Yes and no. Only man I ever heard of who escaped their country outside of myself was the explorer, Darthier, three years ago. I got away because I was alone, and they didn't notice me, and Darthier escaped because he made 'em laugh." "Laugh?" A scowl crossed Grannie's face. "That's right," Karn said. "The Varsoom have a strange nervous reaction that's manifested by laughing. But just what it is that makes them laugh, I don't know." Food supplies and fresh drinking water were replenished at the hut. Several mold guns were borrowed from the prospector's supply to arm the Venusians. And then as we were about to leave, Karn suddenly turned. "The Doctor Universe program," he said. "I ain't missed one in months. You gotta wait 'til I hear it." Grannie frowned in annoyance, but the prospector was adamant. He flipped a stud, twisted a dial and a moment later was leaning back in a chair, listening with avid interest. It was the same show I had witnessed back in Swamp City. Once again I heard questions filter in from the far outposts of the System. Once again I saw the commanding figure of the quiz master as he strode back and forth across the stage. And as I sat there, looking into the visi screen, a curious numbing drowsiness seemed to steal over me and lead my thoughts far away. Half an hour later we headed into the unknown. The Venusian boatmen were ill-at-ease now and jabbered among themselves constantly. We camped that night on a miserable little island where insects swarmed about us in hordes. The next day an indefinable wave of weariness and despondency beset our entire party. I caught myself musing over the futility of the venture. Only the pleadings of Grannie Annie kept me from turning back. On the morrow I realized the truth in her warning, that all of us had been exposed to the insidious radiations. After that I lost track of time. Day after day of incessant rain ... of steaming swamp.... But at length we reached firm ground and began our advance on foot. It was Karn who first sighted the ship. Striding in the lead, he suddenly halted at the top of a hill and leveled his arm before him. There it lay, a huge cigar-shaped vessel of blackened arelium steel, half buried in the swamp soil. "What's that thing on top?" Karn demanded, puzzled. A rectangular metal envelope had been constructed over the stern quarters of the ship. Above this structure were three tall masts. And suspended between them was a network of copper wire studded with white insulators. Grannie gazed a long moment through binoculars. "Billy-boy, take three Venusians and head across the knoll," she ordered. "Ezra and I will circle in from the west. Fire a gun if you strike trouble." But we found no trouble. The scene before us lay steeped in silence. Moments later our two parties converged at the base of the great ship. A metal ladder extended from the envelope down the side of the vessel. Mid-way we could see a circular hatch-like door. "Up we go, Billy-boy." Heat gun in readiness, Grannie Annie began to climb slowly. The silence remained absolute. We reached the door and pulled it open. There was no sign of life. "Somebody's gone to a lot of trouble here," Ezra Karn observed. Somebody had. Before us stretched a narrow corridor, flanked on the left side by a wall of impenetrable stepto glass. The corridor was bare of furnishings. But beyond the glass, revealed to us in mocking clarity, was a high panel, studded with dials and gauges. Even as we looked, we could see liquid pulse in glass tubes, indicator needles swing slowly to and fro. Grannie nodded. "Some kind of a broadcasting unit. The Green Flames in the lower hold are probably exposed to a tholpane plate and their radiations stepped up by an electro-phosicalic process." Karn raised the butt of his pistol and brought it crashing against the glass wall. His arm jumped in recoil, but the glass remained intact. "You'll never do it that way," Grannie said. "Nothing short of an atomic blast will shatter that wall. It explains why there are no guards here. The mechanism is entirely self-operating. Let's see if the Green Flames are more accessible." In the lower hold disappointment again confronted us. Visible in the feeble shafts of daylight that filtered through cracks in the vessel's hull were tiers of rectangular ingots of green iridescent ore. Suspended by insulators from the ceiling over them was a thick metal plate. But between was a barrier. A wall of impenetrable stepto glass. Grannie stamped her foot. "It's maddening," she said. "Here we are at the crux of the whole matter, and we're powerless to make a single move."
Dole vs. the Times by Jacob Weisberg	"Dole vs. the Times", Jacob Weisberg, 1996. Dole vs. the Times For several weeks now, pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the New York Times . Dole's spat with the gray lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White House. "This is a disgrace," Dole insisted. "I doubt if you even read it in the New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in the New York Times ." Dole repeated his attack for the next five days. "We are not going to let the media steal this election," he told a crowd in Dallas on Friday. "This country belongs to the people, not the New York Times ." On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, "I know that with a crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed up, but the other papers will get it right." On Sunday (the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper "the apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the Democratic National Committee." In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said the Times "might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp didn't get along together 12 years ago." On Tuesday, Dole was still at it, referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, "That's about what I got in the New York Times today." The Times has reacted to this assault by highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact, Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper. According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section. Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment. Reporters traveling with Dole caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present, Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington Editor Andrew Rosenthal. That letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being AWOL in the drug war. "Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of thousands of young people started drugs?" Dole said. "Three million have started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff finally in an election year." Seelye's front-page story reported that "Mr. Dole accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of control." Buckley complains that the story "could lead the reader to believe that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say." The letter continues: "Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting," going on to assert that "Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your coverage." No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon the complaint. "They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign," the official said. "The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems." With Seelye, the official says, the problem is "not being able to transcribe a tape accurately." With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering Dole full time since the summer, "the problem is an incredible focus on the little picture as opposed to the big picture." As an example, the official cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers as "a rough stretch of politicking." Other than those two episodes, the official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the official describes as "the softest portrait since they invented black velvet"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole crowds. "Clinton even gets better photographs," the official contends. Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. "We don't make editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob Dole," he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the "playing around" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the incumbent's record. "If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part series too," he says. "Ithink we have been tough on him," Seelye says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially "porous," with aides emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole, Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately, depicting him in what one colleague calls a "cinema veritÃ© " style. Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane, Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down. For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times , Seelye writes: "In Phoenix on Friday night, he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial contributions to the Clinton campaign. "From Indoneeesia," he said. "Yeah. From INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes, but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him." Two days later, she quoted Dole in another story: "They've turned the White House into something else, I don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!" Most reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an "animal house," sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least compos mentis. But though unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks. Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained, overemphasizes the "horse race" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988, Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday. None of these factors, though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, "I like the media. They don't like them in the South." But this pat explanation doesn't entirely make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in picking fights with the press. But if Dole is attacking the Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a "corps of the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered, and never learned." That phrase recalled an attack he made on the press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington Post of being in bed with George McGovern. "There is a cultural and social affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors," Dole said then. "They belong to the same elite: They can be found living cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the same Georgetown parties." The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide.
Doorway to Kal-Jmar by Knight, Damon	"Doorway to Kal-Jmar", Damon Knight, 1970. Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.
Double Trouble by Jacobi, Carl	"Double Trouble", Carl Jacobi, 1970. DOUBLE TROUBLE by CARL JACOBI Grannie Annie, that waspish science-fiction writer, was in a jam again. What with red-spot fever, talking cockatoos and flagpole trees, I was running in circles—especially since Grannie became twins every now and then. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] We had left the offices of Interstellar Voice three days ago, Earth time, and now as the immense disc of Jupiter flamed across the sky, entered the outer limits of the Baldric. Grannie Annie strode in the lead, her absurd long-skirted black dress looking as out of place in this desert as the trees. Flagpole trees. They rose straight up like enormous cat-tails, with only a melon-shaped protuberance at the top to show they were a form of vegetation. Everything else was blanketed by the sand and the powerful wind that blew from all quarters. As we reached the first of those trees, Grannie came to a halt. "This is the Baldric all right. If my calculations are right, we've hit it at its narrowest spot." Ezra Karn took a greasy pipe from his lips and spat. "It looks like the rest of this God-forsaken moon," he said, "'ceptin for them sticks." Xartal, the Martian illustrator, said nothing. He was like that, taciturn, speaking only when spoken to. He could be excused this time, however, for this was only our third day on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, and the country was still strange to us. When Annabella C. Flowers, that renowned writer of science fiction, visiphoned me at Crater City, Mars, to meet her here, I had thought she was crazy. But Miss Flowers, known to her friends as Grannie Annie, had always been mildly crazy. If you haven't read her books, you've missed something. She's the author of Lady of the Green Flames , Lady of the Runaway Planet , Lady of the Crimson Space-Beast , and other works of science fiction. Blood-and-thunder as these books are, however, they have one redeeming feature—authenticity of background. Grannie Annie was the original research digger-upper, and when she laid the setting of a yarn on a star of the sixth magnitude, only a transportation-velocity of less than light could prevent her from visiting her "stage" in person. Therefore when she asked me to meet her at the landing field of Interstellar Voice on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, I knew she had another novel in the state of embryo. What I didn't expect was Ezra Karn. He was an old prospector Grannie had met, and he had become so attached to the authoress he now followed her wherever she went. As for Xartal, he was a Martian and was slated to do the illustrations for Grannie's new book. Five minutes after my ship had blasted down, the four of us met in the offices of Interstellar Voice . And then I was shaking hands with Antlers Park, the manager of I. V. himself. "Glad to meet you," he said cordially. "I've just been trying to persuade Miss Flowers not to attempt a trip into the Baldric." "What's the Baldric?" I had asked. Antlers Park flicked the ash from his cheroot and shrugged. "Will you believe me, sir," he said, "when I tell you I've been out here on this forsaken moon five years and don't rightly know myself?" I scowled at that; it didn't make sense. "However, as you perhaps know, the only reason for colonial activities here at all is because of the presence of an ore known as Acoustix. It's no use to the people of Earth but of untold value on Mars. I'm not up on the scientific reasons, but it seems that life on the red planet has developed with a supersonic method of vocal communication. The Martian speaks as the Earthman does, but he amplifies his thoughts' transmission by way of wave lengths as high as three million vibrations per second. The trouble is that by the time the average Martian reaches middle age, his ability to produce those vibrations steadily decreases. Then it was found that this ore, Acoustix, revitalized their sounding apparatus, and the rush was on." "What do you mean?" Park leaned back. "The rush to find more of the ore," he explained. "But up until now this moon is the only place where it can be found. "There are two companies here," he continued, " Interstellar Voice and Larynx Incorporated . Chap by the name of Jimmy Baker runs that. However, the point is, between the properties of these two companies stretches a band or belt which has become known as the Baldric. "There are two principal forms of life in the Baldric; flagpole trees and a species of ornithoid resembling cockatoos. So far no one has crossed the Baldric without trouble." "What sort of trouble?" Grannie Annie had demanded. And when Antlers Park stuttered evasively, the old lady snorted, "Fiddlesticks, I never saw trouble yet that couldn't be explained. We leave in an hour." So now here we were at the outer reaches of the Baldric, four travelers on foot with only the barest necessities in the way of equipment and supplies. I walked forward to get a closer view of one of the flagpole trees. And then abruptly I saw something else. A queer-looking bird squatted there in the sand, looking up at me. Silver in plumage, it resembled a parrot with a crest; and yet it didn't. In some strange way the thing was a hideous caricature. "Look what I found," I yelled. "What I found," said the cockatoo in a very human voice. "Thunder, it talks," I said amazed. "Talks," repeated the bird, blinking its eyes. The cockatoo repeated my last statement again, then rose on its short legs, flapped its wings once and soared off into the sky. Xartal, the Martian illustrator, already had a notebook in his hands and was sketching a likeness of the creature. Ten minutes later we were on the move again. We saw more silver cockatoos and more flagpole trees. Above us, the great disc of Jupiter began to descend toward the horizon. And then all at once Grannie stopped again, this time at the top of a high ridge. She shielded her eyes and stared off into the plain we had just crossed. "Billy-boy," she said to me in a strange voice, "look down there and tell me what you see." I followed the direction of her hand and a shock went through me from head to foot. Down there, slowly toiling across the sand, advanced a party of four persons. In the lead was a little old lady in a black dress. Behind her strode a grizzled Earth man in a flop-brimmed hat, another Earth man, and a Martian. Detail for detail they were a duplicate of ourselves! "A mirage!" said Ezra Karn. But it wasn't a mirage. As the party came closer, we could see that their lips were moving, and their voices became audible. I listened in awe. The duplicate of myself was talking to the duplicate of Grannie Annie, and she was replying in the most natural way. Steadily the four travelers approached. Then, when a dozen yards away, they suddenly faded like a negative exposed to light and disappeared. "What do you make of it?" I said in a hushed voice. Grannie shook her head. "Might be a form of mass hypnosis superinduced by some chemical radiations," she replied. "Whatever it is, we'd better watch our step. There's no telling what might lie ahead." We walked after that with taut nerves and watchful eyes, but we saw no repetition of the "mirage." The wind continued to blow ceaselessly, and the sand seemed to grow more and more powdery. For some time I had fixed my gaze on a dot in the sky which I supposed to be a high-flying cockatoo. As that dot continued to move across the heavens in a single direction, I called Grannie's attention to it. "It's a kite," she nodded. "There should be a car attached to it somewhere." She offered no further explanation, but a quarter of an hour later as we topped another rise a curious elliptical car with a long slanting windscreen came into view. Attached to its hood was a taut wire which slanted up into the sky to connect with the kite. A man was driving and when he saw us, he waved. Five minutes later Grannie was shaking his hand vigorously and mumbling introductions. "This is Jimmy Baker," she said. "He manages Larynx Incorporated , and he's the real reason we're here." I decided I liked Baker the moment I saw him. In his middle thirties, he was tall and lean, with pleasant blue eyes which even his sand goggles could not conceal. "I can't tell you how glad I am you're here, Grannie," he said. "If anybody can help me, you can." Grannie's eyes glittered. "Trouble with the mine laborers?" she questioned. Jimmy Baker nodded. He told his story over the roar of the wind as we headed back across the desert. Occasionally he touched a stud on an electric windlass to which the kite wire was attached. Apparently these adjustments moved planes or fins on the kite and accounted for the car's ability to move in any direction. "If I weren't a realist, I'd say that Larynx Incorporated has been bewitched," he began slowly. "We pay our men high wages and give them excellent living conditions with a vacation on Callisto every year. Up until a short time ago most of them were in excellent health and spirits. Then the Red Spot Fever got them." "Red Spot Fever?" Grannie looked at him curiously. Jimmy Baker nodded. "The first symptoms are a tendency to garrulousness on the part of the patient. Then they disappear." He paused to make an adjustment of the windlass. "They walk out into the Baldric," he continued, "and nothing can stop them. We tried following them, of course, but it was no go. As soon as they realize they're being followed, they stop. But the moment our eyes are turned, they give us the slip." "But surely you must have some idea of where they go," Grannie said. Baker lit a cigarette. "There's all kinds of rumors," he replied, "but none of them will hold water. By the way, there's a cockatoo eyrie ahead of us." I followed his gaze and saw a curious structure suspended between a rude circle of flagpole trees. A strange web-like formation of translucent gauzy material, it was. Fully two hundred cockatoos were perched upon it. They watched us with their mild eyes as we passed, but they didn't move. After that we were rolling up the driveway that led to the offices of Larynx Incorporated . As Jimmy Baker led the way up the inclined ramp, a door in the central building opened, and a man emerged. His face was drawn. "Mr. Baker," he said breathlessly, "seventy-five workers at Shaft Four have headed out into the Baldric." Baker dropped his cigarette and ground his heel on it savagely. "Shaft Four, eh?" he repeated. "That's our principal mine. If the fever spreads there, I'm licked." He motioned us into his office and strode across to a desk. Silent Xartal, the Martian illustrator, took a chair in a corner and got his notebook out, sketching the room's interior. Grannie Annie remained standing. Presently the old lady walked across to the desk and helped herself to the bottle of Martian whiskey there. "There must be ways of stopping this," she said. "Have you called in any physicians? Why don't you call an enforced vacation and send the men away until the plague has died down?" Baker shook his head. "Three doctors from Callisto were here last month. They were as much at loss as I am. As for sending the men away, I may have to do that, but when I do, it means quits. Our company is chartered with Spacolonial, and you know what that means. Failure to produce during a period of thirty days or more, and you lose all rights." A visiphone bell sounded, and Baker walked across to the instrument. A man's face formed in the vision plate. Baker listened, said "Okay" and threw off the switch. "The entire crew of Shaft Four have gone out into the Baldric," he said slowly. There was a large map hanging on the wall back of Baker's desk. Grannie Annie walked across to it and began to study its markings. "Shaft Four is at the outer edge of the Baldric at a point where that corridor is at its widest," she said. Baker looked up. "That's right. We only began operations there a comparatively short time ago. Struck a rich vein of Acoustix that runs deep in. If that vein holds out, we'll double the output of Interstellar Voice , our rival, in a year." Grannie nodded. "I think you and I and Xartal had better take a run up there," she said. "But first I want to see your laboratory." There was no refusing her. Jimmy Baker led the way down to a lower level where a huge laboratory and experimental shop ran the length of the building. Grannie seized a light weight carry-case and began dropping articles into it. A pontocated glass lens, three or four Wellington radite bulbs, each with a spectroscopic filament, a small dynamo that would operate on a kite windlass, and a quantity of wire and other items. The kite car was brought out again, and the old woman, Baker and the Martian took their places in it. Then Jimmy waved, and the car began to roll down the ramp. Not until they had vanished in the desert haze did I sense the loneliness of this outpost. With that loneliness came a sudden sense of foreboding. Had I been a fool to let Grannie go? I thought of her, an old woman who should be in a rocking chair, knitting socks. If anything happened to Annabella C. Flowers, I would never forgive myself and neither would her millions of readers. Ezra Karn and I went back into the office. The old prospector chuckled. "Dang human dynamo. Got more energy than a runaway comet." A connecting door on the far side of the office opened onto a long corridor which ended at a staircase. "Let's look around," I said. We passed down the corridor and climbed the staircase to the second floor. Here were the general offices of Larynx Incorporated , and through glass doors I could see clerks busy with counting machines and report tapes. In another chamber the extremely light Acoustix ore was being packed into big cases and marked for shipment. At the far end a door to a small room stood open. Inside a young man was tilted back in a swivel chair before a complicated instrument panel. "C'mon in," he said, seeing us. "If you want a look at your friends, here they are." He flicked a stud, and the entire wall above the panel underwent a slow change of colors. Those colors whirled kaleidescopically, then coalesced into a three-dimensional scene. It was a scene of a rapidly unfolding desert country as seen from the rear of a kite car. Directly behind the windscreen, backs turned to me, were Jimmy Baker, Grannie, and Xartal. It was as if I were standing directly behind them. "It's Mr. Baker's own invention," the operator said. "An improvement on the visiphone." "Do you mean to say you can follow the movements of that car and its passengers wherever it goes? Can you hear them talk too?" "Sure." The operator turned another dial, and Grannie's falsetto voice entered the room. It stopped abruptly. "The machine uses a lot of power," the operator said, "and as yet we haven't got much." The cloud of anxiety which had wrapped itself about me disappeared somewhat as I viewed this device. At least I could now keep myself posted of Grannie's movements. Karn and I went down to the commissary where we ate our supper. When we returned to Jimmy Baker's office, the visiphone bell was ringing. I went over to it and turned it on, and to my surprise the face of Antlers Park flashed on the screen. "Hello," he said in his friendly way. "I see you arrived all right. Is Miss Flowers there?" "Miss Flowers left with Mr. Baker for Shaft Four," I said. "There's trouble up there. Red spot fever." "Fever, eh?" repeated Park. "That's a shame. Is there anything I can do?" "Tell me," I said, "has your company had any trouble with this plague?" "A little. But up until yesterday the fever's been confined to the other side of the Baldric. We had one partial case, but my chemists gave the chap an antitoxin that seems to have worked. Come to think of it, I might drive over to Shaft Four and give Jimmy Baker the formula. I haven't been out in the Baldric for years, but if you didn't have any trouble, I shouldn't either." We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then he rang off. In exactly an hour I went upstairs to the visiscreen room. Then once more I was directly behind my friends, listening in on their conversation. The view through the windscreen showed an irregular array of flagpole trees, with the sky dotted by high-flying cockatoos. "There's an eyrie over there," Jimmy Baker was saying. "We might as well camp beside it." Moments later a rude circle of flagpole trees loomed ahead. Across the top of them was stretched a translucent web. Jimmy and Grannie got out of the car and began making camp. Xartal remained in his seat. He was drawing pictures on large pieces of pasteboard, and as I stood there in the visiscreen room, I watched him. There was no doubt about it, the Martian was clever. He would make a few rapid lines on one of the pasteboards, rub it a little to get the proper shading and then go on to the next. In swift rotation likenesses of Ezra Karn, of myself, of Jimmy Baker, and of Antlers Park took form. Ezra spoke over my shoulder. "He's doing scenes for Grannie's new book," he said. "The old lady figures on using the events here for a plot. Look at that damned nosy bird! " A silver cockatoo had alighted on the kite car and was surveying curiously Xartal's work. As each drawing was completed, the bird scanned it with rapt attention. Abruptly it flew to the top of the eyrie, where it seemed to be having a consultation with its bird companions. And then abruptly it happened. The cockatoos took off in mass flight. A group of Earth people suddenly materialized on the eyrie, talking and moving about as if it were the most natural thing in the world. With a shock I saw the likeness of myself; I saw Ezra Karn; and I saw the image of Jimmy Baker. The real Jimmy Baker stood next to Grannie, staring up at this incredible mirage. Grannie let out a whoop. "I've got it!" she said. "Those things we see up there are nothing more than mental images. They're Xartal's drawings!" "Don't you see," the lady continued. "Everything that Xartal put on paper has been seen by one or more of these cockatoos. The cockatoos are like Earth parrots all right, but not only have they the power of copying speech, they also have the ability to recreate a mental image of what they have seen. In other words their brains form a powerful photographic impression of the object. That impression is then transmitted simultaneously in telepathic wavelengths to common foci. That eyrie might be likened to a cinema screen, receiving brain vibrations from a hundred different sources that blend into the light field to form what are apparently three-dimensional images." The Larynx manager nodded slowly. "I see," he said. "But why don't the birds reconstruct images from the actual person. Why use drawings?" "Probably because the drawings are exaggerated in certain details and made a greater impression on their brains," Grannie replied. Up on the eyrie a strange performance was taking place. The duplicate of Grannie Annie was bowing to the duplicate of Jimmy Baker, and the image of Ezra Karn was playing leap frog with the image of Antlers Park. Then abruptly the screen before me blurred and went blank. "Sorry," the operator said. "I've used too much power already. Have to give the generators a chance to build it up again." Nodding, I turned and motioned to Karn. We went back downstairs. "That explains something at any rate," the old prospector said. "But how about that Red spot fever?" On Jimmy Baker's desk was a large file marked: FEVER VICTIMS. I opened it and found it contained the case histories of those men who had been attacked by the strange malady. Reading them over, I was struck by one detail. Each patient had received the first symptoms, not while working in the mines, but while sleeping or lounging in the barracks. Five minutes later Karn and I were striding down a white ramp that led to the nearest barracks. The building came into sight, a low rectangular structure, dome-roofed to withstand the violent winds. Inside double tiers of bunks stretched along either wall. In those bunks some thirty men lay sleeping. The far wall was taken up by a huge window of denvo-quartz. As I stood there, something suddenly caught Ezra Karn's eye. He began to walk toward that window. "Look here," he said. Six feet up on that window a small almost imperceptible button of dull metal had been wedged into an aperture cut in the quartz. The central part of the button appeared to be a powerful lens of some kind, and as I seized it and pulled it loose, I felt the hum of tiny clock work. All at once I had it! Red spot fever. Heat fever from the infra-red rays of Jupiter's great spot. Someone had constructed this lens to concentrate and amplify the power of those rays. The internal clockwork served a double purpose. It opened a shutter, and it rotated the lens slowly so that it played for a time on each of the sleeping men. I slid the metal button in my pocket and left the barracks at a run. Back in the visiscreen room, I snapped to the operator: "Turn it on!" The kite car swam into view in the screen above the instrument panel. I stared with open eyes. Jimmy Baker no longer was in the car, nor was Xartal, the Martian. Grannie Annie was there, but seated at the controls was Antlers Park, the manager of Interstellar Voice. Ezra Karn jabbed my elbow. "Grannie's coming back. I thought she'd be getting sick of this blamed moon." It didn't make sense. In all the years I'd known Annabella C. Flowers, never yet had I seen her desert a case until she had woven the clues and facts to a logical conclusion. "Ezra," I said, "we're going to drive out and meet them. There's something screwy here." Ten minutes later in another kite car we were driving at a fast clip through the powdery sands of the Baldric. And before long we saw another car approaching. It was Grannie. As the car drew up alongside I saw her sitting in her prim way next to Antlers Park. Park said: "We left the others at the mine. Miss Flowers is going back with me to my offices to help me improve the formula for that new antitoxin." He waved his hand, and the car moved off. I watched it as it sped across the desert, and a growing suspicion began to form in my mind. Then, like a knife thrust, the truth struck me. "Ezra!" I yelled, swinging the car. "That wasn't Grannie! That was one of those damned cockatoo images. We've got to catch him." The other car was some distance ahead now. Park looked back and saw us following. He did something to the kite wire, and his car leaped ahead. I threw the speed indicator hard over. Our kite was a huge box affair with a steady powerful pull to the connecting wire. Park's vehicle was drawn by a flat triangular kite that dove and fluttered with each variance of the wind. Steadily we began to close in. The manager of Interstellar Voice turned again, and something glinted in his hand. There was a flash of purple flame, and a round hole appeared in our windscreen inches above Karn's head. "Heat gun!" Ezra yelled. Now we were rocketing over the sand dunes, winding in and out between the flagpole trees. I had to catch that car I told myself. Grannie Annie's very life might be at stake, not to mention the lives of hundreds of mine workers. Again Park took aim and again a hole shattered our windscreen. The wind shifted and blew from another quarter. The box kite soared, but the triangular kite faltered. Taking advantage of Park's loss of speed, I raced alongside. The I. V. manager lifted his weapon frantically. But before he could use it a third time, Ezra Karn had whipped a lariat from his belt and sent it coiling across the intervening space. The thong yanked tight about the manager's throat. Park did the only thing he could do. He shut off power, and the two cars coasted to a halt. Then I was across in the other seat, wrenching the weapon free from his grasp. "What have you done with Miss Flowers?" I demanded. The manager's eyes glittered with fear as he saw my finger tense on the trigger. Weakly he lifted an arm and pointed to the northwest. "Val-ley. Thir-ty miles. Entrance hidden by wall of ... flagpole trees." I leaped into the driver's seat and gave the kite its head. And now the country began to undergo a subtle change. The trees seemed to group themselves in a long flanking corridor in a northwesterly direction, as if to hide some secret that lay beyond. Twice I attempted to penetrate that wall, only to find my way blocked by those curious growths. Then a corridor opened before me; a mile forward and the desert began again. But it was a new desert this time: the sand packed hard as granite, the way ahead utterly devoid of vegetation. In the distance black bulging hills extended to right and left, with a narrow chasm or doorway between. I headed for that entrance, and when I reached it, I shut off power with an exclamation of astonishment. There was a huge chair-shaped rock there, and seated upon it was Grannie Annie. She had a tablet in her hands, and she was writing. "Grannie!" I yelled. "What're you doing here? Where's Mr. Baker?" She rose to her feet and clambered down the rock. "Getting back Jimmy's mine laborers," she said, a twinkle in her eyes. "I see you've got Antlers Park. I'm glad of that. It saves me a lot of trouble." She took off her spectacles and wiped them on her sleeve. "Don't look so fuddled, Billy-boy. Come along, and I'll show you." She led the way through the narrow passage into the valley. A deep gorge, it was, with the black sheer cliffs on either side pressing close. Ten feet forward, I stopped short, staring in amazement. Advancing toward me like a column of infantry came a long line of Larynx miners. They walked slowly, looking straight ahead, moving down the center of the gorge toward the entrance. But there was more! A kite car was drawn up to the side. The windscreen had been removed, and mounted on the hood was a large bullet-like contrivance that looked not unlike a search lamp. A blinding shaft of bluish radiance spewed from its open end. Playing it back and forth upon the marching men were Jimmy Baker and Xartal, the Martian. "Ultra violet," Grannie Annie explained. "The opposite end of the vibratory scale and the only thing that will combat the infra-red rays that cause red spot fever. Those men won't stop walking until they've reached Shaft Four." Grannie Annie told her story during the long ride back to Shaft Four. We drove slowly, keeping the line of marching Larynx miners always ahead of us. Jimmy Baker had struck a new big lode of Acoustix, a lode which if worked successfully would see Larynx Incorporated become a far more powerful exporting concern than Interstellar Voice . Antlers Park didn't want that. It was he or his agents who placed those lens buttons in the Larynx barracks. For he knew that just as Jupiter's great spot was responsible for a climate and atmosphere suitable for an Earthman on this Eighth Moon, so also was that spot a deadly power in itself, capable when its rays were concentrated of causing a fatal sickness. Then suddenly becoming fearful of Grannie's prying, Antlers Park strove to head her off before she reached Shaft Four. He did head her off and managed to lure her and Baker and Xartal into the Shaft barracks where they would be exposed to the rays from the lens button. But Grannie only pretended to contract the plague. Park then attempted to outwit Ezra Karn and me by returning in Jimmy Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.
Double-Cross by Pohl, Frederik	"Double-Cross", Frederik Pohl, 1966. DOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock. There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioning perfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all the same. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the open lock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. He turned. "Everything shipshape, I take it!" he commented. The OD nodded. "I'll have a blank log if this keeps up," he said. "Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, drivers ready to lift as soon as they come back." The Exec tossed away his cigarette. " If they come back." "Is there any question?" The Exec shrugged. "I don't know, Lowry," he said. "This is a funny place. I don't trust the natives." Lowry lifted his eyebrows. "Oh? But after all, they're human beings, just like us—" "Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don't even look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them." "Acclimation," Lowry said scientifically. "They had to acclimate themselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough." The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were the outskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-present Venusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards from the Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashioned proton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazing wonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line of guards. "Of course," Lowry said suddenly, "there's a minority who are afraid of us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives. They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that we know Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry underground group that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive the native Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, that is—right down into the mud. Well—" he laughed—"maybe they will. After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of—" The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallic voice rasped: "Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instruments reports a spy ray focused on the main lock!" Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back and stared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sure enough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. He snatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it. "Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party!" But even while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenly and went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec. The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, "You see!" "You see?" Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The five others in the room looked apprehensive. "You see?" Svan repeated. "From their own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right." The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, in spite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on her head. "Svan, I'm afraid," she said. "Who are we to decide if this is a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will be trouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood." Svan laughed harshly. " They don't think so. You heard them. We are not human any more. The officer said it." The other woman spoke unexpectedly. "The Council was right," she agreed. "Svan, what must we do?" Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. "One moment. Ingra, do you still object?" The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She looked around at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visibly convinced by Svan. "No," she said slowly. "I do not object." "And the rest of us? Does any of us object?" Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture of assent. "Good," said Svan. "Then we must act. The Council has told us that we alone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if the Earth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must not return." An old man shifted restlessly. "But they are strong, Svan," he complained. "They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay." Svan nodded. "No. They will leave. But they will never get back to Earth." "Never get back to Earth?" the old man gasped. "Has the Council authorized—murder?" Svan shrugged. "The Council did not know what we would face. The Councilmen could not come to the city and see what strength the Earth-ship has." He paused dangerously. "Toller," he said, "do you object?" Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice was dull. "What is your plan?" he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at his feet, held up a shiny metal globe. "One of us will plant this in the ship. It will be set by means of this dial—" he touched a spot on the surface of the globe with a pallid finger—"to do nothing for forty hours. Then—it will explode. Atomite." He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grin faded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty, irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leaves off a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made a mark on one of them, held it up. "We will let chance decide who is to do the work," he said angrily. "Is there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think...." No answer. Svan jerked his head. "Good," he said. "Ingra, bring me that bowl." Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm of her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a few left. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidly creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it with his hand, offered it to the girl. "You first, Ingra," he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slip and held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svan himself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at their slips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them. "This is the plan," he said. "We will go, all six of us, in my ground car, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole city has been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we can find. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation. The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with the car—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. The guards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough, after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is to it. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the side of the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in the dark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel away from the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed." There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still that uncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: "Look at the slips!" Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled. Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over, striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second's glance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance. Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was looking up now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosen one to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconscious whispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw their indecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was a coward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any might be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting every one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractions of a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision. Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftly beneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked in secret. His voice was very tired as he said, "I will plant the bomb." The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along the main street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed except for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the entrance to the town's Hall of Justice. "Good," said Svan, observing them. "The delegation is still here. We have ample time." He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searching the faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered. Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not one of them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. "Go faster, Ingra," he ordered the girl who was driving. "Let's get this done with." She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in her eyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsy car jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quite dark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them, illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of the jungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. The present shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall off again, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silence that followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: "Halt!" The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on the brakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on them from the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. "Where are you going?" he growled. Svan spoke up. "We want to look at the Earth-ship," he said. He opened the door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. "We heard it was leaving tonight," he continued, "and we have not seen it. Is that not permitted?" The guard shook his head sourly. "No one is allowed near the ship. The order was just issued. It is thought there is danger." Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. "It is urgent," he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in a complicated gesture. "Do you understand?" Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced by a sudden flare of understanding—and fear. "The Council!" he roared. "By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—" He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was faster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan savagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-like nails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strength in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial advantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had ruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save the petrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously, then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Over the shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of the jungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would be no trace. Svan strode back to the car. "Hurry up," he gasped to the girl. "Now there is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keep a watch for other guards." Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer. Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bow of the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. "Can't see a thing," he complained to the Exec, steadily writing away at the computer's table. "Look—are those lights over there?" The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. "Probably the guards. Of course, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party." Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found no answer in his stolid face. "Don't joke about it," he said. "Suppose something happens to the delegation?" "Then we're in the soup," the Exec said philosophically. "I told you the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the last three hundred years." "It isn't all the natives," Lowry said. "Look how they've doubled the guard around us. The administration is co-operating every way they know how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's this secret group they call the Council." "And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it?" the Exec retorted. "They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's gone out now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to be coming from the town, anyhow...." Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned the lights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartment under the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to get the atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed. Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs in the compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. "This will do for me," he said. "They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—we were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?" Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. "We must circle back again," she parroted. "We are to wait five minutes, then drive the car into the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards." Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards would not be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. If they must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve a purpose. Aloud, he said, "You understand. If I get through, I will return to the city on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, because the bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember, you are in no danger from the guards." From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they would feel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite in that bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in a ground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting off the seconds. "Go ahead," he ordered. "I will wait here." "Svan." The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reached for him, kissed him. "Good luck to you, Svan," she said. "Good luck," repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor of the car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around, sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a few hundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean? Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and the jungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmed lights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made by its own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circling figures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own. They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with those slim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to the side of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance. He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers went absently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. He turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground car was racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glare of its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. "Svan! They're coming! They found the guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan, with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and came for you. We must flee!" He stared unseeingly at the light. "Go away!" he croaked unbelievingly. Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up—the bomb in the car— "Go away!" he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched and swinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps before something immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself lifted from the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating force onto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear the sound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began to feel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. "He's still alive," he said callously to Lowry, who had just come up. "It won't last long, though. What've you got there?" Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the two halves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where a connection had been broken. "He had a bomb," he said. "A magnetic-type, delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car, and it went off. They—they were planning to bomb us." "Amazing," the surgeon said dryly. "Well, they won't do any bombing now." Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered. The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. "Better them than us," he said. "It's poetic justice if I ever saw it. They had it coming...." He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece of paper between his fingers. "This is the only part I don't get," he said. "What's that?" Lowry craned his neck. "A piece of paper with a cross on it? What about it?" The surgeon shrugged. "He had it clenched in his hand," he said. "Had the devil of a time getting it loose from him." He turned it over slowly, displayed the other side. "Now what in the world would he be doing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides?"
Down to the Worlds of Men by Panshin, Alexei	"Down to the Worlds of Men", Alexei Panshin, 1961. DOWN TO THE WORLDS OF MEN BY ALEXEI PANSHIN The ancient rule was sink or swim—swim in the miasma of a planet without spaceflight, or sink to utter destruction! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I The horses and packs were loaded before we went aboard the scoutship. The scout bay is no more than a great oversized airlock with a dozen small ships squatting over their tubes, but it was the last of the Ship that I might ever see, so I took a long final look from the top of the ramp. There were sixteen of us girls and thirteen boys. We took our places in the seats in the center of the scout. Riggy Allen made a joke that nobody bothered to laugh at, and then we were all silent. I was feeling lost and just beginning to enjoy it when Jimmy Dentremont came over to me. He's red-headed and has a face that makes him look about ten. An intelligent runt like me. He said what I expected. "Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get together when we get down?" I guess he thought that because we were always matched on study I liked him. Well, I did when I wasn't mad at him, but now I had that crack he'd made about being a snob in mind, so I said, "Not likely. I want to come back alive." It wasn't fair, but it was a good crack and he went back to his place without saying anything. My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be telling this. I'm short, dark and scrawny, though I don't expect that scrawniness to last much longer. Mother is very good looking. In the meantime, I've got brains as a consolation. After we were all settled, George Fuhonin, the pilot, raised the ramps. We sat there for five minutes while they bled air out of our tube and then we just ... dropped. My stomach turned flips. We didn't have to leave that way, but George thinks it's fun to be a hot pilot. Thinking it over, I was almost sorry I'd been stinking to Jimmy D. He's the only competition I have my own age. The trouble is, you don't go partners with the competition, do you? Besides, there was still that crack about being a snob. The planet chosen for our Trial was called Tintera. The last contact the Ship had had with it—and we were the ones who dropped them—was almost 150 years ago. No contact since. That had made the Council debate a little before they dropped us there, but they decided it was all right in the end. It didn't make any practical difference to us kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going to drop you. All I knew was the name. I wouldn't have known that much if Daddy weren't Chairman of the Council. I felt like crawling in a corner of the ship and crying, but nobody else was breaking down, so I didn't. I did feel miserable. I cried when I said good-by to Mother and Daddy—a real emotional scene—but that wasn't in public. It wasn't the chance of not coming back that bothered me really, because I never believed that I wouldn't. The thought that made me unhappy was that I would have to be on a planet for a whole month. Planets make me feel wretched. The gravity is always wrong, for one thing. Either your arches and calves ache or every time you step you think you're going to trip on a piece of fluff and break your neck. There are vegetables everywhere and little grubby things just looking for you to crawl on. If you can think of anything creepier than that, you've got a real nasty imagination. Worst of all, planets stink. Every single one smells—I've been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but not for me. We have a place in the Ship like that—the Third Level—but it's only a thousand square miles and any time it gets on your nerves you can go up a level or down a level and be back in civilization. When we reached Tintera, they started dropping us. We swung over the sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested hills. Finally George spotted a clear area and dropped into it. They don't care what order you go in, so Jimmy D. jumped up, grabbed his gear and then led his horse down the ramp. I think he was still smarting from the slap I'd given him. In a minute we were airborne again. I wondered if I would ever see Jimmy—if he would get back alive. It's no game we play. When we turn fourteen, they drop us on the nearest colonized planet and come back one month later. That may sound like fun to you, but a lot of us never come back alive. Don't think I was helpless. I'm hell on wheels. They don't let us grow for fourteen years and then kick us out to die. They prepare us. They do figure, though, that if you can't keep yourself alive by the time you're fourteen, you're too stupid, foolish or unlucky to be any use to the Ship. There's sense behind it. It means that everybody on the Ship is a person who can take care of himself if he has to. Daddy says that something has to be done in a closed society to keep the population from decaying mentally and physically, and this is it. And it helps to keep the population steady. I began to check my gear out—sonic pistol, pickup signal so I could be found at the end of the month, saddle and cinches, food and clothes. Venie Morlock has got a crush on Jimmy D., and when she saw me start getting ready to go, she began to check her gear, too. At our next landing, I grabbed Ninc's reins and cut Venie out smoothly. It didn't have anything to do with Jimmy. I just couldn't stand to put off the bad moment any longer. The ship lifted impersonally away from Ninc and me like a rising bird, and in just a moment it was gone. Its gray-blue color was almost the color of the half-overcast sky, so I was never sure when I saw it last. II The first night was hell, I guess because I'm not used to having the lights out. That's when you really start to feel lonely, being alone in the dark. When the sun disappears, somehow you wonder in your stomach if it's really going to come back. But I lived through it—one day in thirty gone. I rode in a spiral search pattern during the next two days. I had three things in mind—stay alive, find people and find some of the others. The first was automatic. The second was to find out if there was a slot I could fit into for a month. If not, I would have to find a place to camp out, as nasty as that would be. The third was to join forces, though not with that meatball Jimmy D. No, he isn't really a meatball. The trouble is that I don't take nothing from nobody, especially him, and he doesn't take nothing from nobody, especially me. So we do a lot of fighting. I had a good month for Trial. My birthday is in November—too close to Year End Holiday for my taste, but this year it was all right. It was spring on Tintera, but it was December in the Ship, and after we got back we had five days of Holiday to celebrate. It gave me something to look forward to. In two days of riding, I ran onto nothing but a few odd-looking animals. I shot one small one and ate it. It turned out to taste pretty good, though not as good as a slice from Hambone No. 4, to my mind the best meat vat on the Ship. I've eaten things so gruey-looking that I wondered that anybody had the guts to try them in the first place and they've turned out to taste good. And I've seen things that looked good that I couldn't keep on my stomach. So I guess I was lucky. On the third day, I found the road. I brought Ninc down off the hillside, losing sight of the road in the trees, and then reaching it in the level below. It was narrow and made of sand spread over a hard base. Out of the marks in the sand, I could pick out the tracks of horses and both narrow and wide wheels. Other tracks I couldn't identify. One of the smartest moves in history was to include horses when they dropped the colonies. I say "they" because, while we did the actual dropping, the idea originated with the whole evac plan back on Earth. Considering how short a time it was in which the colonies were established, there was not time to set up industry, so they had to have draft animals. The first of the Great Ships was finished in 2025. One of the eight, as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything else in the Solar System in 2041. In that sixteen years 112 colonies were planted. I don't know how many of those planets had animals that could have been substituted but, even if they had, they would have had to be domesticated from scratch. That would have been stupid. I'll bet that half the colonies would have failed if they hadn't had horses. We'd come in from the west over the ocean, so I traveled east on the road. That much water makes me nervous, and roads have to go somewhere. I came on my first travelers three hours later. I rounded a tree-lined bend, ducking an overhanging branch, and pulled Ninc to a stop. There were five men on horseback herding a bunch of the ugliest creatures alive. They were green and grotesque. They had squat bodies, long limbs and knobby bulges at their joints. They had square, flat animal masks for faces. But they walked on their hind legs and they had paws that were almost hands, and that was enough to make them seem almost human. They made a wordless, chilling, lowing sound as they milled and plodded along. I started Ninc up again and moved slowly to catch up with them. All the men on horseback had guns in saddle boots. They looked as nervous as cats with kittens. One of them had a string of packhorses on a line and he saw me and called to another who seemed to be the leader. That one wheeled his black horse and rode back toward me. He was a middle-aged man, maybe as old as my Daddy. He was large and he had a hard face. Normal enough, but hard. He pulled to a halt when we reached each other, but I kept going. He had to come around and follow me. I believe in judging a person by his face. A man can't help the face he owns, but he can help the expression he wears on it. If a man looks mean, I generally believe that he is. This one looked mean. That was why I kept riding. He said, "What be you doing out here, boy? Be you out of your head? There be escaped Losels in these woods." I told you I hadn't finished filling out yet, but I hadn't thought it was that bad. I wasn't ready to make a fight over the point, though. Generally, I can't keep my bloody mouth shut, but now I didn't say anything. It seemed smart. "Where be you from?" he asked. I pointed to the road behind us. "And where be you going?" I pointed ahead. No other way to go. He seemed exasperated. I have that effect sometimes. Even on Mother and Daddy, who should know better. We were coming up on the others now, and the man said, "Maybe you'd better ride on from here with us. For protection." He had an odd way of twisting his sounds, almost as though he had a mouthful of mush. I wondered whether he were just an oddball or whether everybody here spoke the same way. I'd never heard International English spoken any way but one, even on the planet Daddy made me visit with him. One of the other outriders came easing by then. I suppose they'd been watching us all the while. He called to the hard man. "He be awfully small, Horst. I doubt me a Losel'd even notice him at all. We mought as well throw him back again." The rider looked at me. When I didn't dissolve in terror as he expected, he shrugged and one of the other men laughed. The hard man said to the others, "This boy will be riding along with us to Forton for protection." I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving along and one looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes. I felt uncomfortable. I said, "I don't think so." What the man did then surprised me. He said, "I do think so," and reached for the rifle in his saddle boot. I whipped my sonic pistol out so fast that he was caught leaning over with the rifle half out. His jaw dropped. He knew what I held and he didn't want to be fried. I said, "Ease your rifles out and drop them gently to the ground." They did, watching me all the while with wary expressions. When all the rifles were on the ground, I said, "All right, let's go." They didn't want to move. They didn't want to leave the rifles. I could see that. Horst didn't say anything. He just watched me with narrowed eyes. But one of the others held up a hand and in wheedling tones said, "Look here, kid...." "Shut up," I said, in as mean a voice as I could muster, and he did. It surprised me. I didn't think I sounded that mean. I decided he just didn't trust the crazy kid not to shoot. After twenty minutes of easy riding for us and hard walking for the creatures, I said, "If you want your rifles, you can go back and get them now." I dug my heels into Ninc's sides and rode on. At the next bend I looked back and saw four of them holding their packhorses and the creatures still while one beat a dust-raising retreat down the road. I put this episode in the "file and hold for analysis" section in my mind and rode on, feeling good. I think I even giggled once. Sometimes I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels. III When I was nine, my Daddy gave me a painted wooden doll that my great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it, nestled one in another, are eleven more dolls, each one smaller than the last. I like to watch people when they open it for the first time. My face must have been like that as I rode along the road. The country leveled into a great rolling valley and the trees gave way to great farms and fields. In the fields, working, were some of the green creatures, which surprised me since the ones I'd seen before hadn't seemed smart enough to count to one, let alone do any work. But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or something. I passed two crossroads and started to meet more people, but nobody questioned me. I met people on horseback, and twice I met trucks moving silently past. And I overtook a wagon driven by the oldest man I've seen in my life. He waved to me, and I waved back. Near the end of the afternoon I came to the town, and there I received a jolt that sickened me. By the time I came out on the other side, I was sick. My hands were cold and sweaty and my head was spinning, and I wanted to kick Ninc to a gallop. I rode slowly in, looking all around, missing nothing. The town was all stone, wood and brick. Out of date. Out of time, really. There were no machines more complicated than the trucks I'd seen earlier. At the edge of town, I passed a newspaper office with a headline pasted in the window—INVASION! I remember that. I wondered about it. But I looked most closely at the people. In all that town, I didn't see one girl over ten years old and no grown-up women at all. There were little kids, there were boys and there were men, but no girls. All the boys and men wore pants, and so did I, which must have been why Horst and his buddies assumed I was a boy. It wasn't flattering; but I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the clocks tick on this planet. But that wasn't what bothered me. It was the kids. My God! They swarmed. I saw a family come out of a house—a father and four children. It was the most foul thing I've ever seen. It struck me then—these people were Free Birthers! I felt a wave of nausea and I closed my eyes until it passed. The first thing you learn in school is that if it weren't for idiot and criminal people like these, Earth would never have been destroyed. The evacuation would never have had to take place, and eight billion people wouldn't have died. There wouldn't have been eight billion people. But, no. They bred and they spread and they devoured everything in their path like a cancer. They gobbled up all the resources that Earth had and crowded and shoved one another until the final war came. I am lucky. My great-great-grandparents were among those who had enough foresight to see what was coming. If it hadn't been for them and some others like them, there wouldn't be any humans left anywhere. And I wouldn't be here. That may not scare you, but it scares me. What happened before, when people didn't use their heads and wound up blowing the Solar System apart, is something nobody should forget. The older people don't let us forget. But these people had, and that the Council should know. For the first time since I landed on Tintera, I felt really frightened. There was too much going on that I didn't understand. I felt a blind urge to get away, and when I reached the edge of town, I whomped Ninc a good one and gave him his head. I let him run for almost a mile before I pulled him down to a walk again. I couldn't help wishing for Jimmy D. Whatever else he is, he's smart and brains I needed. How do you find out what's going on? Eavesdrop? That's a lousy method. For one thing, people can't be depended on to talk about the things you want to hear. For another, you're likely to get caught. Ask somebody? Who? Make the mistake of bracing a fellow like Horst and you might wind up with a sore head and an empty pocket. The best thing I could think of was to find a library, but that might be a job. I'd had two bad shocks on this day, but they weren't the last. In the late afternoon, when the sun was starting to sink and a cool wind was starting to ripple the tree leaves, I saw the scoutship high in the sky. The dying sun colored it a deep red. Back again? I wondered what had gone wrong. I reached down into my saddlebag and brought out my contact signal. The scoutship swung up in the sky in a familiar movement calculated to drop the stomach out of everybody aboard. George Fuhonin's style. I triggered the signal, my heart turning flips all the while. I didn't know why he was back, but I wasn't really sorry. The ship swung around until it was coming back on a path almost over my head, going in the same direction. Then it went into a slip and started bucking so hard that I knew this wasn't hot piloting at all, just plain idiot stutter-fingered stupidity at the controls. As it skidded by me overhead, I got a good look at it and knew that it wasn't one of ours. Not too different, but not ours. One more enigma. Where was it from? Not here. Even if you know how, and we wouldn't tell these Mud-eaters how, a scoutship is something that takes an advanced technology to build. I felt defeated and tired. Not much farther along the road, I came to a campsite with two wagons pulled in for the night, and I couldn't help but pull in myself. The campsite was large and had two permanent buildings on it. One was a well enclosure and the other was little more than a high-walled pen. It didn't even have a roof. I set up camp and ate my dinner. In the wagon closest to me were a man, his wife and their three children. The kids were running around and playing, and one of them ran close to the high-walled pen. His father came and pulled him away. The kids weren't to blame for their parents, but when one of them said hello to me, I didn't even answer. I know how lousy I would feel if I had two or three brothers and sisters, but it didn't strike me until that moment that it wouldn't even seem out of the ordinary to these kids. Isn't that horrible? About the time I finished eating, and before it grew dark, the old man I had seen earlier in the day drove his wagon in. He fascinated me. He had white hair, something I had read about in stories but had never seen before. When nightfall came, they started a large fire. Everybody gathered around. There was singing for awhile, and then the father of the children tried to pack them off to bed. But they weren't ready to go, so the old man started telling them a story. In the old man's odd accent, and sitting there in the campfire light surrounded by darkness, it seemed just right. It was about an old witch named Baba Yaga who lived in the forest in a house that stood on chicken legs. She was the nasty stepmother of a nice little girl, and to get rid of the kid, she sent her on a phony errand into the deep dark woods at nightfall. I could appreciate the poor girl's position. All the little girl had to help her were the handkerchief, the comb and the pearl that she had inherited from her dear dead mother. But, as it turned out, they were just enough to defeat nasty old Baba Yaga and bring the girl safely home. I wished for the same for myself. The old man had just finished and they were starting to drag the kids off to bed when there was a commotion on the road at the edge of the camp. I looked but my eyes were adjusted to the light of the fire and I couldn't see far into the dark. A voice there said, "I'll be damned if I'll take another day like this one, Horst. We should have been here hours ago. It be your fault we're not." Horst growled a retort. I decided that it was time for me to leave the campfire. I got up and eased away as Horst and his men came up to the fire, and cut back to where Ninc was parked. I grabbed up my blankets and mattress and started to roll them up. I had a pretty good idea now what they used the high-walled pen for. I should have known that they would have to pen the animals up for the night. I should have used my head. I hadn't and now it was time to take leave. I never got the chance. I was just heaving the saddle up on Ninc when I felt a hand on my shoulder and I was swung around. "Well, well. Horst, look who we have here," he called. It was the one who'd made the joke about me being beneath the notice of a Losel. He was alone with me now, but with that call the others would be up fast. I brought the saddle around as hard as I could and then up, and he went down. He started to get up again, so I dropped the saddle on him and reached inside my jacket for my gun. Somebody grabbed me then from behind and pinned my arms to my side. I opened my mouth to scream—I have a good scream—but a rough smelly hand clamped down over it before I had a chance to get more than a lungful of air. I bit down hard—5000 lbs. psi, I'm told—but he didn't let me go. I started to kick, but Horst jerked me off my feet and dragged me off. When we were behind the pen and out of earshot of the fire, he stopped dragging me and dropped me in a heap. "Make any noise," he said, "and I'll hurt you." That was a silly way to put it, but somehow it said more than if he'd threatened to break my arm or my head. It left him a latitude of things to do if he pleased. He examined his hand. There was enough moonlight for that. "I ought to club you anyway," he said. The one I'd dropped the saddle on came up then. The others were putting the animals in the pen. He started to kick me, but Horst stopped him. "No," he said. "Look through the kid's gear, bring the horse and what we can use." The other one didn't move. "Get going, Jack," Horst said in a menacing tone and they stood toe to toe for a long moment before Jack finally backed down. It seemed to me that Horst wasn't so much objecting to me being kicked, but was rather establishing who did the kicking in his bunch. But I wasn't done yet. I was scared, but I still had the pistol under my jacket. Horst turned back to me and I said, "You can't do this and get away with it." He said, "Look, boy. You may not know it, but you be in a lot of trouble. So don't give me a hard time." He still thought I was a boy. It was not time to correct him, but I didn't like to see the point go unchallenged. It was unflattering. "The courts won't let you get away with this," I said. I'd passed a courthouse in the town with a carved motto over the doors: EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW or TRUTH OUR SHIELD AND JUSTICE OUR SWORD or something stuffy like that. He laughed, not a phony, villian-type laugh, but a real laugh, so I knew I'd goofed. "Boy, boy. Don't talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be taking what I can use of your gear, but I be letting you go. You go to court and they'll take everything and lock you up besides. I be leaving you your freedom." "Why would they be doing that?" I asked. I slipped my hand under my jacket. "Every time you open your mouth you shout that you be off one of the Ships," Horst said. "That be enough. They already have one of you brats in jail in Forton." I was about to bring my gun out when up came Jack leading Ninc, with all my stuff loaded on. I mentally thanked him. He said, "The kid's got some good equipment. But I can't make out what this be for." He held out my pickup signal. Horst looked at it, then handed it back. "Throw it away," he said. I leveled my gun at them—Hell on Wheels strikes again! I said, "Hand that over to me." Horst made a disgusted sound. "Don't make any noise," I said, "or you'll fry. Now hand it over." I stowed it away, then paused with one hand on the leather horn of the saddle. "What's the name of the kid in jail in Forton." "I can't remember," he said. "But it be coming to me. Hold on." I waited. Then suddenly my arm was hit a numbing blow from behind and the gun went flying. Jack pounced after it and Horst said, "Good enough," to the others who'd come up behind me. I felt like a fool. Horst stalked over and got the signal. He dropped it on the ground and said in a voice far colder than mine could ever be, because it was natural and mine wasn't, "The piece be yours." Then he tromped on it until it cracked and fell apart. Then he said, "Pull a gun on me twice. Twice." He slapped me so hard that my ears rang. "You dirty little punk." I said calmly, "You big louse." It was a time I would have done better to keep my mouth shut. All I can remember is a flash of pain as his fist crunched against the side of my face and then nothing. Brains are no good if you don't use them.
Dust Unto Dust by Hinckley, Lyman D.	"Dust Unto Dust", Lyman D. Hinckley, 1964. DUST UNTO DUST By LYMAN D. HINCKLEY It was alien but was it dead, this towering, sinister city of metal that glittered malignantly before the cautious advance of three awed space-scouters. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Martin set the lifeboat down carefully, with all the attention one usually exercises in a situation where the totally unexpected has occurred, and he and his two companions sat and stared in awed silence at the city a quarter-mile away. He saw the dull, black walls of buildings shouldering grimly into the twilight sky, saw the sheared edge where the metal city ended and the barren earth began ... and he remembered observing, even before they landed, the too-strict geometry imposed on the entire construction. He frowned. The first impression was ... malignant. Wass, blond and slight, with enough nose for three or four men, unbuckled his safety belt and stood up. "Shall we, gentlemen?" and with a graceful movement of hand and arm he indicated the waiting city. Martin led Wass, and the gangling, scarecrow-like Rodney, through the stillness overlaying the barren ground. There was only the twilight sky, and harsh and black against it, the convoluted earth. And the city. Malignant. He wondered, again, what beings would choose to build a city—even a city like this one—in such surroundings. The men from the ship knew only the surface facts about this waiting geometric discovery. Theirs was the eleventh inter-planetary flight, and the previous ten, in the time allowed them for exploration while this planet was still close enough to their own to permit a safe return in their ships, had not spotted the city. But the eleventh expedition had, an hour ago, with just thirteen hours left during which a return flight could be safely started. So far as was known, this was the only city on the planet—the planet without any life at all, save tiny mosses, for a million years or more. And no matter which direction from the city a man moved, he would always be going north. "Hey, Martin!" Rodney called through his helmet radio. Martin paused. "Wind," Rodney said, coming abreast of him. He glanced toward the black pile, as if sharing Martin's thoughts. "That's all we need, isn't it?" Martin looked at the semi-transparent figures of wind and dust cavorting in the distance, moving toward them. He grinned a little, adjusting his radio. "Worried?" Rodney's bony face was without expression. "Gives me the creeps, kind of. I wonder what they were like?" Wass murmured, "Let us hope they aren't immortal." Three feet from the edge of the city Martin stopped and stubbed at the sand with the toe of his boot, clearing earth from part of a shining metal band. Wass watched him, and then shoved aside more sand, several feet away. "It's here, too." Martin stood up. "Let's try farther on. Rodney, radio the ship, tell them we're going in." Rodney nodded. After a time, Wass said, "Here, too. How far do you think it goes?" Martin shrugged. "Clear around the city? I'd like to know what it is—was—for." "Defense," Rodney, several yards behind, suggested. "Could be," Martin said. "Let's go in." The three crossed the metal band and walked abreast down a street, their broad soft soled boots making no sound on the dull metal. They passed doors and arches and windows and separate buildings. They moved cautiously across five intersections. And they stood in a square surrounded by the tallest buildings in the city. Rodney broke the silence, hesitantly. "Not—not very big. Is it?" Wass looked at him shrewdly. "Neither were the—well, shall we call them, people? Have you noticed how low everything is?" Rodney's laughter rose, too. Then, sobering—"Maybe they crawled." A nebulous image, product of childhood's vivid imagination, moved slowly across Martin's mind. "All right!" he rapped out—and the image faded. "Sorry," Rodney murmured, his throat working beneath his lantern jaw. Then—"I wonder what it's like here in the winter when there's no light at all?" "I imagine they had illumination of some sort," Martin answered, dryly. "If we don't hurry up and get through this place and back to the ship, we're very likely to find out." Rodney said quickly, "I mean outside." "Out there, too, Rodney, they must have had illumination." Martin looked back along the straight, metal street they'd walked on, and past that out over the bleak, furrowed slopes where the ship's lifeboat lay ... and he thought everything outside the city seemed, somehow, from here, a little dim, a little hazy. He straightened his shoulders. The city was alien, of course, and that explained most of it ... most of it. But he felt the black city was something familiar, yet twisted and distorted. "Well," Wass said, his nose wrinkling a bit, "now that we're here...." "Pictures," Martin decided. "We have twelve hours. We'll start here. What's the matter, Wass?" The blond man grinned ruefully. "I left the camera in the lifeboat." There was a pause. Then Wass, defensively—"It's almost as if the city didn't want to be photographed." Martin ignored the remark. "Go get it. Rodney and I will be somewhere along this street." Wass turned away. Martin and Rodney started slowly down the wide metal street, at right angles to their path of entrance. Again Martin felt a tug of twisted, distorted familiarity. It was almost as if ... they were human up to a certain point, the point being, perhaps, some part of their minds.... Alien things, dark and subtle, things no man could ever comprehend. Parallel evolution on two inner planets of the same system? Somewhere, sometime, a common ancestor? Martin noted the shoulder-high doors, the heavier gravity, remembered the inhabitants of the city vanished before the thing that was to become man ever emerged from the slime, and he decided to grin at himself, at his own imagination. Rodney jerked his scarecrow length about quickly, and a chill sped up Martin's spine. "What's the matter?" The bony face was white, the gray eyes were wide. "I saw—I thought I saw—something—moving—" Anger rose in Martin. "You didn't," he said flatly, gripping the other's shoulder cruelly. "You couldn't have. Get hold of yourself, man!" Rodney stared. "The wind. Remember? There isn't any, here." "... How could there be? The buildings protect us now. It was blowing from the other direction." Rodney wrenched free of Martin's grip. He gestured wildly. "That—" "Martin!" Wass' voice came through the receivers in both their radios. "Martin, I can't get out!" Rodney mumbled something, and Martin told him to shut up. Wass said, more quietly, "Remember that metal band? It's all clear now, and glittering, as far as I can see. I can't get across it; it's like a glass wall." "We're trapped, we're trapped, they are—" "Shut up, Rodney! Wass, I'm only two sections from the edge. I'll check here." Martin clapped a hand on Rodney's shoulder again, starting him moving, toward the city's edge, past the black, silent buildings. The glittering band was here, too, like a halo around a silhouette. "No go," Martin said to Wass. He bit at his lower lip. "I think it must be all around us." He was silent for a time, exploring the consequences of this. Then—"We'll meet you in the middle of the city, where we separated." Walking with Rodney, Martin heard Wass' voice, flat and metallic through the radio receiver against his ear. "What do you suppose caused this?" He shook his head angrily, saying, "Judging by reports of the rest of the planet, it must have been horribly radioactive at one time. All of it." "Man-made radiation, you mean." Martin grinned faintly. Wass, too, had an active imagination. "Well, alien-made, anyhow. Perhaps they had a war." Wass' voice sounded startled. "Anti-radiation screen?" Rodney interrupted, "There hasn't been enough radiation around here for hundreds of thousands of years to activate such a screen." Wass said coldly, "He's right, Martin." Martin crossed an intersection, Rodney slightly behind him. "You're both wrong," he said. "We landed here today." Rodney stopped in the middle of the metal street and stared down at Martin. "The wind—?" "Why not?" "That would explain why it stopped so suddenly, then." Rodney stood straighter. When he walked again, his steps were firmer. They reached the center of the city, ahead of the small, slight Wass, and stood watching him labor along the metal toward them. Wass' face, Martin saw, was sober. "I tried to call the ship. No luck." "The shield?" Wass nodded. "What else?" "I don't know—" "If we went to the roof of the tallest building," Rodney offered, "we might—" Martin shook his head. "No. To be effective, the shield would have to cover the city." Wass stared down at the metal street, as if he could look through it. "I wonder where it gets its power?" "Down below, probably. If there is a down below." Martin hesitated. "We may have to...." "What?" Rodney prompted. Martin shrugged. "Let's look." He led the way through a shoulder-high arch in one of the tall buildings surrounding the square. The corridor inside was dim and plain, and he switched on his flashlight, the other two immediately following his example. The walls and the rounded ceiling of the corridor were of the same dull metal as the buildings' facades, and the streets. There were a multitude of doors and arches set into either side of the corridor. It was rather like ... entering a gigantic metal beehive. Martin chose an arch, with beyond it a metal ramp, which tilted downward, gleaming in the pale circle of his torch. A call from Rodney halted him. "Back here," the tall man repeated. "It looks like a switchboard." The three advanced to the end of the central corridor, pausing before a great arch, outlined in the too-careful geometrical figures Martin had come to associate with the city builders. The three torches, shining through the arch, picked out a bank of buttons, handles ... and a thick rope of cables which ran upward to vanish unexpectedly in the metal roof. "Is this it," Wass murmured, "or an auxiliary?" Martin shrugged. "The whole city's no more than a machine, apparently." "Another assumption," Wass said. "We have done nothing but make assumptions ever since we got here." "What would you suggest, instead?" Martin asked calmly. Rodney furtively, extended one hand toward a switch. "No!" Martin said, sharply. That was one assumption they dared not make. Rodney turned. "But—" "No. Wass, how much time have we?" "The ship leaves in eleven hours." "Eleven hours," Rodney repeated. "Eleven hours!" He reached out for the switch again. Martin swore, stepped forward, pulled him back roughly. He directed his flashlight at Rodney's thin, pale face. "What do you think you're doing?" "We have to find out what all this stuff's for!" "Going at it blindly, we'd probably execute ourselves." "We've got to—" "No!" Then, more quietly—"We still have eleven hours to find a way out." "Ten hours and forty-five minutes," Wass disagreed softly. "Minus the time it takes us to get to the lifeboat, fly to the ship, land, stow it, get ourselves aboard, and get the big ship away from the planet. And Captain Morgan can't wait for us, Martin." "You too, Wass?" "Up to the point of accuracy, yes." Martin said, "Not necessarily. You go the way the wind does, always thinking of your own tender hide, of course." Rodney cursed. "And every second we stand here doing nothing gives us that much less time to find a way out. Martin—" "Make one move toward that switchboard and I'll stop you where you stand!" Wass moved silently through the darkness beyond the torches. "We all have guns, Martin." "I'm holding mine." Martin waited. After a moment, Wass switched his flashlight back on. He said quietly, "He's right, Rodney. It would be sure death to monkey around in here." "Well...." Rodney turned quickly toward the black arch. "Let's get out of here, then!" Martin hung back waiting for the others to go ahead of him down the metal hall. At the other arch, where the ramp led downward, he called a halt. "If the dome, or whatever it is, is a radiation screen there must be at least half-a-dozen emergency exits around the city." Rodney said, "To search every building next to the dome clean around the city would take years." Martin nodded. "But there must be central roads beneath this main level leading to them. Up here there are too many roads." Wass laughed rudely. "Have you a better idea?" Wass ignored that, as Martin hoped he would. He said slowly, "That leads to another idea. If the band around the city is responsible for the dome, does it project down into the ground as well?" "You mean dig out?" Martin asked. "Sure. Why not?" "We're wearing heavy suits and bulky breathing units. We have no equipment." "That shouldn't be hard to come by." Martin smiled, banishing Wass' idea. Rodney said, "They may have had their digging equipment built right in to themselves." "Anyway," Martin decided, "we can take a look down below." "In the pitch dark," Wass added. Martin adjusted his torch, began to lead the way down the metal ramp. The incline was gentle, apparently constructed for legs shorter, feet perhaps less broad than their own. The metal, without mark of any sort, gleamed under the combined light of the torches, unrolling out of the darkness before the men. At length the incline melted smoothly into the next level of the city. Martin shined his light upward, and the others followed his example. Metal as smooth and featureless as that on which they stood shone down on them. Wass turned his light parallel with the floor, and then moved slowly in a circle. "No supports. No supports anywhere. What keeps all that up there?" "I don't know. I have no idea." Martin gestured toward the ramp with his light. "Does all this, this whole place, look at all familiar to you?" Rodney's gulp was clearly audible through the radio receivers. "Here?" "No, no," Martin answered impatiently, "not just here. I mean the whole city." "Yes," Wass said dryly, "it does. I'm sure this is where all my nightmares stay when they're not on shift." Martin turned on his heel and started down a metal avenue which, he thought, paralleled the street above. And Rodney and Wass followed him silently. They moved along the metal, past unfamiliar shapes made more so by gloom and moving shadows, past doors dancing grotesquely in the three lights, past openings in the occasional high metal partitions, past something which was perhaps a conveyor belt, past another something which could have been anything at all. The metal street ended eventually in a blank metal wall. The edge of the city—the city which was a dome of force above and a bowl of metal below. After a long time, Wass sighed. "Well, skipper...?" "We go back, I guess," Martin said. Rodney turned swiftly to face him. Martin thought the tall man was holding his gun. "To the switchboard, Martin?" "Unless someone has a better idea," Martin conceded. He waited. But Rodney was holding the gun ... and Wass was.... Then—"I can't think of anything else." They began to retrace their steps along the metal street, back past the same dancing shapes of metal, the partitions, the odd windows, all looking different now in the new angles of illumination. Martin was in the lead. Wass followed him silently. Rodney, tall, matchstick thin, even in his cumbersome suit, swayed with jaunty triumph in the rear. Martin looked at the metal street lined with its metal objects and he sighed. He remembered how the dark buildings of the city looked at surface level, how the city itself looked when they were landing, and then when they were walking toward it. The dream was gone again for now. Idealism died in him, again and again, yet it was always reborn. But—The only city, so far as anyone knew, on the first planet they'd ever explored. And it had to be like this. Nightmares, Wass said, and Martin thought perhaps the city was built by a race of beings who at some point twisted away from their evolutionary spiral, plagued by a sort of racial insanity. No, Martin thought, shaking his head. No, that couldn't be. Viewpoint ... his viewpoint. It was the haunting sense of familiarity, a faint strain through all this broad jumble, the junkpile of alien metal, which was making him theorize so wildly. Then Wass touched his elbow. "Look there, Martin. Left of the ramp." Light from their torches was reflected, as from glass. "All right," Rodney said belligerently into his radio. "What's holding up the procession?" Martin was silent. Wass undertook to explain. Why not, after all? Martin asked himself. It was in Wass' own interest. In a moment, all three were standing before a bank of glass cases which stretched off into the distance as far as the combined light of their torches would reach. "Seeds!" Wass exclaimed, his faceplate pressed against the glass. Martin blinked. He thought how little time they had. He wet his lips. Wass' gloved hands fumbled awkwardly at a catch in the nearest section of the bank. Martin thought of the dark, convoluted land outside the city. If they wouldn't grow there.... Or had they, once? "Don't, Wass!" Torchlight reflected from Wass' faceplate as he turned his head. "Why not?" They were like children.... "We don't know, released, what they'll do." "Skipper," Wass said carefully, "if we don't get out of this place by the deadline we may be eating these." Martin raised his arm tensely. "Opening a seed bank doesn't help us find a way out of here." He started up the ramp. "Besides, we've no water." Rodney came last up the ramp, less jaunty now, but still holding the gun. His mind, too, was taken up with childhood's imaginings. "For a plant to grow in this environment, it wouldn't need much water. Maybe—" he had a vision of evil plants attacking them, growing with super-swiftness at the air valves and joints of their suits "—only the little moisture in the atmosphere." They stood before the switchboard again. Martin and Wass side by side, Rodney, still holding his gun, slightly to the rear. Rodney moved forward a little toward the switches. His breathing was loud and rather uneven in the radio receivers. Martin made a final effort. "Rodney, it's still almost nine hours to take off. Let's search awhile first. Let this be a last resort." Rodney jerked his head negatively. "No. Now, I know you, Martin. Postpone and postpone until it's too late, and the ship leaves without us and we're stranded here to eat seeds and gradually dehydrate ourselves and God only knows what else and—" He reached out convulsively and yanked a switch. Martin leaped, knocking him to the floor. Rodney's gun skittered away silently, like a live thing, out of the range of the torches. The radio receivers impersonally recorded the grating sounds of Rodney's sobs. "Sorry," Martin said, without feeling. He turned quickly. "Wass?" The slight, blond man stood unmoving. "I'm with you, Martin, but, as a last resort it might be better to be blown sky high than to die gradually—" Martin was watching Rodney, struggling to get up. "I agree. As a last resort. We still have a little time." Rodney's tall, spare figure looked bowed and tired in the torchlight, now that he was up again. "Martin, I—" Martin turned his back. "Skip it, Rodney," he said gently. "Water," Wass said thoughtfully. "There must be reservoirs under this city somewhere." Rodney said, "How does water help us get out?" Martin glanced at Wass, then started out of the switchboard room, not looking back. "It got in and out of the city some way. Perhaps we can leave the same way." Down the ramp again. "There's another ramp," Wass murmured. Rodney looked down it. "I wonder how many there are, all told." Martin placed one foot on the metal incline. He angled his torch down, picking out shadowy, geometrical shapes, duplicates of the ones on the present level. "We'll find out," he said, "how many there are." Eleven levels later Rodney asked, "How much time have we now?" "Seven hours," Wass said quietly, "until take-off." "One more level," Martin said, ignoring the reference to time. "I ... think it's the last." They walked down the ramp and stood together, silent in a dim pool of artificial light on the bottom level of the alien city. Rodney played his torch about the metal figures carefully placed about the floor. "Martin, what if there are no reservoirs? What if there are cemeteries instead? Or cold storage units? Maybe the switch I pulled—" "Rodney! Stop it!" Rodney swallowed audibly. "This place scares me...." "The first time I was ever in a rocket, it scared me. I was thirteen." "This is different," Wass said. "Built-in traps—" "They had a war," Martin said. Wass agreed. "And the survivors retired here. Why?" Martin said, "They wanted to rebuild. Or maybe this was already built before the war as a retreat." He turned impatiently. "How should I know?" Wass turned, too, persistent. "But the planet was through with them." "In a minute," Martin said, too irritably, "we'll have a sentient planet." From the corner of his eye he saw Rodney start at that. "Knock it off, Wass. We're looking for reservoirs, you know." They moved slowly down the metal avenue, between the twisted shadow shapes, looking carefully about them. Rodney paused. "We might not recognize one." Martin urged him on. "You know what a man-hole cover looks like." He added dryly, "Use your imagination." They reached the metal wall at the end of the avenue and paused again, uncertain. Martin swung his flashlight, illuminating the distorted metal shapes. Wass said, "All this had a purpose, once...." "We'll disperse and search carefully," Martin said. "I wonder what the pattern was." "... The reservoirs, Wass. The pattern will still be here for later expeditions to study. So will we if we don't find a way to get out." Their radios recorded Rodney's gasp. Then—"Martin! Martin! I think I've found something!" Martin began to run. After a moment's hesitation, Wass swung in behind him. "Here," Rodney said, as they came up to him, out of breath. "Here. See? Right here." Three flashlights centered on a dark, metal disk raised a foot or more from the floor. "Well, they had hands." With his torch Wass indicated a small wheel of the same metal as everything else in the city, set beside the disk. From its design Martin assumed that the disk was meant to be grasped and turned. He wondered what precisely they were standing over. "Well, Skipper, are you going to do the honors?" Martin kneeled, grasped the wheel. It turned easily—almost too easily—rotating the disk as it turned. Suddenly, without a sound, the disk rose, like a hatch, on a concealed hinge. The three men, clad in their suits and helmets, grouped around the six-foot opening, shining their torches down into the thing that drifted and eddied directly beneath them. Rodney's sudden grip on Martin's wrist nearly shattered the bone. "Martin! It's all alive! It's moving!" Martin hesitated long enough for a coil to move sinuously up toward the opening. Then he spun the wheel and the hatch slammed down. He was shaking. After a time he said, "Rodney, Wass, it's dust, down there. Remember the wind? Air currents are moving it." Rodney sat down on the metal flooring. For a long time he said nothing. Then—"It wasn't.... Why did you close the hatch then?" Martin did not say he thought the other two would have shot him, otherwise. He said merely, "At first I wasn't sure myself." Rodney stood up, backing away from the closed hatch. He held his gun loosely, and his hand shook. "Then prove it. Open it again." Martin went to the wheel. He noticed Wass was standing behind Rodney and he, too, had drawn his gun. The hatch rose again at Martin's direction. He stood beside it, outlined in the light of two torches. For a little while he was alone. Then—causing a gasp from Wass, a harsh expletive from Rodney—a tenuous, questing alien limb edged through the hatch, curling about Martin, sparkling in ten thousand separate particles in the torchlight, obscuring the dimly seen backdrop of geometrical processions of strange objects. Martin raised an arm, and the particles swirled in stately, shimmering spirals. Rodney leaned forward and looked over the edge of the hatch. He said nothing. He eyed the sparkling particles swirling about Martin, and now, himself. "How deep," Wass said, from his safe distance. "We'll have to lower a flashlight," Martin answered. Rodney, all eagerness to be of assistance now, lowered a rope with a torch swinging wildly on the end of it. The torch came to rest about thirty feet down. It shone on gently rolling mounds of fine, white stuff. Martin anchored the rope soundly, and paused, half across the lip of the hatch to stare coldly at Wass. "You'd rather monkey with the switches and blow yourself to smithereens?" Wass sighed and refused to meet Martin's gaze. Martin looked at him disgustedly, and then began to descend the rope, slowly, peering into the infinite, sparkling darkness pressing around him. At the bottom of the rope he sank to his knees in dust, and then was held even. He stamped his feet, and then, as well as he was able, did a standing jump. He sank no farther than his knees. He sighted a path parallel with the avenue above, toward the nearest edge of the city. "I think we'll be all right," he called out, "as long as we avoid the drifts." Rodney began the descent. Looking up, Martin saw Wass above Rodney. "All right, Wass," Martin said quietly, as Rodney released the rope and sank into the dust. "Not me," the answer came back quickly. "You two fools go your way, I'll go mine." "Wass!" There was no answer. The light faded swiftly away from the opening. The going was hard. The dust clung like honey to their feet, and eddied and swirled about them until the purifying systems in their suits were hard-pressed to remove the fine stuff working in at joints and valves. "Are we going straight?" Rodney asked. "Of course," Martin growled. There was silence again, the silence of almost-exhausted determination. The two men lifted their feet out of the dust, and then laboriously plunged forward, to sink again to the knees, repeated the act, times without number. Then Wass broke his silence, taunting. "The ship leaves in two hours, Martin. Two hours. Hear me, Rodney?" Martin pulled his left foot from the sand and growled deep in his throat. Ahead, through the confusing patterns of the sparkling dust, his flashlight gleamed against metal. He grabbed Rodney's arm, pointed. A grate. Rodney stared. "Wass!" he shouted. "We've found a way out!" Their radios recorded Wass' laughter. "I'm at the switchboard now, Martin. I—" There was a tinkle of breaking glass, breaking faceplate. The grate groaned upward and stopped. Wass babbled incoherently into the radio for a moment, and then he began to scream. Martin switched off his radio, sick. He turned it on again when they reached the opening in the metal wall. "Well?" "I've been trying to get you," Rodney said, frantically. "Why didn't you answer?" "We couldn't do anything for him." Rodney's face was white and drawn. "But he did this for us." "So he did," Martin said, very quietly. Rodney said nothing. Then Martin said, "Did you listen until the end?" Rodney nodded, jerkily. "He pulled three more switches. I couldn't understand it all. But—Martin, dying alone like that in a place like this—!" Martin crawled into the circular pipe behind the grate. It tilted up toward the surface. "Come on, Rodney. Last lap." An hour later they surfaced about two hundred yards away from the edge of the city. Behind them the black pile rose, the dome of force shimmering, almost invisible, about it. Ahead of them were the other two scoutships from the mother ship. Martin called out faintly, pulling Rodney out of the pipe. Crew members standing by the scoutships, and at the edge of the city, began to run toward them. "Radio picked you up as soon as you entered the pipe," someone said. It was the last thing Martin heard before he collapsed.
Edward W. Said by A.O. Scott	"Edward W. Said", A.O. Scott, 1999. Edward W. Said The game of biographical "gotcha" is a perennially popular form of ideological blood sport. The goal is to find an incriminating datum that will leave a permanent stain on the target's reputation, make his defenders look like craven apologists, and give the general public a ready-made judgment that can be wielded without too much reading or thought. If the anti-communism of George Orwell or Arthur Koestler bugs you, you can point to recent allegations that the former was a snitch and the latter a rapist. If you resent the fact that your college professors forced you to read I, Rigoberta MenchÃº , you can rejoice in the discovery that she embellished some important details of her life story. Didn't Karl Marx beat his wife? And what about Freud's thing for his sister-in-law and his taste for cocaine? To this list now add Columbia literature professor Edward W. Said, the subject of a fiercely debated article in the September issue of Commentary . The article, by American-born Israeli legal scholar Justus Reid Weiner, contends that Said, who was born in Jerusalem to a Christian Arab family in 1935, has over the years deliberately obscured some facts about his early life, and amplified others, in order to create the impression that he was, of all things, Palestinian. Not so fast, says Weiner: Said's childhood was not "the parable of Palestinian identity" marked by dispossession from a beloved homeland and the subsequent pain of exile. Instead, Said "grew up not in Jerusalem but in Cairo, where his father, an American citizen, had moved as an economic expatriate approximately nine years before Edward's birth and had become the owner of a thriving business; and there, until his own departure for the United States as a teenager in 1951, the young Edward Said resided in luxurious apartments, attended private English schools, and played tennis at the exclusive Gezira Sporting Club as the child of one of its few Arab members." A similar account of Edward Said's youth can be found in a new book called Out of Place , the author of which is Edward Said. The book, Said's 17 th , is a wrenching, intimate account of growing up in Cairo's wealthy Levantine expatriate community, of summering in the dreary Lebanese resort town of Dhour el Shweir, and of visiting the family home in Jerusalem, sometimes for as long as several months. Weiner claims that the memoir is an elaborate sleight of hand and speculates that Said decided to "spin" the story of his past--by telling the truth about it--when he heard about Weiner's inquiries. In the weeks since his essay appeared, Weiner's motives, methods, and assertions have been roundly attacked by Said and his friends, and Weiner has made some attempt at clarification. (Click for a recap of the controversy and links to relevant articles, or click here for my review of Out of Place .) Just who is Edward Said that his family's real estate holdings and his grammar school records rate 7,000 words in Commentary , not to mention three years of research by a scholar in residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs? Followers of Middle East politics, as well as viewers of the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer , where Said often appears, know him as an eloquent spokesman for the Palestinian cause. Readers of The Nation know him as a formidable reviewer of opera and classical music. Several generations of graduate students in a number of disciplines know him as the author of Orientalism . The 30,000 literary scholars who make up the membership of the Modern Language Association--minus one who resigned in protest earlier this year over Said's election--know him as Mr. President. Readers of Al-Hayat , a London-based Arabic-language newspaper, and Al-Ahram , a Cairo weekly, know him as a regular commentator on politics and culture. Each of these identities--political activist, literary scholar, university professor, public intellectual--are, in Said's case, inordinately complex in and of themselves. The tensions between them--between intellectual, aesthetic, and political impulses that are felt with enormous passion and expressed with great vehemence--make Said an uncommonly interesting, and endlessly controversial, intellectual figure. Most controversial--and most misunderstood--has been Said's involvement in Palestinian affairs. He has published half a dozen books on the plight of the Palestinians, including The Question of Palestine (1979), After the Last Sky (1986), and Peace and Its Discontents (1995), a scathing critique of the Oslo peace accords, which Said calls "the Palestinian Versailles." These writings, his relationship with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and his many years of service in the Palestine National Council (the now-defunct Palestinian parliament in exile, from which he resigned in 1991 after being diagnosed with leukemia) have invited smears and misrepresentations: A decade ago Commentary branded him "The Professor of Terror." New York magazine once called him "Arafat's man in New York." And he showed up last spring, unnamed, in The New Yorker 's special "Money" issue as a well-dressed Columbia don rumored to be "on the payroll of the PLO." Until very recently, Said has been an insistent voice for Palestinian statehood: He helped to draft the PLO's "Algiers Declaration" of 1988, which linked this aspiration to the recognition of Israel's right to exist. Over the years, he has often said that his own place in such a state would be as its toughest critic. Even as he has been unsparing in his indictments of Israeli and American policy, he has not let Arab governments--or the Palestinian leadership--off the hook. He has assailed the corrupt, authoritarian regimes that rule most of the Arab world, punctured the ideological phantasms of Pan-Arabist nationalism and reactionary Islam alike, and bemoaned the impoverished state of Arab cultural and intellectual life. He has also, within the Palestinian camp, been a consistent advocate of reconciliation with Israel and an opponent of terrorism. The Question of Palestine called for a "two-state solution" at a time when the official PLO ambition was total control over British Mandatory Palestine. The book, published in Israel in 1981, had, as of the mid-'90s, never been translated into Arabic or published in any Arab country. In 1978, in the wake of the Camp David accords, Said delivered a message from Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to one of Arafat's top aides indicating that the United States would recognize the PLO as a legitimate party to peace talks in exchange for recognition of Israel. Arafat ignored the message. Fifteen years later, when Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, Said, who had been invited to the event by its patron, Bill Clinton, stayed home. Since then, as bien-pensant American opinion has embraced the "peace process," Said has bemoaned Arafat's "capitulation" and grown increasingly disgusted with the chairman's dictatorial rule over a few scraps of occupied territory and with Israel's continued expropriation of Palestinian lands. In the New York Times Magazine last spring, he wrote that the Palestinian state toward which the peace process seemed, however pokily, to be tending could not provide democracy and justice for the Palestinians. Instead, he called for a single, "bi-national" state based on a constitution (something neither Israel nor the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority currently has), with "the idea and practice of citizenship, not of ethnic or racial community, as the main vehicle for coexistence." But to treat Said solely, or even primarily, as a political figure is necessarily to produce a distorted view of his life. He is, first and foremost, a literary critic, who wrote his Ph.D. at Harvard--on Joseph Conrad, a lifelong obsession--under Harry Levin, one of the champions of a comparative approach to literary study. Said's subsequent work has retained much of the expansive spirit and rigorous methodology of Levin's teachings. Beginnings: Intention and Method , the book which made Said's academic reputation, is a bulky study of how novels begin, carried out through painstakingly close formal analysis and displaying crushing erudition. But Said's fame outside the American academy rests on Orientalism , his sweeping account of how Western art, literature, and scholarship have produced a deformed, biased picture of Arab and Muslim culture in the service of colonial domination. The impact of Orientalism far exceeded its subject, vast though that was. In addition to laying the groundwork for "post-colonial" studies as an area of inquiry, the book inspired a flurry of scholarship devoted to "the other"--to groups of people who, by virtue of race, gender, sexuality, or geographical location, are unable to represent themselves and so (to echo the line from Karl Marx that serves as the book's epigraph) "must be represented" by those more powerful. And Orientalism , with its harsh critiques of European philology and American social science, contributed to an epistemological shift in the American academy: Traditional disciplines were no longer to be taken for granted as the vehicles of objective knowledge but themselves became the objects of ideological analysis. Both Said's methods and his substantive claims have come under attack. Because his theoretical debt to Michel Foucault and his unabashedly political intentions marked him as an avatar of the emerging academic left, a lot of the criticism came from traditional scholars. In the New York Review of Books , for example, the Princeton historian Bernard Lewis, one of the chief modern villains of Orientalism , decried Said's inflammatory tone and questioned his knowledge of history, philology, and Arabic. (To read Lewis' piece, click here. For Said's angry response, click here.) But the most sustained assault on Orientalism 's premises, and on its prestige, came from the left. In a book called In Theory --a wholesale slaughter of the sacred cows of the postmodern Western intelligentsia--the Indian Marxist literary critic Aijaz Ahmad raised further questions about Said's mastery of his sources and accused him of self-aggrandizement and insufficient political discipline. Whereas Lewis attacks Said for trashing the norms and values of traditional scholarship, Ahmad rebukes him for hewing too closely to them. And while Lewis believes Said to be motivated by a crude anti-Western leftist animus, Ahmad finds him altogether too enamored of the canons of European literature and avers that Said possesses "a very conservative mind, essentially Tory in its structure." Lewis and Ahmad are both right. Orientalism and its even more ambitious sequel Culture and Imperialism are works of passionate, almost agonized ambivalence. To read them is to encounter a mind at war with itself and the world (and ready to go to war with his critics, as any number of exchanges over the past quarter-century will show). Said's evident love of the literature and music of the West continually collides with his righteous anger at what the West has done to the rest. His desire to use literary criticism as a weapon on the side of the oppressed sits athwart the pleasure he takes in letting his mind play over the meaning in a novel or a poem. The results are books at once exhausting in their detail and maddening in their omissions, uneven in tone, overreaching and underargued. "He is easily distracted" the critic John Leonard remarked in an appreciative review of Culture and Imperialism , "answering too many fire alarms, sometimes to pour on more petrol." O rientalism and Culture and Imperialism are unquestionably incendiary, but they are also permanent and exemplary works of late-20 th -century criticism, in no small part because they invite so much argument, because for all the intellectual authority they project they remain open, vulnerable, provisional. And they also fulfill the basic mandate of literary analysis, which is to illuminate the works they discuss: To return to Verdi's Aida , Conrad's Heart of Darkness , or Kipling's Kim after reading Said on them is to find them richer, stranger, and more complicated than you had ever imagined. More than anyone else in his generation, Edward Said has sought to embody an unfashionable, perhaps obsolescent idea of the intellectual--immersed in culture and committed to politics, placing "criticism over solidarity," speaking truth to power, and steering clear of gods that fail. There was a time when this idea flourished more widely--even in the pages of Commentary .
Eleven-Twelfths of 1999 In Review by Timothy Noah	"Eleven-Twelfths of 1999 In Review", Timothy Noah, 1999. Eleven-Twelfths of 1999 In Review When Chatterbox invited readers to nominate events, significant deaths, good and bad movies, etc., for 1999--a year likely to get little attention in the coming weeks, as news organizations choose instead to review the entire century or millennium--the response was overwhelming. Chatterbox had promised to publish his official "1999 In Review" item before Thanksgiving, but some distant memory of a scruple persuaded him to wait till November was over. Nothing ever happens in December. OK, that's not quite true. Hordes of protesters in Seattle are making the World Trade Organization's meeting there a much more exciting TV story than anyone expected it to be. Reader Dan Crist (who finds Chatterbox's habit of referring to himself in the third person "rather annoying and less than professional") points out that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Dec. 1941. Also, Chatterbox (moonlighting as "Today's Papers" columnist) observed not quite one year ago that the House of Representatives cast its second presidential-impeachment vote in U.S. history on Dec. 19, 1998. (That same news-filled day, the U.S. ended an air war against Iraq and Bob Livingston said he'd decided not to become House speaker after all.) Two months after the impeachment vote, the Senate failed to convict the president--a highly significant event of 1999 that, for some bizarre reason, slipped Chatterbox's mind until several indignant readers wrote in to remind him of it. By now, it should be clear that Chatterbox isn't much good at year-in-review journalism. Fortunately, Chatterbox's readers are very good at it. He will now turn this survey over to them. ( Disclaimer: Although Chatterbox previously stated that he wouldn't include opinions he disagreed with, that standard proved too confining. Where Chatterbox has solid information or opinions to the contrary, he occasionally interjects below. Obviously stupid or unnecessarily sour reader comments were discarded, but if you don't find your nominee below it doesn't necessarily mean that it was obviously stupid or unnecessarily sour. ) Here are 20 important things that happened in 1999: 1. Most Hated Celebrity--Ever? The New York Times reported on Nov. 10, 1999, that a new record had been set in the latest Times /CBS poll: [Its] highest negative rating ever scored by a person in the news. The honor went to Reform Party candidate Donald Trump, who managed to make an unfavorable impression upon some 70 percent of those polled. The paper noted that this achievement far eclipsed the last comparably negative rating--the 55 percent score attained by Linda Tripp. Presumably this came as no surprise to Mr. Trump, who, upon announcing the formation of a presidential exploratory committee on Oct. 7, 1999, had cited polls with "amazing results"--a remark that was widely misinterpreted at the time. -- Jodie Allen of U.S. News & World Report (and frequent Slate contributor) 2. Most Foolishly Ignored Parts of the World in 1999 The dog that did bark but no one noticed--the political turmoil in the three great South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, and Indonesia, which now are well on the way to passing the three northern Asian nations of China, Japan, and Russia in population (Indonesia is fourth, Pakistan just passed Japan to seventh, India will soon pass China to first). But Americans are still fixated on northern Asia--Clinton says he must deal with China, because "you can't ignore a billion people with nuclear weapons," but his own policy toward India shows that you sure can! --Jim Chapin 3. Worst/Best Films of 1999 Here's my nominee for worst movie of the year (complete category should be: "Worst Movie of the Year That Assumedly Adult Male Reviewers Slathered Over"): There's Something About Mary --a pathetically sophomoric, penis-obsessed mess that wouldn't even appeal to Larry Flynt! -- Felicia, Menlo Park, Cal. Chatterbox replies: You've got the wrong year. That was 1998 . [Chatterbox didn't have the heart to add that he thought There's Something About Mary was pretty funny, especially the joke about "the franks or the beans."] Felicia replies: Oops ... well then, the best of '99 was The Red Violin --lyrical, magical, musical, wonderful! [Chatterbox hasn't seen it.] 4. Most Shameless (and Unsuccessful) Attempt To Have It Both Ways in 1999 : Sen. Arlen Specter, citing Scottish law, finds Clinton "not proven" on the impeachment charges. --Andrew Solovay 5. Rest in Peace in 1999: Stanley Kubrick (multiple sources) John Kennedy Jr. (multiple sources) Susan Strasberg (anonymous tipster; Strasberg played Anne Frank in the original production of the Broadway adaptation, which some people think wasn't Jewish enough) Mel Torme (Steve Reiness) Mrs. Whozit [ Chatterbox interjects : her name was Anne Sheafe Miller], the first person ever to be saved by penicillin (Blair Bolles) 6. 1999: The Road Not Taken What an extraordinary year! A right-wing conspiracy topples the president, and the governor of Texas reveals himself in a series of debates to be a natural leader with an innate gift for connecting with his audience, a sure sign of his electoral success next year. A new Thomas Harris book brilliantly takes us deeper into the mind of a serial killer; a new Star Wars movie redefines the very nature of entertainment; a new Stanley Kubrick film changes the whole national dialogue about sex and marriage; a new TV series from the creator of SportsNight --oh, I can't even bring myself to bash that piece of do-gooder twaddle. If only McDonald's had come out with three more boldly adult-flavored hamburgers, it would have been a perfect year for dud megaevents--all leading up of course to Y2K, the limpest milestone in human history. --Mike Gebert 7 . Children Behaving Badly in 1999 Don't forget Woodstock 1999 --the concert of "peace and love" that ended in a literal blaze of glory when in an hours-long tribute to the original Woodstock, the mob started ripping down vendor booths and anything else that would burn and piling it onto the bonfires scattered about the scene. [ Chatterbox interjects: Didn't people get assaulted and raped, too?] I'm getting all sentimental just thinking about it. You also left out all the shooting rampages . Several were done in the name of God or love supposedly. They were all committed by "quiet, shy" people who "mostly kept to" themselves. I've started to hang around only loud, obnoxious people. --Susan Hoechstetter 8. A Lunatic Rhapsody for the New York Yankees The Yankees can actually be referred to as the glue that held the century together. Of course, as the 1999 World Series champions, they are a significant "story of the year." However, this one singular achievement must be considered in a broader context. 1999 represented the team's 25th championship of the century. This beats, by one, the most championships any one team won during the century. The Montreal Canadiens have won 23 Stanley Cups. However, the Yankees, an American team, playing in the "City of the Century" (so called by me to reflect the amazing growth and transformation of one city during this period), who play the "National Pastime," are truly an amazing story. The team's first championship occurred in 1921; therefore, they have won 25 of the last 78 years, nearly one in three. This level of sustained excellence is not matched in sports or in any other aspect of society. The 1999 win is possibly the most unique. With free-agency, expansion, and three levels of playoffs, it is much harder to win today than in past years. In fact, by winning three of the last four championships, they are the first team to accomplish this feat during the eras of free-agency and of divisional play. The Sultan of Swat, the Iron Man, the Yankee Clipper, the Mick, and Yogi--these strong, masculine names are synonymous with the team, the sport, and American history. They went hand in hand with two world wars, Superman, and America's superpower status. The 1999 squad does not feature "a name." This team, with its myriad of human-interest stories, its international roster, and no star, is representative of '90s man, male sensitivity, Pax American interests, and the new political paradigm. --Jim Landau from North Potomac, Md. (formerly of the Bronx) 9. A Big Shot Calls for Decriminalizing Drug Use in 1999 New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson came out for ending drug prohibition. Though this by itself has no immediate effect, it makes it respectable, for the first time, for political leaders to discuss the subject, and thereby brings closer the day when the vast majority of crimes will no longer be committed, when billions of dollars will be freed to help the inner city instead of to ruin black people's lives, and when we will stop, as in Samuel Butler's Erewhon , imprisoning people for the crime of being sick. --Henry Cohen Chatterbox interjects: Didn't Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke do the same thing 11 years ago? 10. Don't Worry in 1999 The Dalai Lama proclaimed that most important thing in the world is to be happy. --Margaret Taylor 11. The Athletic Bra Seen 'Round the World in 1999 Public interest and media attention to the women's World Cup in soccer. --Tom Horton 12. Another Overlooked Foreign-Policy Event in 1999 Presidential primary elections for the first time ever in Mexico. --Tom Horton 13. Policing the World Is Shown To Work in 1999 I nominate as the most under-reported story of the year (and the last few years) the continuing alarmist predictions by foreign-policy and military experts about peacekeeping efforts, which are then proved wrong and immediately forgotten. This year, the obvious one is Kosovo, but the year is also ending with East Timor, where the Aussies and their allies successfully stopped the slaughter with no casualties. These followed Haiti, Bosnia, and Rwanda as places where the West delayed sending in troops because of alarmist predictions. --Jerry Skurnik 14. Barbara Walters Did This One on Her Year-End Special, But It's Still Good Don't forget, Susan Lucci finally won an Emmy . --anonymous tipster 15. Annals of Justice in 1999 Matthew Shepard: the despicable defense . -- anonymous tipster 16. Get Me a New Century, Quick A sitting president was accused of rape. --Ananda Gupta Chatterbox interjects: Yes, but the evidence was shaky--something the Wall Street Journal 's editorial page, which broke the story, was not very forthcoming about. As Jack Shafer wrote in this column, Ronald Reagan, after he left office, was also accused of having once committed rape. The evidence there was shaky, too. 17. The Most Important Thing of All That Happened in 1999 In 1999, more than half of U.S. homes had a PC, for the first time (i.e., home-PC penetration passed 50 percent). Of course, most of these PCs crashed all the time, but it's still a significant development. By the way, Internet hookups in homes are still well below 50 percent. --Walt Mossberg, "Personal Technology" columnist for the Wall Street Journal (and occasional rock-music historian for this column) 18. All Dolled Up and Nowhere To Go in 1999 General Pinochet --Jodie Maurer 19. Senate Endorses Nuclear Proliferation in 1999 The Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty , thereby decapitating nuclear-arms control and sending Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the message that the United States won't raise a big stink if they try to join India and Pakistan. The president woke up to this possibility at about the moment it was realized, and started lobbying for passage of the treaty a day after it became too late. --Josh Pollack 20. Unremarked Natural Disaster in 1999 The Indian Supercyclone is the biggest, this century at least. --Samir Raiyani Photographs of: Donald Trump by Peter Morgan/Reuters; Natalie Portman by Keith Hamshere/Lucasfilm Ltd./Reuters; New York Yankees players by Gary Hershorn/Reuters; KLA member by Hazir Reka/Reuters.
End as a Hero by Laumer, Keith	"End as a Hero", Keith Laumer, 1966. END AS A HERO By KEITH LAUMER Illustrated by SCHELLING [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Granthan's mission was the most vital of the war. It would mean instant victory—but for whom? I In the dream I was swimming in a river of white fire and the dream went on and on. And then I was awake—and the fire was still there, fiercely burning at me. I tried to move to get away from the flames, and then the real pain hit me. I tried to go back to sleep and the relative comfort of the river of fire, but it was no go. For better or worse, I was alive and conscious. I opened my eyes and took a look around. I was on the floor next to an unpadded acceleration couch—the kind the Terrestrial Space Arm installs in seldom-used lifeboats. There were three more couches, but no one in them. I tried to sit up. It wasn't easy but, by applying a lot more will-power than should be required of a sick man, I made it. I took a look at my left arm. Baked. The hand was only medium rare, but the forearm was black, with deep red showing at the bottom of the cracks where the crisped upper layers had burst.... There was a first-aid cabinet across the compartment from me. I tried my right leg, felt broken bone-ends grate with a sensation that transcended pain. I heaved with the other leg, scrabbled with the charred arm. The crawl to the cabinet dwarfed Hillary's trek up Everest, but I reached it after a couple of years, and found the microswitch on the floor that activated the thing, and then I was fading out again.... I came out of it clear-headed but weak. My right leg was numb, but reasonably comfortable, clamped tight in a walking brace. I put up a hand and felt a shaved skull, with sutures. It must have been a fracture. The left arm—well, it was still there, wrapped to the shoulder and held out stiffly by a power truss that would keep the scar tissue from pulling up and crippling me. The steady pressure as the truss contracted wasn't anything to do a sense-tape on for replaying at leisure moments, but at least the cabinet hadn't amputated. I wasn't complaining. As far as I knew, I was the first recorded survivor of contact with the Gool—if I survived. I was still a long way from home, and I hadn't yet checked on the condition of the lifeboat. I glanced toward the entry port. It was dogged shut. I could see black marks where my burned hand had been at work. I fumbled my way into a couch and tried to think. In my condition—with a broken leg and third-degree burns, plus a fractured skull—I shouldn't have been able to fall out of bed, much less make the trip from Belshazzar's CCC to the boat; and how had I managed to dog that port shut? In an emergency a man was capable of great exertions. But running on a broken femur, handling heavy levers with charred fingers and thinking with a cracked head were overdoing it. Still, I was here—and it was time to get a call through to TSA headquarters. I flipped the switch and gave the emergency call-letters Col. Ausar Kayle of Aerospace Intelligence had assigned to me a few weeks before. It was almost five minutes before the "acknowledge" came through from the Ganymede relay station, another ten minutes before Kayle's face swam into view. Even through the blur of the screen I could see the haggard look. "Granthan!" he burst out. "Where are the others? What happened out there?" I turned him down to a mutter. "Hold on," I said. "I'll tell you. Recorders going?" I didn't wait for an answer—not with a fifteen-minute transmission lag. I plowed on: " Belshazzar was sabotaged. So was Gilgamesh —I think. I got out. I lost a little skin, but the aid cabinet has the case in hand. Tell the Med people the drinks are on me." I finished talking and flopped back, waiting for Kayle's reply. On the screen, his flickering image gazed back impatiently, looking as hostile as a swing-shift ward nurse. It would be half an hour before I would get his reaction to my report. I dozed off—and awoke with a start. Kayle was talking. "—your report. I won't mince words. They're wondering at your role in the disaster. How does it happen that you alone survived?" "How the hell do I know?" I yelled—or croaked. But Kayle's voice was droning on: "... you Psychodynamics people have been telling me the Gool may have some kind of long-range telehypnotic ability that might make it possible for them to subvert a loyal man without his knowledge. You've told me yourself that you blacked out during the attack—and came to on the lifeboat, with no recollection of how you got there. "This is war, Granthan. War against a vicious enemy who strike without warning and without mercy. You were sent out to investigate the possibility of—what's that term you use?—hyper-cortical invasion. You know better than most the risk I'd be running if you were allowed to pass the patrol line. "I'm sorry, Granthan. I can't let you land on Earth. I can't accept the risk." "What do I do now?" I stormed. "Go into orbit and eat pills and hope you think of something? I need a doctor!" Presently Kayle replied. "Yes," he said. "You'll have to enter a parking orbit. Perhaps there will be developments soon which will make it possible to ... ah ... restudy the situation." He didn't meet my eye. I knew what he was thinking. He'd spare me the mental anguish of knowing what was coming. I couldn't really blame him; he was doing what he thought was the right thing. And I'd have to go along and pretend—right up until the warheads struck—that I didn't know I'd been condemned to death. II I tried to gather my wits and think my way through the situation. I was alone and injured, aboard a lifeboat that would be the focus of a converging flight of missiles as soon as I approached within battery range of Earth. I had gotten clear of the Gool, but I wouldn't survive my next meeting with my own kind. They couldn't take the chance that I was acting under Gool orders. I wasn't, of course. I was still the same Peter Granthan, psychodynamicist, who had started out with Dayan's fleet six weeks earlier. The thoughts I was having weren't brilliant, but they were mine, all mine.... But how could I be sure of that? Maybe there was something in Kayle's suspicion. If the Gool were as skillful as we thought, they would have left no overt indications of their tampering—not at a conscious level. But this was where psychodynamics training came in. I had been reacting like any scared casualty, aching to get home and lick his wounds. But I wasn't just any casualty. I had been trained in the subtleties of the mind—and I had been prepared for just such an attack. Now was the time to make use of that training. It had given me one resource. I could unlock the memories of my subconscious—and see again what had happened. I lay back, cleared my mind of extraneous thoughts, and concentrated on the trigger word that would key an auto-hypnotic sequence.... Sense impressions faded. I was alone in the nebulous emptiness of a first-level trance. I keyed a second word, slipped below the misty surface into a dreamworld of vague phantasmagoric figures milling in their limbo of sub-conceptualization. I penetrated deeper, broke through into the vividly hallucinatory third level, where images of mirror-bright immediacy clamored for attention. And deeper.... The immense orderly confusion of the basic memory level lay before me. Abstracted from it, aloof and observant, the monitoring personality-fraction scanned the pattern, searching the polydimensional continuum for evidence of an alien intrusion. And found it. As the eye instantaneously detects a flicker of motion amid an infinity of static detail, so my inner eye perceived the subtle traces of the probing Gool mind, like a whispered touch deftly rearranging my buried motivations. I focused selectively, tuned to the recorded gestalt. " It is a contact, Effulgent One! " " Softly, now! Nurture the spark well. It but trembles at the threshold.... " " It is elusive, Master! It wriggles like a gorm-worm in the eating trough! " A part of my mind watched as the memory unreeled. I listened to the voices—yet not voices, merely the shape of concepts, indescribably intricate. I saw how the decoy pseudo-personality which I had concretized for the purpose in a hundred training sessions had fought against the intruding stimuli—then yielded under the relentless thrust of the alien probe. I watched as the Gool operator took over the motor centers, caused me to crawl through the choking smoke of the devastated control compartment toward the escape hatch. Fire leaped up, blocking the way. I went on, felt ghostly flames whipping at me—and then the hatch was open and I pulled myself through, forcing the broken leg. My blackened hand fumbled at the locking wheel. Then the blast as the lifeboat leaped clear of the disintegrating dreadnought—and the world-ending impact as I fell. At a level far below the conscious, the embattled pseudo-personality lashed out again—fighting the invader. " Almost it eluded me then, Effulgent Lord. Link with this lowly one! " " Impossible! Do you forget all my teachings? Cling, though you expend the last filament of your life-force! " Free from all distraction, at a level where comprehension and retention are instantaneous and total, my monitoring basic personality fraction followed the skillful Gool mind as it engraved its commands deep in my subconscious. Then the touch withdrew, erasing the scars of its passage, to leave me unaware of its tampering—at a conscious level. Watching the Gool mind, I learned. The insinuating probe—a concept regarding which psychodynamicists had theorized—was no more than a pattern in emptiness.... But a pattern which I could duplicate, now that I had seen what had been done to me. Hesitantly, I felt for the immaterial fabric of the continuum, warping and manipulating it, copying the Gool probe. Like planes of paper-thin crystal, the polyfinite aspects of reality shifted into focus, aligning themselves. Abruptly, a channel lay open. As easily as I would stretch out my hand to pluck a moth from a night-flower, I reached across the unimaginable void—and sensed a pit blacker than the bottom floor of hell, and a glistening dark shape. There was a soundless shriek. " Effulgence! It reached out—touched me! " Using the technique I had grasped from the Gool itself, I struck, stifling the outcry, invaded the fetid blackness and grappled the obscene gelatinous immensity of the Gool spy as it spasmed in a frenzy of xenophobia—a ton of liver writhing at the bottom of a dark well. I clamped down control. The Gool mind folded in on itself, gibbering. Not pausing to rest, I followed up, probed along my channel of contact, tracing patterns, scanning the flaccid Gool mind.... I saw a world of yellow seas lapping at endless shores of mud. There was a fuming pit, where liquid sulphur bubbled up from some inner source, filling an immense natural basin. The Gool clustered at its rim, feeding, each monstrous shape heaving against its neighbors for a more favorable position. I probed farther, saw the great cables of living nervous tissue that linked each eating organ with the brain-mass far underground. I traced the passages through which tendrils ran out to immense caverns where smaller creatures labored over strange devices. These, my host's memory told me, were the young of the Gool. Here they built the fleets that would transport the spawn to the new worlds the Prime Overlord had discovered, worlds where food was free for the taking. Not sulphur alone, but potassium, calcium, iron and all the metals—riches beyond belief in endless profusion. No longer would the Gool tribe cluster—those who remained of a once-great race—at a single feeding trough. They would spread out across a galaxy—and beyond. But not if I could help it. The Gool had evolved a plan—but they'd had a stroke of bad luck. In the past, they had managed to control a man here and there, among the fleets, far from home, but only at a superficial level. Enough, perhaps, to wreck a ship, but not the complete control needed to send a man back to Earth under Gool compulsion, to carry out complex sabotage. Then they had found me, alone, a sole survivor, free from the clutter of the other mind-fields. It had been their misfortune to pick a psychodynamicist. Instead of gaining a patient slave, they had opened the fortress door to an unseen spy. Now that I was there, I would see what I could steal. A timeless time passed. I wandered among patterns of white light and white sound, plumbed the deepest recesses of hidden Gool thoughts, fared along strange ways examining the shapes and colors of the concepts of an alien mind. I paused at last, scanning a multi-ordinal structure of pattern within pattern; the diagrammed circuits of a strange machine. I followed through its logic-sequence; and, like a bomb-burst, its meaning exploded in my mind. From the vile nest deep under the dark surface of the Gool world in its lonely trans-Plutonian orbit, I had plucked the ultimate secret of their kind. Matter across space. "You've got to listen to me, Kayle," I shouted. "I know you think I'm a Gool robot. But what I have is too big to let you blow it up without a fight. Matter transmission! You know what that can mean to us. The concept is too complex to try to describe in words. You'll have to take my word for it. I can build it, though, using standard components, plus an infinite-area antenna and a moebius-wound coil—and a few other things...." I harangued Kayle for a while, and then sweated out his answer. I was getting close now. If he couldn't see the beauty of my proposal, my screens would start to register the radiation of warheads any time now. Kayle came back—and his answer boiled down to "no." I tried to reason with him. I reminded him how I had readied myself for the trip with sessions on the encephaloscope, setting up the cross-networks of conditioned defensive responses, the shunt circuits to the decoy pseudo-personality, leaving my volitional ego free. I talked about subliminal hypnotics and the resilience quotient of the ego-complex. I might have saved my breath. "I don't understand that psychodynamics jargon, Granthan," he snapped. "It smacks of mysticism. But I understand what the Gool have done to you well enough. I'm sorry." I leaned back and chewed the inside of my lip and thought unkind thoughts about Colonel Ausar Kayle. Then I settled down to solve the problem at hand. I keyed the chart file, flashed pages from the standard index on the reference screen, checking radar coverages, beacon ranges, monitor stations, controller fields. It looked as though a radar-negative boat the size of mine might possibly get through the defensive net with a daring pilot, and as a condemned spy, I could afford to be daring. And I had a few ideas. III The shrilling of the proximity alarm blasted through the silence. For a wild moment I thought Kayle had beaten me to the punch; then I realized it was the routine DEW line patrol contact. "Z four-oh-two, I am reading your IFF. Decelerate at 1.8 gee preparatory to picking up approach orbit...." The screen went on droning out instructions. I fed them into the autopilot, at the same time running over my approach plan. The scout was moving in closer. I licked dry lips. It was time to try. I closed my eyes, reached out—as the Gool mind had reached out to me—and felt the touch of a Signals Officer's mind, forty thousand miles distant, aboard the patrol vessel. There was a brief flurry of struggle; then I dictated my instructions. The Signals Officer punched keys, spoke into his microphone: "As you were, Z four-oh-two. Continue on present course. At Oh-nineteen seconds, pick up planetary for re-entry and let-down." I blanked out the man's recollection of what had happened, caught his belated puzzlement as I broke contact. But I was clear of the DEW line now, rapidly approaching atmosphere. "Z four-oh-two," the speaker crackled. "This is planetary control. I am picking you up on channel forty-three, for re-entry and let-down." There was a long pause. Then: "Z four-oh-two, countermand DEW Line clearance! Repeat, clearance countermanded! Emergency course change to standard hyperbolic code ninety-eight. Do not attempt re-entry. Repeat: do not attempt re-entry!" It hadn't taken Kayle long to see that I'd gotten past the outer line of defense. A few more minutes' grace would have helped. I'd play it dumb, and hope for a little luck. "Planetary, Z four-oh-two here. Say, I'm afraid I missed part of that, fellows. I'm a little banged up—I guess I switched frequencies on you. What was that after 'pick up channel forty-three'...?" "Four-oh-two, sheer off there! You're not cleared for re-entry!" "Hey, you birds are mixed up," I protested. "I'm cleared all the way. I checked in with DEW—" It was time to disappear. I blanked off all transmission, hit the controls, following my evasive pattern. And again I reached out— A radar man at a site in the Pacific, fifteen thousand miles away, rose from his chair, crossed the darkened room and threw a switch. The radar screens blanked off.... For an hour I rode the long orbit down, fending off attack after attack. Then I was clear, skimming the surface of the ocean a few miles southeast of Key West. The boat hit hard. I felt the floor rise up, over, buffeting me against the restraining harness. I hauled at the release lever, felt a long moment of giddy disorientation as the escape capsule separated from the sinking lifeboat deep under the surface. Then my escape capsule was bobbing on the water. I would have to risk calling Kayle now—but by voluntarily giving my position away, I should convince him I was still on our side—and I was badly in need of a pick-up. I flipped the sending key. "This is Z four-oh-two," I said. "I have an urgent report for Colonel Kayle of Aerospace Intelligence." Kayle's face appeared. "Don't fight it, Granthan," he croaked. "You penetrated the planetary defenses—God knows how. I—" "Later," I snapped. "How about calling off your dogs now? And send somebody out here to pick me up, before I add sea-sickness to my other complaints." "We have you pinpointed," Kayle cut in. "It's no use fighting it, Granthan." I felt cold sweat pop out on my forehead. "You've got to listen, Kayle," I shouted. "I suppose you've got missiles on the way already. Call them back! I have information that can win the war—" "I'm sorry, Granthan," Kayle said. "It's too late—even if I could take the chance you were right." A different face appeared on the screen. "Mr. Granthan, I am General Titus. On behalf of your country, and in the name of the President—who has been apprised of this tragic situation—it is my privilege to inform you that you will be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor—posthumously—for your heroic effort. Although you failed, and have in fact been forced, against your will, to carry out the schemes of the inhuman enemy, this in no way detracts from your gallant attempt. Mr. Granthan, I salute you." The general's arm went up in a rigid gesture. "Stow that, you pompous idiot!" I barked. "I'm no spy!" Kayle was back, blanking out the startled face of the general. "Goodbye, Granthan. Try to understand...." I flipped the switch, sat gripping the couch, my stomach rising with each heave of the floating escape capsule. I had perhaps five minutes. The missiles would be from Canaveral. I closed my eyes, forced myself to relax, reached out.... I sensed the distant shore, the hot buzz of human minds at work in the cities. I followed the coastline, found the Missile Base, flicked through the cluster of minds. "— missile on course; do right, baby. That's it, right in the slot. " I fingered my way through the man's mind and found the control centers. He turned stiffly from the plotting board, tottered to a panel to slam his hand against the destruct button. Men fell on him, dragged him back. "— fool, why did you blow it? " I dropped the contact, found another, who leaped to the panel, detonated the remainder of the flight of six missiles. Then I withdrew. I would have a few minutes' stay of execution now. I was ten miles from shore. The capsule had its own power plant. I started it up, switched on the external viewer. I saw dark sea, the glint of star-light on the choppy surface, in the distance a glow on the horizon that would be Key West. I plugged the course into the pilot, then leaned back and felt outward with my mind for the next attacker. IV It was dark in the trainyard. I moved along the tracks in a stumbling walk. Just a few more minutes, I was telling myself. A few more minutes and you can lie down ... rest.... The shadowed bulk of a box car loomed up, its open door a blacker square. I leaned against the sill, breathing hard, then reached inside for a grip with my good hand. Gravel scrunched nearby. The beam of a flashlight lanced out, slipped along the weathered car, caught me. There was a startled exclamation. I ducked back, closed my eyes, felt out for his mind. There was a confused murmur of thought, a random intrusion of impressions from the city all around. It was hard, too hard. I had to sleep— I heard the snick of a revolver being cocked, and dropped flat as a gout of flame stabbed toward me, the imperative Bam! echoing between the cars. I caught the clear thought: "God-awful looking, shaved head, arm stuck out; him all right—" I reached out to his mind and struck at random. The light fell, went out, and I heard the unconscious body slam to the ground like a poled steer. It was easy—if I could only stay awake. I gritted my teeth, pulled myself into the car, crawled to a dark corner behind a crate and slumped down. I tried to evoke a personality fraction to set as a guard, a part of my mind to stay awake and warn me of danger. It was too much trouble. I relaxed and let it all slide down into darkness. The car swayed, click-clack, click-clack. I opened my eyes, saw yellow sunlight in a bar across the litter on the floor. The power truss creaked, pulling at my arm. My broken leg was throbbing its indignation at the treatment it had received—walking brace and all—and the burned arm was yelling aloud for more of that nice dope that had been keeping it from realizing how bad it was. All things considered, I felt like a badly embalmed mummy—except that I was hungry. I had been a fool not to fill my pockets when I left the escape capsule in the shallows off Key Largo, but things had been happening too fast. I had barely made it to the fishing boat, whose owner I had coerced into rendezvousing with me before shells started dropping around us. If the gunners on the cruiser ten miles away had had any luck, they would have finished me—and the hapless fisherman—right then. We rode out a couple of near misses, before I put the cruiser's gunnery crew off the air. At a fishing camp on the beach, I found a car—with driver. He dropped me at the railyard, and drove off under the impression he was in town for groceries. He'd never believe he'd seen me. Now I'd had my sleep. I had to start getting ready for the next act of the farce. I pressed the release on the power truss, gingerly unclamped it, then rigged a sling from a strip of shirt tail. I tied the arm to my side as inconspicuously as possible. I didn't disturb the bandages. I needed new clothes—or at least different ones—and something to cover my shaved skull. I couldn't stay hidden forever. The yard cop had recognized me at a glance. I lay back, waiting for the train to slow for a town. I wasn't unduly worried—at the moment. The watchman probably hadn't convinced anyone he'd actually seen me. Maybe he hadn't been too sure himself. The click-clack slowed and the train shuddered to a stop. I crept to the door, peered through the crack. There were sunny fields, a few low buildings in the distance, the corner of a platform. I closed my eyes and let my awareness stretch out. "— lousy job. What's the use? Little witch in the lunch room ... up in the hills, squirrel hunting, bottle of whiskey.... " I settled into control gently, trying not to alarm the man. I saw through his eyes the dusty box car, the rust on the tracks, the listless weeds growing among cinders, and the weathered boards of the platform. I turned him, and saw the dingy glass of the telegraph window, a sagging screen door with a chipped enameled cola sign. I walked the man to the door, and through it. Behind a linoleum-topped counter, a coarse-skinned teen-age girl with heavy breasts and wet patches under her arms looked up without interest as the door banged. My host went on to the counter, gestured toward the waxed-paper-wrapped sandwiches under a glass cover. "I'll take 'em all. And candy bars, and cigarettes. And give me a big glass of water." "Better git out there and look after yer train," the girl said carelessly. "When'd you git so all-fired hungry all of a sudden?" "Put it in a bag. Quick." "Look who's getting bossy—" My host rounded the counter, picked up a used paper bag, began stuffing food in it. The girl stared at him, then pushed him back. "You git back around that counter!" She filled the bag, took a pencil from behind her ear. "That'll be one eighty-five. Cash." My host took two dog-eared bills from his shirt pocket, dropped them on the counter and waited while the girl filled a glass. He picked it up and started out. "Hey! Where you goin' with my glass?" The trainman crossed the platform, headed for the boxcar. He slid the loose door back a few inches against the slack latch, pushed the bag inside, placed the glass of water beside it, then pulled off his grimy railroader's cap and pushed it through the opening. He turned. The girl watched from the platform. A rattle passed down the line and the train started up with a lurch. The man walked back toward the girl. I heard him say: "Friend o' mine in there—just passin' through." I was discovering that it wasn't necessary to hold tight control over every move of a subject. Once given the impulse to act, he would rationalize his behavior, fill in the details—and never know that the original idea hadn't been his own. I drank the water first, ate a sandwich, then lit a cigarette and lay back. So far so good. The crates in the car were marked "U. S. Naval Aerospace Station, Bayou Le Cochon". With any luck I'd reach New Orleans in another twelve hours. The first step of my plan included a raid on the Delta National Labs; but that was tomorrow. That could wait. It was a little before dawn when I crawled out of the car at a siding in the swampy country a few miles out of New Orleans. I wasn't feeling good, but I had a stake in staying on my feet. I still had a few miles in me. I had my supplies—a few candy bars and some cigarettes—stuffed in the pockets of the tattered issue coverall. Otherwise, I was unencumbered. Unless you wanted to count the walking brace on my right leg and the sling binding my arm. I picked my way across mushy ground to a pot-holed black-top road, started limping toward a few car lights visible half a mile away. It was already hot. The swamp air was like warmed-over subway fumes. Through the drugs, I could feel my pulse throbbing in my various wounds. I reached out and touched the driver's mind; he was thinking about shrimps, a fish-hook wound on his left thumb and a girl with black hair. "Want a lift?" he called. I thanked him and got in. He gave me a glance and I pinched off his budding twinge of curiosity. It was almost an effort now not to follow his thoughts. It was as though my mind, having learned the trick of communications with others, instinctively reached out toward them. An hour later he dropped me on a street corner in a shabby marketing district of the city and drove off. I hoped he made out all right with the dark-haired girl. I spotted a used-clothing store and headed for it. Twenty minutes later I was back on the sidewalk, dressed in a pinkish-gray suit that had been cut a long time ago by a Latin tailor—maybe to settle a grudge. The shirt that went with it was an unsuccessful violet. The black string tie lent a dubious air of distinction. I'd swapped the railroader's cap for a tarnished beret. The man who had supplied the outfit was still asleep. I figured I'd done him a favor by taking it. I couldn't hope to pass for a fisherman—I wasn't the type. Maybe I'd get by as a coffee-house derelict. I walked past fly-covered fish stalls, racks of faded garments, grimy vegetables in bins, enough paint-flaked wrought iron to cage a herd of brontosauri, and fetched up at a cab stand. I picked a fat driver with a wart. "How much to the Delta National Laboratories?" He rolled an eye toward me, shifted his toothpick. "What ya wanna go out there for? Nothing out there." "I'm a tourist," I said. "They told me before I left home not to miss it." He grunted, reached back and opened the door. I got in. He flipped his flag down, started up with a clash of gears and pulled out without looking. "How far is it?" I asked him. "It ain't far. Mile, mile and a quarter." "Pretty big place, I guess." He didn't answer. We went through a warehousing district, swung left along the waterfront, bumped over railroad tracks, and pulled up at a nine-foot cyclone fence with a locked gate. "A buck ten," my driver said. I looked out at the fence, a barren field, a distant group of low buildings. "What's this?" "This is the place you ast for. That'll be a buck ten, mister." I touched his mind, planted a couple of false impressions and withdrew. He blinked, then started up, drove around the field, pulled up at an open gate with a blue-uniformed guard. He looked back at me. "You want I should drive in, sir?" "I'll get out here." He jumped out, opened my door, helped me out with a hand under my good elbow. "I'll get your change, sir," he said, reaching for his hip. "Keep it." "Thank YOU." He hesitated. "Maybe I oughta stick around. You know." "I'll be all right." "I hope so," he said. "A man like you—you and me—" he winked. "After all, we ain't both wearing berets fer nothing." "True," I said. "Consider your tip doubled. Now drive away into the sunrise and forget you ever saw me."
Exile by Fyfe, H. B. (Horace Bowne)	"Exile", H. B. (Horace Bowne) Fyfe, 1958. [101] EXILE BY H. B. FYFE ILLUSTRATED BY EMSH The Dome of Eyes made it almost impossible for Terrans to reach the world of Tepokt. For those who did land there, there was no returning—only the bitterness of respect—and justice! The Tepoktan student, whose blue robe in George Kinton's opinion clashed with the dull purple of his scales, twiddled a three-clawed hand for attention. Kinton nodded to him from his place on the dais before the group. "Then you can give us no precise count of the stars in the galaxy, George?" Kinton smiled wrily, and ran a wrinkled hand through his graying hair. In the clicking Tepoktan speech, his name came out more like "Chortch." Questions like this had been put to him often during the ten years since his rocket had hurtled through the meteorite belt and down to the surface of Tepokt, leaving him the only survivor. Barred off as they were from venturing into space, the highly civilized Tepoktans constantly displayed the curiosity of dreamers in matters related to the universe. Because of the veil of meteorites and satellite fragments whirling about their planet, their astronomers had acquired torturous skills but only scraps of real knowledge. "As I believe I mentioned in some of my recorded lectures," Kinton answered in their language, [103] "the number is actually as vast as it seems to those of you peering through the Dome of Eyes. The scientists of my race have not yet encountered any beings capable of estimating the total." He leaned back and scanned the faces of his interviewers, faces that would have been oddly humanoid were it not for the elongated snouts and pointed, sharp-toothed jaws. The average Tepoktan was slightly under Kinton's height of five-feet-ten, with a long, supple trunk. Under the robes their scholars affected, the shortness of their two bowed legs was not obvious; but the sight of the short, thick arms carried high before their chests still left Kinton with a feeling of misproportion. He should be used to it after ten years, he thought, but even the reds or purples of the scales or the big teeth seemed more natural. "I sympathize with your curiosity," he added. "It is a marvel that your scientists have managed to measure the distances of so many stars." He could tell that they were pleased by his admiration, and wondered yet again why any little show of approval by him was so eagerly received. Even though he was the first stellar visitor in their recorded history, Kinton remained conscious of the fact that in many fields he was unable to offer the Tepoktans any new ideas. In one or two ways, he believed, no Terran could teach their experts anything. "Then will you tell us, George, more about the problems of your first space explorers?" came another question. Before Kinton had formed his answer, the golden curtains at the rear of the austerely simple chamber parted. Klaft, the Tepoktan serving the current year as Kinton's chief aide, hurried toward the dais. The twenty-odd members of the group fell silent on their polished stone benches, turning their pointed visages to follow Klaft's progress. The aide reached Kinton and bent to hiss and cluck into the latter's ear in what he presumably considered an undertone. The Terran laboriously spelled out the message inscribed on the limp, satiny paper held before his eyes. Then he rose and took one step toward the waiting group. "I regret I shall have to conclude this discussion," he announced. "I am informed that another ship from space has reached the surface of Tepokt. My presence is requested in case the crew are of my own planet." [104] Klaft excitedly skipped down to lead the way up the aisle, but Kinton hesitated. Those in the audience were scholars or officials to whom attendance at one of Kinton's limited number of personal lectures was awarded as an honor. They would hardly learn anything from him directly that was not available in recordings made over the course of years. The Tepoktan scientists, historians, and philosophers had respectfully but eagerly gathered every crumb of information Kinton knowingly had to offer—and some he thought he had forgotten. Still ... he sensed the disappointment at his announcement. "I shall arrange for you to await my return here in town," Kinton said, and there were murmurs of pleasure. Later, aboard the jet helicopter that was basically like those Kinton remembered using on Terra twenty light years away, he shook his head at Klaft's respectful protest. "But George! It was enough that they were present when you received the news. They can talk about that the rest of their lives! You must not waste your strength on these people who come out of curiosity." Kinton smiled at his aide's earnest concern. Then he turned to look out the window as he recalled the shadow that underlay such remonstrances. He estimated that he was about forty-eight now, as nearly as he could tell from the somewhat longer revolutions of Tepokt. The time would come when he would age and die. Whose wishes would then prevail? Maybe he was wrong, he thought. Maybe he shouldn't stand in the way of their biologists and surgeons. But he'd rather be buried, even if that left them with only what he could tell them about the human body. To help himself forget the rather preoccupied manner in which some of the Tepoktan scientists occasionally eyed him, he peered down at the big dam of the hydro-electric project being completed to Kinton's design. Power from this would soon light the town built to house the staff of scientists, students, and workers assigned to the institute organized about the person of Kinton. Now, there was an example of their willingness to repay him for whatever help he had been, he reflected. They hadn't needed that for themselves. In some ways, compared to [105] those of Terra, the industries of Tepokt were underdeveloped. In the first place, the population was smaller and had different standards of luxury. In the second, a certain lack of drive resulted from the inability to break out into interplanetary space. Kinton had been inexplicably lucky to have reached the surface even in a battered hulk. The shell of meteorites was at least a hundred miles thick and constantly shifting. "We do not know if they have always been meteorites," the Tepoktans had told Kinton, "or whether part of them come from a destroyed satellite; but our observers have proved mathematically that no direct path through them may be predicted more than a very short while in advance." Kinton turned away from the window as he caught the glint of Tepokt's sun upon the hull of the spaceship they had also built for him. Perhaps ... would it be fair to encourage the newcomer to attempt the barrier? For ten years, Kinton had failed to work up any strong desire to try it. The Tepoktans called the ever-shifting lights the Dome of Eyes, after a myth in which each tiny satellite bright enough to be visible was supposed to watch over a single individual on the surface. Like their brothers on Terra, the native astronomers could trace their science back to a form of astrology; and Kinton often told them jokingly that he felt no urge to risk a physical encounter with his own personal Eye. The helicopter started to descend, and Kinton remembered that the city named in his message was only about twenty miles from his home. The brief twilight of Tepokt was passing by the time he set foot on the landing field, and he paused to look up. The brighter stars visible from this part of the planet twinkled back at him, and he knew that each was being scrutinized by some amateur or professional astronomer. Before an hour had elapsed, most of them would be obscured by the tiny moonlets, some of which could already be seen. These could easily be mistaken for stars or the other five planets of the system, but in a short while the tinier ones in groups would cause a celestial haze resembling a miniature Milky Way. Klaft, who had descended first, leaving the pilot to bring up the rear, noticed Kinton's pause. "Glory glitters till it is known for a curse," he remarked, quoting a Tepoktan proverb often applied [106] by the disgruntled scientists to the Dome of Eyes. Kinton observed, however, that his aide also stared upward for a long moment. The Tepoktans loved speculating about the unsolvable. They had even founded clubs to argue whether two satellites had been destroyed or only one. Half a dozen officials hastened up to escort the party to the vehicle awaiting Kinton. Klaft succeeded in quieting the lesser members of the delegation so that Kinton was able to learn a few facts about the new arrival. The crash had been several hundred miles away, but someone had thought of the hospital in this city which was known to have a doctor rating as an expert in human physiology. The survivor—only one occupant of the wreck, alive or dead, had been discovered—had accordingly been flown here. With a clanging of bells, the little convoy of ground cars drew up in front of the hospital. A way was made through the chittering crowd around the entrance. Within a few minutes, Kinton found himself looking down at a pallet upon which lay another Terran. A man! he thought, then curled a lip wrily at the sudden, unexpected pang of disappointment. Well, he hadn't realized until then what he was really hoping for! The spaceman had been cleaned up and bandaged by the native medicos. Kinton saw that his left thigh was probably broken. Other dressings suggested cracked ribs and lacerations on the head and shoulders. The man was dark-haired but pale of skin, with a jutting chin and a nose that had been flattened in some earlier mishap. The flaring set of his ears somehow emphasized an overall leanness. Even in sleep, his mouth was thin and hard. "Thrown across the controls after his belt broke loose?" Kinton guessed. "I bow to your wisdom, George," said the plump Tepoktan doctor who appeared to be in charge. Kinton could not remember him, but everyone on the planet addressed the Terran by the sound they fondly thought to be his first name. "This is Doctor Chuxolkhee," murmured Klaft. Kinton made the accepted gesture of greeting with one hand and said, "You seem to have treated him very expertly." Chuxolkhee ruffled the scales around his neck with pleasure. [107] "I have studied Terran physiology," he admitted complacently. "From your records and drawings, of course, George, for I have not yet had the good fortune to visit you." "We must arrange a visit soon," said Kinton. "Klaft will—" He broke off at the sound from the patient. "A Terran!" mumbled the injured man. He shook his head dazedly, tried to sit up, and subsided with a groan. Why, he looked scared when he saw me , thought Kinton. "You're all right now," he said soothingly. "It's all over and you're in good hands. I gather there were no other survivors of the crash?" The man stared curiously. Kinton realized that his own language sputtered clumsily from his lips after ten years. He tried again. "My name is George Kinton. I don't blame you if I'm hard to understand. You see, I've been here ten years without ever having another Terran to speak to." The spaceman considered that for a few breaths, then seemed to relax. "Al Birken," he introduced himself laconically. "Ten years?" "A little over," confirmed Kinton. "It's extremely unusual that anything gets through to the surface, let alone a spaceship. What happened to you?" Birken's stare was suspicious. "Then you ain't heard about the new colonies? Naw—you musta come here when all the planets were open." "We had a small settlement on the second planet," Kinton told him. "You mean there are new Terran colonies?" "Yeah. Jet-hoppers spreadin' all over the other five. None of the land-hungry poops figured a way to set down here, though, or they'd be creepin' around this planet too." "How did you happen to do it? Run out of fuel?" The other eyed him for a few seconds before dropping his gaze. Kinton was struck with sudden doubt. The outposts of civilization were followed by less desirable developments as a general rule—prisons, for instance. He resolved to be wary of the visitor. "Ya might say I was explorin'," Birken replied at last. "That's why I come alone. Didn't want nobody else hurt if I didn't make it. Say, how bad am I banged up?" Kinton realized guiltily that the man should be resting. He [108] had lost track of the moments he had wasted in talk while the others with him stood attentively about. He questioned the doctor briefly and relayed the information that Birken's leg was broken but that the other injuries were not serious. "They'll fix you up," he assured the spaceman. "They're quite good at it, even if the sight of one does make you think a little of an iguana. Rest up, now; and I'll come back again when you're feeling better." For the next three weeks, Kinton flew back and forth from his own town nearly every day. He felt that he should not neglect the few meetings which were the only way he could repay the Tepoktans for all they did for him. On the other hand, the chance to see and talk with one of his own kind drew him like a magnet to the hospital. The doctors operated upon Birken's leg, inserting a metal rod inside the bone by a method they had known before Kinton described it. The new arrival expected to be able to walk, with care, almost any day; although the pin would have to be removed after the bone had healed. Meanwhile, Birken seemed eager to learn all Kinton could tell him about the planet, Tepokt. About himself, he was remarkably reticent. Kinton worried about this. "I think we should not expect too much of this Terran," he warned Klaft uneasily. "You, too, have citizens who do not always obey, your laws, who sometimes ... that is—" "Who are born to die under the axe, as we say," interrupted Klaft, as if to ease the concern plain on Kinton's face. "In other words, criminals. You suspect this Albirken is such a one, George?" "It is not impossible," admitted Kinton unhappily. "He will tell me little about himself. It may be that he was caught in Tepokt's gravity while fleeing from justice." To himself, he wished he had not told Birken about the spaceship. He didn't think the man exactly believed his explanation of why there was no use taking off in it. Yet he continued to spend as much time as he could visiting the other man. Then, as his helicopter landed at the city airport one gray dawn, the news reached him. "The other Terran has gone," Klaft reported, turning from the breathless messenger as Kinton followed him from the machine. [109] "Gone? Where did they take him?" Klaft looked uneasy, embarrassed. Kinton repeated his question, wondering about the group of armed police on hand. "In the night," Klaft hissed and clucked, "when none would think to watch him, they tell me ... and quite rightly, I think—" "Get on with it, Klaft! Please!" "In the night, then, Albirken left the chamber in which he lay. He can walk some now, you know, because of Dr. Chuxolkhee's metal pin. He—he stole a ground car and is gone." "He did?" Kinton had an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Is it known where he went? I mean ... he has been curious to see some of Tepokt. Perhaps—" He stopped, his own words braying in his ears. Klaft was clicking two claws together, a sign of emphatic disagreement. "Albirken," he said, "was soon followed by three police constables in another vehicle. They found him heading in the direction of our town." "Why did he say he was traveling that way?" asked Kinton, thinking to himself of the spaceship! Was the man crazy? "He did not say," answered Klaft expressionlessly. "Taking them by surprise, he killed two of the constables and injured the third before fleeing with one of their spears." " What? " Kinton felt his eyes bulging with dismay. "Yes, for they carried only the short spears of their authority, not expecting to need fire weapons." Kinton looked from him to the messenger, noticing for the first time that the latter was an under-officer of police. He shook his head distractedly. It appeared that his suspicions concerning Birken had been only too accurate. Why was it one like him who got through? he asked himself in silent anguish. After ten years. The Tepoktans had been thinking well of Terrans, but now— He did not worry about his own position. That was well enough established, whether or not he could again hold up his head before the purple-scaled people who had been so generous to him. Even if they had been aroused to a rage by the killing, Kinton told himself, he would not have been concerned about himself. He had reached a fairly ripe age for a spaceman. In fact, he had already [110] enjoyed a decade of borrowed time. But they were more civilized than that wanton murderer, he realized. He straightened up, forcing back his early-morning weariness. "We must get into the air immediately," he told Klaft. "Perhaps we may see him before he reaches—" He broke off at the word "spaceship" but he noticed a reserved expression on Klaft's pointed face. His aide had probably reached a conclusion similar to his own. They climbed back into the cabin and Klaft gave brisk orders to the lean young pilot. A moment later, Kinton saw the ground outside drop away. Only upon turning around did he realize that two armed Tepoktans had materialized in time to follow Klaft inside. One was a constable but the other he recognized for an officer of some rank. Both wore slung across their chests weapons resembling long-barreled pistols with large, oddly indented butts to fit Tepoktan claws. The constable, in addition, carried a contraption with a quadruple tube for launching tiny rockets no thicker than Kinton's thumb. These, he knew, were loaded with an explosive worthy of respect on any planet he had heard of. To protect him, he wondered. Or to get Birken? The pilot headed the craft back toward Kinton's town in the brightening sky of early day. Long before the buildings of Kinton's institute came into view, they received a radio message about Birken. "He has been seen on the road passing the dam," Klaft reported soberly after having been called to the pilot's compartment. "He stopped to demand fuel from some maintenance workers, but they had been warned and fled." "Couldn't they have seized him?" demanded Kinton, his tone sharp with the worry he endeavored to control. "He has that spear, I suppose; but he is only one and injured." Klaft hesitated. "Well, couldn't they?" The aide looked away, out one of the windows at some sun-dyed clouds ranging from pink to orange. He grimaced and clicked his showy teeth uncomfortably. "Perhaps they thought you might be offended, George," he answered at last. Kinton settled back in the seat especially padded to fit the contours of his Terran body, and [111] stared silently at the partition behind the pilot. In other words, he thought, he was responsible for Birken, who was a Terran, one of his own kind. Maybe they really didn't want to risk hurting his feelings, but that was only part of it. They were leaving it up to him to handle what they considered his private affair. He wondered what to do. He had no actual faith in the idea that Birken was delirious, or acting under any influence but that of a criminally self-centered nature. "I shouldn't have told him about the ship!" Kinton muttered, gnawing the knuckle of his left thumb. "He's on the run, all right. Probably scared the colonial authorities will trail him right down through the Dome of Eyes. Wonder what he did?" He caught himself and looked around to see if he had been overheard. Klaft and the police officers peered from their respective windows, in calculated withdrawal. Kinton, disturbed, tried to remember whether he had spoken in Terran or Tepoktan. Would Birken listen if he tried reasoning, he asked himself. Maybe if he showed the man how they had proved the unpredictability of openings through the shifting Dome of Eyes— An exclamation from the constable drew his attention. He rose, and room was made for him at the opposite window. In the distance, beyond the town landing field they were now approaching, Kinton saw a halted ground car. Across the plain which was colored a yellowish tan by a short, grass-like growth, a lone figure plodded toward the upthrust bulk of the spaceship that had never flown. "Never mind landing at the town!" snapped Kinton. "Go directly out to the ship!" Klaft relayed the command to the pilot. The helicopter swept in a descending curve across the plain toward the gleaming hull. As they passed the man below, Birken looked up. He continued to limp along at a brisk pace with the aid of what looked like a short spear. "Go down!" Kinton ordered. The pilot landed about a hundred yards from the spaceship. By the time his passengers had alighted, however, Birken had drawn level with them, about fifty feet away. "Birken!" shouted Kinton. "Where do you think you're going?" Seeing that no one ran after him, Birken slowed his pace, but kept walking toward the ship. [112] He watched them over his shoulder. "Sorry, Kinton," he shouted with no noticeable tone of regret. "I figure I better travel on for my health." "It's not so damn healthy up there!" called Kinton. "I told you how there's no clear path—" "Yeah, yeah, you told me. That don't mean I gotta believe it." "Wait! Don't you think they tried sending unmanned rockets up? Every one was struck and exploded." Birken showed no more change of expression than if the other had commented on the weather. Kinton had stepped forward six or eight paces, irritated despite his anxiety at the way Birken persisted in drifting before him. Kinton couldn't just grab him—bad leg or not, he could probably break the older man in two. He glanced back at the Tepoktans beside the helicopter, Klaft, the pilot, the officer, the constable with the rocket weapon. They stood quietly, looking back at him. The call for help that had risen to his lips died there. "Not their party," he muttered. He turned again to Birken, who still retreated toward the ship. "But he'll only get himself killed and destroy the ship! Or if some miracle gets him through, that's worse! He's nothing to turn loose on a civilized colony again." A twinge of shame tugged down the corners of his mouth as he realized that keeping Birken here would also expose a highly cultured people to an unscrupulous criminal who had already committed murder the very first time he had been crossed. "Birken!" he shouted. "For the last time! Do you want me to send them to drag you back here?" Birken stopped at that. He regarded the motionless Tepoktans with a derisive sneer. "They don't look too eager to me," he taunted. Kinton growled a Tepoktan expression the meaning of which he had deduced after hearing it used by the dam workers. He whirled to run toward the helicopter. Hardly had he taken two steps, however, when he saw startled changes in the carefully blank looks of his escort. The constable half raised his heavy weapon, and Klaft sprang forward with a hissing cry. By the time Kinton's aging muscles obeyed his impulse to sidestep, the spear had already hurtled past. It had missed him by an error of over six feet. [113] He felt his face flushing with sudden anger. Birken was running as best he could toward the spaceship, and had covered nearly half the distance. Kinton ran at the Tepoktans, brushing aside the concerned Klaft. He snatched the heavy weapon from the surprised constable. He turned and raised it to his chest. Because of the shortness of Tepoktan arms, the launcher was constructed so that the butt rested against the chest with the sighting loops before the eyes. The little rocket tubes were above head height, to prevent the handler's catching the blast. The circles of the sights weaved and danced about the running figure. Kinton realized to his surprise that the effort of seizing the weapon had him panting. Or was it the fright at having a spear thrown at him? He decided that Birken had not come close enough for that, and wondered if he was afraid of his own impending action. It wasn't fair, he complained to himself. The poor slob only had a spear, and a man couldn't blame him for wanting to get back to his own sort. He was limping ... hurt ... how could they expect him to realize—? Then, abruptly, his lips tightened to a thin line. The sights steadied on Birken as the latter approached the foot of the ladder leading to the entrance port of the spaceship. Kinton pressed the firing stud. Across the hundred-yard space streaked four flaring little projectiles. Kinton, without exactly seeing each, was aware of the general lines of flight diverging gradually to bracket the figure of Birken. One struck the ground beside the man just as he set one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, and skittered away past one fin of the ship before exploding. Two others burst against the hull, scattering metal fragments, and another puffed on the upright of the ladder just above Birken's head. The spaceman was blown back from the ladder. He balanced on his heels for a moment with outstretched fingers reaching toward the grips from which they had been torn. Then he crumpled into a limp huddle on the yellowing turf. Kinton sighed. The constable took the weapon from him, reloaded deftly, and proffered it again. When the Terran did not reach for it, the officer held out a clawed hand to receive it. He gestured silently, and the constable trotted across [114] the intervening ground to bend over Birken. "He is dead," said Klaft when the constable straightened up with a curt wave. "Will ... will you have someone see to him, please?" Kinton requested, turning toward the helicopter. "Yes, George," said Klaft. "George...?" "Well?" "It would be very instructive—that is, I believe Dr. Chuxolkhee would like to—" "All right!" yielded Kinton, surprised at the harshness of his own voice. "Just tell him not to bring around any sketches of the various organs for a few months!" He climbed into the helicopter and slumped into his seat. Presently, he was aware of Klaft edging into the seat across the aisle. He looked up. "The police will stay until cars from town arrive. They are coming now," said his aide. Kinton stared at his hands, wondering at the fact that they were not shaking. He felt dejected, empty, not like a man who had just been at a high pitch of excitement. "Why did you not let him go, George?" "What? Why ... why ... he would have destroyed the ship you worked so hard to build. There is no safe path through the Dome of Eyes." "No predictable path," Klaft corrected. "But what then? We would have built you another ship, George, for it was you who showed us how." Kinton flexed his fingers slowly. "He was just no good. You know the murder he did here; we can only guess what he did among my own ... among Terrans. Should he have a chance to go back and commit more crimes?" "I understand, George, the logic of it," said Klaft. "I meant ... it is not my place to say this ... but you seem unhappy." "Possibly," grunted Kinton wrily. "We, too, have criminals," said the aide, as gently as was possible in his clicking language. "We do not think it necessary to grieve for the pain they bring upon themselves." "No, I suppose not," sighed Kinton. "I ... it's just—" He looked up at the pointed visage, at the strange eyes regarding him sympathetically from beneath the sloping, purple-scaled forehead. "It's just that now I'm lonely ... again," he said. Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Space Science Fiction February 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Face value by Rhodri Marsden	"Face value", Rhodri Marsden, 2017. Face value When the BBC broadcast the recent documentary by Louis Theroux that looked back at the time he spent in the company of Jimmy Savile, there was disbelief across social media that no one had stepped in to stop Savile from committing his crimes. Some blamed the BBC, some blamed those in Savile's immediate circle, but others blamed a simple error of human judgment. "He literally couldn't look more like a paedophile," read one post – one of many to state a supposedly incontrovertible truth: that Savile's criminal tendencies could have been detected from the shape of his features, his eyes, his hair. Moreover, this has nothing to do with the benefit of hindsight and should have been picked up at the time. His looks, they suggested, were a moral indicator, with a wealth of compelling visual evidence to support the claim. We know that paedophiles, murderers and other violent criminals come in many shapes and sizes. If we knew nothing about their criminal history, some of their photos might even appear attractive. But the idea that someone's features betray their character is something rooted deep within us; it's the reason why certain photos perform well on dating apps, or why trustworthy-looking politicians might rack up votes. But how wrong are our hunches of perceived criminality? A recent paper, published by Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang of Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, claims to be the first to use machine learning and neural networks to attempt a fully automated inference of criminality from facial images, removing prejudice from the equation and testing the validity of our gut feelings. "What facial features influence the average Joe's impulsive and yet consensual judgments on social attributes?" they ask. Through a study of 1,856 images ("controlled for race, gender, age and facial expression") they claim to have established the validity of "automated, face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding this line of enquiry." In other words, they believe that they've found a relationship between looking like a criminal and actually being one. It's a claim that's been made many times over the years. Physiognomy, the 'science' of judging people by their appearance, was first theorised by the ancient Greeks in around the 5th century BC. Aristotle's pronouncement that "it is possible to infer character from features" led to a number of works relating to 'Physiognomica', a word derived from physis (nature), nomos (law) and (or) gnomon (judge or interpreter). All of Greek society, it was claimed, could benefit from this skill: it could assist with choosing an employee, a slave or a spouse, while its inherent vagueness made it intriguing to philosophers and useful for scientists who bent the theories to support their own beliefs. It became a recognised science in the Islamic world, and was used and taught in Europe throughout late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, despite nagging doubts among thinkers and physicians of the day. In the early 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci claimed not to "concern myself with false physiognomy, because these chimeras have no scientific foundation." Theories of physiognomy, however, would persist beyond the Renaissance. In 1586, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta published a book, De humana physiognomonia libri IIII, which established him as the 'father of Physiognomy'. Della Porta's thinking was based on the 'doctrine of signatures'; the idea that the appearance of plants and animals offers clues to their nature. For example, as one writer of the time suggested, walnuts are good for curing headaches because they're shaped a bit like a human head. The theories in della Porta's book were supported by dozens of detailed illustrations which, by comparing human faces to those of animals, suggested that they must surely share similar character traits. In the 17th century, Swiss poet Johann Caspar Lavater took della Porta's methodology and ran with it, commissioning artists to illustrate his popular Essays On Physiognomy – which, to the chagrin of his contemporary, the writer Hannah More, sold for "fifteen guineas a set… while in vain we boast that philosophy [has] broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition." Lavater's work was criticised for being ridden with bias (black faces rarely emerged well from his analyses) but he was right in one respect: "Whether they are or are not sensible of it," he wrote, "all men are daily influenced by physiognomy." Many studies have been done into our psychological response to faces, and it's clear that a so-called halo effect will inevitably work its magic. "Attractive people are regarded as better at everything," says Professor Peter Hancock, lecturer in Psychology at Stirling University. "And we can't shake that off because there's some truth to it. Good genes produce intelligent people, attractive faces, fit bodies, and we imagine that they're going to be good at everything else, too. We don't have good insight into our own behaviour. We tend to think we understand what we're doing, but we don't." Hancock describes attending a conference where one speaker showed a series of black faces and white faces to students (who were mostly white) and asked them what they thought the experiment was about. "They knew that he was trying to assess whether they would rate the black ones as more criminal," says Hancock. "But then they did!" We attribute social characteristics based on opinions we already hold about certain kinds of faces: whether they look unusual in some way, whether they resemble a partner, a family member or even ourselves, or perhaps have some other cultural association. Physiognomy ultimately stems from what Alexander Todorov, professor of psychology at Princeton University, calls an 'overgeneralisation hypothesis'. "People," he wrote, "use easily accessible facial information (eg an expression such as a smile, cues to gender and ethnic group) to make social attributions congruent with this information (eg a nice person)." In a social media age, the pictures we choose to represent ourselves online are a form of self-presentation driven by those social attributions and the knowledge that our pictures are being judged. Experiments at Princeton found that we take less than one tenth of a second to form an opinion of strangers from their pictures, and those opinions tend to stand firm even if we're exposed to those pictures for a longer period of time. That tendency to judge instantly gives rise to a number of selfie tropes that are deemed to elicit positive responses, particularly when it comes to photos on dating profiles: certain angles, particular expressions, minute adjustments of eyebrows and lips that might appear to be about narcissism and vanity, but are more about a fear of being incorrectly assessed. After all, false suppositions based on people's faces are hugely influential within society, and in extreme cases they can have a huge impact on people's lives. When retired teacher Christopher Jefferies was held by police in connection with the murder of Joanna Yeates in Bristol back in 2010, more than half a dozen newspapers gave his unusual appearance particular scrutiny and made assumptions accordingly, which in turn influenced public opinion. This culminated in substantial damages for defamation, two convictions for contempt of court and a painful ordeal for Jefferies, who was entirely innocent. This kind of deep-seated bias looms large throughout physiognomic works of the 19th and 20th centuries, from absurdities such as Vaught's Practical Character Reader of 1902 (handy if you want to find out what a "deceitful chin" looks like) to more inherently troubling volumes such as Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man. After performing a number of autopsies on criminals, the Italian physician claimed to have discovered a number of common characteristics, and it's worth listing them if only to establish the supposed criminality of pretty much everyone you know: Unusually short or tall height; small head, but large face; fleshy lips, but thin upper lip; protuberances on head and around ear; wrinkles on forehead and face; large sinus cavities or bumpy face; tattoos; receding hairline; large incisors; bushy eyebrows, tending to meet across nose; large eye sockets but deep-set eyes; beaked or flat nose; strong jaw line; small and sloping forehead; small or weak chin; thin neck; sloping shoulders but large chest; large, protruding ears; long arms; high cheek bones; pointy or snubbed fingers or toes. In a woeful misreading of Darwinian theory, Lombroso unwittingly founded the field of anthropological criminology, and more specifically the idea of the born criminal: a hereditary quality that posed a danger to society and must be rooted out. His theories became discredited during the 20th century, but the kind of bias displayed by Lombroso can still be found in legal systems across the world; studies show that people with stereotypically 'untrustworthy' faces tend to receive harsher treatment than those who don't. There's evidently some consensus over people's attitudes toward certain faces, but it doesn't follow that the consensus is correct. The only attributes that we're reasonably good at detecting, according to research done at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and later tested at the University of Stirling in 2007, are extroversion and conscientiousness. For other traits there's insufficient evidence that our hunches are correct, with anomalies explained by our evolved aversion to 'ugliness', established links between broader faces and powerful physiques, or cultural associations with certain demographics which are reinforced with nagging regularity by newspapers, books, television and film. Data-driven studies, based upon huge quantities of facial data, would seem to offer the final word on this. Since 2005, computational models have used various techniques to test for links between social attributes and facial features, resulting in suggestions that our faces can betray, for example, political leanings, sexual orientation and criminality. One BBC Future article from 2015 even describes the 'discipline' of physiognomy as 'gaining credibility'. But Todorov details many problems with these studies, pointing out the challenging nature of doing such experiments with sufficient rigour – not least because different images of the same people can prompt wildly differing results. The aforementioned study at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with its enthusiastic, data-driven analyses of such questions as "What features of a human face betray its owner's propensity for crimes?" prompted a wave of press coverage. The vision outlined in these articles is of an unethical dystopia where neural networks can assess our faces and establish a likely score for criminality – but Todorov is scathing about this paper, too. "The main problem is the sampling of the images," he says. "There is not enough information about the [nature of] the images of the people who were convicted. Second, clearly, there are huge differences between the two samples [of convicts and non-convicts] [in terms of] education and socio-economic status." In other words, your appearance is affected by the kind of life you've led, so the classifiers within the computer program are simply distinguishing between different demographics rather than detecting a propensity for criminal behaviour. Todorov is also wary of these classifiers misidentifying more 'innocent' people than identifying actual criminals, and accuracy is a concern shared by Peter Hancock. "Networks don't assess faces in the same way that we do," he says. "One of our systems, which is a deep network, has a recognition engine which generates an ordered list of how similar various faces are. And sometimes you get good matches – but other times you look at them and say, well, it's the wrong race! To humans they look completely different. And that underlines the fact that the networks are working in a different sort of way, and actually you don't really know how they're working. They're the ultimate black box." This isn't to say that the use of big data, and particularly the use of composite imagery (digitally blending together certain types of faces) doesn't give us useful information and fascinating correlations. "You can, for example, take a given face and use computer software to make it look more or less trustworthy," says Hancock. "I remember a colleague playing with this and he made a less trustworthy version of George W Bush – and how shifty did he look! I'm surprised that they're not using these techniques in political advertising, because you couldn't tell that anything had been done [to the picture], but when you look at it you think 'I wouldn't trust him'." The revitalisation of the theory of physiognomy by the Shanghai students is, according to Todorov, deeply problematic on a theoretical level. "Are we back to Lombroso's theory," he asks, "that criminals were anomalous creatures, evolutionary degenerates? How does one become criminal, and what role do various life forces play into this? There are people making claims that you just need to look at the face to predict personality and behaviour, but many of these people have not given much thought to their underlying assumptions." While it's true that we judge books by their covers, covers are more than just faces; we piece together all kinds of cues from people to form our impressions of them. Jimmy Savile's appearance was unusual by any standards, but we absorbed a great deal of information about him over the years that will have influenced our opinions – not least from the original Louis Theroux programme from 2000 that was reexamined in that recent BBC documentary. Savile's vague resemblance to the Child Catcher from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is convenient but ultimately misleading, and the way it reinforces the idea of what a paedophile might 'look like' is unfortunate; not least because it helps to sustain a low-level belief in the 'science' of physiognomy, despite its tendency to crumble under the slightest cross examination. This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.
February Strawberries by Harmon, Jim	"February Strawberries", Jim Harmon, 1972. FEBRUARY STRAWBERRIES By JIM HARMON How much is the impossible worth? [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Linton lay down his steel fork beside the massively solid transparency of the restaurant water glass. "Isn't that Rogers Snead at that table?" he heard himself say stupidly. Howell, the man across the table from him, looked embarrassed without looking. "Not at all. Somebody who looks like him. Twin brother. You know how it is. Snead's dead, don't you remember?" Linton remembered. Howell had to know that he would remember. What were they trying to pull on him? "The man who isn't Snead is leaving," Linton said, describing the scene over Howell's shoulder. "If that's Snead's brother, I might catch him to pay my respects." "No," Howell said, "I wouldn't do that." "Snead came to Greta's funeral. It's the least I could do." "I wouldn't. Probably no relation to Snead at all. Somebody who looks like him." "He's practically running," Linton said. "He almost ran out of the restaurant." "Who? Oh, the man who looked like Snead, you mean." "Yes," Linton said. A thick-bodied man at the next table leaned his groaning chair back intimately against Linton's own chair. "That fellow who just left looked like a friend of yours, huh?" the thick man said. "Couldn't have been him, though," Linton answered automatically. "My friend's dead." The thick man rocked forward and came down on all six feet. He threw paper money on the table as if he were disgusted with it. He plodded out of the place quickly. Howell breathed in deeply and sucked back Linton's attention. "Now you've probably got old Snead into trouble." "Snead's dead," Linton said. "Oh, well, 'dead,'" Howell replied. "What do you say it like that for?" Linton demanded angrily. "The man's dead. Plain dead. He's not Sherlock Holmes or the Frankenstein Monster—there's no doubt or semantic leeway to the thing." "You know how it is," Howell said. Linton had thought he had known how death was. He had buried his wife, or rather he had watched the two workmen scoop and shove dirt in on the sawdust-fresh pine box that held the coffin. He had known what he sincerely felt to be a genuine affection for Greta. Even after they had let him out of the asylum as cured, he still secretly believed he had known a genuine affection for her. But it didn't seem he knew about death at all. Linton felt that his silence was asking Howell by this time. "I don't know, mind you," Howell said, puffing out tobacco smoke, "but I suppose he might have been resurrected." "Who by?" Linton asked, thinking: God? "The Mafia, I guess. Who knows who runs it?" "You mean, somebody has invented a way to bring dead people back to life?" Linton said. He knew, of course, that Howell did not mean that. Howell meant that some people had a system of making it appear that a person had died in order to gain some illegal advantage. But by saying something so patently ridiculous, Linton hoped to bring the contradicting truth to the surface immediately. "An invention? I guess that's how it is," Howell agreed. "I don't know much about people like that. I'm an honest businessman." "But it's wonderful," Linton said, thinking his immediate thoughts. "Wonderful! Why should a thing like that be illegal? Why don't I know about it?" "Sh-h," Howell said uneasily. "This is a public place." "I don't understand," Linton said helplessly. "Look, Frank, you can't legalize a thing like resurrection," Howell said with feigned patience. "There are strong religious convictions to consider. The undertakers have a lobby. I've heard they got spies right in the White House, ready to assassinate if they have to. Death is their whole life. You got to realize that." "That's not enough. Not nearly enough." "Think of all the problems it would cause. Insurance, for one thing. Overpopulation. Birth control is a touchy subject. They'd have to take it up if everybody got resurrected when they died, wouldn't they?" "But what do they do about it? Against it?" "There are a lot of fakes and quacks in the resurrection business. When the cops find out about a place, they break in, smash all the equipment and arrest everybody in sight. That's about all they can do. The charges, if any, come under general vice classification." "I don't understand," Linton complained. "Why haven't I heard about it?" "They didn't talk much about white slavery in Victorian England. I read an article in Time the other day that said 'death' was our dirty word, not sex. You want to shock somebody, you tell him, 'You're going to be dead someday,' not anything sexual. You know how it is. The opposite of 'live' these days is 'video-taped.'" "I see," Linton said. He tried to assimilate it. Of course he had, he reminded himself, been out of touch for some time. It might be true. Then again, they might be trying to trick him. They used to do that to see if he was really well. But the temptation was too strong. "Tell me, Howell, where could I find a resurrectionist?" Howell looked away. "Frank, I don't have anything to do with that kind of people and if you're smart, you'll not either." Linton's fingers imprinted the linen. "Damn you, Howell, you tell me!" Howell climbed to his feet hurriedly. "I take you out to dinner to console you over the loss of your wife a half a year ago, and to make you feel welcome back to the society of your fellows after being in the hospital for a nervous breakdown. I do all that, and for thanks, you yell at me and curse me. You kooks are all alike!" Howell threw money on the table with the same kind of disinterest as the thick-set man and stalked out. I've got to hurry too, Linton thought. It's Resurrection Day! The doctor fluttered his hands and chirped about the office. "Well, well, Mr. Linton, we understand you've been causing disturbances." "Not really," Linton said modestly. "Come, come," the doctor chided. "You started riots in two places, attempted to bribe an officer. That's disturbing, Mr. Linton, very disturbing." "I was only trying to find out something," Linton maintained. "They could have told me. Everybody seems to know but me." The doctor clucked his tongue. "Let's not think any such thing. People don't know more than you do." Linton rubbed his shoulder. "That cop knew more about Judo holds than I did." "A few specific people know a few specific things you don't. But let me ask you, Mr. Linton, could Einstein bake a pie?" "I don't know. Who the hell ever wasted Einstein's time asking him a thing like that?" "People who want to know the answers to questions have to ask them. You can find out anything by asking the right questions of the right person at the right time." Linton stared suspiciously. "Do you know where I can find a resurrectionist?" "I am a resurrectionist." "But the policeman brought me to you!" "Well, that's what you paid him to do, wasn't it? Did you think a policeman would just steal your money? Cynics—all you young people are cynics." Linton scooted forward on the insultingly cold metal chair and really looked at the doctor for the first time. "Doctor, can you really resurrect the dead?" "Will you stop being cynical? Of course I can!" "Doctor, I'm beginning to believe in you," Linton said, "but tell me, can you resurrect the long dead?" "Size has nothing to do with it." "No, my wife has been dead a long time. Months." "Months?" The doctor snapped those weeks away with his fingers. "It could be years. Centuries. It's all mathematics, my boy. I need only one fragment of the body and my computers can compute what the rest of it was like and recreate it. It's infallible. Naturally there is a degree of risk involved." "Infallible risk, yes," Linton murmured. "Could you go to work right away?" "First, I must follow an ancient medical practice. I must bleed you." Linton grasped the situation immediately. "You mean you want money. You realize I've just got out of an institution...." "I've often been in institutions myself, for alcoholism, narcotics addiction and more." "What a wonderful professional career," Linton said, when he couldn't care less. "Oh, yes—yes, indeed. But I didn't come out broke." "Neither did I," Linton said hastily. "I invested in shifty stocks, faltering bonds, and while I was away they sank to rock bottom." "Then—" "When they hit rock bottom, they bounced up. If I hadn't found you, I would have been secure for the rest of my lonely, miserable life." "All that's ended now," the doctor assured him. "Now we must go dig up the corpse. The female corpse, eh?" Resurrection Day! "Doctor," Linton whispered, "my mind is singing with battalions of choirs. I hope that doesn't sound irreverent to you." The doctor stroked his oily palms together. "Oh, but it does. Beautifully." The certificate to allow reburial in Virginia hadn't been impossible to obtain. The doctor had taken the body and Linton's fortune and fed them both into the maw of his calculators, and by means of the secret, smuggled formulae, Greta would be cybernetically reborn. Linton shook his head. It seemed impossible. But Greta opened the olive-drab slab of metal of the door to the doctor's inner-inner sanctum and walked out into the medicinal cold fluorescent lighting. It wasn't fair at all, Linton thought. He should have had some time to prepare himself. Greta lifted her arms, stretching the white smock over the lines of her body. "Darling!" she said. "Greta!" he said, feeling a slight revulsion but repressing it. No doubt he would be able to adjust to her once having been dead the same way he had learned to accept the, to him, distasteful duty of kissing her ears the way she enjoyed. Greta swirled across the room and folded her arms across his shoulders. She kissed his cheek. "It's so wonderful to be back. This calls for a celebration. We must see Nancy, Oscar, Johnny, all our old friends." "Yes," he said, his heart lurching for her sad ignorance. "But tell me—how was it being away ?" The curves and angles of her flesh changed their positions against his Ivy dacron. Her attitude altered. "I can't remember," she said. "I can't really remember anything. Not really. My memories are ghosts...." "Now, now," Linton said, "we mustn't get excited. You've been through a trial." She accepted the verdict. She pulled away and touched at her hair. It was the same hair, black as evil, contrasting with her inner purity. Of course it would be; it hadn't changed even in the grave. He remembered the snaky tendrils of it growing out of the water-logged casket. "I must see all our old friends," Greta persisted. "Helen and Johnny...." "My darling," he said gently, "about Johnny—" Her fine black brows made Gothic arches. "Yes? What about Johnny?" "It was a terrible accident right after—that is, about five months ago. He was killed." "Killed?" Greta repeated blankly. "Johnny Gorman was killed?" "Traffic accident. Killed instantly." "But Johnny was your friend, your best friend. Why didn't you have him resurrected the same way you did me?" "Darling, resurrection is a risky business and an expensive one. You have to pay premium prices for strawberries in February. I no longer have the money to pay for a resurrection of Johnny." Greta turned her back to him. "It's just as well. You shouldn't bring back Johnny to this dream of life, give him a ghost of mind and the photograph of a soul. It's monstrous. No one should do that. No one. But you're sure you haven't the money to do it?" "No," Linton said. "I'm sold out. I've borrowed on my insurance to the hilt. It won't pay any more until I'm buried, and then, of course, you can resurrect me." "Of course," Greta said. She sighed. "Poor Johnny. He was such a good friend of yours. You must miss him. I'm so sorry for you." "I have you," he said with great simplicity. "Frank," she said, "you should see that place in there. There are foaming acid baths, great whale-toothed disposals, barrels of chemicals to quench death and smother decay. It's perfect ." "It sounds carnal," he said uneasily. "No, dear, it's perfect for some things that have to be done." Her eyes flashed around the doctor's office and settled somewhere, on something. Linton followed the direction of Greta's gaze and found only an ashtray stand, looking vaguely like a fanatic's idol to a heathen religion on a pedestal. Greta pounced on the stand, hefted it at the base and ran toward him with it over her head. Linton leaped aside and Greta hit the edge of the desk instead of him. Brain damage, he concluded nervously. Cell deterioration. Greta raised it again and he caught her wrists high over her head. She writhed against him provocatively. "Frank, I'm sorry, dear, but I have to have that insurance money. It's hell!" Linton understood immediately. He felt foolish, humiliated. All that money! He had resurrected a gold ring that had turned his knuckles green. No one must ever know. Linton twisted the stand away from his wife and watched her face in some appalled form of satisfaction as it registered horror and acceptance of the crumpled metal disk falling toward it. He split her head open and watched her float to the floor. Linton was surprised at the fine wire mesh just below the skin and those shiny little tabs that looked like pictures of transistors in institutional advertising. He knelt beside the body and poked into the bleeding, smoldering wreckage. Yes, it seemed they had to automate and modify the bodies somewhat in resurrection. They couldn't chemically revive the old corpse like pouring water on a wilted geranium. Or— Did they use the old bodies at all? What were all those acid baths for if the bodies were used? Didn't the resurrectionists just destroy the old corpses and make androids, synthetic creatures, to take their place? But it didn't matter. Not a bit. She had thought she was his wife, sharing her viewpoint down to the finest detail, and he had thought she was his wife. It was what you thought was real that made it so, not the other way around. "I've killed my wife!" Linton called, rising from his knees, stretching his hands out to something. The pain stung him to sleep—a pain in his neck like a needle that left a hole big enough for a camel to pass through and big enough for him to follow the camel in his turn. He opened his eyes to the doctor's spotless, well-ordered office. The doctor looked down at him consolingly. "You'll have to go back, Mr. Linton. But they'll cure you. You'll be cured of ever thinking your wife was brought back to life and that you killed her all over again." "Do you really think so, Doctor?" Linton asked hopefully.
Folie ? by Jim Holt	"Folie ?", Jim Holt, 1998. Folie ࠎ People with high IQs tend to be nearsighted. This is not because they read a lot or stare at computer screens too much. That common-sense hypothesis has been discredited by research. Rather, it is a matter of genetics. The same genes that tend to elevate IQ also tend to affect the shape of the eyeball in a way that leads to myopia. This relationship--known in genetics as "pleiotropy"--seems to be completely accidental, a quirk of evolution. Could there be a similar pleiotropy between madness and mathematics? Reading this absolutely fascinating biography by Sylvia Nasar, an economics writer for the New York Times , I began to wonder. Its subject, John Nash, is a mathematical genius who went crazy at the age of 30 and then, after several decades of flamboyant lunacy, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for something he had discovered as a graduate student. (He is now about to turn 70.) Nash is among the latest in a long and distinguished line of mathematicians--stretching back to that morbid paranoiac, Isaac Newton--who have been certifiably insane during parts of their lives. Just in the last 100 years or so, most of the heroic figures in the foundations of mathematics have landed in mental asylums or have died by their own hand. The greatest of them, Kurt Gödel, starved himself to death in the belief that his colleagues were putting poison in his food. Of the two pioneers of game theory--the field in which Nash garnered his Nobel--one, Ernst Zermelo, was hospitalized for psychosis. The other, John Von Neumann, may not have been clinically insane, but he did serve as the real-life model for the title character in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove . So maybe there is an accidental, pleiotropic connection between madness and mathematics. Or maybe it isn't so accidental. Mathematicians are, after all, people who fancy that they commune with perfect Platonic objects--abstract spaces, infinite numbers, zeta functions--that are invisible to normal humans. They spend their days piecing together complicated, scrupulously logical tales about these hallucinatory entities, which they believe are vastly more important than anything in the actual world. Is this not a kind of a folie à n (where n equals the number of pure mathematicians worldwide)? ABeautiful Mind reveals quite a lot about the psychic continuum leading from mathematical genius to madness. It is also a very peculiar redemption story: how three decades of raging schizophrenia, capped by an unexpected Nobel Prize, can transmute a cruel shit into a frail but decent human being. As a boy growing up in the hills of West Virginia, Nash enjoyed torturing animals and building homemade bombs with two other unpopular youngsters, one of whom was accidentally killed by a blast. (Given Nash's childhood keenness for explosives and his later penchant for sending odd packages to prominent strangers through the mail, it's a wonder the FBI never got on to him as a Unabomber suspect.) He made his way to Carnegie Tech, where he was a classmate of Andy Warhol's, and thence to Princeton--the world capital of mathematics at the time--at the age of 20. In sheer appearance, this cold and aloof Southerner stood out from his fellow math prodigies. A "beautiful dark-haired young man," "handsome as a god," he was 6 feet 1 inch tall, with broad shoulders, a heavily muscled chest (which he liked to show off with see-through Dacron shirts), a tapered waist, and "rather limp and beautiful hands" accentuated by long fingernails. Within two years of entering Princeton, Nash had framed and proved the most important proposition in the theory of games. Mathematically, this was no big deal. Game theory was a somewhat fashionable pursuit for mathematicians in those postwar days, when it looked as if it might do for military science and economics what Newton's calculus had done for physics. But they were bored with it by the early 1950s. Economists, after a few decades of hesitation, picked it up in the '80s and made it a cornerstone of their discipline. Agame is just a conflict situation with a bunch of participants, or "players." The players could be poker pals, oligopolists competing to corner a market, or nuclear powers trying to dominate each other. Each player has several strategy options to choose from. What Nash showed was that in every such game there is what has become known as a "Nash equilibrium": a set of strategies, one for each player, such that no player can improve his situation by switching to a different strategy. His proof was elegant but slight. A game is guaranteed to have a Nash equilibrium, it turns out, for the same reason that in a cup of coffee that is being stirred, at least one coffee molecule must remain absolutely still. Both are direct consequences of a "fixed-point theorem" in the branch of mathematics known as topology. This theorem says that for any continuous rearrangement of a domain of things, there will necessarily exist at least one thing in that domain that will remain unchanged--the "fixed point." Nash found a way of applying this to the domain of all game strategies so that the guaranteed fixed point was the equilibrium for the game--clever, but the earlier topological theorem did all the work. Still, for an economics theorem, that counts as profound. Economists have been known to win Nobel Prizes for rediscovering theorems in elementary calculus. Nash's breakthrough in game theory got him recruited by the Rand Corp., which was then a secretive military think tank in Santa Monica (its name is an acronym for "research and development"). However, the achievement did not greatly impress his fellow mathematicians. To do that, Nash, on a wager, disposed of a deep problem that had baffled the profession since the 19 th century: He showed that any Riemannian manifold possessing a special kind of "smoothness" can be embedded in Euclidean space. Manifolds, one must understand, are fairly wild and exotic beasts in mathematics. A famous example is the Klein bottle, a kind of higher-dimensional Moebius strip whose inside is somehow the same as its outside. Euclidean space, by contrast, is orderly and bourgeois. To demonstrate that "impossible" manifolds could be coaxed into living in Euclidean space is counterintuitive and pretty exciting. Nash did this by constructing a bizarre set of inequalities that left his fellow mathematicians thoroughly befuddled. That about marked the end of Nash's career as a mathematical genius. The next year, he was expelled from Rand as a security risk after local police caught him engaging in a lewd act in a public men's room near Muscle Beach. At MIT, where he had been given a teaching job, he hardly bothered with undergraduates and humiliated graduate students by solving their thesis problems. He carried on affairs with several men and a mistress, who bore him a son he refused to lift a finger to support. His cruel streak extended to the woman he married, a beautiful physics student named Alicia who was awed by this "genius with a penis." Once, at a math department picnic, he threw her to the ground and put his foot on her throat. All the while, Nash was showing an intense interest in the state of Israel--often a sign of incipient insanity, at least in a non-Jew. Geniuses slipping into madness also tend to disrobe in public (I learned this from a volume on chess prodigies, who have a proclivity for disrobing on public buses). Nash showed up for an MIT New Year's Eve party clad only in a diaper. And then, of course, there was the New York Times , that old mainstay of psychotic delusion--Nash thought aliens were sending him encrypted messages through its pages (come to think of it, that could explain the Times ' odd prose). When the big breakdown came, it was properly mathematical. Fearing his powers might be waning as he approached 30, Nash decided he would solve the most important unresolved problem in mathematics: the Riemann Zeta conjecture. This bold guess about the solutions to a certain complex-valued infinite series (made by the incomparable Bernhard Riemann in 1859) would, if true, have far-reaching implications for the structure of the most basic of entities, the natural numbers. Before an eager audience of hundreds of mathematicians at Columbia University in 1959, Nash presented his results: a farrago of mathematical lunacy. "Nash's talk wasn't good or bad," said one mathematician present. "It was horrible." Some weeks before, Nash had declined a University of Chicago offer of an endowed chair on the grounds that he was scheduled to become the emperor of Antarctica. Such ebullitions of insanity continued for three decades, becoming more rococo. Nash went to Europe to form a world government, attempting repeatedly to renounce his U.S. citizenship. He did stints in tony asylums, hanging out with Robert Lowell, and in dismal state institutions, where he was subjected daily to insulin-induced comas. He believed himself to be a Palestinian refugee called C.O.R.P.S.E.; a great Japanese shogun, C1423; Esau; the prince of peace; l'homme d'Or ; a mouse. As Nasar observes, his delusions were weirdly inconsistent. He felt himself simultaneously to be the epicenter of the universe--"I am the left foot of God on earth"--and an abject, persecuted petitioner. He returned to the Princeton area in the 1970s, where he was taken care of by the long-suffering Alicia, now his ex-wife (she supported him partly through computer programming, partly on welfare). He haunted the campus, where students began to call him "the Phantom." They would come to class in the morning to find runic messages he had written on the blackboard at night: "Mao Tse-Tung's Bar Mitzvah was 13 years, 13 months, and 13 days after Brezhnev's circumcision." Then, in the '90s, inexplicably, the voices in Nash's head began to quiet down. (Nasar gives an interesting account of just how rare such remissions are among those diagnosed with schizophrenia.) At the same time, the Nobel committee in Stockholm was deciding it was about time to award the prize in economics for game theory. Dare they make a known madman into a laureate? What might he say to King Gustav at the ceremony? Nasar shows her mettle as a reporter here by penetrating the veil of secrecy surrounding the Nobel and revealing the back-stage machinations for and against Nash's candidacy. He did fine at the ceremony, by the way. Indeed, he has evolved into a "very fine person," according to his ex-wife--humbled by years of psychotic helplessness, buoyed up by the intellectual world's highest accolade. The Nobel has a terrible effect on the productivity of many recipients, paralyzing them with greatness. For Nash it was pure therapy. Then, too, there is the need to take care of his son by Alicia, who--pleiotropically?--inherited both his mathematical promise and his madness. (His older son, the one born out of wedlock, got neither.) The Nobel money bought a new boiler for the little bungalow across from the Princeton train station inhabited by this shaky menage. (When Vanity Fair published an excerpt of A Beautiful Mind , Nash probably became the only person ever featured in that magazine to live in a house clad in "insulbrick.") The eeriest thing I discovered while reading this superb book was that Nash and I came within a couple of years of crossing paths in a Virginia mental hospital. I was actually working there, but psychiatric aides pick up so many mannerisms of the patients that it's hard to tell the difference after a while. A few years after that I found myself in a mathematics Ph.D. program. You'll be glad to know that I'm in remission.
Going off track by Christopher Beanland	"Going off track", Christopher Beanland, 2016. Going off track Birmingham's airport isn't like other airports. Right at the north-western end of runway 15 there's a country park and a row of benches. You'll see families picnicking here, enjoying the subsonic spectacle of planes from Brussels, Bucharest and Barcelona roaring just feet overhead on their final approach. Birmingham isn't like other British cities – it fetishises the technical and promotes the new. It is unstinting in its thrall to evolution and unsentimental about erasing past versions of the future in its rush to create new ones; the comprehensive 1960s vision of the city which itself swept away a century's Victoriana is currently being meticulously taken apart concrete slab by concrete slab. The city's motto is 'Forward'. When you get to a certain age you realise how much more visions of the future say about the present they're concocted in than the actual future they purport to show us hurtling towards. A track in the air, sitting on top of concrete legs that couldn't look any more like rational new humans striding into a technocratic promised land if they tried, will always evoke a kind of nostalgia for the 20th century. You think of the SAFEGE monorail depicted in Truffaut's 1966 film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451; and of regional news reporters with greasy barnets delivering excited pieces to camera about big plans. Today, on the elevated track that gambols over windswept car parks and threads through cheap motels between Birmingham's airport terminal and the railway station, a simple, ski resort-style people-mover system ferries passengers from plane to train. Three decades ago it was so much more exciting: the world's first commercial maglev, or magnetic levitation, system ran along here. Opened in 1984, the Birmingham Maglev came at the very tail end of a trente glorieuses for British transport technology and, more broadly, European engineering; an era that promised so much yet eventually bequeathed so many relics and ruins. The modernism of the 20th century, expressed especially in architecture and engineering, seemed like nothing less than the founding of a new order. Progress was to be continual, unstoppable and good. Yet today the physical and philosophical advances are being gradually taken apart and retracted, as if we'd woken up sweating and feared we'd somehow overreached ourselves. When the Birmingham Maglev was shuttered in 1995, one of the cars was dumped in a hedge near the A45. Furniture maker and transport enthusiast Andy Jones splashed out a mere £100 for it on eBay in 2011 (although, he says, "it cost me £400 to get it out of the hedge!"). Now it sits in a field behind Jones's house in Burton Green, a couple of miles east of the airport in the rolling Warwickshire countryside. I reminisce to Jones about my boyhood excitement for the Birmingham Maglev, about the silly enthusiasm I felt when I got to go on it in the late 80s. He shared the experience. "I used it in the old days too," he says. "I'd ride backwards and forwards on it, I thought it was smashing." "The problem was, it was the end of one lot of technology. The first time it snowed, all hell broke loose! It had a ratcheting mechanism, a primitive form of winch. Beneath that was the hydraulic system. It was lifted up by the magnetic field (under the [car] are steel sheets). But you'd use the hydraulic system to pull it back up on to the system if it broke." Bob Gwynne, associate curator of collections and research at the National Rail Museum in York, says: "British Rail's Derby Research Centre, founded in 1964, was arguably the world's leading rail research facility when it was in full operation. An understanding of the wheel and rail interface comes from there, as does the first tilting train, a new railbus, high-speed freight wagons, computer-controlled interlocking of track and signal, the first successful maglev and many other things." Gwynne has got the second of the three Birmingham Maglev cars at the museum. The maglev was a development that spun out of this research at Derby, and developed in a joint project with a private consortium that included the now-defunct General Electric Company. The maglev cars were built by Metro Cammell at its factory four miles from the airport in Washwood Heath. It was the same place many tube carriages came from, and if you look down the doors on Piccadilly line carriages as you get on and off, you can see a cheery 1973 plaque reminding travellers of this fact (the cheeky Brummie assumption here being that London commuters always look at the floor). But the British maglev never really took off. Tim Dunn, transport historian and co-presenter of the BBC's Trainspotting Live, explains why. "The early 80s was still a time of great British national-funded engineering," he says. "Success at Birmingham Airport would have been a great advert for British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) to sell maglev internationally. (Remember that BREL was always trying to sell its technology overseas, which is why several Pacer trains, developed on bus bodies, were sold to Iran.) Birmingham's Maglev only lasted 11 years: replacement parts were getting hard to obtain for what was really a unique system. Buses took over, and eventually a cable-hauled SkyRail people-mover was installed atop the piers. That's not as exciting for people like me, who like the idea of being whisked in a hovertrain pushed along by magnets. But then our real transport future always has been a pretty crap approximation of our dreams." You don't have to look far to find other relics of this white-hot time when post-war confidence begat all sorts of oddities. There's the test track for the French Aerotrain outside Orleans – a rocket-powered prototype that never made it to middle age. And in Emsland, the German conglomerate Transrapid built a 32km supersized test track for their maglev, which seemed to be on course for success. A variation of this train shuttles passengers from Shanghai to the airport, and the plan was to copy the same model in Munich, and even build an intercity line from Berlin to Hamburg. Today the test track stands idle awaiting its fate, while the Transrapid vehicles are up for auction; a museum in Erfurt is trying to save the latter from the scrapyard. Little remains of Germany's other maglev, the M-Bahn (or Magnetbahn), a short-lived shuttle service that ran in West Berlin from 1989-91 connecting stations whose service had been previously severed by the Berlin Wall. With the Wall gone, the old U-Bahn service was reinstated and the M-Bahn, which had run along its tracks, disappeared from the capital of the new Germany. "The problem with high-speed maglev like Transrapid in Germany," says Tim Dunn, "is that it doesn't really stack up against high-speed rail. It's more expensive, it's lower capacity, it's more complex. There's a gap in the market, but there's no market in the gap. What is needed generally in mass transit is more capacity, rather than super high speed." But back in the post-war period, we thought we could have everything. Britain's tertiary science departments expanded. We built the Comet jetliner, then Concorde; and concrete buildings to house them that the world envied, like the huge Heathrow hangar that Sir Owen Williams, primarily an engineer, designed for BOAC's planes; and architect James Stirling's much-lauded engineering faculty at Leicester University. Yet a little-known footnote from this period involves the interaction of magnets in high-speed train design with that other British invention that prevailed for a while but then seemed to peter out: the hovercraft. "We have always wanted to get rid of wheels," says Railworld's Brian Pearce. "One invention [to this end] was Chris Cockerell's hovercraft." At the same time, maglev technology was being developed by the British inventor, Eric Laithwaite, who was working on the linear induction motor at Imperial College when he found a way for it to produce lift as well as forward thrust. The two systems were combined to form a tracked hovercraft. "So along came RTV31," says Pearce. "The train rode along the track on a cushion of air created by big electric fans. Not very energy efficient! The forward motion was created by a linear motor, which moved along rather than going round and round." RTV31 could, like France's Aérotrain or the German Transrapid system, have been a viable new form of intercity travel. But funding was insufficient throughout the project and eventually Britain pulled the plug. In February 1973, a week after the first test RTV31 hovertrain reached 157km/h, the project was abandoned as part of wider budget cuts. There's an eerie reminder of the RTV31 in the big-skied, liminal lands of East Anglia. The train was tested on a track that ran up alongside the New Bedford River at Earith in Cambridgeshire: appropriate, because this 'river' is actually a supreme piece of man-made engineering from an earlier age, a dead-straight dyke dug by Dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden to drain the fens in the 1600s. The RTV31 test-track piers endure as further reminders of a past future. The vehicle itself sits not far away at Peterborough's Railworld, where its colourful exterior is strikingly visible to today's travellers on the East Coast Main Line from London to Scotland. Its neighbour is the final redundant Birmingham Maglev car. In the far east, attitudes to maglev are different. Japan began maglev testing at roughly the same time as Britain in 1962 and is today building the longest, fastest maglev in the world. It will run mostly in tunnel, at 500km/h, taking a shocking 40 minutes to travel the 300km between Tokyo and Nagoya. It's been christened the Chūō Shinkansen: just another, faster type of bullet train for the central districts. Japan's system is a superconducting maglev, different to the Birmingham and German systems. It uses superconducting coils in the train, which cause repulsion to move the train forward. The Japanese also use wheels for the vehicle to 'land' on the track at low speeds. It's understandable that most serious interest in maglev deployment is in Asia – Japan, China, India," says John Harding, former chief maglev scientist for the US Department of Transportation. "This is understandable wherever passenger traffic is huge and can dilute the enormous capital cost. (Maglev is indisputably more expensive upfront than high-speed rail.) Even for California, which has huge air passenger traffic between LA and San Francisco, there is nowhere near enough demand to justify maglev; probably not enough to justify high-speed rail. But the Chūō Shinkansen will probably be the greatest success for maglev." The first link between Tokyo and Nagoya is scheduled to begin operation in 2027. Then the Chinese are proposing a 600km/h system between Shanghai and Beijing. So there are still some people dreaming big. The latest iteration of this is of course Hyperloop, whose vacuum tube technology harks back to another British engineering innovation: the atmospheric railway, which was developed by Henry Pinkus, the Samuda Brothers and eventually by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This technology used varying air pressure to suck trains up a track in a partial vacuum. Lines popped up in London, Dublin and most notably Brunel's South Devon Railway, where the pipes were plagued by nibbling rats but the pumping stations survive as relics of Victorian visionaries. If those systems looked like something from HG Wells, with men in top hats smoking cigars, then Hyperloop, with its internet age funding from Tesla founder Elon Musk, could well end up appearing as a very 2010s caper when we look at back on it from the distance of decades. Or maybe Hyperloop will revolutionise travel like maglev was supposed to. Back in Burton Green, Andy Jones's maglev car lies in limbo. "I'd like to build a platform around it," he says, "turn it into a playhouse for the grandchildren perhaps? A couple of people want to take it away and turn it into a cafe." Perversely perhaps, its fate may be decided by another type of transport technology: more conventional high speed rail. The route for the much-disputed High Speed 2 line from London to Birmingham slices right through the field where the maglev car sits. In the 2000s the UK Ultraspeed proposal was floated to link London, Birmingham, the North and Scotland by maglev. It never materialised. HS2 was the eventual successor to the Ultraspeed plan, though a less futuristic one. Jones has another idea for his forward moving relic: "Maybe I'll turn it into viewing platform, so you could watch HS2's outdated technology." This article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.
Goings On About Town by Jim Holt	"Goings On About Town", Jim Holt, 1998. Goings On About Town One of the funniest moments in Brendan Gill's 1975 memoir, Here at "The New Yorker ," comes during a luncheon at the now vanished Ritz in Manhattan. At the table are Gill; William Shawn, then editor of The New Yorker ; and the reclusive English writer Henry Green. Green's new novel, Loving , has just received a very favorable review in The New Yorker . Shawn--"with his usual hushed delicacy of speech and manner"--inquires of the novelist whether he could possibly reveal what prompted the creation of such an exquisite work. Green obliges. "I once asked an old butler in Ireland what had been the happiest times of his life," he says. "The butler replied, 'Lying in bed on Sunday morning, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers.' " This was not the explanation Shawn was expecting, Gill tells us. "Discs of bright red begin to burn in his cheeks." Was Shawn blushing out of prudishness, as we are meant to infer? This was, after all, a man renowned for his retiring propriety, a man who sedulously barred anything smacking of the salacious--from lingerie ads to four-letter words--from the magazine he stewarded from 1952 until 1987, five years before his death. But after reading these two new memoirs about Shawn, I wonder. "He longed for the earthiest and wildest kinds of sexual adventures," Lillian Ross discloses in hers, adding that he lusted after Hannah Arendt, Evonne Goolagong, and Madonna. As for Ved Mehta, he reports that Shawn's favorite thing to watch on television was "people dancing uninhibitedly" ( Soul Train , one guesses). I suspect Shawn did not blush at the "cunty fingers" remark out of prudery. He blushed because it had hit too close to home. Both these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, "Bill" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. "We had indeed become one," she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, "I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing." During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. Now, Ross seems like a nice lady, and I certainly have nothing against adultery, which I hear is being carried on in the best circles these days. But the public flaunting of adultery--especially when spouses and children are around--well, it brings out the bourgeois in me. It also made me feel funny about William Shawn, whom I have always regarded as a great man. I loved his New Yorker . The prose it contained--the gray stuff around the cartoons--was balm for the soul: unfailingly clear, precise, logical, and quietly stylish. So what if the articles were occasionally boring? It was a sweet sort of boredom, serene and restorative, not at all like the kind induced by magazines today, which is more akin to nervous exhaustion. Besides, the moral tone of the magazine was almost wholly admirable--it was ahead of the pack on Hiroshima, civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the environment--and this was very much Shawn's doing. I do not like to think of him in an illicit love nest, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers. Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was "a man who grieved over all living creatures" is forgivable hyperbole; but later to add that he "mourned" for Si Newhouse when Newhouse unceremoniously fired him in 1987 (a couple of years after buying the magazine)--well, that's a bit much. Even Jesus had his limits. Elsewhere, Ross refers to her lover's "very powerful masculinity," only to note on the very next page that "if he suffered a paper cut on a finger and saw blood, he would come into my office, looking pale." She declares that "Bill was incapable of engendering a cliché, in deed as well as in word." But then she puts the most toe-curling clichés into his mouth: "Why am I more ghost than man?" Or: "We must arrest our love in midflight. And we fix it forever as of today, a point of pure light that will reach into eternity." (File that under Romantic Effusions We Doubt Ever Got Uttered.) Nor is Ross incapable of a melodramatic cliché herself. "Why can't we just live, just live ?" she cries in anguish when she and Shawn, walking hand in hand out of Central Park, chance to see Shawn's wife slowly making her way down the block with a burden of packages. And what does she think of Mrs. Shawn? "I found her to be sensitive and likeable." Plus, she could "do a mean Charleston." There is nothing more poignant than the image of an openly cheated-upon and humiliated wife doing "a mean Charleston." William Shawn's indispensability as an editor is amply manifest in Ross' memoir. Word repetition? "Whatever reporting Bill asked me to do turned out to be both challenging and fun. ... For me, reporting and writing for the magazine was fun, pure fun. ... It was never 'work' for me. It was fun." Even in praising his skill as an editor, she betrays the presence of its absence. "All writers, of course, have needed the one called the 'editor,' who singularly, almost mystically, embodies the many-faceted, unique life force infusing the entire enchilada." Nice touch, that enchilada. When cocktail party malcontents mocked Shawn's New Yorker in the late '70s and early '80s, they would make fun of such things as E.J. Kahn's five-part series on "Grains of the World" or Elizabeth Drew's supposedly soporific reporting from Washington. But Ved Mehta was always the butt of the worst abuse. Shawn was allowing him to publish an autobiography in the pages of the magazine that was mounting up to millions of words over the years, and the very idea of it seemed to bore people silly. After the publication of two early installments, "Daddyji" and "Mamaji," each the length of a book, one critic cried: "Enoughji!" But it kept coming. And I, for one, was grateful. Here was a boy growing up in Punjab during the fall of the Raj and the Partition, a boy who had been blinded by meningitis at the age of 3, roller-skating through the back streets of Lahore as Sikhs slaughtered Hindus and Hindus slaughtered Muslims and civilization was collapsing and then, decades later, having made his way from India to an Arkansas school for the blind to Balliol College, Oxford, to The New Yorker , re-creating the whole thing in Proustian detail and better-than-Proustian prose ... ! Mehta's multivolume autobiography, titled Continents of Exile , has loss as its overarching theme: loss of sight, of childhood, of home and country, and now--with this volume--loss of Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . The memoir takes us from the time the author was hired as a staff writer in the early '60s up to 1994, when he was "terminated" by the loathed Tina Brown in her vandalization of his cherished magazine. Mehta evidently loved William Shawn at least as much as Lillian Ross did, although his love was not requited in the same way. He likens the revered editor to the character Prince Myshkin in The Idiot : innocent and vulnerable, someone who must be protected. And long-suffering, one might infer: "He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end." Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. "It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception," Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: "His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him." Pooter on Perkupp: "My heart was too full to thank him." Mehta: "I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!" Pooter: "Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!" I am not sure I have made it sound this way so far, but Mehta's book is completely engrossing--the most enjoyable book, I think, I have ever reviewed. It oozes affection and conviction, crackles with anger, and is stuffed with thumping good stories. Many are about Mehta's daft colleagues at The New Yorker , such as the guy in the next office: His door was always shut, but I could hear him through the wall that separated his cubicle from mine typing without pause. ... Even the changing of the paper in the typewriter seemed somehow to be incorporated into the rhythmic rat-tat-tat ... year after year went by to the sound of his typing but without a word from his typewriter appearing in the magazine. Or the great and eccentric Irish writer Maeve Breenan, who fetched up as a bag lady. Or the legendary St. Clair McKelway, whose decisive breakdown came when he hailed a cab and prevailed upon the driver to take him to the New Yorker office at 24 West 43 rd St. "O.K., Mac, if that's what you want." He was in Boston at the time. (McKelway later told Mehta that if the cabby had not called him "Mac," his nickname, an alarm might have gone off in his head.) Mehta's writerly persona, a disarming mixture of the feline and the naive, is perfect for relating the little scandals that worried The New Yorker in the late '70s (plagiarism, frozen turbot), the drama of finding a worthy candidate to succeed the aging Shawn as editor, the purchase of the magazine by the evil Si Newhouse ("We all took fright") and the resultant plague of Gottliebs and Florios visited upon it, and what he sees as the final debacle: Tinaji. Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. "I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity," Ross says of Brown. "She, too, 'got it.' " A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker "with new interest" in the weeks prior to his death. Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.
Gourmet by Lang, Allen Kim	"Gourmet", Allen Kim Lang, 1968. GOURMET By ALLEN KIM LANG [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls, men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It's true that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussion can never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is a challenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughts that a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearing seals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers, celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. The Limey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed into his diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated age only as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmen are called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open the road to the larger Space without. Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture in history—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilis to the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral with cross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire—he is referred to the hundred-and-first chapter of Moby Dick , a book spooled in the amusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, that no Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment more than a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads of Leyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for a man condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space. The Pequod's crew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men won their war on canned pork and beans. The Triton made her underwater periplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza and concentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for the skies, a decline set in. The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decent food. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezings from aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to the groundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black sky through a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgusting exordium of Isaiah 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast today what was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turning offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a spacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount. Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which a galleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship's shielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued from the Ajax in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We think of the Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowed his algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing Saccharomycodes yeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad at Piano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got into the stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequent bite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote to the ancient observation, "God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks," Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles Partlow Sale . The Sale blasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, due in at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were taking the low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as the human period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen fir seedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be planted in the maria to squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We had aboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship's Surgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann, the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook was Robert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustrating tensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming, dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility to see that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds of water, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food. This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's a statement of the least fuel a man can run on. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargo compartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the C. P. Sale no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae to work over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tons of metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano West and back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat, protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And the algae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubble from our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en route and back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich in essential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill the smell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in a hundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quite wore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule of oxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by the end of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with the glomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundling politicians are right enough when they say that we spacers are a breed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury of squeamishness. Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knife in space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncher extraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer, guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder. Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim is the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic duties of his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmann was the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best do so alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would have done splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heart was a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planet Earth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying as Willy Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of a Pullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major social hemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook. It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, "Bailey, Robert," on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunate shipmate "Belly-Robber." It was Winkelmann who discussed haut cuisine and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched our algaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it was Captain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by any other name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the taste of synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized by Chlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oregano and thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink, textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted the slabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat. For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste of the carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not. "Belly-Robber," he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea, "you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a pun in my home country: Mensch ist was er isst. It means, you are what you eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this Schweinerei you are feeding me." Captain Winkelmann blotted his chin with his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up the ladder from the dining-cubby. "Doc, do you like Winkelmann?" the Cook asked me. "Not much," I said. "I suspect that the finest gift our Captain can give his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've got to live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship." "I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook," Bailey said. "The fat swine!" "His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey," I said. "He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers in my time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none." Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. It was green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. "This is what I have to work with," he said. He tossed the stuff back into its bin. "In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies, we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings." "You'll never make Winkelmann happy," I said. "Even the simultaneous death of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep up the good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat." Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of rye from Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cook waved my gift aside. "Not now, Doc," he said. "I'm thinking about tomorrow's menu." The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon the next day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressed with something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves of burnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can only guess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling and drying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nine heads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce de résistance was again a "hamburger steak;" but this time the algaeal mass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was only faintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets had been sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. "It's so tender," the radioman joked, "that I can hardly believe it's really steak." Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silently imploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The big man's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed. "Belly-Robber," Winkelmann said, "I had almost rather you served me this pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions and cycler-salt." "You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain," I said. I gazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. "Yes, I eat it," the Captain said, taking and talking through another bite. "But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms and grasshoppers, to stay alive." "Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me?" Bailey pleaded. "Only good food," Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguised algae. He tapped his head with a finger. "This—the brain that guides the ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me, Belly-Robber?" Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. "Yes, sir. But I really don't know what I can do to please you." "You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban Hausfrau with the vapors," Winkelmann said. "I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrums or weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that will keep my belly content and my brain alive." "Yes, sir," Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the British term Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. I followed him. "Captain," I said, "you're driving Bailey too hard. You're asking him to make bricks without straw." Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. "You think, Doctor, that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-aged man?" "Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all," I said. "You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw," Winkelmann said. "Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if the Pharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children of Israel would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is the mother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make him uncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment, to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks." "You're driving him too hard, Sir," I said. "He'll crack." "Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when we ground at Brady Station," Captain Winkelmann said. "So much money buys many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova." "Crew morale on the ship...." I began. "That will be all, Doctor Vilanova," Captain Winkelmann repeated. Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the elliptical path to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiate the appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemned by that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain at mealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. "Convey my compliments to the Chef, please," the Captain would instruct one of the crew, "and ask him to step down here a moment." And the Cook would cheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary genius acidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to go into Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark in brilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an ersatz hot turkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorella turkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacy a grainy and delicious "cornbread," and had extracted from his algae a lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot "bread" with a genuinely dairy smell. "Splendid, Bailey," I said. "We are not amused," said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second helping of the pseudo-turkey. "You are improving, Belly-Robber, but only arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to require a geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mere edibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you will have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics student. That will be all, Bailey." The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding of Bailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between their Captain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embark on an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their last few days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and many memories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men had lost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed, seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside, and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to our Captain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advice that would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, when Winkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effects besides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. As his rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double this ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of books, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to help him while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for a fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of spices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice, and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cards interested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability alien to his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'd exercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowance to the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram. To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to come aboard their ship mother-naked. But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effects baggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noon mess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feet on the mysterious box as he sat to eat. "What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today, Belly-Robber?" he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'd had much practice. "I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir," he said. "I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get the texture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir?" "I understand," Winkelmann growled. "You intend that your latest mess should feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right?" "Yes, Sir," Bailey said. "Well, I squeezed the steak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of special seasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaeal oil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuine meat." "Remarkable, Bailey," I said. "It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about with our food," the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression of distaste. "It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but I never cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoils the meal." Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center of the table and tenderly lifted a small "steak" onto each of our plates. "Try it," he urged the Captain. Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. The color was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smell of fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. "Not too bad, Belly-Robber," he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbed his head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. A kind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of a more reasonable man. "But it still needs something ... something," Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella. "Aha! I have it!" "Yes, Sir?" Bailey asked. "This, Belly-Robber!" Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table and ripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewed the cap. "Ketchup," he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey's masterpiece. "The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks." Lifting a hunk of the "steak," streaming ketchup, to his mouth, Winkelmann chewed. "Just the thing," he smiled. "Damn you!" Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. "... Sir," Bailey added. "That's better," Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He said meditatively, "Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I have sufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep a bottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber." "But, Sir...." Bailey began. "You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threat to the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealistic slops for another hundred days, without the small consolation of this sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be in no condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do you understand, Belly-Robber?" he demanded. "I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed, slave-driving...." "Watch your noun," Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. "Your adjectives are insubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous." "Captain, you've gone too far," I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, was scarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. "Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship's Surgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain," Winkelmann said. "Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you," I said. "The other officers and the men have been more than satisfied with his work." "That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds," Winkelmann said. "Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber," he added. Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered him to my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on my bunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metal bulkhead. "You'll have that drink now," I said. "No, dammit!" he shouted. "Orders," I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. "This is therapy, Bailey," I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throat like water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. "Sorry, Doc," he said. "You've taken more pressure than most men would," I said. "Nothing to be ashamed of." "He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzel and sauerkraut and Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art out of an algae tank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-out molecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. And he expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquet of the Friends of Escoffier!" "Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey," I said. "You've worked your fingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're not appreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A year from now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start that restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman." "I hate him," Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He reached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can be an apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power of nature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep it off. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable in horribleness, a pottage or boiled Chlorella vulgaris that looked and tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey, red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann as though daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of the disgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, "Belly-Robber, you're improving a little at last." Bailey nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Sir," he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses were now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of irony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that was a price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmann theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain had pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, I thought. Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tasted of salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment were vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for the decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He served the algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galley oblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. There being only three seats in the Sale's mess compartment, we ate our meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder to supper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smell to make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier, of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hiss of canned beer being church-keyed. "He's done it, Doc!" one of the first-shift diners said. "It actually tastes of food!" "Then he's beat the Captain at his game," I said. "The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks," the crewman said. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electric warming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three of us with the small "steaks." Each contained about a pound of dried Chlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenched in a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black iron skillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cut a bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there are limits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in the galley door. I gestured for him to join me. "You've done it, Bailey," I said. "Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This is actually good ." "Thanks, Doc," Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. "You may not realize it, Bailey; but this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph; you couldn't have done it without him." "You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?" Bailey asked. "He was driving you to do the impossible," I said; "and you did it. Our Captain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximum performance out of his Ship's Cook." Bailey stood up. "Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?" he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job. He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the good of the ship and his crew. "Do I like Captain Winkelmann?" I asked, spearing another piece of my artificial steak. "Bailey, I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I do." Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto my plate. "Then have another piece," he said.
Grand Finale by David Edelstein	"Grand Finale", David Edelstein, 2000. Grand Finale Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy broadly recounts the creation of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado at London's Savoy Theatre in 1885. Perhaps "broadly" is putting too fine a point on it. The first hour, in which Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) attempts to sever his ties with W.S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and the owner of the Savoy, Richard D'Oyly Carte (Ron Cook), is a mess: The order of scenes feels arbitrary, and characters pop up and vanish with bewildering frequency. You might be tempted to vanish, too. (Friends of mine did.) Be patient. Leigh's movies, born of actors' improvisations and loosely shaped, always take a while to find their rhythm--and, frequently, their point. This one finds everything. By the end of its two hours and 40 minutes, Topsy-Turvy has evolved into something extraordinary: a monument to process--to the minutiae of making art. And to something more: the fundamental sadness of people who labor to make beautiful things--who soar--and then come down to a not-so-beautiful earth. It would be charitable to attribute the shapelessness of the early scenes to the characters' own lack of focus, but it would also be inane. As Elvis Mitchell pointed out in Slate 's "," Leigh's opening shot features an usher who moves along a row of the Savoy Theatre lifting and peering under every seat. That's every seat. You can almost hear Leigh cackling: "How's this for a fast start?--you bourgeois slaves to narrative." Inevitably, something does happen: Princess Ida , one of Gilbert and Sullivan's duds, has its premiere, and Gilbert fumes over a review that calls him the monarch of "topsy-turvydom"--of formulaic plots involving magical elixirs and coins. A heat wave has hit London, theater attendance is down, and Sullivan is itching to go off and become the English Mendelssohn--to write operas and symphonies instead of comic "soufflés." Leigh evidently loves the bloodless formality of the scenes between Gilbert and Sullivan, men of opposite tastes and temperaments who only overlap in their work. He must also love that those scenes are narrative dead ends: "How's this for conflict?--you bourgeois slaves to melodrama." The wake-up call comes an hour into the movie. Gilbert attends a popular exposition of Japanese culture at Knightsbridge and watches Kabuki routines and women in kimonos pouring green tea ("spinach water"). When a Japanese sword he has purchased falls off his wall, he hefts it; mimes a fight while issuing strangled, samurailike cries; then has a brainstorm. We hear the horns of The Mikado overture, then Leigh cuts to the fully realized opening scene on stage at the Savoy: "We are gentlemen of Japan …" Just that chorus is enough to reanimate the audience--to make people sit up and grin. And Leigh's technique of leaping back and forth between the finished Mikado and painstaking scenes of rehearsal has magic in it: You're watching straw, then gold, then straw, then gold. And you see the connection. A central section of the drama is missing. What exactly fired Sullivan up about doing The Mikado ? What was different about this collaboration? No answer. Topsy-Turvy turns into something other than the Gilbert and Sullivan story: a portrait of life in the theater. A group portrait. D'Oyly Carte becomes a quiet third protagonist, a humane businessman. He softly negotiates a salary increase with the company's lead comic (Martin Savage), a neurasthenic junkie. He gently seeks the assurance of a tipsy ingénue (the tremulous Shirley Henderson) that her "little weakness" will not re-emerge. In the dressing room, performers gossip and complain, drink and shoot themselves up with drugs. Leigh's ensemble casts strive to be "microcosms" of society, so issues of class are ever present. You see it in Sullivan's banter with the working-class musicians in the pit and in Gilbert's with the uppity actors (the movie's posturing middle class), whom he drills on pronunciation and poise. The chorus is presented as some sort of collective folk conscience when it lobbies Gilbert to restore the rashly cut solo ("A more humane Mikado never did in Japan exist") of the sad, fat fellow (Timothy Spall) in the title role. Who would have predicted that Leigh would make Gilbert and Sullivan into Mike Leigh characters? Gilbert could be a stand-in for Leigh himself--a haughty, ill-humored man with an obsession for tiny details and a glowering dedication to process. Gilbert haggles with his actors over small things that shouldn't resonate but which somehow add up. Leigh's small things add up, too. The joke of The Mikado is that its Japanese lords are thinly disguised English bureaucrats; the joke of Topsy-Turvy is that the opera's English performers seem culturally incapable of playing Japanese. They rehearse in long coats and top hats, and some of the women (and men!) express horror at appearing on stage without corsets. Behind the satire, however, is a reverence for Gilbert and Sullivan: The tempos are slower than modern audiences are used to, and the staging has been stripped of high-camp accretions. I saw a D'Oyly Carte production of The Mikado in the late '70s: It was played fast and to the groundlings and made me never want to see a G&S opera again. Now I can't wait for the next production. Only a lunatic would call Topsy-Turvy , with its lame first hour and host of loose ends, a masterpiece, but by the finale I was ready to have myself committed. The finale itself must have done it. Leigh's endings are often wondrous, and this one is up there with the rooftop scene in High Hopes (1988). The Mikado is a triumph--it would be the Savoy's biggest hit--but there's no transformation in the lives of its makers. Gilbert can't bring himself to reach out to his brokenhearted wife (Lesley Manville), and Sullivan has a melancholy inkling that he has reached his artistic peak. The ingénue, Leonora, is drinking again, toasting herself in the mirror and praising the loveliness of Nature--a Nature that will, of course, destroy her. The final image is of Art: Leonora on stage singing Yum-Yum's sublime "The sun whose rays are all ablaze …" As Leigh's camera pulls back over the orchestra and the audience, this movie feels like one of the saddest and loveliest tributes to the lives of artists ever made. Topsy-Turvy leaves you upside down and breathless. Like Mike Leigh, Errol Morris rarely begins a project with a clear idea of what he wants it to be. Sometimes he doesn't end a project with a clear idea of what he wants it to be, either. His newest documentary, Mr. Death : The Rise and Fall of Fred D. Leuchter, Jr. , kicks up all sorts of messy emotions that his coolly ironic technique can't begin to handle. The director is in his weird element only in the first half-hour, in which he sits his subject down and gets out of his way. Leuchter, who looks a little like the archetypal movie dweeb Charles Martin Smith and has a heavy exurbs-of-Boston accent, explains how he became involved in redesigning problematic electric chairs. "Excess current cooks the tissue," he says, barely suppressing a smirk at his own expertise. "There've been occasions where a great amount of current has been applied, and the meat actually will come off the executee's bone like the meat coming off a cooked chicken." Leuchter set about making capital punishment more "humane." He moves on to talking about his redesigns for lethal-injection systems, gas chambers, and even a gallows, while underneath, Caleb Sampson provides macabre funhouse music and wistful calliope waltzes. Morris' distance from his subject implies condescension--Leuchter looks like something in a jar. But that's OK, because the man is an interesting specimen. Is he a monster or a humanist committed to eliminating the "deplawrable tawchaw" of capital punishment? It could go either way. M r. Death gets into deeper waters when it recounts the trial of Ernst Zundel in Canada for proclaiming that the Holocaust never happened. Zundel hired Leuchter to go to Auschwitz and examine the "alleged" gas chambers: Footage (taken by Zundel's cameraman) shows the little man chiseling at walls, vandalizing what even he admits are international shrines. Leuchter smuggled specimens of rock and concrete back to the United States, where chemical analysis revealed no cyanide gas. Furthermore, Leuchter can't figure out how the gas would even have been administered without killing the Nazis themselves--proof, he argues, that mass extermination at Auschwitz never took place. The subsequent "Leuchter Report" became the backbone of Zundel's defense (he lost anyway) and of the burgeoning revisionist movement led by David Irving. But if Leuchter became a hero to neo-Nazis, he also became a target of Jewish groups and a pariah even in the execution business. When Morris hooks up with him for the last time, he's in hiding from creditors. Is Leuchter a raving anti-Semite or a pathetic pawn who thrived on having--for the first time in his life--a bit of celebrity? The film suggests the latter. It certainly produces no evidence of malice. Plenty of monstrous insensitivity and hubris, though. Morris uses the Dutch historian Robert Jan van Pelt as a counternarrator: He calls Leuchter "a fffool " who didn't have a clue what to look for in a place that had changed enormously in 50 years. "If he had spent time in the archives," says van Pelt, "he would have found evidence about ventilation systems, ways to introduce Zyclon B into these buildings--but of course I don't think he knows German so it wouldn't have helped very much." The most devastating rebuttal is from the chemist in charge of the Auschwitz analysis, who explains that the gas wouldn't have penetrated more than 10 microns into the wall (a human hair is 100 microns thick), so by crushing the samples (standard procedure), he had effectively diluted the cyanide 100,000 times. Against all this, Morris shows footage of Leuchter chiseling at Auschwitz and even adds some of his own, along with slow-motion shots of hammers bashing rocks, walls, floors, etc. It's an obscenity. After my rage at Leuchter had subsided, I began to get angry at Morris for aestheticizing that violation--turning it into an ironic art object. The director's beautiful detachment suggests a kind of cowardice. His technique is based on standing back--maintaining a fixed distance--while his subjects hang themselves, and for a while that works stunningly. But at a certain point, isn't it only human to want to engage this man? You don't need to play Mike Wallace and demolish Leuchter on camera. You could just ask him what he makes of, say, van Pelt's assertion that the answer to the riddle of the gas chambers was all over the archives, or what he thought of the chemist's declaration that the test performed for cyanide was the wrong test. Morris can be heard asking one question only: "Have you ever thought you might be wrong or that you made a mistake?"--sufficiently broad that Leuchter can casually affirm his own inanity. My concern here isn't so much for Leuchter or even the Holocaust revisionists, who'll just think he was sandbagged. The problem is that when a documentary filmmaker seems too scared or cool or arty to violate his own immaculate aesthetic, he ends up weakening his case. He also provides no emotional release, which isn't a small matter when the subject is Holocaust denial. Morris was close enough to Leuchter to have gotten something more, to have gone a little deeper in search of a poison that does penetrate surfaces.
Grandma Perkins and the Space Pirates by McConnell, James V.	"Grandma Perkins and the Space Pirates", James V. McConnell, 1965. GRANDMA PERKINS AND THE SPACE PIRATES By JAMES McCONNELL Raven-haired, seductive Darling Toujours' smoke-and-flame eyes kindled sparks in hearts all over the universe. But it took sweet old Grandma Perkins, of the pirate ship Dirty Shame, to set the Jupiter moons on fire . [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "I can always get along with a man if he remembers who he is," said Darling Toujours, the raven-haired, creamy-skinned televideo actress whose smoke-and-flame eyes lit fires in hearts all over the solar system. She was credited with being the most beautiful woman alive and there were few who dared to contradict her when she mentioned it. "And I can always get along with a woman if she remembers who I am," replied Carlton E. Carlton, the acid-tongued author whose biting novels had won him universal fame. He leaned his thin, bony body back into the comfort of an overstuffed chair and favored the actress with a wicked smile. The two of them were sitting in the finest lounge of the luxury space ship Kismet , enjoying postprandial cocktails with Captain Homer Fogarty, the Kismet's rotund commanding officer. The Kismet was blasting through space at close to the speed of light, bound from Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons, back to Earth. But none of the two hundred Earthbound passengers were conscious of the speed at all. Darling Toujours waved a long cigarette holder at the author. "Don't pay any attention to him, Captain. You know how writers are—always putting words in other people's mouths, and not very good ones at that." "Do you mean not very good words or not very good mouths, my dear?" Carlton asked. The solar system's most famous actress clamped her scarlet lips shut with rage. It would take someone like Carlton E. Carlton, she knew, to point out the one minor blemish in an otherwise perfect body—her slightly over-sized mouth. She began to wish that she had never left Callisto, that she had cancelled her passage on the Kismet when she learned that Carlton was to be a fellow passenger. But her studio had wired her to return to Earth immediately to make a new series of three dimensional video films. And the Kismet was the only first class space ship flying to Earth for two weeks. So she had kept her ticket in spite of Carlton. "I must say that I think Miss Toujours has the prettiest mouth I've ever seen," boomed Captain Fogarty, his voice sounding something like a cross between a foghorn and a steam whistle. And he was not merely being gallant, for many a lonely night as he flew the darkness between Earth and the many planets, he had dreamed of caressing those lips. "And I think you are definitely a man of discriminating taste," said Darling demurely, crossing her legs and arranging her dress to expose a little more of the Toujours charms to the Captain's eye. Carlton smiled casually at the exposed flesh. "It's all very pretty, my dear," he said smugly. "But we've seen it all before and in space you're supposed to act like a lady, if you can act that well." Darling Toujours drew back her hand to smack Carlton one in a very unlady-like manner when she suddenly realized that they were not alone. Her hand froze, poised elegantly in mid-air, as she turned to see a newcomer standing at the door. The witness to the impending slap was a withered little lady, scarcely five feet tall, with silvered hair, eyes that twinkled like a March wind, and a friendly rash of wrinkles that gave her face the kindly, weathered appearance of an old stone idol. Her slight figure was lost in volumes of black cloth draped on her in a manner that had gone out of style at least fifty years before. The little woman coughed politely. "I beg your pardon," she told them in a sweet, high little voice. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything. If you would like to hit the gentleman, Miss Toujours, I'll be glad to come back later." Darling Toujours opened her violet eyes wide in surprise. "Why, I was ... I was ... I—" The actress uttered a small, gulping sound as she recovered her poise. "Why, I was just going to pat him on the cheek for being such a nice boy. You are a nice boy, aren't you, Carlton?" She leaned forward to stroke him gently on the face. Carlton roared with laughter and the good Captain colored deeply. "Oh," said the little old woman, "I'm sorry. I didn't know that he was your son." Carlton choked suddenly and Darling suffered from a brief fit of hysteria. The Captain took command. "Now, look here, Madam," he sputtered. "What is it you want?" "I really wanted to see you, Captain," she told him, her battered old shoes bringing her fully into the room with little mincing steps. "The Purser says I have to sign a contract of some kind with you, and I wanted to know how to write my name. I'm Mrs. Omar K. Perkins, but you see, I'm really Mrs. Matilda Perkins because my Omar died a few years ago. But I haven't signed my name very much since then and I'm not at all sure of which is legal." She put one bird-like little hand to her throat and clasped the cameo there almost as if it could give her support. She looked so small and so frail that Fogarty forgave her the intrusion. "It really doesn't make much difference how you sign the thing, just so long as you sign it," he blustered. "Just a mere formality anyway. You just sign it any way you like." He paused, hoping that she would leave now that she had her information. "Oh, I'm so glad to hear that," she said, but made no move whatsoever to leave. Captain Fogarty gave her his hardened stare of the type which withered most people where they stood. Mrs. Perkins just smiled sweetly at him. His rage getting out of hand, he finally blurted, "And now, Mrs. Perkins, I think you'd better be getting back to your quarters. As you know, this is a private lounge for the first class passengers." Mrs. Perkins continued to smile at him. "Yes, I know. It's lovely, isn't it? I'll just go out this way." And before anyone could stop her, she had moved to the door to Darling Toujours' suite and had opened it, stepping inside. "That's my room, not the door out," Darling said loudly. "So I see," said Mrs. Perkins, staring at the opulent furnishings with avid pleasure. "It's such a pretty thing, all done up with mother-of-pearl like that, isn't it? And what a pretty lace nightie lying on the bed." Mrs. Perkins picked up the sheer, gossamer garment to examine it. "You do wear something under it, don't you?" Darling screeched and darted for the door. She snatched the nightie away from Mrs. Perkins and rudely propelled the older woman out the door, closing it behind her. "Captain, this woman must GO!" "I was just leaving, Miss Toujours. I hope you and your son have a very happy voyage. Good day, Captain Fogarty," she called over her shoulder as she exited. Carlton E. Carlton's shrill laughter followed her down the companionway. Mrs. Perkins had been lying in her berth reading for less than an hour when the knock sounded at her door. She would have preferred to sit up and read, but her cabin was so small that there was no room for any other furniture besides the bed. "Come in," she called in a small voice. Johnny Weaver, steward for the cheaper cabins, poked his youthful, freckled face through the door. "Howdy, Mrs. Perkins. I wondered if I could do anything for you? It's about ten minutes before we eat." "Well, you can pull that big box down from the top shelf there, if you don't mind. And, I wonder, would you mind calling me Grandma? All my children do it and I miss it so." She gave him a wrinkled smile that was at once wistful and petulant. Johnny laughed in an easy, infectious manner. "Sure thing, Grandma." He stretched his long arms up to bring down the heavy bag and found himself wondering just how it had gotten up there in the first place. He didn't remember ever putting it there for her and Grandma Perkins was obviously too frail a woman to have handled such a heavy box by herself. He put it on the floor. As she stooped over and extracted a pair of low-heeled, black and battered shoes from the box, she asked him, "Johnny, what was that paper I signed this afternoon?" "Oh, that? Why that was just a contract for passage, Grandma. You guaranteed to pay them so much for the flight, which you've already done, and they guaranteed that you wouldn't be put off against your will until you reached your destination." "But why do we have to have a contract?" Johnny leaned back, relaxing against the door. "Well, STAR—that's Stellar Transportation and Atomic Research, you know—is one of the thirteen monopolies in this part of the solar system. The "Big Thirteen," we call them. STAR charters every space flight in this neck of the woods. Well, back in the old days, when space flights were scarce, it used to be that you'd pay for a ticket from Saturn to Earth, say, and you'd get to Mars and they'd stop for fuel. Maybe somebody on Mars would offer a lot of money for your cabin. So STAR would just bump you off, refund part of your money and leave you stranded there. In order to get the monopoly, they had to promise to stop all that. And the Solar Congress makes them sign contracts guaranteeing you that they won't put you off against your wishes. Of course, they don't dare do it anymore anyway, but that's the law." Grandma Perkins sighed. "It's such a small cabin I don't think anybody else would want it. But it's all that I could afford," she said, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress with both hands. "Anything else I can do for you, Grandma?" "No, thank you, Johnny. I think I can make it up the steps to the dining room by myself." A little while later when Johnny looked into her room to see if she had gone, the cabin was empty and the heavy box was back in place in the top cabinet. The food that evening was not the very best, Grandma Perkins thought to herself, but that was mostly due to her seat. By the time the waiter got around to her little cranny most of it was cold. But she didn't complain. She enjoyed watching the people with the more expensive cabins parade their clothes and their manners at the Captain's table. And, it must be admitted, she was more than a trifle envious of them. Her acquaintances of the afternoon, Miss Toujours and Mr. Carlton, were seated there, Miss Toujours having the place of honor to the Captain's right. Grandma watched them as they finished up their food and then she moved from her little table over to one of the very comfortable sofas in the main lounge. In reality she wasn't supposed to be sitting there, but she hoped that she could get away with it. The divans were so much more comfortable than her hard, narrow bed that she felt like sitting there for a long time, by herself, just thinking. But her hopes met with disappointment. For shortly after she sat down, Darling Toujours and Carlton E. Carlton strolled over and sat down across from her, not recognizing her at first. Then Carlton spied her. "Darling! There's that priceless little woman we met this afternoon." "The little hag, you mean," Miss Toujours muttered under her breath, but loudly enough for Grandma Perkins to hear. "Why, hello, Miss Toujours. And Mr. Carlton too. I hope you'll forgive me for this afternoon. I've found out who you were, you see." "Of course we forgive you, Mrs. Jerkins," Darling said throatily, baring her teeth like a feline. "My name is Perkins," Grandma smiled. "I hope you don't mind, Toujours, but you know, you remind me a great deal of my grandniece, Agatha. She was undoubtedly the most lovely child I've ever seen." "Why, thank you, Mrs. Perkins," Darling purred, starting to preen just a bit. Anything could be forgiven someone who complimented her. "Of course, Agatha never was quite bright," Grandma said as she turned her head aside as if in sorrow. "They were all set to put her in an institution when she ran off and married the lizard man in a carnival. I believe she's still appearing in the show as the bearded lady. A pity. She was so pretty, just like you." Darling Toujours muttered a few choice words under her breath. "But we must all make the best of things as they come. That's what Omar, my husband, used to say." Grandma paused to wipe away a small tear that had gotten lodged in one of her eyes. "That reminds me," she said finally, "I've got a three dimensional picture of Omar right here. And pictures of all my children, my ten lovely children. I brought them with me specially tonight because I thought you might want to look at them. Now, where did I put them?" Grandma opened her purse and began rummaging around in its voluminous confines. Darling and Carlton exchanged horrified glances and then rose silently and tip-toed out of the lounge. Grandma looked up from her search. "Oh, my, they seem to have gone." Johnny Weaver, who had been clearing one of the nearby tables, put down a stack of dirty dishes and came over to her. "I'd like to see the pictures, Grandma." "Oh, that's very nice of you, Johnny, but—" she said quickly. "Really I would, Grandma. Where are they?" "I—" She stopped and the devilment showed in her eyes. Her withered little face pursed itself into a smile. "There aren't any pictures, Johnny. I don't carry any. I know their faces all so well I don't have to. But any time I want to get rid of somebody I just offer to show them pictures of my family. You'd be surprised how effective it is." Johnny laughed. "Why are you going to Earth, anyway, Grandma?" The old woman sighed. "It's a long story, Johnny, but you just sit down and I'll tell it to you." "I can't sit down in the lounge, but I'll be glad to stand up and listen." "Then I'll make it a short story. You see, Johnny, I'm an old woman. I'll be 152 this year. And ever since Omar, my husband, died a few years ago, I've lived from pillar to post. First with one child and then with another. They've all been married for decades now of course, with children and grandchildren of their own. And I guess that I just get in their way. There just isn't much left in life for a feeble old woman like me." She sniffled a moment or two as if to cry. Johnny, remembering the heavy box in her cabin that got moved up and down without his help, suppressed a smile on the word "feeble." "There aren't many friends my age left around any more. So I'm being sent to Earth to a home full of dear, sweet old ladies my age, the money for which is being provided by my dear, sweet children—all ten of them." Grandma dabbed a bit of a handkerchief at her eyes. "The rats," she muttered under her breath. When she saw her companion was smiling she dropped her pretense of crying. "To be truthful, Johnny, they've grown old and stodgy, all of them. And I'm sure they think I've lost most of my marbles. Everything I did embarrassed them, so I guess it's for the best, but—" Grandma Perkins never finished the sentence, for interrupting her came the horrendous clang of the Kismet's general alarm, and on its heels, charging through the main salon like a rhinoceros in heat, came Captain Fogarty. "PIRATES! PIRATES! We're being attacked by space pirates! You there!" he shouted at Johnny. "Man your station! And you, Madam, to your quarters at once! PIRATES!" he shouted again and barged through the door again and bellowed down the hall to the main bridge. Johnny was off like a startled rabbit, but Grandma moved with serene calmness to the door. Maybe, she thought, we're going to have a little excitement after all. At the door to the steps leading to her downstairs cabin she paused to think. "If I go down and hide, I'll miss all the fun. Of course, it's safer, and an old woman like me shouldn't be up and about when pirates are around, but—" A delicious smile spread over her face as she took her scruples firmly in hand and turned to follow the bellowing Captain towards the bridge. II The Starship Kismet was the pride and joy of Stellar Transportation and Atomic Research. It was outfitted with every known safety device and the control room was masterfully planned for maximum efficiency. But the astral architect who designed her never anticipated the situation facing her at the present. The Kismet's bridge was a welter of confusion. The Senior Watch Officer was shouting at his assistant, the Navigator was cursing out the Pilot and the Gunnery Officer, whose job had been a sinecure until now, was bellowing at them all. Above the hubbub, suddenly, came the raucous voice of Captain Fogarty as he stalked onto the bridge. "What in great space has happened to the motors? Why are we losing speed?" The Senior Watch Officer saluted and shouted, "Engine Room reports the engines have all stopped, Sir. Don't know why. We're operating the lights and vents on emergency power." The Communications Officer spoke up. "The pirate ship reports that they're responsible, Sir. They say they've got a new device that will leave us without atomic power for as long as they like." As if to confirm this, over the loudspeaker came a voice. "Ahoy, STAR Kismet . Stand by for boarders. If you don't open up to us, we'll blast you off the map." "Pirates! Attacking us! Incredible!" cried the Captain. "There are no pirates any more. What have we got a Space Patrol for? Where in blazes is the Space Patrol anyway?" The Communications Officer gulped. "Er, ah, we got in contact with Commodore Trumble. He says his ship can get here in ten hours anyway, and for us to wait for him." Captain Fogarty snorted. "Fat lot of good he'll do us. Wait for him, eh? Well, we'll just blow that pirate out of the sky right now. Stand by the guns!" "The guns are useless," whined the Gunnery Officer. "The atomics that run them won't operate at all. What will we do?" "Ahoy, STAR Kismet . Open up your hatches when we arrive and let us in, or we won't spare a man of you," boomed the loudspeaker. "Pirates going to board us. How nice," muttered Grandma to herself as she eavesdropped just outside the door to the bridge. "They'll never get through the hatches alive. At least our small arms still work. We'll kill 'em all!" cried Captain Fogarty. "We only want one of you. All the rest of you will be spared if you open up the hatches and don't try to make no trouble," came the voice over the radio. "Tell them I'd rather all of us be killed than to let one dirty pirate on board my ship," the Captain shouted to the Communications Officer. "Oh, my goodness. That doesn't sound very smart," Grandma said half aloud. And turning from the doorway, she crept back through the deserted passageway. The main passenger hatch was not too far from the bridge. Grandma found it with ease, and in less than three minutes she had zipped herself into one of the emergency-use space suits stowed away beside the port. She felt awfully awkward climbing into the monstrous steel and plastic contraption, and her small body didn't quite fit the proportions of the metallic covering. But once she had maneuvered herself into it, she felt quite at ease. Opening the inner door to the airlock, she clanked into the little room. As the door shut behind her, she pressed the cycling button and evacuated the air from the lock. A minute or so later she heard poundings outside the airlock and quite calmly she reached out a mailed fist and turned a switch plainly marked: EMERGENCY LOCK DO NOT OPERATE IN FLIGHT The outer hatch opened almost immediately. The radio in Grandma's suit crackled with static. "What are you doing here?" demanded a voice over the suit radio. "Pirates! I'm hiding from the pirates. They'll never find me here!" she told them in a voice she hoped sounded full of panic. "What's your name?" asked the voice. "Darling Toujours, famous television actress," she lied quite calmly. "That's the one, boys," said another voice. "Let's go." Catching hold of Grandma's arm, they led her out into the emptiness of free space. Half an hour later, after the pirate ship had blasted far enough away from the Kismet , the men in the control room relaxed and began to take off their space suits. One of the men who Grandma soon learned was Lamps O'Toole, the nominal leader of the pirates, stretched his brawny body to ease the crinks out of it and then rubbed his hands together. Grandma noticed that he carried a week's beard on his face, as did most of the other men. "Well, that was a good one, eh, Snake?" said Lamps. Snake Simpson was a wiry little man whose tough exterior in no way suggested a reptile, except, perhaps, for his eyes which sat too close to one another. "You bet, Skipper. We're full fledged pirates now, just like old Captain Blackbrood." "You mean Blackbeard, Snake," said Lamps. "Sure. He used to sit around broodin' up trouble all the time." One of the other men piped up. "And to think we get the pleasurable company of the sweetest doll in the whole solar system for free besides the money." "Aw, women are no dern good—all of them," said Snake. "Now, Snake, that's no way to talk in front of company. You just apologize to the lady," Lamps told him. Lamps was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Snake. Snake apologized. "That's better. And now, Miss Toujours, maybe you'd be more comfortable without that space suit on," he said. "Oh, no, thank you. I feel much better with it on," a small voice said over the suit's loudspeaker system. Lamps grinned. "Oh, come now, Miss Toujours. We ain't going to hurt you. I guarantee nobody will lay a finger to you." "But I feel much—much safer, if you know what I mean," said the voice. "Heck. With one of them things on, you can't eat, can't sleep, can't—Well, there's lots of things you can't do with one of them things on. Besides, we all want to take a little look at you, if you don't mind. Snake, you and Willie help the little lady out of her attire." As the men approached her, Grandma sensed the game was up. "Okay," she told them. "I give up. I can make it by myself." She started to take the bulky covering off. She had gotten no more than the headpiece off when the truth dawned on her companions. "Holy Smoke (or something like that)," said one of the men. "Nippin' Nebulae," said another. "It ain't Darling Toujours at all!" cried Lamps. "It ain't even no woman!" cried Snake. "I beg your pardon," said Grandma, and quite nonchalantly shed the rest of the suit and sat down in a comfortable chair. "I am Mrs. Matilda Perkins." When he could recover his powers of speech, Lamps sputtered, "I think you owe us a sort of an explanation, lady. If you know what I mean." "Certainly. I know exactly what you mean. It's all quite simple. When I overheard that you intended to board the Kismet , searching for only one person, I decided that one person had to be Darling Toujours. I guessed right off that she was the only one on board worth kidnapping and holding for ransom, so I simply let you believe that I was she and you took me. That's easy to understand, isn't it?" "Lady, I don't know what your game is, but it better be good. Now, just why did you do this to us?" Lamps was restraining himself nobly. "You never would have gotten inside the Kismet without my assistance. And even if you had, you'd never have gotten back out alive. "Captain Fogarty's men would have cut you to ribbons. So I opened the hatch to let you in, planted myself in the way, and you got out with me before they could muster their defenses. So, you see, I saved your lives." Grandma Perkins paused in her narrative and looked up at her audience, giving them a withered little smile. "And if you want to know why, well ... I was bored on the Kismet , and I thought how nice it would be to run away and join a gang of cutthroat pirates." "She's batty," moaned Snake. "She's lost her marbles," muttered another. "Let's toss her overboard right now," said still another. Lamps O'Toole took the floor. "Now, wait a minute. We can't do that," he said loudly. "We got enough trouble as is. You know what would happen to us if the Space Patrol added murder to the list. They'd put the whole fleet in after us and track us and our families down to the last kid." Then he turned to the little old lady to explain. "Look, lady—" "My name is Mrs. Matilda Perkins. You may call me Grandma." "Okay, Grandma, look. You really fixed us good. To begin with, we ain't really pirates. We used to operate this tub as a freighter between the Jupiter moons. But STAR got a monopoly on all space flights, including freight, and they just froze us out. We can't operate nowhere in the solar system, unless we get their permission. And they just ain't giving permission to nobody these days." Lamps flopped into one of the control seats and lit a cigarette. "So, when us good, honest men couldn't find any work because of STAR, and we didn't want to give up working in space, we just ups and decides to become pirates. This was our first job, and we sure did need the money we could have gotten out of Darling Toujours' studios for ransom." Lamps sighed. "Now, we got you instead, no chance of getting the ransom money, and to top it all off, we'll be wanted for piracy by the Space Patrol." "Well, it doesn't seem to me that you're ever going to be good pirates at this rate," Grandma told him. "You should have known better than to take a woman at her word." "I don't suppose you got any rich relatives what would pay to get you back?" suggested Snake hopefully. "I haven't got any rich relatives period," she said pertly. Then she added, "But my ten children might scrape up a little cash for you if you promised you wouldn't bring me back at all." "I figured as much," Lamps said dolefully. "Lookit, Grandma, the best thing we can do is to put you off safely at the next place we stop. Unless we get you back in one piece the Space Patrol will be on our necks forever. So don't go getting any ideas about joining up with us." "Well, the very least you could do for a poor old lady is to feed her," Grandma told him, her lower lip sticking out in a most petulant manner. "They like to have starved me to death on that Kismet ." "We ain't got much fancy in the line of grub...." Lamps began. "Just show me the way to the kitchen," said Grandma.
Grifters' Asteroid by Gold, H. L. (Horace Leonard)	"Grifters' Asteroid", H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold, 1966. GRIFTERS' ASTEROID By H. L. GOLD Harvey and Joe were the slickest con-men ever to gyp a space-lane sucker. Or so they thought! Angus Johnson knew differently. He charged them five buckos for a glass of water—and got it! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Characteristically, Harvey Ellsworth tried to maintain his dignity, though his parched tongue was almost hanging out. But Joe Mallon, with no dignity to maintain, lurched across the rubbish-strewn patch of land that had been termed a spaceport. When Harvey staggered pontifically into the battered metalloy saloon—the only one on Planetoid 42—his tall, gangling partner was already stumbling out, mouthing something incoherent. They met in the doorway, violently. "We're delirious!" Joe cried. "It's a mirage!" "What is?" asked Harvey through a mouthful of cotton. Joe reeled aside, and Harvey saw what had upset his partner. He stared, speechless for once. In their hectic voyages from planet to planet, the pair of panacea purveyors had encountered the usual strange life-forms. But never had they seen anything like the amazing creature in that colonial saloon. Paying no attention to them, it was carrying a case of liquor in two hands, six siphons in two others, and a broom and dustpan in the remaining pair. The bartender, a big man resembling the plumpish Harvey in build, was leaning negligently on the counter, ordering this impossible being to fill the partly-emptied bottles, squeeze fruit juice and sweep the floor, all of which the native did simultaneously. "Nonsense," Harvey croaked uncertainly. "We have seen enough queer things to know there are always more." He led the way inside. Through thirst-cracked lips he rasped: "Water—quick!" Without a word, the bartender reached under the counter, brought out two glasses of water. The interplanetary con-men drank noisily, asked for more, until they had drunk eight glasses. Meanwhile, the bartender had taken out eight jiggers and filled them with whiskey. Harvey and Joe were breathing hard from having gulped the water so fast, but they were beginning to revive. They noticed the bartender's impersonal eyes studying them shrewdly. "Strangers, eh?" he asked at last. "Solar salesmen, my colonial friend," Harvey answered in his usual lush manner. "We purvey that renowned Martian remedy, La-anago Yergis , the formula for which was recently discovered by ourselves in the ancient ruined city of La-anago. Medical science is unanimous in proclaiming this magic medicine the sole panacea in the entire history of therapeutics." "Yeah?" said the bartender disinterestedly, polishing the chaser glasses without washing them. "Where you heading?" "Out of Mars for Ganymede. Our condenser broke down, and we've gone without water for five ghastly days." "Got a mechanic around this dumping ground you call a port?" Joe asked. "We did. He came near starving and moved on to Titan. Ships don't land here unless they're in trouble." "Then where's the water lead-in? We'll fill up and push off." "Mayor takes care of that," replied the saloon owner. "If you gents're finished at the bar, your drinks'll be forty buckos." Harvey grinned puzzledly. "We didn't take any whiskey." "Might as well. Water's five buckos a glass. Liquor's free with every chaser." Harvey's eyes bulged. Joe gulped. "That—that's robbery!" the lanky man managed to get out in a thin quaver. The barkeeper shrugged. "When there ain't many customers, you gotta make more on each one. Besides—" "Besides nothing!" Joe roared, finding his voice again. "You dirty crook—robbing poor spacemen! You—" "You dirty crook!" Joe roared. "Robbing honest spacemen!" Harvey nudged him warningly. "Easy, my boy, easy." He turned to the bartender apologetically. "Don't mind my friend. His adrenal glands are sometimes overactive. You were going to say—?" The round face of the barkeeper had assumed an aggrieved expression. "Folks are always thinkin' the other feller's out to do 'em," he said, shaking his head. "Lemme explain about the water here. It's bitter as some kinds of sin before it's purified. Have to bring it in with buckets and make it sweet. That takes time and labor. Waddya think—I was chargin' feller critters for water just out of devilment? I charge because I gotta." "Friend," said Harvey, taking out a wallet and counting off eight five-bucko bills, "here is your money. What's fair is fair, and you have put a different complexion on what seemed at first to be an unconscionable interjection of a middleman between Nature and man's thirst." The saloon man removed his dirty apron and came around the bar. "If that's an apology, I accept it. Now the mayor'll discuss filling your tanks. That's me. I'm also justice of the peace, official recorder, fire chief...." "And chief of police, no doubt," said Harvey jocosely. "Nope. That's my son, Jed. Angus Johnson's my name. Folks here just call me Chief. I run this town, and run it right. How much water will you need?" Joe estimated quickly. "About seventy-five liters, if we go on half rations," he answered. He waited apprehensively. "Let's say ten buckos a liter," the mayor said. "On account of the quantity, I'm able to quote a bargain price. Shucks, boys, it hurts me more to charge for water than it does for you to pay. I just got to, that's all." The mayor gestured to the native, who shuffled out to the tanks with them. The planetoid man worked the pump while the mayor intently watched the crude level-gauge, crying "Stop!" when it registered the proper amount. Then Johnson rubbed his thumb on his index finger and wetted his lips expectantly. Harvey bravely counted off the bills. He asked: "But what are we to do about replenishing our battery fluid? Ten buckos a liter would be preposterous. We simply can't afford it." Johnson's response almost floored them. "Who said anything about charging you for battery water? You can have all you want for nothing. It's just the purified stuff that comes so high." After giving them directions that would take them to the free-water pool, the ponderous factotum of Planetoid 42 shook hands and headed back to the saloon. His six-armed assistant followed him inside. "Now do you see, my hot-tempered colleague?" said Harvey as he and Joe picked up buckets that hung on the tank. "Johnson, as I saw instantly, is the victim of a difficult environment, and must charge accordingly." "Just the same," Joe griped, "paying for water isn't something you can get used to in ten minutes." In the fragile forest, they soon came across a stream that sprang from the igneous soil and splashed into the small pond whose contents, according to the mayor, was theirs for the asking. They filled their buckets and hauled them to the ship, then returned for more. It was on the sixth trip that Joe caught a glimpse of Jupiter-shine on a bright surface off to the left. The figure, 750, with the bucko sign in front of it, was still doing acrobatics inside his skull and keeping a faint suspicion alive in him. So he called Harvey and they went to investigate. Among the skimpy ground-crawling vines, they saw a long slender mound that was unmistakably a buried pipe. "What's this doing here?" Harvey asked, puzzled. "I thought Johnson had to transport water in pails." "Wonder where it leads to," Joe said uneasily. "It leads to the saloon," said Harvey, his eyes rapidly tracing the pipe back toward the spaceport. "What I am concerned with is where it leads from ." Five minutes later, panting heavily from the unaccustomed exertion of scrambling through the tangle of planetorial undergrowth, they burst into the open—before a clear, sparkling pool. Mutely, Harvey pointed out a pipe-end jutting under the water. "I am growing suspicious," he said in a rigidly controlled voice. But Joe was already on his knees, scooping up a handful of water and tasting it. "Sweet!" he snarled. They rushed back to the first pool, where Joe again tasted a sample. His mouth went wry. "Bitter! He uses only one pool, the sweet one! The only thing that needs purifying around here is that blasted mayor's conscience." "The asteroidal Poobah has tricked us with a slick come-on," said Harvey slowly. His eyes grew cold. "Joseph, the good-natured artist in me has become a hard and merciless avenger. I shall not rest until we have had the best of this colonial con-man! Watch your cues from this point hence." Fists clenched, the two returned to the saloon. But at the door they stopped and their fists unclenched. "Thought you gents were leaving," the mayor called out, seeing them frozen in the doorway. "Glad you didn't. Now you can meet my son, Jed. Him and me are the whole Earthman population of Johnson City." "You don't need any more," said Harvey, dismayed. Johnson's eight-foot son, topped by a massive roof of sun-bleached hair and held up by a foundation that seemed immovable, had obviously been born and raised in low gravity. For any decent-sized world would have kept him down near the general dimensions of a man. He held out an acre of palm. Harvey studied it worriedly, put his own hand somewhere on it, swallowed as it closed, then breathed again when his fingers were released in five units instead of a single compressed one. "Pleased to meet you," piped a voice that had never known a dense atmosphere. The pursuit of vengeance, Harvey realized, had taken a quick and unpleasant turn. Something shrewd was called for.... "Joseph!" he exclaimed, looking at his partner in alarm. "Don't you feel well?" Even before the others could turn to him, Joe's practiced eyes were gently crossing. He sagged against the door frame, all his features drooping like a bloodhound's. "Bring him in here!" Johnson cried. "I mean, get him away! He's coming down with asteroid fever!" "Of course," replied Harvey calmly. "Any fool knows the first symptoms of the disease that once scourged the universe." "What do you mean, once ?" demanded Johnson. "I come down with it every year, and I ain't hankering to have it in an off-season. Get him out of here!" "In good time. He can't be moved immediately." "Then he'll be here for months!" Harvey helped Joe to the counter and lifted him up on it. The mayor and his gigantic offspring were cowering across the room, trying to breathe in tiny, uncontaminating gasps. "You'll find everything you want in the back room," Johnson said frantically, "sulfopyridine, mustard plasters, rubs, inhalers, suction cups—" "Relics of the past," Harvey stated. "One medication is all modern man requires to combat the dread menace, asteroid fever." "What's that?" asked the mayor without conviction. Instead of replying, Harvey hurried outside to the ungainly second-hand rocket ship in the center of the shabby spaceport. He returned within a few minutes, carrying a bottle. Joe was still stretched out on the bar, panting, his eyes slowly crossing and uncrossing. Harvey lifted the patient's head tenderly, put the bottle to his lips and tilted it until he was forced to drink. When Joe tried to pull away, Harvey was inexorable. He made his partner drink until most of the liquid was gone. Then he stepped back and waited for the inevitable result. Joe's performance was better than ever. He lay supine for several moments, his face twisted into an expression that seemed doomed to perpetual wryness. Slowly, however, he sat up and his features straightened out. "Are—are you all right?" asked the mayor anxiously. "Much better," said Joe in a weak voice. "Maybe you need another dose," Harvey suggested. Joe recoiled. "I'm fine now!" he cried, and sprang off the bar to prove it. Astonished, Johnson and his son drew closer. They searched Joe's face, and then the mayor timidly felt his pulse. "Well, I'll be hanged!" Johnson ejaculated. " La-anago Yergis never fails, my friend," Harvey explained. "By actual test, it conquers asteroid fever in from four to twenty-three minutes, depending on the severity of the attack. Luckily, we caught this one before it grew formidable." The mayor's eyes became clouded mirrors of an inward conflict. "If you don't charge too much," he said warily, "I might think of buying some." "We do not sell this unbelievable remedy," Harvey replied with dignity. "It sells itself." "'Course, I'd expect a considerable reduction if I bought a whole case," said Johnson. "That would be the smallest investment you could make, compared with the vast loss of time and strength the fever involves." "How much?" asked the mayor unhappily. "For you, since you have taken us in so hospitably, a mere five hundred buckos." Johnson did not actually stagger back, but he gave the impression of doing so. "F-four hundred," he offered. "Not a red cent less than four seventy-five," Harvey said flatly. "Make it four fifty," quavered Johnson. "I dislike haggling," said Harvey. The final price, however, was four hundred and sixty-nine buckos and fifty redsents. Magnanimously, Harvey added: "And we will include, gratis , an elegant bottle-opener, a superb product of Mercurian handicraftsmanship." Johnson stabbed out a warning finger. "No tricks now. I want a taste of that stuff. You're not switching some worthless junk on me." Harvey took a glass from the bar and poured him a generous sample. The mayor sniffed it, grimaced, then threw it down his gullet. The ensuing minute saw a grim battle between a man and his stomach, a battle which the man gradually won. "There ain't no words for that taste," he gulped when it was safe to talk again. "Medicine," Harvey propounded, "should taste like medicine." To Joe he said: "Come, my esteemed colleague. We must perform the sacred task to which we have dedicated ourselves." With Joe stumbling along behind, he left the saloon, crossed the clearing and entered the ship. As soon as they were inside, Joe dropped his murderous silence and cried: "What kind of a dirty trick was that, giving me poison instead of that snake oil?" "That was not poison," Harvey contradicted quietly. "It was La-anago Yergis extract, plus." "Plus what—arsenic?" "Now, Joseph! Consider my quandary when I came back here to manufacture our specific for all known ailments, with the intention of selling yonder asteroidal tin-horn a bill of medical goods—an entire case, mind you. Was I to mix the extract with the water for which we had been swindled to the tune of ten buckos a liter? Where would our profit have been, then? No; I had to use the bitter free water, of course." "But why use it on me?" Joe demanded furiously. Harvey looked reprovingly at his gangling partner. "Did Johnson ask to taste it, or did he not? One must look ahead, Joseph. I had to produce the same medicine that we will now manufacture. Thus, you were a guinea pig for a splendid cause." "Okay, okay," Joe said. "But you shoulda charged him more." "Joseph, I promise you that we shall get back every redsent of which that swindler cheated us, besides whatever other funds or valuables he possesses. We could not be content with less." "Well, we're starting all right," admitted Joe. "How about that thing with six arms? He looks like a valuable. Can't we grab him off?" Harvey stopped filling bottles and looked up pensively. "I have every hope of luring away the profitable monstrosity. Apparently you have also surmised the fortune we could make with him. At first I purpose to exhibit him on our interplanetary tours with our streamlined panacea; he would be a spectacular attraction for bucolic suckers. Later, a brief period of demonstrating his abilities on the audio-visiphone. Then our triumph—we shall sell him at a stupendous figure to the zoo!" Joe was still dazed by that monetary vista when he and Harvey carried the case of medicine to the saloon. The mayor had already cleared a place of honor in the cluttered back room, where he told them to put it down carefully. Then he took the elaborate bottle-opener Harvey gave him, reverently uncorked a bottle and sampled it. It must have been at least as good as the first; he gagged. "That's the stuff, all right," he said, swallowing hard. He counted out the money into Harvey's hand, at a moderate rate that precariously balanced between his pleasure at getting the fever remedy and his pain at paying for it. Then he glanced out to see the position of Jupiter, and asked: "You gents eaten yet? The restaurant's open now." Harvey and Joe looked at each other. They hadn't been thinking about food at all, but suddenly they realized that they were hungry. "It's only water we were short of," Harvey said apprehensively. "We've got rations back at the ship." " H-mph! " the mayor grunted. "Powdered concentrates. Compressed pap. Suit yourselves. We treat our stomachs better here. And you're welcome to our hospitality." "Your hospitality," said Harvey, "depends on the prices you charge." "Well, if that's what's worrying you, you can stop worrying," answered the mayor promptly. "What's more, the kind of dinner I serve here you can't get anywhere else for any price." Swiftly, Harvey conned the possibilities of being bilked again. He saw none. "Let's take a look at the menu, anyhow, Joe," he said guardedly. Johnson immediately fell into the role of "mine host." "Come right in, gents," he invited. "Right into the dining room." He seated them at a table, which a rope tied between posts made more or less private, though nobody else was in the saloon and there was little chance of company. Genius, the six-armed native, appeared from the dingy kitchen with two menus in one hand, two glasses of water in another, plus napkins, silverware, a pitcher, plates, saucers, cups, and their cocktails, which were on the house. Then he stood by for orders. Harvey and Joe studied the menu critically. The prices were phenomenally low. When they glanced up at Johnson in perplexity, he grinned, bowed and asked: "Everything satisfactory, gents?" "Quite," said Harvey. "We shall order." For an hour they were served amazing dishes, both fresh and canned, the culinary wealth of this planetoid and all the system. And the service was as extraordinary as the meal itself. With four hands, Genius played deftly upon a pair of mellow Venusian viotars , using his other two hands for waiting on the table. "We absolutely must purchase this incredible specimen," Harvey whispered excitedly when Johnson and the native were both in the kitchen, attending to the next course. "He would make any society hostess's season a riotous success, which should be worth a great sum to women like Mrs. van Schuyler-Morgan, merely for his hire." "Think of a fast one fast," Joe agreed. "You're right." "But I dislike having to revise my opinion of a man so often," complained Harvey. "I wish Johnson would stay either swindler or honest merchant. This dinner is worth as least twenty buckos, yet I estimate our check at a mere bucko twenty redsents." The mayor's appearance prevented them from continuing the discussion. "It's been a great honor, gents," he said. "Ain't often I have visitors, and I like the best, like you two gents." As if on cue, Genius came out and put the check down between Joe and Harvey. Harvey picked it up negligently, but his casual air vanished in a yelp of horror. "What the devil is this?" he shouted.—"How do you arrive at this fantastic, idiotic figure— three hundred and twenty-eight buckos !" Johnson didn't answer. Neither did Genius; he simply put on the table, not a fingerbowl, but a magnifying glass. With one of his thirty fingers he pointed politely to the bottom of the menu. Harvey focused on the microscopic print, and his face went pasty with rage. The minute note read: "Services and entertainment, 327 buckos 80 redsents." "You can go to hell!" Joe growled. "We won't pay it!" Johnson sighed ponderously. "I was afraid you'd act like that," he said with regret. He pulled a tin badge out of his rear pocket, pinned it on his vest, and twisted his holstered gun into view. "Afraid I'll have to ask the sheriff to take over." Johnson, the "sheriff," collected the money, and Johnson, the "restaurateur," pocketed it. Meanwhile, Harvey tipped Joe the sign to remain calm. "My friend," he said to the mayor, and his tones took on a schoolmasterish severity, "your long absence from Earth has perhaps made you forget those elements of human wisdom that have entered the folk-lore of your native planet. Such as, for example: 'It is folly to kill a goose that lays golden eggs,' and 'Penny wise is pound foolish.'" "I don't get the connection," objected Johnson. "Well, by obliging us to pay such a high price for your dinner, you put out of your reach the chance of profiting from a really substantial deal. My partner and I were prepared to make you a sizable offer for the peculiar creature you call Genius. But by reducing our funds the way you have—" "Who said I wanted to sell him?" the mayor interrupted. He rubbed his fingers together and asked disinterestedly: "What were you going to offer, anyhow?" "It doesn't matter any longer," Harvey said with elaborate carelessness. "Perhaps you wouldn't have accepted it, anyway." "That's right," Johnson came back emphatically. "But what would your offer have been which I would have turned down?" "Which one? The one we were going to make, or the one we can make now?" "Either one. It don't make no difference. Genius is too valuable to sell." "Oh, come now, Mr. Johnson. Don't tell me no amount of money would tempt you!" "Nope. But how much did you say?" "Ah, then you will consider releasing Genius!" "Well, I'll tell you something," said the mayor confidentially. "When you've got one thing, you've got one thing. But when you've got money, it's the same as having a lot of things. Because, if you've got money, you can buy this and that and this and that and—" "This and that," concluded Joe. "We'll give you five hundred buckos." "Now, gents!" Johnson remonstrated. "Why, six hundred would hardly—" "You haven't left us much money," Harvey put in. The mayor frowned. "All right, we'll split the difference. Make it five-fifty." Harvey was quick to pay out, for this was a genuine windfall. Then he stood up and admired the astonishing possession he had so inexpensively acquired. "I really hate to deprive you of this unique creature," he said to Johnson. "I should imagine you will be rather lonely, with only your filial mammoth to keep you company." "I sure will," Johnson confessed glumly. "I got pretty attached to Genius, and I'm going to miss him something awful." Harvey forcibly removed his eyes from the native, who was clearing off the table almost all at once. "My friend," he said, "we take your only solace, it is true, but in his place we can offer something no less amazing and instructive." The mayor's hand went protectively to his pocket. "What is it?" he asked with the suspicion of a man who has seen human nature at its worst and expects nothing better. "Joseph, get our most prized belonging from the communications room of the ship," Harvey instructed. To Johnson he explained: "You must see the wondrous instrument before its value can be appreciated. My partner will soon have it here for your astonishment." Joe's face grew as glum as Johnson's had been. "Aw, Harv," he protested, "do we have to sell it? And right when I thought we were getting the key!" "We must not be selfish, my boy," Harvey said nobly. "We have had our chance; now we must relinquish Fate to the hands of a man who might have more success than we. Go, Joseph. Bring it here." Unwillingly, Joe turned and shuffled out. On a larger and heavier world than Planetoid 42, Johnson's curiosity would probably have had weight and mass. He was bursting with questions, but he was obviously afraid they would cost him money. For his part, Harvey allowed that curiosity to grow like a Venusian amoeba until Joe came in, lugging a radio. "Is that what you were talking about?" the mayor snorted. "What makes you think I want a radio? I came here to get away from singers and political speech-makers." "Do not jump to hasty conclusions," Harvey cautioned. "Another word, and I shall refuse you the greatest opportunity any man has ever had, with the sole exceptions of Joseph, myself and the unfortunate inventor of this absolutely awe-inspiring device." "I ain't in the market for a radio," Johnson said stubbornly. Harvey nodded in relief. "We have attempted to repay our host, Joseph. He has spurned our generosity. We have now the chance to continue our study, which I am positive will soon reward us with the key to an enormous fortune." "Well, that's no plating off our bow," Joe grunted. "I'm glad he did turn it down. I hated to give it up after working on it for three whole years." He picked up the radio and began walking toward the door. "Now, hold on!" the mayor cried. "I ain't saying I'll buy, but what is it I'm turning down?" Joe returned and set the instrument down on the bar. His face sorrowful, Harvey fondly stroked the scarred plasticoid cabinet. "To make a long story, Mr. Johnson," he said, "Joseph and I were among the chosen few who knew the famous Doctor Dean intimately. Just before his tragic death, you will recall, Dean allegedly went insane." He banged his fist on the bar. "I have said it before, and I repeat again, that was a malicious lie, spread by the doctor's enemies to discredit his greatest invention—this fourth dimensional radio!" "This what?" Johnson blurted out. "In simple terms," clarified Harvey, "the ingenious doctor discovered that the yawning chasm between the dimensions could be bridged by energy of all quanta. There has never been any question that the inhabitants of the super-dimension would be far more civilized than ourselves. Consequently, the man who could tap their knowledge would find himself in possession of a powerful, undreamt-of science!" The mayor looked respectfully at the silent box on the bar. "And this thing gets broadcasts from the fourth dimension?" "It does, Mr. Johnson! Only charlatans like those who envied Doctor Dean's magnificent accomplishments could deny that fact." The mayor put his hands in his pockets, unswiveled one hip and stared thoughtfully at the battered cabinet. "Well, let's say it picks up fourth dimensional broadcasts," he conceded. "But how could you understand what they're saying? Folks up there wouldn't talk our language." Again Harvey smashed his fist down. "Do you dare to repeat the scurvy lie that broke Dean's spirit and drove him to suicide?" Johnson recoiled. "No—no, of course not . I mean, being up here, I naturally couldn't get all the details." "Naturally," Harvey agreed, mollified. "I'm sorry I lost my temper. But it is a matter of record that the doctor proved the broadcasts emanating from the super-dimension were in English! Why should that be so difficult to believe? Is it impossible that at one time there was communication between the dimensions, that the super-beings admired our language and adopted it in all its beauty, adding to it their own hyper-scientific trimmings?" "Why, I don't know," Johnson said in confusion. "For three years, Joseph and I lost sleep and hair, trying to detect the simple key that would translate the somewhat metamorphosed broadcasts into our primitive English. It eluded us. Even the doctor failed. But that was understandable; a sensitive soul like his could stand only so much. And the combination of ridicule and failure to solve the mystery caused him to take his own life." Johnson winced. "Is that what you want to unload on me?" "For a very good reason, sir. Patience is the virtue that will be rewarded with the key to these fourth dimensional broadcasts. A man who could devote his life to improving this lonely worldlet is obviously a person with unusual patience." "Yeah," the mayor said grudgingly, "I ain't exactly flighty." "Therefore, you are the man who could unravel the problem!" Johnson asked skeptically: "How about a sample first?"
Gun for Hire by Reynolds, Mack	"Gun for Hire", Mack Reynolds, 1952. Illustrated by van Dongen A gun is an interesting weapon; it can be hired, of course, and naturally doesn't care who hires it. Something much the same can be said of the gunman, too.... GUN FOR HIRE By MACK REYNOLDS Joe Prantera called softly, "Al." The pleasurable, comfortable, warm feeling began spreading over him, the way it always did. The older man stopped and squinted, but not suspiciously, even now. The evening was dark, it was unlikely that the other even saw the circle of steel that was the mouth of the shotgun barrel, now resting on the car's window ledge. "Who's it?" he growled. Joe Prantera said softly, "Big Louis sent me, Al." And he pressed the trigger. And at that moment, the universe caved inward upon Joseph Marie Prantera. There was nausea and nausea upon nausea. There was a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching of every muscle and nerve. There was pain, horror and tumultuous fear. And he came out of it as quickly and completely as he'd gone in. He was in, he thought, a hospital and his first reaction was to think, This here California. Everything different. Then his second thought was Something went wrong. Big Louis, he ain't going to like this. He brought his thinking to the present. So far as he could remember, he hadn't completely pulled the trigger. That at least meant that whatever the rap was it wouldn't be too tough. With luck, the syndicate would get him off with a couple of years at Quentin. A door slid open in the wall in a way that Joe had never seen a door operate before. This here California. The clothes on the newcomer were wrong, too. For the first time, Joe Prantera began to sense an alienness—a something that was awfully wrong. The other spoke precisely and slowly, the way a highly educated man speaks a language which he reads and writes fluently but has little occasion to practice vocally. "You have recovered?" Joe Prantera looked at the other expressionlessly. Maybe the old duck was one of these foreign doctors, like. The newcomer said, "You have undoubtedly been through a most harrowing experience. If you have any untoward symptoms, possibly I could be of assistance." Joe couldn't figure out how he stood. For one thing, there should have been some kind of police guard. The other said, "Perhaps a bit of stimulant?" Joe said flatly, "I wanta lawyer." The newcomer frowned at him. "A lawyer?" "I'm not sayin' nothin'. Not until I get a mouthpiece." The newcomer started off on another tack. "My name is Lawrence Reston-Farrell. If I am not mistaken, you are Joseph Salviati-Prantera." Salviati happened to be Joe's mother's maiden name. But it was unlikely this character could have known that. Joe had been born in Naples and his mother had died in childbirth. His father hadn't brought him to the States until the age of five and by that time he had a stepmother. "I wanta mouthpiece," Joe said flatly, "or let me outta here." Lawrence Reston-Farrell said, "You are not being constrained. There are clothes for you in the closet there." Joe gingerly tried swinging his feet to the floor and sitting up, while the other stood watching him, strangely. He came to his feet. With the exception of a faint nausea, which brought back memories of that extreme condition he'd suffered during ... during what? He hadn't the vaguest idea of what had happened. He was dressed in a hospital-type nightgown. He looked down at it and snorted and made his way over to the closet. It opened on his approach, the door sliding back into the wall in much the same manner as the room's door had opened for Reston-Farrell. Joe Prantera scowled and said, "These ain't my clothes." "No, I am afraid not." "You think I'd be seen dead wearing this stuff? What is this, some religious crackpot hospital?" Reston-Farrell said, "I am afraid, Mr. Salviati-Prantera, that these are the only garments available. I suggest you look out the window there." Joe gave him a long, chill look and then stepped to the window. He couldn't figure the other. Unless he was a fruitcake. Maybe he was in some kind of pressure cooker and this was one of the fruitcakes. He looked out, however, not on the lawns and walks of a sanitarium but upon a wide boulevard of what was obviously a populous city. And for a moment again, Joe Prantera felt the depths of nausea. This was not his world. He stared for a long, long moment. The cars didn't even have wheels, he noted dully. He turned slowly and faced the older man. Reston-Farrell said compassionately, "Try this, it's excellent cognac." Joe Prantera stared at him, said finally, flatly, "What's it all about?" The other put down the unaccepted glass. "We were afraid first realization would be a shock to you," he said. "My colleague is in the adjoining room. We will be glad to explain to you if you will join us there." "I wanta get out of here," Joe said. "Where would you go?" The fear of police, of Al Rossi's vengeance, of the measures that might be taken by Big Louis on his failure, were now far away. Reston-Farrell had approached the door by which he had entered and it reopened for him. He went through it without looking back. There was nothing else to do. Joe dressed, then followed him. In the adjoining room was a circular table that would have accommodated a dozen persons. Two were seated there now, papers, books and soiled coffee cups before them. There had evidently been a long wait. Reston-Farrell, the one Joe had already met, was tall and drawn of face and with a chainsmoker's nervousness. The other was heavier and more at ease. They were both, Joe estimated, somewhere in their middle fifties. They both looked like docs. He wondered, all over again, if this was some kind of pressure cooker. But that didn't explain the view from the window. Reston-Farrell said, "May I present my colleague, Citizen Warren Brett-James? Warren, this is our guest from ... from yesteryear, Mr. Joseph Salviati-Prantera." Brett-James nodded to him, friendly, so far as Joe could see. He said gently, "I think it would be Mr. Joseph Prantera, wouldn't it? The maternal linage was almost universally ignored." His voice too gave the impression he was speaking a language not usually on his tongue. Joe took an empty chair, hardly bothering to note its alien qualities. His body seemed to fit into the piece of furniture, as though it had been molded to his order. Joe said, "I think maybe I'll take that there drink, Doc." Reston-Farrell said, "Of course," and then something else Joe didn't get. Whatever the something else was, a slot opened in the middle of the table and a glass, so clear of texture as to be all but invisible, was elevated. It contained possibly three ounces of golden fluid. Joe didn't allow himself to think of its means of delivery. He took up the drink and bolted it. He put the glass down and said carefully, "What's it all about, huh?" Warren Brett-James said soothingly, "Prepare yourself for somewhat of a shock, Mr. Prantera. You are no longer in Los Angeles—" "Ya think I'm stupid? I can see that." "I was about to say, Los Angeles of 1960. Mr. Prantera, we welcome you to Nuevo Los Angeles." "Ta where?" "To Nuevo Los Angeles and to the year—" Brett-James looked at his companion. "What is the date, Old Calendar?" "2133," Reston-Farrell said. "2133 A.D. they would say." Joe Prantera looked from one of them to the other, scowling. "What are you guys talking about?" Warren Brett-James said softly, "Mr. Prantera, you are no longer in the year 1960, you are now in the year 2133." He said, uncomprehendingly, "You mean I been, like, unconscious for—" He let the sentence fall away as he realized the impossibility. Brett-James said gently, "Hardly for one hundred and seventy years, Mr. Prantera." Reston-Farrell said, "I am afraid we are confusing you. Briefly, we have transported you, I suppose one might say, from your own era to ours." Joe Prantera had never been exposed to the concept of time travel. He had simply never associated with anyone who had ever even remotely considered such an idea. Now he said, "You mean, like, I been asleep all that time?" "Not exactly," Brett-James said, frowning. Reston-Farrell said, "Suffice to say, you are now one hundred and seventy-three years after the last memory you have." Joe Prantera's mind suddenly reverted to those last memories and his eyes narrowed dangerously. He felt suddenly at bay. He said, "Maybe you guys better let me in on what's this all about." Reston-Farrell said, "Mr. Prantera, we have brought you from your era to perform a task for us." Joe stared at him, and then at the other. He couldn't believe he was getting through to them. Or, at least, that they were to him. Finally he said, "If I get this, you want me to do a job for you." "That is correct." Joe said, "You guys know the kind of jobs I do?" "That is correct." "Like hell you do. You think I'm stupid? I never even seen you before." Joe Prantera came abruptly to his feet. "I'm gettin' outta here." For the second time, Reston-Farrell said, "Where would you go, Mr. Prantera?" Joe glared at him. Then sat down again, as abruptly as he'd arisen. "Let's start all over again. I got this straight, you brought me, some screwy way, all the way ... here. O.K., I'll buy that. I seen what it looks like out that window—" The real comprehension was seeping through to him even as he talked. "Everybody I know, Jessie, Tony, the Kid, Big Louis, everybody, they're dead. Even Big Louis." "Yes," Brett-James said, his voice soft. "They are all dead, Mr. Prantera. Their children are all dead, and their grandchildren." The two men of the future said nothing more for long minutes while Joe Prantera's mind whirled its confusion. Finally he said, "What's this bit about you wanting me to give it to some guy." "That is why we brought you here, Mr. Prantera. You were ... you are, a professional assassin." "Hey, wait a minute, now." Reston-Farrell went on, ignoring the interruption. "There is small point in denying your calling. Pray remember that at the point when we ... transported you, you were about to dispose of a contemporary named Alphonso Annunziata-Rossi. A citizen, I might say, whose demise would probably have caused small dismay to society." They had him pegged all right. Joe said, "But why me? Why don't you get some heavy from now? Somebody knows the ropes these days." Brett-James said, "Mr. Prantera, there are no professional assassins in this age, nor have there been for over a century and a half." "Well, then do it yourself." Joe Prantera's irritation over this whole complicated mess was growing. And already he was beginning to long for the things he knew—for Jessie and Tony and the others, for his favorite bar, for the lasagne down at Papa Giovanni's. Right now he could have welcomed a calling down at the hands of Big Louis. Reston-Farrell had come to his feet and walked to one of the large room's windows. He looked out, as though unseeing. Then, his back turned, he said, "We have tried, but it is simply not in us, Mr. Prantera." "You mean you're yella?" "No, if by that you mean afraid. It is simply not within us to take the life of a fellow creature—not to speak of a fellow man." Joe snapped: "Everything you guys say sounds crazy. Let's start all over again." Brett-James said, "Let me do it, Lawrence." He turned his eyes to Joe. "Mr. Prantera, in your own era, did you ever consider the future?" Joe looked at him blankly. "In your day you were confronted with national and international, problems. Just as we are today and just as nations were a century or a millennium ago." "Sure, O.K., so we had problems. I know whatcha mean—like wars, and depressions and dictators and like that." "Yes, like that," Brett-James nodded. The heavy-set man paused a moment. "Yes, like that," he repeated. "That we confront you now indicates that the problems of your day were solved. Hadn't they been, the world most surely would have destroyed itself. Wars? Our pedagogues are hard put to convince their students that such ever existed. More than a century and a half ago our society eliminated the reasons for international conflict. For that matter," he added musingly, "we eliminated most international boundaries. Depressions? Shortly after your own period, man awoke to the fact that he had achieved to the point where it was possible to produce an abundance for all with a minimum of toil. Overnight, for all practical purposes, the whole world was industrialized, automated. The second industrial revolution was accompanied by revolutionary changes in almost every field, certainly in every science. Dictators? Your ancestors found, Mr. Prantera, that it is difficult for a man to be free so long as others are still enslaved. Today the democratic ethic has reached a pinnacle never dreamed of in your own era." "O.K., O.K.," Joe Prantera growled. "So everybody's got it made. What I wanta know is what's all this about me giving it ta somebody? If everything's so great, how come you want me to knock this guy off?" Reston-Farrell bent forward and thumped his right index finger twice on the table. "The bacterium of hate—a new strain—has found the human race unprotected from its disease. We had thought our vaccines immunized us." "What's that suppose to mean?" Brett-James took up the ball again. "Mr. Prantera, have you ever heard of Ghengis Khan, of Tamerlane, Alexander, Caesar?" Joe Prantera scowled at him emptily. "Or, more likely, of Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin?" "Sure I heard of Hitler and Stalin," Joe growled. "I ain't stupid." The other nodded. "Such men are unique. They have a drive ... a drive to power which exceeds by far the ambitions of the average man. They are genii in their way, Mr. Prantera, genii of evil. Such a genius of evil has appeared on the current scene." "Now we're getting somewheres," Joe snorted. "So you got a guy what's a little ambitious, like, eh? And you guys ain't got the guts to give it to him. O.K. What's in it for me?" The two of them frowned, exchanged glances. Reston-Farrell said, "You know, that is one aspect we had not considered." Brett-James said to Joe Prantera, "Had we not, ah, taken you at the time we did, do you realize what would have happened?" "Sure," Joe grunted. "I woulda let old Al Rossi have it right in the guts, five times. Then I woulda took the plane back to Chi." Brett-James was shaking his head. "No. You see, by coincidence, a police squad car was coming down the street just at that moment to arrest Mr. Rossi. You would have been apprehended. As I understand Californian law of the period, your life would have been forfeit, Mr. Prantera." Joe winced. It didn't occur to him to doubt their word. Reston-Farrell said, "As to reward, Mr. Prantera, we have already told you there is ultra-abundance in this age. Once this task has been performed, we will sponsor your entry into present day society. Competent psychiatric therapy will soon remove your present—" "Waita minute, now. You figure on gettin' me candled by some head shrinker, eh? No thanks, Buster. I'm going back to my own—" Brett-James was shaking his head again. "I am afraid there is no return, Mr. Prantera. Time travel works but in one direction, with the flow of the time stream. There can be no return to your own era." Joe Prantera had been rocking with the mental blows he had been assimilating, but this was the final haymaker. He was stuck in this squaresville of a world. Joe Prantera on a job was thorough. Careful, painstaking, competent. He spent the first three days of his life in the year 2133 getting the feel of things. Brett-James and Reston-Farrell had been appointed to work with him. Joe didn't meet any of the others who belonged to the group which had taken the measures to bring him from the past. He didn't want to meet them. The fewer persons involved, the better. He stayed in the apartment of Reston-Farrell. Joe had been right, Reston-Farrell was a medical doctor. Brett-James evidently had something to do with the process that had enabled them to bring Joe from the past. Joe didn't know how they'd done it, and he didn't care. Joe was a realist. He was here. The thing was to adapt. There didn't seem to be any hurry. Once the deal was made, they left it up to him to make the decisions. They drove him around the town, when he wished to check the traffic arteries. They flew him about the whole vicinity. From the air, Southern California looked much the same as it had in his own time. Oceans, mountains, and to a lesser extent, deserts, are fairly permanent even against man's corroding efforts. It was while he was flying with Brett-James on the second day that Joe said, "How about Mexico? Could I make the get to Mexico?" The physicist looked at him questioningly. "Get?" he said. Joe Prantera said impatiently, "The getaway. After I give it to this Howard Temple-Tracy guy, I gotta go on the run, don't I?" "I see." Brett-James cleared his throat. "Mexico is no longer a separate nation, Mr. Prantera. All North America has been united into one unit. Today, there are only eight nations in the world." "Where's the nearest?" "South America." "That's a helluva long way to go on a get." "We hadn't thought of the matter being handled in that manner." Joe eyed him in scorn. "Oh, you didn't, huh? What happens after I give it to this guy? I just sit around and wait for the cops to put the arm on me?" Brett-James grimaced in amusement. "Mr. Prantera, this will probably be difficult for you to comprehend, but there are no police in this era." Joe gaped at him. "No police! What happens if you gotta throw some guy in stir?" "If I understand your idiom correctly, you mean prison. There are no prisons in this era, Mr. Prantera." Joe stared. "No cops, no jails. What stops anybody? What stops anybody from just going into some bank, like, and collecting up all the bread?" Brett-James cleared his throat. "Mr. Prantera, there are no banks." "No banks! You gotta have banks!" "And no money to put in them. We found it a rather antiquated method of distribution well over a century ago." Joe had given up. Now he merely stared. Brett-James said reasonably, "We found we were devoting as much time to financial matters in all their endless ramifications—including bank robberies—as we were to productive efforts. So we turned to more efficient methods of distribution." On the fourth day, Joe said, "O.K., let's get down to facts. Summa the things you guys say don't stick together so good. Now, first place, where's this guy Temple-Tracy you want knocked off?" Reston-Farrell and Brett-James were both present. The three of them sat in the living room of the latter's apartment, sipping a sparkling wine which seemed to be the prevailing beverage of the day. For Joe's taste it was insipid stuff. Happily, rye was available to those who wanted it. Reston-Farrell said, "You mean, where does he reside? Why, here in this city." "Well, that's handy, eh?" Joe scratched himself thoughtfully. "You got somebody can finger him for me?" "Finger him?" "Look, before I can give it to this guy I gotta know some place where he'll be at some time. Get it? Like Al Rossi. My finger, he works in Rossi's house, see? He lets me know every Wednesday night, eight o'clock, Al leaves the house all by hisself. O.K., so I can make plans, like, to give it to him." Joe Prantera wound it up reasonably. "You gotta have a finger." Brett-James said, "Why not just go to Temple-Tracy's apartment and, ah, dispose of him?" "Jest walk in, eh? You think I'm stupid? How do I know how many witnesses hangin' around? How do I know if the guy's carryin' heat?" "Heat?" "A gun, a gun. Ya think I'm stupid? I come to give it to him and he gives it to me instead." Dr. Reston-Farrell said, "Howard Temple-Tracy lives alone. He customarily receives visitors every afternoon, largely potential followers. He is attempting to recruit members to an organization he is forming. It would be quite simple for you to enter his establishment and dispose of him. I assure you, he does not possess weapons." Joe was indignant. "Just like that, eh?" he said sarcastically. "Then what happens? How do I get out of the building? Where's my get car parked? Where do I hide out? Where do I dump the heat?" "Dump the heat?" "Get rid of the gun. You want I should get caught with the gun on me? I'd wind up in the gas chamber so quick—" "See here, Mr. Prantera," Brett-James said softly. "We no longer have capital punishment, you must realize." "O.K. I still don't wanta get caught. What is the rap these days, huh?" Joe scowled. "You said they didn't have no jails any more." "This is difficult for you to understand, I imagine," Reston-Farrell told him, "but, you see, we no longer punish people in this era." That took a long, unbelieving moment to sink in. "You mean, like, no matter what they do? That's crazy. Everybody'd be running around giving it to everybody else." "The motivation for crime has been removed, Mr. Prantera," Reston-Farrell attempted to explain. "A person who commits a violence against another is obviously in need of medical care. And, consequently, receives it." "You mean, like, if I steal a car or something, they just take me to a doctor?" Joe Prantera was unbelieving. "Why would anybody wish to steal a car?" Reston-Farrell said easily. "But if I give it to somebody?" "You will be turned over to a medical institution. Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy is the last man you will ever kill, Mr. Prantera." A chillness was in the belly of Joe Prantera. He said very slowly, very dangerously, "You guys figure on me getting caught, don't you?" "Yes," Brett-James said evenly. "Well then, figure something else. You think I'm stupid?" "Mr. Prantera," Dr. Reston-Farrell said, "there has been as much progress in the field of psychiatry in the past two centuries as there has in any other. Your treatment would be brief and painless, believe me." Joe said coldly, "And what happens to you guys? How do you know I won't rat on you?" Brett-James said gently, "The moment after you have accomplished your mission, we plan to turn ourselves over to the nearest institution to have determined whether or not we also need therapy." "Now I'm beginning to wonder about you guys," Joe said. "Look, all over again, what'd'ya wanta give it to this guy for?" The doctor said, "We explained the other day, Mr. Prantera. Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy is a dangerous, atavistic, evil genius. We are afraid for our institutions if his plans are allowed to mature." "Well if you got things so good, everybody's got it made, like, who'd listen to him?" The doctor nodded at the validity of the question. "Mr. Prantera, Homo sapiens is a unique animal. Physically he matures at approximately the age of thirteen. However, mental maturity and adjustment is often not fully realized until thirty or even more. Indeed, it is sometimes never achieved. Before such maturity is reached, our youth are susceptible to romantic appeal. Nationalism, chauvinism, racism, the supposed glory of the military, all seem romantic to the immature. They rebel at the orderliness of present society. They seek entertainment in excitement. Citizen Temple-Tracy is aware of this and finds his recruits among the young." "O.K., so this guy is dangerous. You want him knocked off before he screws everything up. But the way things are, there's no way of making a get. So you'll have to get some other patsy. Not me." "I am afraid you have no alternative," Brett-James said gently. "Without us, what will you do? Mr. Prantera, you do not even speak the language." "What'd'ya mean? I don't understand summa the big words you eggheads use, but I get by O.K." Brett-James said, "Amer-English is no longer the language spoken by the man in the street, Mr. Prantera. Only students of such subjects any longer speak such tongues as Amer-English, French, Russian or the many others that once confused the race with their limitations as a means of communication." "You mean there's no place in the whole world where they talk American?" Joe demanded, aghast. Dr. Reston-Farrell controlled the car. Joe Prantera sat in the seat next to him and Warren Brett-James sat in the back. Joe had, tucked in his belt, a .45 caliber automatic, once displayed in a museum. It had been more easily procured than the ammunition to fit it, but that problem too had been solved. The others were nervous, obviously repelled by the very conception of what they had planned. Inwardly, Joe was amused. Now that they had got in the clutch, the others were on the verge of chickening out. He knew it wouldn't have taken much for them to cancel the project. It wasn't any answer though. If they allowed him to call it off today, they'd talk themselves into it again before the week was through. Besides, already Joe was beginning to feel the comfortable, pleasurable, warm feeling that came to him on occasions like this. He said, "You're sure this guy talks American, eh?" Warren Brett-James said, "Quite sure. He is a student of history." "And he won't think it's funny I talk American to him, eh?" "He'll undoubtedly be intrigued." They pulled up before a large apartment building that overlooked the area once known as Wilmington. Joe was coolly efficient now. He pulled out the automatic, held it down below his knees and threw a shell into the barrel. He eased the hammer down, thumbed on the safety, stuck the weapon back in his belt and beneath the jacketlike garment he wore. He said, "O.K. See you guys later." He left them and entered the building. An elevator—he still wasn't used to their speed in this era—whooshed him to the penthouse duplex occupied by Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy. There were two persons in the reception room but they left on Joe's arrival, without bothering to look at him more than glancingly. He spotted the screen immediately and went over and stood before it. The screen lit and revealed a heavy-set, dour of countenance man seated at a desk. He looked into Joe Prantera's face, scowled and said something. Joe said, "Joseph Salviati-Prantera to interview Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy." The other's shaggy eyebrows rose. "Indeed," he said. "In Amer-English?" Joe nodded. "Enter," the other said. A door had slid open on the other side of the room. Joe walked through it and into what was obviously an office. Citizen Temple-Tracy sat at a desk. There was only one other chair in the room. Joe Prantera ignored it and remained standing. Citizen Temple-Tracy said, "What can I do for you?" Joe looked at him for a long, long moment. Then he reached down to his belt and brought forth the .45 automatic. He moistened his lips. Joe said softly, "You know what this here is?" Temple-Tracy stared at the weapon. "It's a handgun, circa, I would say, about 1925 Old Calendar. What in the world are you doing with it?" Joe said, very slowly, "Chief, in the line you're in these days you needa heavy around with wunna these. Otherwise, Chief, you're gunna wind up in some gutter with a lotta holes in you. What I'm doin', I'm askin' for a job. You need a good man knows how to handle wunna these, Chief." Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy eyed him appraisingly. "Perhaps," he said, "you are right at that. In the near future, I may well need an assistant knowledgeable in the field of violence. Tell me more about yourself. You surprise me considerably." "Sure, Chief. It's kinda a long story, though. First off, I better tell you you got some bad enemies, Chief. Two guys special, named Brett-James and Doc Reston-Farrell. I think one of the first jobs I'm gunna hafta do for you, Chief, is to give it to those two." THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog December 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Hagerty's Enzymes by Haley, A. L.	"Hagerty's Enzymes", A. L. Haley, 1966. HAGERTY'S ENZYMES By A. L. HALEY There's a place for every man and a man for every place, but on robot-harried Mars the situation was just a little different. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Harper Breen sank down gingerly into the new Relaxo-Lounge. He placed twitching hands on the arm-rests and laid his head back stiffly. He closed his fluttering eyelids and clamped his mouth to keep the corner from jumping. "Just lie back, Harp," droned his sister soothingly. "Just give in and let go of everything." Harper tried to let go of everything. He gave in to the chair. And gently the chair went to work. It rocked rhythmically, it vibrated tenderly. With velvety cushions it massaged his back and arms and legs. For all of five minutes Harper stood it. Then with a frenzied lunge he escaped the embrace of the Relaxo-Lounge and fled to a gloriously stationary sofa. "Harp!" His sister, Bella, was ready to weep with exasperation. "Dr. Franz said it would be just the thing for you! Why won't you give it a trial?" Harper glared at the preposterous chair. "Franz!" he snarled. "That prize fathead! I've paid him a fortune in fees. I haven't slept for weeks. I can't eat anything but soup. My nerves are jangling like a four-alarm fire. And what does he prescribe? A blasted jiggling baby carriage! Why, I ought to send him the bill for it!" Completely outraged, he lay back on the couch and closed his eyes. "Now, Harp, you know you've never obeyed his orders. He told you last year that you'd have to ease up. Why do you have to try to run the whole world? It's the strain of all your business worries that's causing your trouble. He told you to take a long vacation or you'd crack up. Don't blame him for your own stubbornness." Harper snorted. His large nose developed the sound magnificently. "Vacation!" he snorted. "Batting a silly ball around or dragging a hook after a stupid fish! Fine activities for an intelligent middle-aged man! And let me correct you. It isn't business worries that are driving me to a crack-up. It's the strain of trying to get some sensible, reasonable coöperation from the nincompoops I have to hire! It's the idiocy of the human race that's got me whipped! It's the—" "Hey, Harp, old man!" His brother-in-law, turning the pages of the new colorama magazine, INTERPLANETARY, had paused at a double-spread. "Didn't you have a finger in those Martian equatorial wells they sunk twenty years ago?" Harper's hands twitched violently. "Don't mention that fiasco!" he rasped. "That deal nearly cost me my shirt! Water, hell! Those wells spewed up the craziest conglomeration of liquids ever tapped!" Scribney, whose large, phlegmatic person and calm professorial brain were the complete antithesis of Harper's picked-crow physique and scheming financier's wits, looked severely over his glasses. Harp's nervous tribulations were beginning to bore him, as well as interfere with the harmony of his home. "You're away behind the times, Harp," he declared. "Don't you know that those have proved to be the most astoundingly curative springs ever discovered anywhere? Don't you know that a syndicate has built the largest extra-terrestial hotel of the solar system there and that people are flocking to it to get cured of whatever ails 'em? Old man, you missed a bet!" Leaping from the sofa, Harper rudely snatched the magazine from Scribney's hands. He glared at the spread which depicted a star-shaped structure of bottle-green glass resting jewel-like on the rufous rock of Mars. The main portion of the building consisted of a circular skyscraper with a glass-domed roof. Between its star-shaped annexes, other domes covered landscaped gardens and noxious pools which in the drawing looked lovely and enticing. "Why, I remember now!" exclaimed Bella. "That's where the Durants went two years ago! He was about dead and she looked like a hag. They came back in wonderful shape. Don't you remember, Scrib?" Dutifully Scribney remembered and commented on the change the Martian springs had effected in the Durants. "It's the very thing for you, Harp," he advised. "You'd get a good rest on the way out. This gas they use in the rockets nowadays is as good as a rest-cure; it sort of floats you along the time-track in a pleasant daze, they tell me. And you can finish the cure at the hotel while looking it over. And not only that." Confidentially he leaned toward his insignificant looking brother-in-law. "The chemists over at Dade McCann have just isolated an enzyme from one species of Martian fungus that breaks down crude oil into its components without the need for chemical processing. There's a fortune waiting for the man who corners that fungus market and learns to process the stuff!" Scribney had gauged his victim's mental processes accurately. The magazine sagged in Harp's hands, and his sharp eyes became shrewd and calculating. He even forgot to twitch. "Maybe you're right, Scrib," he acknowledged. "Combine a rest-cure with business, eh?" Raising the magazine, he began reading the advertisement. And that was when he saw the line about the robots. "—the only hotel staffed entirely with robot servants—" "Robots!" he shrilled. "You mean they've developed the things to that point? Why hasn't somebody told me? I'll have Jackson's hide! I'll disfranchise him! I'll—" "Harp!" exploded Bella. "Stop it! Maybe Jackson doesn't know a thing about it, whatever it is! If it's something at the Emerald Star Hotel, why don't you just go and find out for yourself instead of throwing a tantrum? That's the only sensible way!" "You're right, Bella," agreed Harper incisively. "I'll go and find out for myself. Immediately!" Scooping up his hat, he left at his usual lope. "Well!" remarked his sister. "All I can say is that they'd better turn that happy-gas on extra strong for Harp's trip out!" The trip out did Harper a world of good. Under the influence of the soporific gas that permeated the rocket, he really relaxed for the first time in years, sinking with the other passengers into a hazy lethargy with little sense of passing time and almost no memory of the interval. It seemed hardly more than a handful of hours until they were strapping themselves into deceleration hammocks for the landing. And then Harper was waking with lassitude still heavy in his veins. He struggled out of the hammock, made his way to the airlock, and found himself whisked by pneumatic tube directly into the lobby of the Emerald Star Hotel. Appreciatively he gazed around at the half-acre of moss-gray carpeting, green-tinted by the light sifting through the walls of Martian copper-glass, and at the vistas of beautiful domed gardens framed by a dozen arches. But most of all, the robots won his delighted approval. He could see at once that they had been developed to an amazingly high state of perfection. How, he wondered again, had this been done without his knowledge? Was Scrib right? Was he slipping? Gnawing at the doubt, he watched the robots moving efficiently about, pushing patients in wheelchairs, carrying trays, guiding newcomers, performing janitorial duties tirelessly, promptly, and best of all, silently. Harper was enthralled. He'd staff his offices with them. Hang the expense! There'd be no more of that obnoxious personal friction and proneness to error that was always deviling the most carefully trained office staffs! He'd investigate and find out the exact potentialities of these robots while here, and then go home and introduce them into the field of business. He'd show them whether he was slipping! Briskly he went over to the desk. He was immediately confronted with a sample of that human obstinacy that was slowly driving him mad. Machines, he sighed to himself. Wonderful silent machines! For a woman was arguing stridently with the desk clerk who, poor man, was a high strung fellow human instead of a robot. Harper watched him shrinking and turning pale lavender in the stress of the argument. "A nurse!" shouted the woman. "I want a nurse! A real woman! For what you charge, you should be able to give me a television star if I want one! I won't have another of those damnable robots in my room, do you hear?" No one within the confines of the huge lobby could have helped hearing. The clerk flinched visibly. "Now, Mrs. Jacobsen," he soothed. "You know the hotel is staffed entirely with robots. They're much more expensive, really, than human employees, but so much more efficient, you know. Admit it, they give excellent service, don't they, now?" Toothily he smiled at the enraged woman. "That's just it!" Mrs. Jacobsen glared. "The service is too good. I might just as well have a set of push buttons in the room. I want someone to hear what I say! I want to be able to change my mind once in awhile!" Harper snorted. "Wants someone she can devil," he diagnosed. "Someone she can get a kick out of ordering around." With vast contempt he stepped to the desk beside her and peremptorily rapped for the clerk. "One moment, sir," begged that harassed individual. "Just one moment, please." He turned back to the woman. But she had turned her glare on Harper. "You could at least be civil enough to wait your turn!" Harper smirked. "My good woman, I'm not a robot. Robots, of course, are always civil. But you should know by now that civility isn't a normal human trait." Leaving her temporarily quashed, he beckoned authoritatively to the clerk. "I've just arrived and want to get settled. I'm here merely for a rest-cure, no treatments. You can assign my quarters before continuing your—ah—discussion with the lady." The clerk sputtered. Mrs. Jacobsen sputtered. But not for nothing was Harper one of the leading business executives of the earth. Harper's implacable stare won his point. Wiping beads of moisture from his forehead, the clerk fumbled for a card, typed it out, and was about to deposit it in the punch box when a fist hit the desk a resounding blow and another voice, male, roared out at Harper's elbow. "This is a helluva joint!" roared the voice. "Man could rot away to the knees while he's waitin' for accommodations. Service!" Again his fist banged the counter. The clerk jumped. He dropped Harper's card and had to stoop for it. Absently holding it, he straightened up to face Mrs. Jacobsen and the irate newcomer. Hastily he pushed a tagged key at Harper. "Here you are, Mr. Breen. I'm sure you'll find it comfortable." With a pallid smile he pressed a button and consigned Harper to the care of a silent and efficient robot. The room was more than comfortable. It was beautiful. Its bank of clear windows set in the green glass wall framed startling rubicund views of the Martian hinterland where, Harper affectionately thought, fungi were busy producing enzymes that were going to be worth millions for him and his associates. There remained only the small detail of discovering how to extract them economically and to process them on this more than arid and almost airless planet. Details for his bright young laboratory men; mere details.... Leaving his luggage to be unpacked by the robot attendant, he went up to the domed roof restaurant. Lunching boldly on broiled halibut with consomme, salad and a bland custard, he stared out at the dark blue sky of Mars, with Deimos hanging in the east in three-quarter phase while Phobos raced up from the west like a meteor behind schedule. Leaning back in his cushioned chair, he even more boldly lit a slim cigar—his first in months—and inhaled happily. For once old Scribney had certainly been right, he reflected. Yes sir, Scrib had rung the bell, and he wasn't the man to forget it. With a wonderful sense of well-being he returned to his room and prepared to relax. Harper opened his eyes. Two robots were bending over him. He saw that they were dressed in white, like hospital attendants. But he had no further opportunity to examine them. With brisk, well-co-ordinated movements they wheeled a stretcher along-side his couch, stuck a hypo into his arm, bundled him onto the stretcher and started wheeling him out. Harper's tongue finally functioned. "What's all this?" he demanded. "There's nothing wrong with me. Let me go!" He struggled to rise, but a metal hand pushed him firmly on the chest. Inexorably it pushed him flat. "You've got the wrong room!" yelled Harp. "Let me go!" But the hypo began to take effect. His yells became weaker and drowsier. Hazily, as he drifted off, he thought of Mrs. Jacobsen. Maybe she had something, at that. There was a tentative knock on the door. "Come in," called Harper bleakly. As soon as the door opened he regretted his invitation, for the opening framed the large untidy man who had noisily pounded on the desk demanding service while he, Harp, was being registered. "Say, pardner," he said hoarsely, "you haven't seen any of them robots around here, have you?" Harper scowled. "Oh, haven't I?" he grated. "Robots! Do you know what they did to me." Indignation lit fires in his pale eyes. "Came in here while I was lying down peacefully digesting the first meal I've enjoyed in months, dragged me off to the surgery, and pumped it all out! The only meal I've enjoyed in months!" Blackly he sank his chin onto his fist and contemplated the outrage. "Why didn't you stop 'em?" reasonably asked the visitor. "Stop a robot?" Harper glared pityingly. "How? You can't reason with the blasted things. And as for using force—it's man against metal. You try it!" He ground his teeth together in futile rage. "And to think I had the insane notion that robots were the last word! Why, I was ready to staff my offices with the things!" The big man placed his large hands on his own capacious stomach and groaned. "I'm sure sorry it was you and not me, pardner. I could use some of that treatment right now. Musta been that steak and onions I ate after all that tundra dope I've been livin' on." "Tundra?" A faint spark of alertness lightened Harper's dull rage. "You mean you work out here on the tundra?" "That's right. How'd you think I got in such a helluva shape? I'm superintendent of one of the fungus plants. I'm Jake Ellis of Hagerty's Enzymes. There's good money in it, but man, what a job! No air worth mentionin'. Temperature always freezin' or below. Pressure suits. Huts. Factory. Processed food. Nothin' else. Just nothin'. That's where they could use some robots. It sure ain't no job for a real live man. And in fact, there ain't many men left there. If old man Hagerty only knew it, he's about out of business." Harper sat up as if he'd been needled. He opened his mouth to speak. But just then the door opened briskly and two robots entered. With a horrified stare, Harper clutched his maltreated stomach. He saw a third robot enter, wheeling a chair. "A wheel chair!" squeaked the victim. "I tell you, there's nothing wrong with me! Take it away! I'm only here for a rest-cure! Believe me! Take it away!" The robots ignored him. For the first time in his spectacular and ruthless career Harper was up against creatures that he could neither bribe, persuade nor browbeat, inveigle nor ignore. It shattered his ebbing self-confidence. He began waving his hands helplessly. The robots not only ignored Harper. They paid no attention at all to Jake Ellis, who was plucking at their metallic arms pleading, "Take me, boys. I need the treatment bad, whatever it is. I need all the treatment I can get. Take me! I'm just a wreck, fellers—" Stolidly they picked Harper up, plunked him into the chair, strapped him down and marched out with him. Dejectedly Ellis returned to his own room. Again he lifted the receiver of the room phone; but as usual a robot voice answered sweetly, mechanically, and meaninglessly. He hung up and went miserably to bed. There was something nagging at Harper's mind. Something he should do. Something that concerned robots. But he was too exhausted to think it out. For five days now his pet robots had put him through an ordeal that made him flinch every time he thought about it. Which wasn't often, since he was almost past thinking. They plunked him into stinking mud-baths and held him there until he was well-done to the bone, he was sure. They soaked him in foul, steaming irradiated waters until he gagged. They brought him weird concoctions to eat and drink and then stood over him until he consumed them. They purged and massaged and exercised him. Whenever they let him alone, he simply collapsed into bed and slept. There was nothing else to do anyway. They'd taken his clothes; and the phone, after an announcement that he would have no more service for two weeks, gave him nothing but a busy signal. "Persecution, that's what it is!" he moaned desperately. And he turned his back to the mirror, which showed him that he was beginning to look flesh-colored instead of the parchment yellow to which he had become accustomed. He closed his mind to the fact that he was sleeping for hours on end like the proverbial baby, and that he was getting such an appetite that he could almost relish even that detestable mush they sent him for breakfast. He was determined to be furious. As soon as he could wake up enough to be. He hadn't been awake long this time before Jake Ellis was there again, still moaning about his lack of treatments. "Nothin' yet," he gloomily informed Harp. "They haven't been near me. I just can't understand it. After I signed up for the works and paid 'em in advance! And I can't find any way out of this section. The other two rooms are empty and the elevator hasn't got any button. The robots just have to come and get a man or he's stuck." "Stuck!" snarled Harp. "I'm never stuck! And I'm damned if I'll wait any longer to break out of this—this jail! Listen, Jake. I've been thinking. Or trying to, with what's left of me. You came in just when that assinine clerk was registering me. I'll bet that clerk got rattled and gave me the wrong key. I'll bet you're supposed to have this room and I'm getting your treatments. Why don't we switch rooms and see what happens?" "Say, maybe you're right!" Jake's eyes gleamed at last with hope. "I'll get my clothes." Harp's eyebrows rose. "You mean they left you your clothes?" "Why, sure. You mean they took yours?" Harp nodded. An idea began to formulate. "Leave your things, will you? I'm desperate! I'm going to see the manager of this madhouse if I have to go down dressed in a sheet. Your clothes would be better than that." Jake, looking over Harper's skimpy frame, grunted doubtfully. "Maybe you could tie 'em on so they wouldn't slip. And roll up the cuffs. It's okay with me, but just don't lose something when you're down there in that fancy lobby." Harper looked at his watch. "Time to go. Relax, old man. The robots will be along any minute now. If you're the only man in the room, I'm sure they'll take you. They aren't equipped to figure it out. And don't worry about me. I'll anchor your duds all right." Harper had guessed right. Gleefully from the doorway of his new room he watched the robots wheel away his equally delighted neighbor for his first treatment. Then he closed the door and began to don Jake's clothing. The result was unique. He looked like a small boy in his father's clothes, except for the remarkably aged and gnome-like head sticking up on a skinny neck from a collar three sizes too big. And he was shoeless. He was completely unable to navigate in Jake's number twelves. But Harper was a determined man. He didn't even flinch from his image in the mirror. Firmly he stepped over to Jake's telephone. "This is room 618," he said authoritatively. "Send up the elevator for me. I want to go down to the lobby." He'd guessed right again. "It will be right up, sir," responded the robot operator. Hopefully he stepped out into the hall and shuffled to the elevator. Only the robots were immune to Harper Breen's progress across the huge suave lobby. He was a blot on its rich beauty, a grotesque enigma that rooted the other visitors into paralyzed staring groups. Stepping out of the elevator, he had laid a course for the desk which loomed like an island in a moss-gray lake, and now he strode manfully toward it, ignoring the oversize trousers slapping around his stocking feet. Only the robots shared his self control. The clerk was the first to recover from the collective stupor. Frantically he pushed the button that would summon the robot guard. With a gasp of relief he saw the two massive manlike machines moving inexorably forward. He pointed to Harper. "Get that patient!" he ordered. "Take him to the—to the mud-baths!" "No you don't!" yelled Harper. "I want to see the manager!" Nimbly he circled the guard and leaped behind the desk. He began to throw things at the robots. Things like inkwells and typewriters and card indexes. Especially, card indexes. "Stop it!" begged the clerk. "You'll wreck the system! We'll never get it straight again! Stop it!" "Call them off!" snarled Harper. "Call them off or I'll ruin your switchboard!" He put a shoulder against it and prepared to heave. With one last appalled glare at the madman, the clerk picked up an electric finger and pointed it at the approaching robots. They became oddly inanimate. "That's better!" Harper straightened up and meticulously smoothed the collar of his flapping coat. "Now—the manager, please." "This—this way, sir." With shrinking steps the clerk led Harper across the width of the lobby among the fascinated guests. He was beyond speech. Opening the inconspicuous door, he waved Harper inside and returned doggedly to his desk, where he began to pick up things and at the same time phrase his resignation in his mind. Brushing aside the startled secretary in the outer cubicle, Harper flapped and shuffled straight into the inner sanctum. The manager, who was busy chewing a cigar to shreds behind his fortress of gun metal desk, jerked hastily upright and glared at the intruder. "My good man—" he began. "Don't 'my-good-man' me!" snapped Harper. He glared back at the manager. Reaching as far across the expanse of desktop as he could stretch, he shook his puny fist. "Do you know who I am? I'm Harper S. Breen, of Breen and Helgart, Incorporated! And do you know why I haven't even a card to prove it? Do you know why I have to make my way downstairs in garb that makes a laughing stock of me? Do you know why? Because that assinine clerk of yours put me in the wrong room and those damnable robots of yours then proceeded to make a prisoner of me! Me, Harper S. Breen! Why, I'll sue you until you'll be lucky if you have a sheet of writing-paper left in this idiot's retreat!" Hayes, the manager, blanched. Then he began to mottle in an apoplectic pattern. And suddenly with a gusty sigh, he collapsed into his chair. With a shaking hand he mopped his forehead. " My robots!" he muttered. "As if I invented the damned things!" Despondently he looked at Harper. "Go ahead and sue, Mr. Breen. If you don't, somebody else will. And if nobody sues, we'll go broke anyway, at the rate our guest list is declining. I'm ready to hand in my resignation." Again he sighed. "The trouble," he explained, "is that those fool robots are completely logical, and people aren't. There's no way to mix the two. It's dynamite. Maybe people can gradually learn to live with robots, but they haven't yet. Only we had to find it out the hard way. We—" he grimaced disgustedly—"had to pioneer in the use of robots. And it cost us so much that we can't afford to reconvert to human help. So—Operation Robot is about to bankrupt the syndicate." Listening, an amazing calm settled on Harper. Thoughtfully now he hooked a chair to the desk with his stockinged foot, sat down and reached for the cigar that Hayes automatically offered him. "Oh, I don't know," he said mildly. Hayes leaned forward like a drowning man sighting a liferaft. "What do you mean, you don't know? You're threatening to take our shirts, aren't you?" Meticulously Harper clipped and lit his cigar. "It seems to me that these robots might be useful in quite another capacity. I might even make a deal with your syndicate to take them off your hands—at a reasonable price, of course—and forget the outrages I've suffered at your establishment." Hayes leaned toward him incredulous. "You mean you want these robots after what you've seen and experienced?" Placidly Harper puffed a smoke ring. "Of course, you'd have to take into consideration that it would be an experiment for me, too. And there's the suit I'm clearly justified in instituting. However, I'm willing to discuss the matter with your superiors." With hope burgeoning for the first time in weeks, Hayes lifted his head. "My dear Mr. Breen, to get rid of these pestiferous robots, I'll back you to the hilt! I'll notify the owners at once. At once, Mr. Breen! And while we wait for them, allow me to put you up as a guest of the hotel." Coming around to Harper, he effusively shook Harp's scrawny hand, and then personally escorted him not merely to the door but across the lobby to the elevator. Harper gazed out at the stunned audience. This was more like the treatment he was accustomed to! Haughtily he squared his bony shoulders inside the immense jacket and stepped into the elevator. He was ready for the second step of his private Operation Robot. Back on Earth it was a warm, misty spring day—the kind of day unknown to the planet Mars. Bella and Scribney, superb in new spring outfits, waited restlessly while the rocket cooled and the passengers recovered from deceleration. "Look, Scrib!" Bella clutched Scribney's substantial arm. "It's finally opening." They watched the airlock open and the platform wheel into place. They watched the passengers descend, looking a trifle dazed. "There he is!" cried Bella. "Why, doesn't he look wonderful! Scrib, it's amazing! Look at him! And indeed, Harper was stepping briskly downward, looking spry and fit and years younger. He came across to them actually beaming. It was the first pleasant expression they had seen on his face in years. "Well, you old dog!" exclaimed Scribney affectionately. "So you did it again!" Harper smirked. "Yep, I turned a neat little deal. I bought out Hagerty's Enzymes and staffed the plant with the hotel's robots. Got both of 'em dirt cheap. Both concerns going bankrupt because they didn't have sense enough to swap their workers. Feel I owe you a bit for that tip about enzymes, Scrib, so I made out a block of stock to you. All right?" "All right?" Scribney gulped. Why, the dried-up little turnip was human after all. "All right! Yes, sir! But aren't you going to use some of those robots for office help? Aren't they efficient and all that?" Harper's smile vanished. "Don't even mention such a thing!" he yelped. "You don't know what you're saying! I lived with those things for weeks. I wouldn't have one around! Keep 'em in the factory where they belong!" He glimpsed the composed, wonderfully human face of his secretary, waiting patiently in the background. "Oh there you are, Smythe." He turned to his relatives. "Busy day ahead. See you later, folks—" "Same old Harp," observed Scribney. Then he thought of the block of stock. "What say we celebrate our rise to a position in the syndicate, honey?" "Wonderful!" She squeezed his arm, and smiling at each other, they left the port.
Homecoming by Hidalgo, Miguel	"Homecoming", Miguel Hidalgo, 1958. HOMECOMING BY MIGUEL HIDALGO What lasts forever? Does love? Does death?... Nothing lasts forever.... Not even forever [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, April 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The large horse plodded slowly over the shifting sand. The rider was of medium size, with huge, strong hands and seemingly hollow eyes. Strange eyes, alive and aflame. They had no place in the dust-caked, tired body, yet there they were, seeking, always seeking—searching the clear horizon, and never seeming to find what they sought. The horse moved faster now. They were nearing a river; the water would be welcome on tired bodies and dry throats. He spurred his horse, and when they reached the water's edge, he dismounted and unsaddled the horse. Then both man and horse plunged headlong into the waiting torrent, deep into the cool embrace of the clear liquid. They soaked it into their pores and drank deeply of it, feeling life going once more through their veins. Satisfied, they lifted themselves from the water, and the man lay down on the yellow sand of the river bank to sleep. When he awoke, the sun was almost setting. The bright shafts of red light spilled across the sky, making the mountains silent scarlet shadows on the face of the rippling water. Quickly he gathered driftwood, and built a small fire. From his pack he removed some of the coffee he had found in one of the ruined cities. He brought water from the river in the battered coffee-pot he had salvaged, and while he waited for it to boil, he went to his horse, Conqueror, stroking his mane and whispering in his ear. Then he led him silently to a grassy slope where he hobbled him and left him for the night. In the fading light, he ate the hard beef jerky and drank the scalding coffee. Refreshed and momentarily content, he sat staring into the dying fire, seeing the bright glowing coals as living fingers clutching at the wood in consuming embrace, taking all and returning nothing but ashes. Slowly his eyelids yielded. His body sagged, and blood seemed to fill his brain, bathing it in a gentle, warm flood. He slept. His brain slept. But the portion of his brain called memory stirred. It was all alone; all else was at rest. Images began to appear, drawn from inexhaustible files, wherein are kept all thoughts, past, present, and future.... It was the night before he was to go overseas. World War III had been declared, and he had enlisted, receiving his old rank of captain. He was with his wife in the living room of their home. They had put the children to bed—their sons—and now sat on the couch, watching the blazing fire. It was then that he had showed it to her. "I've got something to tell you, and something to show you." He had removed the box from his pocket and opened it. And heard her cry of surprised joy. "Oh, a ring, and it's a diamond, too!" she cried in her rich, happy voice which always seemed to send a thrill through his body. "It's for you; so long as you wear it, I'll come back, even from the dead, if need be. Read the inscription." She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, "It is forever." Then she had slipped the ring on her finger and her arms around him. He held her very close, feeling the warmth from her body flowing into his and making him oblivious to everything except that she was there in his arms and that he was sinking deep, deep into a familiar sea, where he had been many times before but each time found something new and unexplored, some vastly different emotion he could never quite explain. "Wait!" she cried. "I've something for you, too." She took off the locket she wore about her neck and held it up to the shimmering light, letting it spin at the end of its chain. It caught the shadows of the fire and reflected them, greatly magnified, over the room. It was in the shape of a star, encrusted with emeralds, with one large ruby in the center. When he opened it, he found a picture of her in one side, and in the other a picture of the children. He took her in his arms again, and loosened her long, black hair, burying his face in it for a moment. Then he kissed her, and instantly was drawn down into the abyss which seemed to have no beginning or any end. The next morning had been bleak and gray. The mist clung to the wet, sodden ground, and the air was heavy in his lungs. He had driven off in the jeep the army had sent for him, watching her there on the porch until the mist swirled around her feet and she ran back into the house and slammed the door. His cold fingers found the locket, making a little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the blood in his veins. Three days later they had landed in Spain, merged with another division, then crossed the Pyrenees into France, and finally to Paris where the fighting had begun. Already the city was a silent graveyard, littered with the rubble of towers and cathedrals which had once been great. Three years later they were on the road to Moscow. Over a thousand miles lay behind, a dead man on every foot of those miles. Yet victory was near. The Russians had not yet used the H-bomb; the threat of annihilation by the retaliation forces had been too great. He had done well in the war, and had been decorated many times for bravery in action. Now he felt the victory that seemed to be in the air, and he had wished it would come quickly, so that he might return to her. Home. The very feel of the word was everything a battle-weary soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer. Suddenly he had become aware of a droning, wooshing sound above him. It grew louder and louder until he knew what it was. "Heavy bombers!" The alarm had sounded, and the men had headed for their foxholes. But the planes had passed over, the sun glinting on their bellies, reflecting a blinding light. They were bound for bigger, more important targets. When the all-clear had sounded, the men clambered from their shelters. An icy wind swept the field, bringing with it clouds which covered the sun. A strange fear had gripped him then.... Across the Atlantic, over the pole, via Alaska, the great bombers flew. In cities, great and small, the air raid sirens sounded, high screaming noises which had jarred the people from sleep in time to die. The defending planes roared into the sky to intercept the on-rushing bombers. The horrendous battle split the universe. Many bombers fell, victims of fanatical suicide planes, or of missiles that streaked across the sky which none could escape. But too many bombers got through, dropping their deadly cargo upon the helpless cities. And not all the prayers or entreaties to any God had stopped their carnage. First there had been the red flashes that melted buildings into molten streams, and then the great triple-mushroom cloud filled with the poisonous gases that the wind swept away to other cities, where men had not died quickly and mercifully, but had rotted away, leaving shreds of putrid flesh behind to mark the places where they had crawled. The retaliatory forces had roared away to bomb the Russian cities. Few, if any, had returned. Too much blood and life were on their hands. Those who had remained alive had found a resting place on the crown of some distant mountain. Others had preferred the silent peaceful sea, where flesh stayed not long on bones, and only darting fishes and merciful beams of filtered light found their aluminum coffins. The war had ended. To no avail. Neither side had won. Most of the cities and the majority of the population of both countries had been destroyed. Even their governments had vanished, leaving a silent nothingness. The armies that remained were without leaders, without sources of supplies, save what they could forage and beg from an unfriendly people. They were alone now, a group of tired, battered men, for whom life held nothing. Their families had long since died, their bodies turned to dust, their spirits fled on the winds to a new world. Yet these remnants of an army must return—or at least try. Their exodus was just beginning. Somehow he had managed to hold together the few men left from his force. He had always nourished the hope that she might still be alive. And now that the war was over he had to return—had to know whether she was still waiting for him. They had started the long trek. Throughout Europe anarchy reigned. He and his men were alone. All they could do now was fight. Finally they reached the seaport city of Calais. With what few men he had left, he had commandeered a small yacht, and they had taken to the sea. After months of storms and bad luck, they had been shipwrecked somewhere off the coast of Mexico. He had managed to swim ashore, and had been found by a fisherman's family. Many months he had spent swimming and fishing, recovering his strength, inquiring about the United States. The Mexicans had spoken with fear of the land across the Rio Grande. All its great cities had been destroyed, and those that had been only partially destroyed were devoid of people. The land across the Rio Grande had become a land of shadows. The winds were poisoned, and the few people who might have survived, were crazed and maimed by the blasts. Few men had dared cross the Rio Grande into "El Mundo gris de Noviembre"—the November world. Those who had, had never returned. In time he had traveled north until he reached the Rio Grande. He had waded into the muddy waters and somehow landed on the American side. In the November world. It was rightly called. The deserts were long. All plant life had died, leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the ruins of what had once been their cities. He had walked through them, and all that he had seen were the small mutant rodents, and all that he had heard was the occasional swish of the wind as it whisked along what might have been dead leaves, but wasn't. He had been on the trail for a long time. His food was nearly exhausted. The mountains were just beginning, and he hoped to find food there. He had not found food, but his luck had been with him. He had found a horse. Not a normal horse, but a mutation. It was almost twice as large as a regular horse. Its skin seemed to shimmer and was like glassy steel to the touch. From the center of its forehead grew a horn, straight out, as the horn of a unicorn. But most startling of all were the animal's eyes which seemed to speak—a silent mental speech, which he could understand. The horse had looked up as he approached it and seemed to say: "Follow me." And he had followed. Over a mountain, until they came to a pass, and finally to a narrow path which led to an old cabin. He had found it empty, but there were cans of food and a rifle and many shells. He had remained there a long time—how long he could not tell, for he could only measure time by the cycles of the sun and the moon. Finally he had taken the horse, the rifle and what food was left, and once again started the long journey home. The farther north he went, the more life seemed to have survived. He had seen great herds of horses like his own, stampeding across the plains, and strange birds which he could not identify. Yet he had seen no human beings. But he knew he was closer now. Closer to home. He recognized the land. How, he did not know, for it was much changed. A sensing, perhaps, of what it had once been. He could not be more than two days' ride away. Once he was through this desert, he would find her, he would be with her once again; all would be well, and his long journey would be over. The images faded. Even memory slept in a flow of warm blood. Body and mind slept into the shadows of the dawn. He awoke and stretched the cramped muscles of his body. At the edge of the water he removed his clothes and stared at himself in the rippling mirror. His muscles were lean and hard, evenly placed throughout the length of his frame. A deep ridge ran down the length of his torso, separating the muscles, making the chest broad. Well satisfied with his body, he plunged into the cold water, deep down, until he thought his lungs would burst; then swiftly returned to the clean air, tingling in every pore. He dried himself and dressed. Conqueror was eating the long grass near the stream. Quickly he saddled him. No time for breakfast. He would ride all day and the next night. And he would be home. Still northward. The hours crawled slower than a dying man. The sun was a torch that pierced his skin, seeming to melt his bones into a burning stream within his body. But day at last gave way to night, and the sun to the moon. The torch became a white pock-marked goddess, with streaming hair called stars. In the moonlight he had not seen the crater until he was at its very edge. Even then he might not have seen it had not the horse stopped suddenly. The wind swirled through its vast emptiness, slapping his face with dusty hands. For a moment he thought he heard voices—mournful, murmuring voices, echoing up from the misty depths. He turned quickly away and did not look back. Night paled into day; day burned into night. There were clouds in the sky now, and a gentle wind caressed the sweat from his tired body. He stopped. There it was! Barely discernible through the moonlight, he saw it. Home. Quickly he dismounted and ran. Now he could see a small light in the window, and he knew they were there. His breath came in hard ragged gulps. At the window he peered in, and as his eyes became accustomed to the inner gloom, he saw how bare the room was. No matter. Now that he was home he would build new furniture, and the house would be even better than it had been before. Then he saw her. She was sitting motionless in a straight wooden chair beside the fireplace, the feeble light cast by the embers veiling her in mauve shadows. He waited, wondering if she were.... Presently she stirred like a restless child in sleep, then moved from the chair to the pile of wood near the hearth, and replenished the fire. The wood caught quickly, sending up long tongues of flame, and forming a bright pool of light around her. His blood froze. The creature illuminated by the firelight was a monster. Large greasy scales covered its face and arms, and there was no hair on its head. Its gums were toothless cavities in a sunken, mumbling mouth. The eyes, turned momentarily toward the window, were empty of life. "No, no!" he cried soundlessly. This was not his house. In his delirium he had only imagined he had found it. He had been searching so long. He would go on searching. He was turning wearily away from the window when the movement of the creature beside the fire held his attention. It had taken a ring from one skeleton-like finger and stood, turning the ring slowly as if trying to decipher some inscription inside it. He knew then. He had come home. Slowly he moved toward the door. A great weakness was upon him. His feet were stones, reluctant to leave the earth. His body was a weed, shriveled by thirst. He grasped the doorknob and clung to it, looking up at the night sky and trying to draw strength from the wind that passed over him. It was no use. There was no strength. Only fear—a kind of fear he had never known. He fumbled at his throat, his fingers crawling like cold worms around his neck until he found the locket and the clasp which had held it safely through endless nightmare days and nights. He slipped the clasp and the locket fell into his waiting hand. As one in a dream, he opened it, and stared at the pictures, now in the dim moonlight no longer faces of those he loved, but grey ghosts from the past. Even the ruby had lost its glow. What had once been living fire was now a dull glob of darkness. "Nothing is forever!" He thought he had shouted the words, but only a thin sound, the sound of leaves ruffled by the wind, came back to him. He closed the locket and fastened the clasp, and hung it on the doorknob. It moved slowly in the wind, back and forth, like a pendulum. "Forever—forever. Only death is forever." He could have sworn he heard the words. He ran. Away from the house. To the large horse with a horn in the center of its forehead, like a unicorn. Once in the saddle, the spurt of strength left him. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped onto his chest. Conqueror trotted away, the sound of his hooves echoing hollowly in the vast emptiness.
Houlihan's Equation by Sheldon, Walter J.	"Houlihan's Equation", Walter J. Sheldon, 1956. Every writer must seek his own Flowery Kingdom in imagination's wide demesne, and if that search can begin and end on Earth his problem has been greatly simplified. In post-war Japan Walt Sheldon has found not only serenity, but complete freedom to write undisturbed about the things he treasures most. A one-time Air Force officer, he has turned to fantasy in his lighter moments, to bring us such brightly sparkling little gems as this. houlihan's equation by ... Walt Sheldon The tiny spaceship had been built for a journey to a star. But its small, mischievous pilots had a rendezvous with destiny—on Earth. I must admit that at first I wasn't sure I was hearing those noises. It was in a park near the nuclear propulsion center—a cool, green spot, with the leaves all telling each other to hush, be quiet, and the soft breeze stirring them up again. I had known precisely such a secluded little green sanctuary just over the hill from Mr. Riordan's farm when I was a boy. Now it was a place I came to when I had a problem to thrash out. That morning I had been trying to work out an equation to give the coefficient of discharge for the matter in combustion. You may call it gas, if you wish, for we treated it like gas at the center for convenience—as it came from the rocket tubes in our engine. Without this coefficient to give us control, we would have lacked a workable equation when we set about putting the first moon rocket around those extraordinary engines of ours, which were still in the undeveloped blueprint stage. I see I shall have to explain this, although I had hoped to get right along with my story. When you start from scratch, matter discharged from any orifice has a velocity directly proportional to the square root of the pressure-head driving it. But when you actually put things together, contractions or expansions in the gas, surface roughness and other factors make the velocity a bit smaller. At the terrible discharge speed of nuclear explosion—which is what the drive amounts to despite the fact that it is simply water in which nuclear salts have been previously dissolved—this small factor makes quite a difference. I had to figure everything into it—diameter of the nozzle, sharpness of the edge, the velocity of approach to the point of discharge, atomic weight and structure— Oh, there is so much of this that if you're not a nuclear engineer yourself it's certain to weary you. Perhaps you had better take my word for it that without this equation—correctly stated, mind you—mankind would be well advised not to make a first trip to the moon. And all this talk of coefficients and equations sits strangely, you might say, upon the tongue of a man named Kevin Francis Houlihan. But I am, after all, a scientist. If I had not been a specialist in my field I would hardly have found myself engaged in vital research at the center. Anyway, I heard these little noises in the park. They sounded like small working sounds, blending in eerily mysterious fashion with a chorus of small voices. I thought at first it might be children at play, but then at the time I was a bit absent-minded. I tiptoed to the edge of the trees, not wanting to deprive any small scalawags of their pleasure, and peered out between the branches. And what do you suppose I saw? Not children, but a group of little people, hard at work. There was a leader, an older one with a crank face. He was beating the air with his arms and piping: "Over here, now! All right, bring those electrical connections over here—and see you're not slow as treacle about it!" There were perhaps fifty of the little people. I was more than startled by it, too. I had not seen little people in—oh, close to thirty years. I had seen them first as a boy of eight, and then, very briefly again, on my tenth birthday. And I had become convinced they could never be seen here in America. I had never seen them so busy, either. They were building something in the middle of the glade. It was long and shiny and upright and a little over five feet in height. "Come along now, people!" said this crotchety one, looking straight at me. "Stop starin' and get to work! You'll not be needin' to mind that man standin' there! You know he can't see nor hear us!" Oh, it was good to hear the rich old tongue again. I smiled, and the foreman of the leprechauns—if that's what he was—saw me smile and became stiff and alert for a moment, as though suspecting that perhaps I actually could see him. Then he shrugged and turned away, clearly deeming such a thing impossible. I said, "Just a minute, friend, and I'll beg your pardon. It so happens I can see you." He whirled to face me again, staring open-mouthed. Then he said, "What? What's that, now?" "I can see you," I said. "Ohhh!" he said and put his palms to his cheekbones. "Saints be with us! He's a believer! Run everybody—run for your lives!" And they all began running, in as many directions as there were little souls. They began to scurry behind the trees and bushes, and a sloping embankment nearby. "No, wait!" I said. "Don't go away! I'll not be hurting you!" They continued to scurry. I knew what it was they feared. "I don't intend catching one of you!" I said. "Come back, you daft little creatures!" But the glade was silent, and they had all disappeared. They thought I wanted their crock of gold, of course. I'd be entitled to it if I could catch one and keep him. Or so the legends affirmed, though I've wondered often about the truth of them. But I was after no gold. I only wanted to hear the music of an Irish tongue. I was lonely here in America, even if I had latched on to a fine job of work for almost shamefully generous pay. You see, in a place as full of science as the nuclear propulsion center there is not much time for the old things. I very much wanted to talk to the little people. I walked over to the center of the glade where the curious shiny object was standing. It was as smooth as glass and shaped like a huge cigar. There were a pair of triangular fins down at the bottom, and stubby wings amidships. Of course it was a spaceship, or a miniature replica of one. I looked at it more closely. Everything seemed almost miraculously complete and workable. I shook my head in wonder, then stepped back from the spaceship and looked about the glade. I knew they were all hiding nearby, watching me apprehensively. I lifted my head to them. "Listen to me now, little people!" I called out. "My name's Houlihan of the Roscommon Houlihans. I am descended from King Niall himself—or so at least my father used to say! Come on out now, and pass the time o' day!" Then I waited, but they didn't answer. The little people always had been shy. Yet without reaching a decision in so many words I knew suddenly that I had to talk to them. I'd come to the glen to work out a knotty problem, and I was up against a blank wall. Simply because I was so lonely that my mind had become clogged. I knew that if I could just once hear the old tongue again, and talk about the old things, I might be able to think the problem through to a satisfactory conclusion. So I stepped back to the tiny spaceship, and this time I struck it a resounding blow with my fist. "Hear me now, little people! If you don't show yourselves and come out and talk to me, I'll wreck this spaceship from stem to stern!" I heard only the leaves rustling softly. "Do you understand? I'll give you until I count three to make an appearance! One!" The glade remained deathly silent. "Two!" I thought I heard a stirring somewhere, as if a small, brittle twig had snapped in the underbrush. " Three! " And with that the little people suddenly appeared. The leader—he seemed more wizened and bent than before—approached me slowly and warily as I stood there. The others all followed at a safe distance. I smiled to reassure them and then waved my arm in a friendly gesture of greeting. "Good morning," I said. "Good morning," the foreman said with some caution. "My name is Keech." "And mine's Houlihan, as I've told you. Are you convinced now that I have no intention of doing you any injury?" "Mr. Houlihan," said Keech, drawing a kind of peppered dignity up about himself, "in such matters I am never fully convinced. After living for many centuries I am all too acutely aware of the perversity of human nature." "Yes," I said. "Well, as you will quickly see, all I want to do is talk." I nodded as I spoke, and sat down cross-legged upon the grass. "Any Irishman wants to talk, Mr. Houlihan." "And often that's all he wants," I said. "Sit down with me now, and stop staring as if I were a snake returned to the Island." He shook his head and remained standing. "Have your say, Mr. Houlihan. And afterward we'll appreciate it if you'll go away and leave us to our work." "Well, now, your work," I said, and glanced at the spaceship. "That's exactly what's got me curious." The others had edged in a bit now and were standing in a circle, intently staring at me. I took out my pipe. "Why," I asked, "would a group of little people be building a spaceship here in America—out in this lonely place?" Keech stared back without much expression, and said, "I've been wondering how you guessed it was a spaceship. I was surprised enough when you told me you could see us but not overwhelmingly so. I've run into believers before who could see the little people. It happens every so often, though not as frequently as it did a century ago. But knowing a spaceship at first glance! Well, I must confess that does astonish me." "And why wouldn't I know a spaceship when I see one?" I said. "It just so happens I'm a doctor of science." "A doctor of science, now," said Keech. "Invited by the American government to work on the first moon rocket here at the nuclear propulsion center. Since it's no secret I can advise you of it." "A scientist, is it," said Keech. "Well, now, that's very interesting." "I'll make no apologies for it," I said. "Oh, there's no need for apology," said Keech. "Though in truth we prefer poets to scientists. But it has just now crossed my mind, Mr. Houlihan that you, being a scientist, might be of help to us." "How?" I asked. "Well, I might try starting at the beginning," he replied. "You might," I said. "A man usually does." Keech took out his own pipe—a clay dudeen—and looked hopeful. I gave him a pinch of tobacco from my pouch. "Well, now," he said, "first of all you're no doubt surprised to find us here in America." "I am surprised from time to time to find myself here," I said. "But continue." "We had to come here," said Keech, "to learn how to make a spaceship." "A spaceship, now," I said, unconsciously adopting some of the old manner. "Leprechauns are not really mechanically inclined," said Keech. "Their major passions are music and laughter and mischief, as anyone knows." "Myself included," I agreed. "Then why do you need a spaceship?" "Well, if I may use an old expression, we've had a feelin' lately that we're not long for this world. Or let me put it this way. We feel the world isn't long for itself." I scratched my cheek. "How would a man unravel a statement such as that?" "It's very simple. With all the super weapons you mortals have developed, there's the distinct possibility you might be blowin' us all up in the process of destroying yourselves." "There is that possibility," I said. "Well, then, as I say," said Keech, "the little people have decided to leave the planet in a spaceship. Which we're buildin' here and now. We've spied upon you and learned how to do it. Well—almost how to do it. We haven't learned yet how to control the power—" "Hold on, now," I said. "Leaving the planet, you say. And where would you be going?" "There's another committee working on that. 'Tis not our concern. I was inclined to suggest the constellation Orion, which sounds as though it has a good Irish name, but I was hooted down. Be that as it may, my own job was to go into your nuclear center, learn how to make the ship, and proceed with its construction. Naturally, we didn't understand all of your high-flyin' science, but some of our people are pretty clever at gettin' up replicas of things." "You mean you've been spying on us at the center all this time? Do you know, we often had the feeling we were being watched, but we thought it was by the Russians. There's one thing which puzzles me, though. If you've been constantly around us—and I'm still able to see the little people—why did I never see you before?" "It may be we never crossed your path. It may be you can only see us when you're thinkin' of us, and of course truly believin' in us. I don't know—'tis a thing of the mind, and not important at the moment. What's important is for us to get our first ship to workin' properly and then we'll be on our way." "You're determined to go." "Truly we are, Mr. Houlihan. Now—to business. Just during these last few minutes a certain matter has crossed my mind. That's why I'm wastin' all this time with you, sir. You say you are a scientist." "A nuclear engineer." "Well, then, it may be that you can help us—now that you know we're here." "Help you?" "The power control, Mr. Houlihan. As I understand it, 'tis necessary to know at any instant exactly how much thrust is bein' delivered through the little holes in back. And on paper it looks simple enough—the square of somethin' or other. I've got the figures jotted in a book when I need 'em. But when you get to doin' it it doesn't come out exactly as it does on paper." "You're referring to the necessity for a coefficient of discharge." "Whatever it might be named," said Keech, shrugging. "'Tis the one thing we lack. I suppose eventually you people will be gettin' around to it. But meanwhile we need it right now, if we're to make our ship move." "And you want me to help you with this?" "That is exactly what crossed my mind." I nodded and looked grave and kneaded my chin for a moment softly. "Well, now, Keech," I said finally, "why should I help you?" "Ha!" said Keech, grinning, but not with humor, "the avarice of humans! I knew it! Well, Mr. Houlihan, I'll give you reason enough. The pot o' gold, Mr. Houlihan!" "The one at the end of the rainbow?" "It's not at the end of the rainbow. That's a grandmother's tale. Nor is it actually in an earthen crock. But there's gold, all right, enough to make you rich for the rest of your life. And I'll make you a proposition." "Go ahead." "We'll not be needin' gold where we're goin'. It's yours if you show us how to make our ship work." "Well, now, that's quite an offer," I said. Keech had the goodness to be quiet while I sat and thought for a while. My pipe had gone out and I lit it again. I finally said, "Let's have a look at your ship's drive and see what we can see." "You accept the proposition then?" "Let's have a look," I said, and that was all. Well, we had a look, and then several looks, and before the morning was out we had half the spaceship apart, and were deep in argument about the whole project. It was a most fascinating session. I had often wished for a true working model at the center, but no allowance had been inserted in the budget for it. Keech brought me paper and pencil and I talked with the aid of diagrams, as engineers are wont to do. Although the pencils were small and I had to hold them between thumb and forefinger, as you would a needle, I was able to make many sensible observations and even a few innovations. I came back again the next day—and every day for the following two weeks. It rained several times, but Keech and his people made a canopy of boughs and leaves and I was comfortable enough. Every once in a while someone from the town or the center itself would pass by, and stop to watch me. But of course they wouldn't see the leprechauns or anything the leprechauns had made, not being believers. I would halt work, pass the time of day, and then, in subtle fashion, send the intruder on his way. Keech and the little people just stood by and grinned all the while. At the end of sixteen days I had the entire problem all but whipped. It is not difficult to understand why. The working model and the fact that the small people with their quick eyes and clever fingers could spot all sorts of minute shortcomings was a great help. And I was hearing the old tongue and talking of the old things every day, and truly that went far to take the clutter out of my mind. I was no longer so lonely that I couldn't think properly. On the sixteenth day I covered a piece of paper with tiny mathematical symbols and handed it to Keech. "Here is your equation," I said. "It will enable you to know your thrust at any given moment, under any circumstances, in or out of gravity, and under all conditions of friction and combustion." "Thank you, Mr. Houlihan," said Keech. All his people had gathered in a loose circle, as though attending a rite. They were all looking at me quietly. "Mr. Houlihan," said Keech, "you will not be forgotten by the leprechauns. If we ever meet again, upon another world perchance, you'll find our friendship always eager and ready." "Thank you," I said. "And now, Mr. Houlihan," said Keech, "I'll see that a quantity of gold is delivered to your rooms tonight, and so keep my part of the bargain." "I'll not be needing the gold," I said. Keech's eyebrows popped upward. "What's this now?" "I'll not be needing it," I repeated. "I don't feel it would be right to take it for a service of this sort." "Well," said Keech in surprise, and in some awe, too, "well, now, musha Lord help us! 'Tis the first time I ever heard such a speech from a mortal." He turned to his people. "We'll have three cheers now, do you hear, for Mr. Houlihan—friend of the little people as long as he shall live!" And they cheered. And little tears crept into the corners of some of their turned-up eyes. We shook hands, all of us, and I left. I walked through the park, and back to the nuclear propulsion center. It was another cool, green morning with the leaves making only soft noises as the breezes came along. It smelled exactly like a wood I had known in Roscommon. And I lit my pipe and smoked it slowly and chuckled to myself at how I had gotten the best of the little people. Surely it was not every mortal who could accomplish that. I had given them the wrong equation, of course. They would never get their spaceship to work now, and later, if they tried to spy out the right information I would take special measures to prevent it, for I had the advantage of being able to see them. As for our own rocket ship, it should be well on its way by next St. Patrick's Day. For I had indeed determined the true coefficient of discharge, which I never could have done so quickly without those sessions in the glade with Keech and his working model. It would go down in scientific literature now, I suppose, as Houlihan's Equation, and that was honor and glory enough for me. I could do without Keech's pot of gold, though it would have been pleasant to be truly rich for a change. There was no sense in cheating him out of the gold to boot, for leprechauns are most clever in matters of this sort and he would have had it back soon enough—or else made it a burden in some way. Indeed, I had done a piece of work greatly to my advantage, and also to the advantage of humankind, and when a man can do the first and include the second as a fortunate byproduct it is a most happy accident. For if I had shown the little people how to make a spaceship they would have left our world. And this world, as long as it lasts—what would it be in that event? I ask you now, wouldn't we be even more likely to blow ourselves to Kingdom Come without the little people here for us to believe in every now and then? Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe September 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
How to Make Friends by Harmon, Jim	"How to Make Friends", Jim Harmon, 1972. HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS By JIM HARMON Illustrated by WEST [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Every lonely man tries to make friends. Manet just didn't know when to stop! William Manet was alone. In the beginning, he had seen many advantages to being alone. It would give him an unprecedented opportunity to once and for all correlate loneliness to the point of madness, to see how long it would take him to start slavering and clawing the pin-ups from the magazines, to begin teaching himself classes in philosophy consisting of interminable lectures to a bored and captive audience of one. He would be able to measure the qualities of peace and decide whether it was really better than war, he would be able to get as fat and as dirty as he liked, he would be able to live more like an animal and think more like a god than any man for generations. But after a shorter time than he expected, it all got to be a tearing bore. Even the waiting to go crazy part of it. Not that he was going to have any great long wait of it. He was already talking to himself, making verbal notes for his lectures, and he had cut out a picture of Annie Oakley from an old book. He tacked it up and winked at it whenever he passed that way. Lately she was winking back at him. Loneliness was a physical weight on his skull. It peeled the flesh from his arms and legs and sandpapered his self-pity to a fine sensitivity. No one on Earth was as lonely as William Manet, and even William Manet could only be this lonely on Mars. Manet was Atmosphere Seeder Station 131-47's own human. All Manet had to do was sit in the beating aluminum heart in the middle of the chalk desert and stare out, chin cupped in hands, at the flat, flat pavement of dirty talcum, at the stars gleaming as hard in the black sky as a starlet's capped teeth ... stars two of which were moons and one of which was Earth. He had to do nothing else. The whole gimcrack was cybernetically controlled, entirely automatic. No one was needed here—no human being, at least. The Workers' Union was a pretty small pressure group, but it didn't take much to pressure the Assembly. Featherbedding had been carefully specified, including an Overseer for each of the Seeders to honeycomb Mars, to prepare its atmosphere for colonization. They didn't give tests to find well-balanced, well-integrated people for the job. Well-balanced, well-integrated men weren't going to isolate themselves in a useless job. They got, instead, William Manet and his fellows. The Overseers were to stay as long as the job required. Passenger fare to Mars was about one billion dollars. They weren't providing commuter service for night shifts. They weren't providing accommodations for couples when the law specified only one occupant. They weren't providing fuel (at fifty million dollars a gallon) for visits between the various Overseers. They weren't very providential. But it was two hundred thousand a year in salary, and it offered wonderful opportunities. It gave William Manet an opportunity to think he saw a spaceship making a tailfirst landing on the table of the desert, its tail burning as bright as envy. Manet suspected hallucination, but in an existence with all the pallid dispassion of a requited love he was happy to welcome dementia. Sometimes he even manufactured it. Sometimes he would run through the arteries of the factory and play that it had suddenly gone mad hating human beings, and was about to close down its bulkheads on him as sure as the Engineers' Thumb and bale up the pressure-dehydrated digest, making so much stall flooring of him. He ran until he dropped with a kind of climaxing release of terror. So Manet put on the pressure suit he had been given because he would never need it, and marched out to meet the visiting spaceship. He wasn't quite clear how he came from walking effortlessly across the Martian plain that had all the distance-perpetuating qualities of a kid's crank movie machine to the comfortable interior of a strange cabin. Not a ship's cabin but a Northwoods cabin. The black and orange Hallowe'en log charring in the slate stone fireplace seemed real. So did the lean man with the smiling mustache painted with the random designs of the fire, standing before the horizontal pattern of chinked wall. "Need a fresher?" the host inquired. Manet's eyes wondered down to heavy water tumbler full of rich, amber whiskey full of sparks from the hearth. He stirred himself in the comfortingly warm leather chair. "No, no, I'm fine ." He let the word hang there for examination. "Pardon me, but could you tell me just what place this is?" The host shrugged. It was the only word for it. "Whatever place you choose it to be, so long as you're with Trader Tom. 'Service,' that's my motto. It is a way of life with me." "Trader Tom? Service?" "Yes! That's it exactly. It's me exactly. Trader Tom Service—Serving the Wants of the Spaceman Between the Stars. Of course, 'stars' is poetic. Any point of light in the sky in a star. We service the planets." Manet took the tumbler in both hands and drank. It was good whiskey, immensely powerful. "The government wouldn't pay for somebody serving the wants of spacemen," he exploded. "Ah," Trader Tom said, cautionary. He moved nearer the fire and warmed his hands and buttocks. "Ah, but I am not a government service. I represent free enterprise." "Nonsense," Manet said. "No group of private individuals can build a spaceship. It takes a combine of nations." "But remember only that businessmen are reactionary. It's well-known. Ask anyone on the street. Businessmen are reactionary even beyond the capitalistic system. Money is a fiction that exists mostly on paper. They play along on paper to get paper things, but to get real things they can forego the papers. Comprehend, mon ami ? My businessmen have gone back to the barter system. Between them, they have the raw materials, the trained men, the man-hours to make a spaceship. So they make it. Damned reactionaries, all of my principals." "I don't believe you," Manet stated flatly. His conversation had grown blunt with disuse. "What possible profit could your principals turn from running a trading ship among scattered exploration posts on the planets? What could you give us that a benevolent government doesn't already supply us with? And if there was anything, how could we pay for it? My year's salary wouldn't cover the transportation costs of this glass of whiskey." "Do you find it good whiskey?" "Very good." "Excellent?" "Excellent, if you prefer." "I only meant—but never mind. We give you what you want. As for paying for it—why, forget about the payment. You may apply for a Trader Tom Credit Card." "And I could buy anything that I wanted with it?" Manet demanded. "That's absurd. I'd never be able to pay for it." "That's it precisely!" Trader Tom said with enthusiasm. "You never pay for it. Charges are merely deducted from your estate ." "But I may leave no estate!" Trader Tom demonstrated his peculiar shrug. "All businesses operate on a certain margin of risk. That is our worry." Manet finished the mellow whiskey and looked into the glass. It seemed to have been polished clean. "What do you have to offer?" "Whatever you want?" Irritably, "How do I know what I want until I know what you have?" "You know." "I know? All right, I know. You don't have it for sale." "Old chap, understand if you please that I do not only sell . I am a trader—Trader Tom. I trade with many parties. There are, for example ... extraterrestrials." "Folk legend!" "On the contrary, mon cher , the only reality it lacks is political reality. The Assembly could no longer justify their disposition of the cosmos if it were known they were dealing confiscation without representation. Come, tell me what you want." Manet gave in to it. "I want to be not alone," he said. "Of course," Trader Tom replied, "I suspected. It is not so unusual, you know. Sign here. And here. Two copies. This is yours. Thank you so much." Manet handed back the pen and stared at the laminated card in his hand. When he looked up from the card, Manet saw the box. Trader Tom was pushing it across the floor towards him. The box had the general dimensions of a coffin, but it wasn't wood—only brightly illustrated cardboard. There was a large four-color picture on the lid showing men, women and children moving through a busy city street. The red and blue letters said: LIFO The Socialization Kit "It is commercialized," Trader Tom admitted with no little chagrin. "It is presented to appeal to a twelve-year-old child, an erotic, aggressive twelve-year-old, the typical sensie goer—but that is reality. It offends men of good taste like ourselves, yet sometimes it approaches being art. We must accept it." "What's the cost?" Manet asked. "Before I accept it, I have to know the charges." "You never know the cost. Only your executor knows that. It's the Trader Tom plan." "Well, is it guaranteed?" "There are no guarantees," Trader Tom admitted. "But I've never had any complaints yet." "Suppose I'm the first?" Manet suggested reasonably. "You won't be," Trader Tom said. "I won't pass this way again." Manet didn't open the box. He let it fade quietly in the filtered but still brilliant sunlight near a transparent wall. Manet puttered around the spawning monster, trying to brush the copper taste of the station out of his mouth in the mornings, talking to himself, winking at Annie Oakley, and waiting to go mad. Finally, Manet woke up one morning. He lay in the sheets of his bunk, suppressing the urge to go wash his hands, and came at last to the conclusion that, after all the delay, he was mad. So he went to open the box. The cardboard lid seemed to have become both brittle and rotten. It crumbled as easily as ideals. But Manet was old enough to remember the boxes Japanese toys came in when he was a boy, and was not alarmed. The contents were such a glorious pile of junk, of bottles from old chemistry sets, of pieces from old Erector sets, of nameless things and unremembered antiques from neglected places, that it seemed too good to have been assembled commercially. It was the collection of lifetime. On top of everything was a paperbound book, the size of the Reader's Digest , covered in rippled gray flexiboard. The title was stamped in black on the spine and cover: The Making of Friends . Manet opened the book and, turning one blank page, found the title in larger print and slightly amplified: The Making of Friends and Others . There was no author listed. A further line of information stated: "A Manual for Lifo, The Socialization Kit." At the bottom of the title page, the publisher was identified as: LIFO KIT CO., LTD., SYRACUSE. The unnumbered first chapter was headed Your First Friend . Before you go further, first find the Modifier in your kit. This is vital . He quickly riffled through the pages. Other Friends, Authority, A Companion .... Then The Final Model . Manet tried to flip past this section, but the pages after the sheet labeled The Final Model were stuck together. More than stuck. There was a thick slab of plastic in the back of the book. The edges were ridged as if there were pages to this section, but they could only be the tracks of lame ants. Manet flipped back to page one. First find the Modifier in your kit. This is vital to your entire experiment in socialization. The Modifier is Part #A-1 on the Master Chart. He prowled through the box looking for some kind of a chart. There was nothing that looked like a chart inside. He retrieved the lid and looked at its inside. Nothing. He tipped the box and looked at its outside. Not a thing. There was always something missing from kits. Maybe even the Modifier itself. He read on, and probed and scattered the parts in the long box. He studied the manual intently and groped out with his free hand. The toe bone was connected to the foot bone.... The Red King sat smugly in his diagonal corner. The Black King stood two places away, his top half tipsy in frustration. The Red King crabbed sideways one square. The Black King pounced forward one space. The Red King advanced backwards to face the enemy. The Black King shuffled sideways. The Red King followed.... Uselessly. "Tie game," Ronald said. "Tie game," Manet said. "Let's talk," Ronald said cheerfully. He was always cheerful. Cheerfulness was a personality trait Manet had thumbed out for him. Cheerful. Submissive. Co-operative. Manet had selected these factors in order to make Ronald as different a person from himself as possible. "The Korean-American War was the greatest of all wars," Ronald said pontifically. "Only in the air," Manet corrected him. Intelligence was one of the factors Manet had punched to suppress. Intelligence. Aggressiveness. Sense of perfection. Ronald couldn't know any more than Manet, but he could (and did) know less. He had seen to that when his own encephalograph matrix had programmed Ronald's feeder. "There were no dogfights in Korea," Ronald said. "I know." "The dogfight was a combat of hundreds of planes in a tight area, the last of which took place near the end of the First World War. The aerial duel, sometimes inaccurately referred to as a 'dogfight' was not seen in Korea either. The pilots at supersonic speeds only had time for single passes at the enemy. Still, I believe, contrary to all experts, that this took greater skill, man more wedded to machine, than the leisurely combats of World War One." "I know." "Daniel Boone was still a crack shot at eight-five. He was said to be warm, sincere, modest, truthful, respected and rheumatic." "I know." Manet knew it all. He had heard it all before. He was so damned sick of hearing about Korean air battles, Daniel Boone, the literary qualities of ancient sports fiction magazines, the painting of Norman Rockwell, New York swing, ad nauseum . What a narrow band of interests! With the whole universe to explore in thought and concept, why did he have to be trapped with such an unoriginal human being? Of course, Ronald wasn't an original human being. He was a copy. Manet had been interested in the Fabulous Forties—Lt. "Hoot" Gibson, Sam Merwin tennis stories, Saturday Evening Post covers—when he had first learned of them, and he had learned all about them. He had firm opinions on all these. He yearned for someone to challenge him—to say that Dime Sports had been nothing but a cheap yellow rag and, why, Sewanee Review , there had been a magazine for you. Manet's only consolidation was that Ronald's tastes were lower than his own. He patriotically insisted that the American Sabre Jet was superior to the Mig. He maintained with a straight face that Tommy Dorsey was a better band man than Benny Goodman. Ronald was a terrific jerk. "Ronald," Manet said, "you are a terrific jerk." Ronald leaped up immediately and led with his right. Manet blocked it deftly and threw a right cross. Ronald blocked it deftly, and drove in a right to the navel. The two men separated and, puffing like steam locomotives passing the diesel works, closed again. Ronald leaped forward and led with his right. Manet stepped inside the swing and lifted an uppercut to the ledge of Ronald's jaw. Ronald pinwheeled to the floor. He lifted his bruised head from the deck and worked his reddened mouth. "Had enough?" he asked Manet. Manet dropped his fists to his sides and turned away. "Yes." Ronald hopped up lightly. "Another checkers, Billy Boy?" "No." "Okay. Anything you want, William, old conquerer." Manet scrunched up inside himself in impotent fury. Ronald was maddeningly co-operative and peaceful. He would even get in a fist fight to avoid trouble between them. He would do anything Manet wanted him to do. He was so utterly damned stupid. Manet's eyes orbitted towards the checkerboard. But if he were so much more stupid than he, Manet, why was it that their checker games always ended in a tie? The calendar said it was Spring on Earth when the radio was activated for a high-speed information and entertainment transmission. The buzzer-flasher activated in the solarium at the same time. Manet lay stretched out on his back, naked, in front of the transparent wall. By rolling his eyes back in his head, Manet could see over a hedge of eyebrows for several hundred flat miles of white sand. And several hundred miles of desert could see him. For a moment he gloried in the blatant display of his flabby muscles and patchy sunburn. Then he sighed, rolled over to his feet and started trudging toward Communication. He padded down the rib-ridged matted corridor, taking his usual small pleasure in the kaleidoscopic effect of the spiraling reflections on the walls of the tubeway. As he passed the File Room, he caught the sound of the pounding vibrations against the stoppered plug of the hatch. "Come on, Billy Buddy, let me out of this place!" Manet padded on down the hall. He had, he recalled, shoved Ronald in there on Lincoln's Birthday, a minor ironic twist he appreciated quietly. He had been waiting in vain for Ronald to run down ever since. In Communication, he took a seat and punched the slowed down playback of the transmission. "Hello, Overseers," the Voice said. It was the Voice of the B.B.C. It irritated Manet. He never understood how the British had got the space transmissions assignment for the English language. He would have preferred an American disk-jockey himself, one who appreciated New York swing. "We imagine that you are most interested in how long you shall be required to stay at your present stations," said the Voice of God's paternal uncle. "As you on Mars may know, there has been much discussion as to how long it will require to complete the present schedule—" there was of course no "K" sound in the word—"for atmosphere seeding. "The original, non-binding estimate at the time of your departure was 18.2 years. However, determining how long it will take our stations properly to remake the air of Mars is a problem comparable to finding the age of the Earth. Estimates change as new factors are learned. You may recall that three years ago the official estimate was changed to thirty-one years. The recent estimate by certain reactionary sources of two hundred and seventy-four years is not an official government estimate. The news for you is good, if you are becoming nostalgic for home, or not particularly bad if you are counting on drawing your handsome salary for the time spent on Mars. We have every reason to believe our original estimate was substantially correct. The total time is, within limits of error, a flat 18 years." A very flat 18 years, Manet thought as he palmed off the recorder. He sat there thinking about eighteen years. He did not switch to video for some freshly taped westerns. Finally, Manet went back to the solarium and dragged the big box out. There was a lot left inside. One of those parts, one of those bones or struts of flesh sprayers, one of them, he now knew, was the Modifier. The Modifier was what he needed to change Ronald. Or to shut him off. If only the Master Chart hadn't been lost, so he would know what the Modifier looked like! He hoped the Modifier itself wasn't lost. He hated to think of Ronald locked in the Usher tomb of the File Room for 18 flat years. Long before that, he would have worn his fists away hammering at the hatch. Then he might start pounding with his head. Perhaps before the time was up he would have worn himself down to nothing whatsoever. Manet selected the ripple-finished gray-covered manual from the hodgepodge, and thought: eighteen years. Perhaps I should have begun here, he told himself. But I really don't have as much interest in that sort of thing as the earthier types. Simple companionship was all I wanted. And, he thought on, even an insipid personality like Ronald's would be bearable with certain compensations. Manet opened the book to the chapter headed: The Making of a Girl . Veronica crept up behind Manet and slithered her hands up his back and over his shoulders. She leaned forward and breathed a moist warmth into his ear, and worried the lobe with her even white teeth. "Daniel Boone," she sighed huskily, "only killed three Indians in his life." "I know." Manet folded his arms stoically and added: "Please don't talk." She sighed her instant agreement and moved her expressive hands over his chest and up to the hollows of his throat. "I need a shave," he observed. Her hands instantly caressed his face to prove that she liked a rather bristly, masculine countenance. Manet elbowed Veronica away in a gentlemanly fashion. She made her return. "Not now," he instructed her. "Whenever you say." He stood up and began pacing off the dimensions of the compartment. There was no doubt about it: he had been missing his regular exercise. "Now?" she asked. "I'll tell you." "If you were a jet pilot," Veronica said wistfully, "you would be romantic. You would grab love when you could. You would never know which moment would be last. You would make the most of each one." "I'm not a jet pilot," Manet said. "There are no jet pilots. There haven't been any for generations." "Don't be silly," Veronica said. "Who else would stop those vile North Koreans and Red China 'volunteers'?" "Veronica," he said carefully, "the Korean War is over. It was finished even before the last of the jet pilots." "Don't be silly," she snapped. "If it were over, I'd know about it, wouldn't I?" She would, except that somehow she had turned out even less bright, less equipped with Manet's own store of information, than Ronald. Whoever had built the Lifo kit must have had ancient ideas about what constituted appropriate "feminine" characteristics. "I suppose," he said heavily, "that you would like me to take you back to Earth and introduce you to Daniel Boone?" "Oh, yes." "Veronica, your stupidity is hideous." She lowered her long blonde lashes on her pink cheeks. "That is a mean thing to say to me. But I forgive you." An invisible hand began pressing down steadily on the top of his head until it forced a sound out of him. "Aaaawrraagggh! Must you be so cloyingly sweet? Do you have to keep taking that? Isn't there any fight in you at all?" He stepped forward and back-handed her across the jaw. It was the first time he had ever struck a woman, he realized regretfully. He now knew he should have been doing it long ago. Veronica sprang forward and led with a right. Ronald's cries grew louder as Manet marched Veronica through the corridor. "Hear that?" he inquired, smiling with clenched teeth. "No, darling." Well, that was all right. He remembered he had once told her to ignore the noise. She was still following orders. "Come on, Bill, open up the hatch for old Ronald," the voice carried through sepulchrally. "Shut up!" Manet yelled. The voice dwindled stubbornly, then cut off. A silence with a whisper of metallic ring to it. Why hadn't he thought of that before? Maybe because he secretly took comfort in the sound of an almost human voice echoing through the station. Manet threw back the bolt and wheeled back the hatch. Ronald looked just the same as had when Manet had seen him last. His hands didn't seem to have been worn away in the least. Ronald's lips seemed a trifle chapped. But that probably came not from all the shouting but from having nothing to drink for some months. Ronald didn't say anything to Manet. But he looked offended. "You," Manet said to Veronica with a shove in the small of the back, "inside, inside." Ronald sidestepped the lurching girl. "Do you know what I'm going to do with you?" Manet demanded. "I'm going to lock you up in here, and leave you for a day, a month, a year, forever! Now what do you think about that?" "If you think it's the right thing, dear," Veronica said hesitantly. "You know best, Willy," Ronald said uncertainly. Manet slammed the hatch in disgust. Manet walked carefully down the corridor, watching streamers of his reflection corkscrewing into the curved walls. He had to walk carefully, else the artery would roll up tight and squash him. But he walked too carefully for this to happen. As he passed the File Room, Ronald's voice said: "In my opinion, William, you should let us out." "I," Veronica said, "honestly feel that you should let me out, Bill, dearest." Manet giggled. "What? What was that? Do you suggest that I take you back after you've been behind a locked door with my best friend?" He went down the corridor, giggling. He giggled and thought: This will never do. Pouring and tumbling through the Lifo kit, consulting the manual diligently, Manet concluded that there weren't enough parts left in the box to go around. The book gave instructions for The Model Mother, The Model Father, The Model Sibling and others. Yet there weren't parts enough in the kit. He would have to take parts from Ronald or Veronica in order to make any one of the others. And he could not do that without the Modifier. He wished Trader Tom would return and extract some higher price from him for the Modifier, which was clearly missing from the kit. Or to get even more for simply repossessing the kit. But Trader Tom would not be back. He came this way only once. Manet thumbed through the manual in mechanical frustration. As he did so, the solid piece of the last section parted sheet by sheet. He glanced forward and found the headings: The Final Model . There seemed something ominous about that finality. But he had paid a price for the kit, hadn't he? Who knew what price, when it came to that? He had every right to get everything out of the kit that he could. He read the unfolding page critically. The odd assortment of ill-matched parts left in the box took a new shape in his mind and under his fingers.... Manet gave one final spurt from the flesh-sprayer and stood back. Victor was finished. Perfect. Manet stepped forward, lifted the model's left eyelid, tweaked his nose. "Move!" Victor leaped back into the Lifo kit and did a jig on one of the flesh-sprayers. As the device twisted as handily as good intentions, Manet realized that it was not a flesh-sprayer but the Modifier. "It's finished!" were Victor's first words. "It's done!" Manet stared at the tiny wreck. "To say the least." Victor stepped out of the oblong box. "There is something you should understand. I am different from the others." "They all say that." "I am not your friend." "No?" "No. You have made yourself an enemy." Manet felt nothing more at this information than an esthetic pleasure at the symmetry of the situation. "It completes the final course in socialization," Victor continued. "I am your adversary. I will do everything I can to defeat you. I have all your knowledge. You do not have all your knowledge. If you let yourself know some of the things, it could be used against you. It is my function to use everything I possibly can against you." "When do you start?" "I've finished. I've done my worst. I have destroyed the Modifier." "What's so bad about that?" Manet asked with some interest. "You'll have Veronica and Ronald and me forever now. We'll never change. You'll get older, and we'll never change. You'll lose your interest in New York swing and jet combat and Daniel Boone, and we'll never change. We don't change and you can't change us for others. I've made the worst thing happen to you that can happen to any man. I've seen that you will always keep your friends. " The prospect was frightful. Victor smiled. "Aren't you going to denounce me for a fiend?" "Yes, it is time for the denouncement. Tell me, you feel that now you are through? You have fulfilled your function?" "Yes. Yes." "Now you will have but to lean back, as it were, so to speak, and see me suffer?" " Yes. " "No. Can't do it, old man. Can't. I know. You're too human, too like me. The one thing a man can't accept is a passive state, a state of uselessness. Not if he can possibly avoid it. Something has to be happening to him. He has to be happening to something. You didn't kill me because then you would have nothing left to do. You'll never kill me." "Of course not!" Victor stormed. "Fundamental safety cut-off!" "Rationalization. You don't want to kill me. And you can't stop challenging me at every turn. That's your function." "Stop talking and just think about your miserable life," Victor said meanly. "Your friends won't grow and mature with you. You won't make any new friends. You'll have me to constantly remind you of your uselessness, your constant unrelenting sterility of purpose. How's that for boredom, for passiveness?" "That's what I'm trying to tell you," Manet said irritably, his social manners rusty. "I won't be bored. You will see to that. It's your purpose. You'll be a challenge, an obstacle, a source of triumph every foot of the way. Don't you see? With you for an enemy, I don't need a friend!"
Human Clones: Why Not? by Nathan Myhrvold	"Human Clones: Why Not?", Nathan Myhrvold, 1997. Human Clones: Why Not? If you can clone a sheep, you can almost certainly clone a human being. Some of the most powerful people in the world have felt compelled to act against this threat. President Clinton swiftly imposed a ban on federal funding for human-cloning research. Bills are in the works in both houses of Congress to outlaw human cloning--a step urged on all governments by the pope himself. Cloning humans is taken to be either 1) a fundamentally evil thing that must be stopped or, at the very least, 2) a complex ethical issue that needs legislation and regulation. But what, exactly, is so bad about it? Start by asking whether human beings have a right to reproduce. I say "yes." I have no moral right to tell other people they shouldn't be able to have children, and I don't see that Bill Clinton has that right either. When Clinton says, "Let us resist the temptation to copy ourselves," it comes from a man not known for resisting other temptations of the flesh. And for a politician, making noise about cloning is pretty close to a fleshly temptation itself. It's an easy way to show sound-bite leadership on an issue that everybody is talking about, without much risk of bitter consequences. After all, how much federally funded research was stopped by this ban? Probably almost none, because Clinton has maintained Ronald Reagan's policy of minimizing federal grants for research in human reproduction. Besides, most researchers thought cloning humans was impossible--so, for the moment, there's unlikely to be a grant-request backlog. There is nothing like banning the nonexistent to show true leadership. The pope, unlike the president, is known for resisting temptation. He also openly claims the authority to decide how people reproduce. I respect the pope's freedom to lead his religion, and his followers' freedom to follow his dictate. But calling for secular governments to implement a ban, thus extending his power beyond those he can persuade, shows rather explicitly that the pope does not respect the freedom of others. The basic religious doctrine he follows was set down some two millennia ago. Sheep feature prominently in the Bible, but cloning does not. So the pope's views on cloning are 1 st century rules applied using 15 th century religious thinking to a 21 st century issue. If humans have a right to reproduce, what right does society have to limit the means? Essentially all reproduction is done these days with medical help--at delivery, and often before. Truly natural human reproduction would mean 50 percent infant mortality and make pregnancy-related death the No. 1 killer of adult women. True, some forms of medical help are more invasive than others. With in vitro fertilization, the sperm and egg are combined in the lab and surgically implanted in the womb. Less than two decades ago, a similar concern was raised over the ethical issues involved in "test-tube babies." To date, nearly 30,000 such babies have been born in the United States alone. Many would-be parents have been made happy. Who has been harmed? The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would be replaced by DNA from an adult cell. What law or principle--secular, humanist, or religious--says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is OK, but another is not? No matter how closely you study the 1 st century texts, I don't think you'll find the answer. Even if people have the right to do it, is cloning a good idea? Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. Hating a world of clones is hating the current populace. Never before was Pogo so right: We have met the enemy, and he is us ! Adifferent scare scenario is a world filled with copies of famous people only. We'll treat celebrity DNA like designer clothes, hankering for Michael Jordan's genes the way we covet his Nike sneakers today. But even celebrity infatuation has its limits. People are not more taken with celebrities than they are with themselves. Besides, such a trend would correct itself in a generation or two, because celebrity is closely linked to rarity. The world seems amused by one Howard Stern, but give us a hundred or a million of them, and they'll seem a lot less endearing. Clones already exist. About one in every 1,000 births results in a pair of babies with the same DNA. We know them as identical twins. Scientific studies on such twins--reared together or apart--show that they share many characteristics. Just how many they share is a contentious topic in human biology. But genetic determinism is largely irrelevant to the cloning issue. Despite how many or how few individual characteristics twins--or other clones--have in common, they are different people in the most fundamental sense . They have their own identities, their own thoughts, and their own rights. Should you be confused on this point, just ask a twin. Suppose that Unsolved Mysteries called you with news of a long-lost identical twin. Would that suddenly make you less of a person, less of an individual? It is hard to see how. So, why would a clone be different? Your clone would be raised in a different era by different people--like the lost identical twin, only younger than you. A person's basic humanity is not governed by how he or she came into this world, or whether somebody else happens to have the same DNA. Twins aren't the only clones in everyday life. Think about seedless grapes or navel oranges--if there are no seeds, where did they come from? It's the plant equivalent of virgin birth--which is to say that they are all clones, propagated by cutting a shoot and planting it. Wine is almost entirely a cloned product. The grapes used for wine have seeds, but they've been cloned from shoots for more than a hundred years in the case of many vineyards. The same is true for many flowers. Go to a garden store, and you'll find products with delightful names like "Olivia's Cloning Compound," a mix of hormones to dunk on the cut end of a shoot to help it take root. One recurring image in anti-cloning propaganda is of some evil dictator raising an army of cloned warriors. Excuse me, but who is going to raise such an army ("raise" in the sense used by parents)? Clones start out life as babies . Armies are far easier to raise the old fashioned way--by recruiting or drafting naive young adults. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori has worked well enough to send countless young men to their deaths through the ages. Why mess with success? Remember that cloning is not the same as genetic engineering. We don't get to make superman--we have to find him first. Maybe we could clone the superwarrior from Congressional Medal of Honor winners. Their bravery might--or might not--be genetically determined. But, suppose that it is. You might end up with such a brave battalion of heroes that when a grenade lands in their midst, there is a competition to see who gets to jump on it to save the others. Admirable perhaps, but not necessarily the way to win a war. And what about the supply sergeants? The army has a lot more of them than heroes. You could try to breed an expert for every job, including the petty bureaucrats, but what's the point? There's not exactly a shortage of them. What if Saddam Hussein clones were to rule Iraq for another thousand years? Sounds bad, but Saddam's natural son Uday is reputed to make his father seem saintly by comparison. We have no more to fear from a clone of Saddam, or of Hitler, than we do from their natural-born kin--which is to say, we don't have much to fear: Dictators' kids rarely pose a problem. Stalin's daughter retired to Arizona, and Kim Jong Il of North Korea is laughable as Great Leader, Version 2.0. The notion of an 80-year-old man cloning himself to cheat death is quaint, but it is unrealistic. First, the baby wouldn't really be him. Second, is the old duffer really up to changing diapers? A persistent octogenarian might convince a younger couple to have his clone and raise it, but that is not much different from fathering a child via a surrogate mother. Fear of clones is just another form of racism. We all agree it is wrong to discriminate against people based on a set of genetic characteristics known as "race." Calls for a ban on cloning amount to discrimination against people based on another genetic trait--the fact that somebody already has an identical DNA sequence. The most extreme form of discrimination is genocide--seeking to eliminate that which is different. In this case, the genocide is pre-emptive--clones are so scary that we must eliminate them before they exist with a ban on their creation. What is so special about natural reproduction anyway? Cloning is the only predictable way to reproduce, because it creates the identical twin of a known adult. Sexual reproduction is a crap shoot by comparison--some random mix of mom and dad. In evolutionary theory, this combination is thought to help stir the gene pool, so to speak. However, evolution for humans is essentially over, because we use medical science to control the death rate. Whatever the temptations of cloning, the process of natural reproduction will always remain a lot more fun. An expensive and uncomfortable lab procedure will never offer any real competition for sex. The people most likely to clone will be those in special circumstances--infertile couples who must endure IVF anyway, for example. Even there, many will mix genetics to mimic nature. Another special case is where one member of a couple has a severe genetic disease. They might choose a clone of the healthy parent, rather than burden their child with a joint heritage that could be fatal. The most upsetting possibility in human cloning isn't superwarriors or dictators. It's that rich people with big egos will clone themselves. The common practice of giving a boy the same name as his father or choosing a family name for a child of either sex reflects our hunger for vicarious immortality. Clones may resonate with this instinct and cause some people to reproduce this way. So what? Rich and egotistic folks do all sorts of annoying things, and the law is hardly the means with which to try and stop them. The "deep ethical issues" about cloning mainly boil down to jealousy. Economic jealousy is bad enough, and it is a factor here, but the thing that truly drives people crazy is sexual jealousy. Eons of evolution through sexual selection have made the average man or woman insanely jealous of any interloper who gains a reproductive advantage--say by diddling your spouse. Cloning is less personal than cuckoldry, but it strikes a similar chord: Someone has got the reproductive edge on you. Once the fuss has died down and further animal research has paved the way, direct human cloning will be one more option among many specialized medical interventions in human reproduction, affecting only a tiny fraction of the population. Research into this area could bring far wider benefits. Clinton's knee-jerk policy changes nothing in the short run, but it is ultimately a giant step backward. In using an adult cell to create a clone, the "cellular clock" that determines the difference between an embryo and adult was somehow reset. Work in this area might help elucidate the process by which aging occurs and yield a way to reset the clocks in some of our own cells, allowing us to regenerate. Selfishly speaking, that would be more exciting to me than cloning, because it would help me . That's a lot more directly useful than letting me sire an identical twin 40 years my junior. To some, the scientist laboring away to unlock the mysteries of life is a source of evil, never to be trusted. To others, including me, the scientist is the ray of light, illuminating the processes that make the universe work and making us better through that knowledge. Various arguments can be advanced toward either view, but one key statistic is squarely on my side. The vast majority of people, including those who rail against science, owe their very lives to previous medical discoveries. They embody the fruits of science. Don't let the forces of darkness, ignorance, and fear turn us back from research. Instead, let us raise--and yes, even clone--new generations of hapless ingrates, who can whine and rail against the discoveries of the next age.
Hunt the Hunter by Neville, Kris	"Hunt the Hunter", Kris Neville, 1952. HUNT the HUNTER BY KRIS NEVILLE Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Of course using live bait is the best way to lure dangerous alien animals ... unless it turns out that you are the bait! "We're somewhat to the south, I think," Ri said, bending over the crude field map. "That ridge," he pointed, "on our left, is right here." He drew a finger down the map. "It was over here," he moved the finger, "over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them." Extrone asked, "Is there a pass?" Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. "I don't know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the ridge, too." Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. "I'd hate to lose a day crossing the ridge," he said. "Yes, sir," Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. "Listen!" "Eh?" Extrone said. "Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up ahead of us." Extrone raised his eyebrows. This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct. "It is!" Ri said. "It's a farn beast, all right!" Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. "I'm glad we won't have to cross the ridge." Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. "Yes, sir." "We'll pitch camp right here, then," Extrone said. "We'll go after it tomorrow." He looked at the sky. "Have the bearers hurry." "Yes, sir." Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. "You, there!" he called. "Pitch camp, here!" He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, "Be quick, now!" And to Mia, "God almighty, he was getting mad." He ran a hand under his collar. "It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd hate to think of making him climb that ridge." Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. "It's that damned pilot's fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other side. I told him so." Ri shrugged hopelessly. Mia said, "I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he wanted to get us in trouble." "There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side of the ridge, too." "That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for us." Ri cleared his throat nervously. "Maybe you're right." "It's the Hunting Club he don't like." "I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast," Ri said. "At least, then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody else?" Mia looked at his companion. He spat. "What hurts most, he pays us for it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less than I pay my secretary." "Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge." "Hey, you!" Extrone called. The two of them turned immediately. "You two scout ahead," Extrone said. "See if you can pick up some tracks." "Yes, sir," Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their shoulder straps and started off. Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. "Let's wait here," Mia said. "No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in." They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not professional guides. "We don't want to get too near," Ri said after toiling through the forest for many minutes. "Without guns, we don't want to get near enough for the farn beast to charge us." They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging. "He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him," Mia said. "But we go it alone. Damn him." Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. "Hot. By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we were here." Mia said, "The first time, we weren't guides. We didn't notice it so much then." They fought a few yards more into the forest. Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath. "This isn't ours!" Ri said. "This looks like it was made nearly a year ago!" Mia's eyes narrowed. "The military from Xnile?" "No," Ri said. "They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we leased from the Club. Except the one he brought." "The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?" Mia asked. "You think it's their blast?" "So?" Ri said. "But who are they?" It was Mia's turn to shrug. "Whoever they were, they couldn't have been hunters. They'd have kept the secret better." "We didn't do so damned well." "We didn't have a chance," Mia objected. "Everybody and his brother had heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't our fault Extrone found out." "I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of us." Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. "We should have shot our pilot, too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told Extrone we'd hunted this area." "I didn't think a Club pilot would do that." "After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute." There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip. " I didn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking," Mia said. Ri's mouth twisted. "I didn't say you did." "Listen," Mia said in a hoarse whisper. "I just thought. Listen. To hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us, too, when the hunt's over." Ri licked his lips. "No. He wouldn't do that. We're not—not just anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even him . And besides, why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself." Mia said, "I hope you're right." They stood side by side, studying the blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, "We better be getting back." "What'll we tell him?" "That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?" They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines. "It gets hotter at sunset," Ri said nervously. "The breeze dies down." "It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this." "There may be a pass," Mia said, pushing a vine away. Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. "I guess that's it. If there were a lot of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's damned funny, when you think about it." Mia looked up at the darkening sky. "We better hurry," he said. When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low, obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its blasts. Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers. Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce, the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and knees almost stiff. "What in hell do you want?" Extrone asked. They stopped a respectful distance away. "Sir...." one began. "Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?" Extrone demanded, ominously not raising his voice. "Sir," the lead officer said, "it's another alien ship. It was sighted a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir." Extrone's face looked much too innocent. "How did it get there, gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?" "We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir." "So?" Extrone mocked. "We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could locate and destroy it." Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned away, in the direction of a resting bearer. "You!" he said. "Hey! Bring me a drink!" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. "I'm staying here." The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. "But, sir...." Extrone toyed with his beard. "About a year ago, gentlemen, there was an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it, didn't you?" "Yes, sir. When we located it, sir." "You'll destroy this one, too," Extrone said. "We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a long range bombardment, sir." Extrone said, "To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here. And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway." "That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir." Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. "You'll lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen. I'm quite safe here, I think." The bearer brought Extrone his drink. "Get off," Extrone said quietly to the four officers. Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back. Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the tangle of forest. Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area, casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars. Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away, listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to his tent. "Sir?" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness. "Eh?" Extrone said, turning, startled. "Oh, you. Well?" "We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east." Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, "You killed one, I believe, on your trip?" Ri shifted. "Yes, sir." Extrone held back the flap of the tent. "Won't you come in?" he asked without any politeness whatever. Ri obeyed the order. The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers, costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals. They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to the bed, sat down. "You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?" he said. "I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir." Extrone narrowed his eyes. "I see by your eyes that you are envious—that is the word, isn't it?—of my tent." Ri looked away from his face. "Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't seen a farn beast." Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's glittering ones. "Few people have seen them, sir." "Oh?" Extrone questioned mildly. "I wouldn't say that. I understand that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their planets." "I meant in our system, sir." "Of course you did," Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his sleeve with his forefinger. "I imagine these are the only farn beasts in our system." Ri waited uneasily, not answering. "Yes," Extrone said, "I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?" Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. "Yes, sir. It would have been." Extrone pursed his lips. "It wouldn't have been very considerate of you to—But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to come along as my guide." "It was an honor, sir." Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. "If I had waited until it was safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to find such an illustrious guide." "... I'm flattered, sir." "Of course," Extrone said. "But you should have spoken to me about it, when you discovered the farn beast in our own system." "I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity, sir...." "Of course," Extrone said dryly. "Like all of my subjects," he waved his hand in a broad gesture, "the highest as well as the lowest slave, know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best." Ri squirmed, his face pale. "We do indeed love you, sir." Extrone bent forward. " Know me and love me." "Yes, sir. Know you and love you, sir," Ri said. "Get out!" Extrone said. "It's frightening," Ri said, "to be that close to him." Mia nodded. The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree, were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres. "To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the—well; that—what we've read about." Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. "You begin to understand a lot of things, after seeing him." Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag. "It makes you think," Mia added. He twitched. "I'm afraid. I'm afraid he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You, me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us first." Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. "No. We have friends. We have influence. He couldn't just like that—" "He could say it was an accident." "No," Ri said stubbornly. "He can say anything," Mia insisted. "He can make people believe anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it." "It's getting cold," Ri said. "Listen," Mia pleaded. "No," Ri said. "Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen. Everybody would know we were lying. Everything they've come to believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us. He knows that." "Listen," Mia repeated intently. "This is important. Right now he couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A bearer overheard them talking. They don't want to overthrow him!" Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering. "That's another lie," Mia continued. "That he protects the people from the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were ever plotting against him. Not even at first. I think they helped him, don't you see?" Ri whined nervously. "It's like this," Mia said. "I see it like this. The Army put him in power when the people were in rebellion against military rule." Ri swallowed. "We couldn't make the people believe that." "No?" Mia challenged. "Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow? You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the alien system!" "The people won't support them," Ri answered woodenly. " Think. If he tells them to, they will. They trust him." Ri looked around at the shadows. "That explains a lot of things," Mia said. "I think the Army's been preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep them from exposing him to the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled like we were, so easy." "No!" Ri snapped. "It was to keep the natural economic balance." "You know that's not right." Ri lay down on his bed roll. "Don't talk about it. It's not good to talk like this. I don't even want to listen." "When the invasion starts, he'll have to command all their loyalties. To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then. He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to tell the truth." "You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong." Mia smiled twistedly. "How many has he already killed? How can we even guess?" Ri swallowed sickly. "Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?" Ri shuddered. "That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like that." With morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells. The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike, uncontaminated. And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep. "Breakfast!" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher and a drinking mug. Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with water and spat on the ground. "Lin!" he said. His personal bearer came loping toward him. "Have you read that manual I gave you?" Lin nodded. "Yes." Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. "Very ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me, twenty years ago, damn them." Lin waited. "Now I can spit on them, which pleases me." "The farn beasts are dangerous, sir," Lin said. "Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?" "I believe they're carnivorous, sir." "An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual—and, of course, two businessmen." "They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of tearing a man—" "An alien?" Extrone corrected. "There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an alien to pieces, sir." Extrone laughed harshly. "It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?" Lin's face remained impassive. "I guess it seems that way. Sir." "Damned few people would dare go as far as you do," Extrone said. "But you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?" Lin shrugged. "Maybe." "I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how wonderful it feels to have people all afraid of you." "The farn beasts, according to the manual...." "You are very insistent on one subject." "... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of aliens. Sir." "All right," Extrone said, annoyed. "I'll be careful." In the distance, a farn beast coughed. Instantly alert, Extrone said, "Get the bearers! Have some of them cut a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get the hell over here!" Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt. Four hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy breathing. Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air. Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near. Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered two-way communication set. Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny, arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur. When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume, he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted, reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs. "For you, sir," the communications man said, interrupting his reverie. "Damn," Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. "It better be important." He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The bearer twiddled the dials. "Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't you?" "Blasted them right out of space," the voice crackled excitedly. "Right in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir." "I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!" Extrone tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. "If they call back, find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's important." "Yes, sir." Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands. Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes. "I located a spoor," he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. "About a quarter ahead. It looks fresh." Extrone's eyes lit with passion. Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. "There were two, I think." "Two?" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. "You and I better go forward and look at the spoor." Lin said, "We ought to take protection, if you're going, too." Extrone laughed. "This is enough." He gestured with the rifle and stood up. "I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir," Lin said. "One is enough in my camp." The two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction. "This way," Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started off. They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a restraining hand. "They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to bring up the column?" The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed. Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively. The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time. "They're moving away," Lin said. "Damn!" Extrone said. "It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and fast, too." "Eh?" Extrone said. "They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track down a man for as long as a day." "Wait," Extrone said, combing his beard. "Wait a minute." "Yes?" "Look," Extrone said. "If that's the case, why do we bother tracking them? Why not make them come to us?" "They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have surprise on our side." "You don't seem to see what I mean," Extrone said. " We won't be the—ah—the bait." "Oh?" "Let's get back to the column." "Extrone wants to see you," Lin said. Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy. "What's he want to see me for?" "I don't know," Lin said curtly. Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously at Lin's bare forearm. "Look," he whispered. "You know him. I have—a little money. If you were able to ... if he wants," Ri gulped, "to do anything to me—I'd pay you, if you could...." "You better come along," Lin said, turning. Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound, ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where Extrone was seated, petting his rifle. Extrone nodded genially. "The farn beast hunter, eh?" "Yes, sir." Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. "Tell me what they look like," he said suddenly. "Well, sir, they're ... uh...." "Pretty frightening?" "No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir." "But you weren't afraid of them, were you?" "No, sir. No, because...." Extrone was smiling innocently. "Good. I want you to do something for me." "I ... I...." Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye. Lin's face was impassive. "Of course you will," Extrone said genially. "Get me a rope, Lin. A good, long, strong rope." "What are you going to do?" Ri asked, terrified. "Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as bait." "No!" "Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream—you can scream, by the way?" Ri swallowed. "We could find a way to make you." There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop, creeping toward his nose. "You'll be safe," Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. "I'll shoot the animal before it reaches you." Ri gulped for air. "But ... if there should be more than one?" Extrone shrugged. "I—Look, sir. Listen to me." Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands were trembling. "It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir. He killed a farn beast before I did, sir. And last night—last night, he—" "He what?" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently. Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. "He said he ought to kill you, sir. That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you. He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident, sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I wouldn't...." Extrone said, "Which one is he?" "That one. Right over there." "The one with his back to me?" "Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir." Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle and said, "Here comes Lin with the rope, I see." Ri was greenish. "You ... you...." Extrone turned to Lin. "Tie one end around his waist." "Wait," Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. "You don't want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it." "Tie it," Extrone ordered. "No, sir. Please. Oh, please don't, sir." "Tie it," Extrone said inexorably. Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless. They were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri. Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed, half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base of a scaling tree. "You will scream," Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed across the water hole. "The farn beast will come from this direction, I imagine." Ri was almost slobbering in fear. "Let me hear you scream," Extrone said. Ri moaned weakly. "You'll have to do better than that." Extrone inclined his head toward a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see. Ri screamed. "See that you keep it up that way," Extrone said. "That's the way I want you to sound." He turned toward Lin. "We can climb this tree, I think." Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly. Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert. Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller crotch. Looking down, Extrone said, "Scream!" Then, to Lin, "You feel the excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt." "I feel it," Lin said. Extrone chuckled. "You were with me on Meizque?" "Yes." "That was something, that time." He ran his hand along the stock of the weapon. The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet, underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched. Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick, jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away. Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed. A farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest. Extrone laughed nervously. "He must have heard." "We're lucky to rouse one so fast," Lin said. Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. "I like this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I know." Lin nodded. "The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing that matters." "It's not only the killing," Lin echoed. "You understand?" Extrone said. "How it is to wait, knowing in just a minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going to kill it?" "I know," Lin said. "But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too." The farn beast coughed again; nearer. "It's a different one," Lin said. "How do you know?" "Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?" "Hey!" Extrone shouted. "You, down there. There are two coming. Now let's hear you really scream!" Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether tree, his eyes wide. "There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too," Extrone said. "Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them." He opened his right hand. "Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it." He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes, imprisoning the idea. "Spring the trap when the quarry is inside. Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they really will come to your bait." Lin shifted, staring toward the forest. "I've always liked to hunt," Extrone said. "More than anything else, I think." Lin spat toward the ground. "People should hunt because they have to. For food. For safety." "No," Extrone argued. "People should hunt for the love of hunting." "Killing?" "Hunting," Extrone repeated harshly. The farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and there was a noise of crackling underbrush. "He's good bait," Extrone said. "He's fat enough and he knows how to scream good." Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully eying the forest across from the watering hole. Extrone began to tremble with excitement. "Here they come!" The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his lap. The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank, swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed. Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs behind them, rattling leaves. "Shoot!" Lin hissed. "For God's sake, shoot!" "Wait," Extrone said. "Let's see what they do." He had not moved the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump. The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head. "Look!" Extrone cried excitedly. "Here it comes!" Ri began to scream again. Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination. The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri. "Watch! Watch!" Extrone cried gleefully. And then the aliens sprang their trap.
I Am a Nucleus by Barr, Stephen	"I Am a Nucleus", Stephen Barr, 1958. I am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beaten down, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, which had an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtown temperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, but according to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I got dressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that my wife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone. What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumed the carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! The ashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still the place looked wife-deserted. It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'd had to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios I write for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrella when I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almost tropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and a woman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in. "Madison and Fifty-fourth," I said. "Right," said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then go on grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. "Sorry, Mac. You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting." If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper over my hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic held me up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform, just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got one which exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thing happened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rain had stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington. As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation where they were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was the usual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular, a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay. While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I was able to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the size of an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight, and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him on his back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At the moment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—I felt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on my hand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, the bleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought some pink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, I found that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase "I'm just spitballing" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite, "The whole ball of wax," twelve times. However, my story had been accepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from the conference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World, the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon which rung of the ladder you have achieved. The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to the apartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standing there talking to the doorman. He said, "Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed it at your office building." I looked blank and he explained, "We just heard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammed at the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it." Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. "That's right, Danny, I just missed it," I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on the other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going on. I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread the directions Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself until she got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days. How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick and such. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convinced that I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for the reasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: "When you take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door, too." Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down in front of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberate me from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil. When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on the manuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. The pencil was standing on its end. There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hear about, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and drank some of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from the muggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapter to try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the last sentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising. My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly's notes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticed one that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: "Garbage picked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. I love you." What can you do when the girl loves you? I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room window at the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick was exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be allowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so that their wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinking about this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn, they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they all wanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided and fell. The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds and picked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side, stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident were interrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building is usually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded like an incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized that of my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and has never, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the late afternoon. "You can't say a thing like that to me!" I heard him shout. "I tell you I got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we started to play!" Several other loud voices started at the same time. "Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row!" "Yeah, and only when you were dealer!" The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened the door to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confronting him, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and the impulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and he looked stunned. "Here!" he said, holding out a deck of cards, "For Pete's sake, look at 'em yourselves if you think they're marked!" The nearest man struck them up from his hand. "Okay, Houdini! So they're not marked! All I know is five straight...." His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cards on the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and the rest face up—all red. Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived and the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence, got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatly arranged cards. "Judas!" he said, and started to pick them up. "Will you look at that! My God, what a session...." I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it, but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. "Never seen anything to equal it," he said. "Wouldn't have believed it. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothing unusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sort of thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time, somebody else has four aces...." He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. There was one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the top broke and glass chips got into the bottle. "I'll have to go down for more soda," I said. "I'll come, too. I need air." At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles in what must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over the top of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto the tile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been from at least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice and I was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouth open and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with his mouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tie his shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxi swerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded, its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreign cars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without any side-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming to rest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at that moment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he and the taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arranged crosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move either forward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxi to a lamp. Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time at all, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues. Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to his station house from the box opposite. It was out of order. Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed the windows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat had brightened up considerably. "I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office," he said. "You know, I think this would make an item for the paper." He grinned and nodded toward the pandemonium. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desk lamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, except one. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time had come for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to call McGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a university uptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe he knows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill's voice said, "Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we were connected. That's a damn funny coincidence." "Not in the least," I said. "Come on over here. I've got something for you to work on." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly—" "Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent." "At once," he said, and hung up. While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs of my novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to a point where I was about to put down the word "agurgling," I decided it was too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letter "R." Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step to the side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. "Well," McGill said, "nothing you've told me is impossible or supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him. It's all those other things...." He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilight while I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern. "Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense at what I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely, and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view that you're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion." I started to get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. "I know, but don't you see that that is far more likely than...." He stopped and shook his head. Then he brightened. "I have an idea. Maybe we can have a demonstration." He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. "Have you any change on you?" "Why, yes," I said. "Quite a bit." I reached into my pocket. There must have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. "Do you think they'll each have the same date, perhaps?" "Did you accumulate all that change today?" "No. During the week." He shook his head. "In that case, no. Discounting the fact that you could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that would be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'll tell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see if they all come up heads." I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto the floor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stacked themselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took a handful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line, the adjacent ones touching. "Well," I said, "what more do you want?" "Great Scott," he said, and sat down. "I suppose you know that there are two great apparently opposite principles governing the Universe—random and design. The sands on the beach are an example of random distribution and life is an example of design. The motions of the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are so many of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law of Thermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast; it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the other hand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goes against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental manifestation." "Do you mean," I asked in some confusion, "that some form of life is controlling the coins and—the other things?" He shook his head. "No. All I mean is that improbable things usually have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken, I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the book of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seems to involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were you still in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it?" "I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left." "Hm. You're the center, all right. But why?" "Center of what?" I asked. "I feel as though I were the center of an electrical storm. Something has it in for me!" McGill grinned. "Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be anthropomorphic." "Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life." "On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are being rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's a non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder." He had a faraway, frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. "Let's go out and eat," I said, "There's not a damn thing in the kitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee." We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, we could hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were, by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and we heard one of them say to Danny, "I don't know what the hell's going on around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it. They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seen anything like it." Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as they tried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to let the other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both had embarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins were replaced by looks of suspicion and then determination. "All right, smart guy!" they shouted in unison, and barged ahead, only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous punches which met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable bouts ever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anything else, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identical excuses and threats. Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. "You all right, Mr. Graham?" he asked. "I don't know what's going on around here, but ever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!" he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. "Bring those dames over here!" Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellas intertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing over fenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; the ladies seemed not to be. "All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip!" one of them said. "Leave go of my umbrella and we'll say no more about it!" "And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it?" said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella also caught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which the other two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go, but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it was Molly. My nurse-wife. "Oh, Alec!" she said, and managed to detach herself. "Are you all right?" Was I all right! "Molly! What are you doing here?" "I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what to think." She pointed to the stalled cars. "Are you really all right?" "Of course I'm all right. But why...." "The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother's number and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it traced and it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got a busy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right?" I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look. Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious cast to it. "Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham," was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. "Explain to Molly," I said. "And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet." He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she was a jump ahead of him. "In other words, you think it's something organic?" "Well," McGill said, "I'm trying to think of anything else it might be. I'm not doing so well," he confessed. "But so far as I can see," Molly answered, "it's mere probability, and without any over-all pattern." "Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center." Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. "Do you feel all right, darling?" she asked me. I nodded brightly. "You'll think this silly of me," she went on to McGill, "but why isn't it something like an overactive poltergeist?" "Pure concept," he said. "No genuine evidence." "Magnetism?" "Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren't magnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy, and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy has mainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field, all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece of iron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just stay there, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more than that—they go on moving." "Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form?" "Only an analogy," said McGill. "A crystal resembles life in that it has a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agree this—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, but plants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, but it does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into a non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and it has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you might call improbability." Molly frowned. "Then what is it? What's it made of?" "I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea about the atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears to be forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speck of sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus of crystallization." "Sounds like the pearl in an oyster," Molly said, and gave me an impertinent look. "Why," I asked McGill, "did you say the coins couldn't have the same date? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way." "Because I don't think this thing got going before today and everything that's happened can all be described as improbable motions here and now. The dates were already there, and to change them would require retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book. That telephone now—" The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephone repairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. "I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister," he said with strong disapproval. "Certainly not," I said. "Is it broken?" "Not exactly broken , but—" He shook his head and took it apart some more. McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finally the man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill tried to explain to me what had happened with the phone. "You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced the receiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open." "But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a long time! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken her nearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay." "Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in the floor—something like that—just happened to cause the right induction impulses. Yes, I know how you feel," he said, seeing my expression. "It's beginning to bear down." Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I was so pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. "I'm in no mood to cook," she said. "Let's get away from all this." McGill raised an eyebrow. "If all this, as you call it, will let us." In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. "I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far, I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny, but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved in some mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you?" "He's got a theory," said Molly. "Come and eat with us and he'll tell you all about it." Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on Sixth Avenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less than before and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant, and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made the lieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. "If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham," Danny said, "it's at the station house. What there's left of it, that is." Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I felt the speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet of cigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. I happened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. Before I could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on the sidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, but said nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool—although it didn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the door and ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at the next table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant green evening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiter returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold cuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfait for the fat lady. I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been used instead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, and made faces. The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back to the bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tasted one of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzled expression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out a row of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour. That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothing came out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again. Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with his pick, his face pink with exasperation. I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is a crystal, I thought to myself. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thing happened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the bar crowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back, baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to the kitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls, which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience had grown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, "I suppose this is all part of it, Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here." It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noise had stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum of the air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I made a gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped her cigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboring vichyssoise. "Hey! What's the idea?" snarled the sour-looking man. "I'm terribly sorry," I said. "It was an accident. I—" "Throwing cigarettes at people!" the fat lady said. "I really didn't mean to," I began again, getting up. There must have been a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuff buttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closely set tables, I pulled everything—tablecloth, silver, water glasses, ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine—onto the floor. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The man licked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. The owner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward us with a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but I was outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly.
I Have Seen the Future of Europe by Gregg Easterbrook	"I Have Seen the Future of Europe", Gregg Easterbrook, 1997. I Have Seen the Future of Europe The Eurocrats were thinking ahead when they made Brussels the "Capital of Europe," headquarters of the emerging European Union. Though practically unknown in the United States, the union is one of Europe's biggest stories, an important organization trying to establish itself as a sort of metagovernment for European states. Entertainingly, the European Union is perhaps the sole bureaucracy left in the world that admits that its goal is to expand. And what better place to locate this new enterprise than Brussels, which may be a living preview of the Europe to come: swathed in red tape and pomp, paralyzed by constituency politics, declining at great cost. The European Union couldn't have picked a better home. Belgian politics enjoy none of the rowdy intellectual contention of the United Kingdom, none of the nuance-loving literary polemics of France, not even a strong national identity. The primary issue in public debate is who gets what benefits, and while commerce and money are gods, neither is served particularly well. The national infrastructure is fraying, with little renewal: Belgians have a high per-capita income and spend it generously on cars and dining, but what Rousseau called the esprit social seems lacking. Crumbling, generic, enervated, debt-ridden, materialistic ... is this Europe's future? Brussels is a place where you can take your dog into a restaurant, but not your kids. Where a best-selling product, in an ostensibly Catholic country, is Judas beer. (My proposed slogan: "Taste you can trust.") Where there's no such thing as takeout coffee with lids. Anyone who wants coffee must sit languidly in a cafe, gradually feeling overcome with lethargy and despair. Other European atmospherics: lobster bisque for sale from sidewalk vendors; excellent public transportation; monumental traffic jams of expensive cars crowding small streets; bare breasts common in advertisements and at beaches, miniskirts being considered acceptable attire for professional women (when, oh when will these enlightened attitudes reach the United States?); notably more pollution than in the United States; notably more government, running higher deficits; lots of well-cared-for historic buildings, such as the built-in-the-14 th -century church I attend with my family; prices far too high, except for wine and flowers, which are cheap (European staples, you know); large cemeteries, where thousands of U.S. soldiers rest beneath uniform stone markers; and ubiquitous fresh bread and great chocolates. Many tongues are spoken here, but multilingualism serves mainly to delineate constituent groups, not to facilitate communication. Southern Belgium, called Wallonia, is French; the northern portion, Flanders, is Dutch. The civic sphere is entirely bilingual, down to abbreviations: Buses and trams are brightly labeled MIVB/STIB, the transit-agency acronyms in French and Flemish. But bilingualism doesn't seem to do much to bring people together. In the Flemish parts of town, most people would rather hear English than French, and in the French sections, Flemish is rarely welcome. Until recently, Belgian politics were dominated by an aging Francophone aristocracy, whose wealth was secured by Wallonian mines. But mining is a dying industry throughout Europe, and Wallonia now produces only 13 percent of Belgium's exports, vs. 68 percent for Flanders. The Flemish have jumped into electronics, trading, and other growth sectors, while the Walloons have stagnated, devoting their energies to demanding more benefits. Their economic power on the rise, the Flemish have pressured for a dominant position in politics. The result is an uneasy compromise giving Flanders and Wallonia semiautonomy. Public strikes, particularly ones blocking traffic and commerce, are a regular event here, making it somewhat of a mystery how Belgium maintains its high living standard. In the past year, teachers, students, firefighters, civil servants, airline workers, and others have closed off large sections of Brussels to chant for higher benefits. Ground crews for Sabena, the national flag carrier, ran amok during a 1996 strike day at the airport, smashing the terminal's glass walls and doing millions of francs worth of damage, then demanding more money from the very government that was going to have to pay for the repairs. What are the protesters striking about? Typical working conditions in Belgium include retirement at 60 or younger, full pay for 32 hours of work, six weeks' paid vacation, and essentially unlimited sick days. Much more than high wages (which a profitable enterprise can bear), such work rules are what stymie the continent's economies, with overall Western European unemployment now at 10.9 percent, double the U.S. figure. Yet, sympathy is usually with strikers, and cowed politicians give in to almost all demands from almost all quarters. Polls repeatedly show that majorities think government should give the workers more, a legacy of the European class system. Europe is plagued by families that have been filthy rich for generations--based on no useful contribution to society. And a residue of estates reminds voters of the landed gentry's historic role as parasites. But the link between government giving the workers more, and taxes and public debt rising, does not seem to have sunk in on this side of the Atlantic, except perhaps in the United Kingdom, where, perhaps not coincidentally, unemployment is relatively low. As in most of Europe, state-sanctioned monopolies drag down Belgian economic activity, and government barriers to entrepreneurs are much worse than anywhere in America. Sabena loses money even though it has government-protected air routes, a high percentage of business flyers, and the highest seat-mile prices in Europe. The ossified state of European telecom monopolies would stun American Webheads. One reason Slate is not a national obsession in Europe (as, of course, it is in the United States) is that Internet use remains a luxury here. The phone monopolies have priced out 800 access. Belgacom charges 5 cents per minute for connections to any Internet service provider, making the connection more expensive than the provider's service. Ten years ago Robert Reich, having seen the French Minitel experiment, warned that Europe would beat the United States to the next communication revolution--instead, U.S. Web entrepreneurs left Europe in the dust. Now European telecoms and communication bureaucrats spend their energies on blocking innovation and searching for ways to monopolize a new enterprise whose entire soul is decentralization. These rapacious European phone monopolies have given birth to independent call-back services. Once registered, you dial a number in the United States, where a computer with caller-ID recognizes you after one ring. You hang up to avoid a Belgacom charge, and the computer calls you back, providing you with a stateside dial tone so you can dial as if you were in the United States. Call-back services allow me to call the United States for 70 cents a minute, vs. the $2.60-per-minute Belgacom charge, and make it cheaper to call Antwerp--just 40 miles away--via California than directly. Naturally, European governments want to tax call-back services out of existence. Supposedly, the European telecom market will deregulate in 1999, and in anticipation of being phaser-blasted by true competition, Belgacom just sold 45 percent of itself to a consortium led by Ameritech. Foreign managers will now be blamed for cutting the deadwood. In a sense, all European governments are angling to shift the blame for financial reality onto someone else via the euro. In theory, national currencies such as the pound, mark, and lira will all disappear, replaced by one universal tender. A unified currency makes economic sense, but trade efficiency is only one motive for many governments. Participation in the new currency requires nations to cut their national debt below 3 percent of GDP. A dirty little secret of Western Europe is that it has gone further into hock than the United States. U.S. public debt was down to 1.4 percent of GDP in 1996, and may drop below 1 percent this fiscal year. Germany, France, and Belgium all are running public debts at 3 percent or more, and Italy is at 7.4 percent. European national leaders know they've got to tackle their deficits, but none of them wants the heat for cutting featherbedding or generous social-payment systems. So the euro plan allows them to blame foreign interests for required reductions. But will the spooky level of Belgian corruption rub off on the euro? Observers consider Belgium the second-most corrupt European state, trailing only Italy. Last year, the Belgian secretary-general of NATO had to quit over charges that his Flemish Socialist Party accepted $50 million in bribes from a defense contractor. Police recently arrested two other top politicians and raided the headquarters of the French Socialist Party in connection with bribes from another defense firm. The European Union's Eurocrats have worthy ideas, such as persuading the continent's governments to agree on harmonious environmental and immigration policies. But the real overriding goal of the union and its executive arm, the European Commission (there's also a European Parliament here, but we can skip that), is self-aggrandizement. In conversations, Eurocrats are frank about their maneuvering for more money and empire: to wrest "competence," or jurisdiction, away from national governments and vest it in Brussels is the open objective. The union's command center is a cathedral to bureaucratic power, the only diplomatic structure I've ever been in that actually looks the way Hollywood depicts diplomatic life. At State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom, paint is peeling in the halls and people with titles like "deputy director" work in chintzy little Dilbert cubicles. At the marble-clad European Union headquarters, even midlevel Eurocrats have large, plush suites with leather chairs and original artwork on the walls. Ranks of big black-glass BMWs and Mercedes limos are parked at the structure's circular drive, motors wastefully idling. Landing a job in the Brussels Eurocracy has become the career goal of many of Europe's best graduates. The European Union's behavior synchs with its opulent circumstances. Meetings are held in secret, and few public-disclosure regulations apply. This is the future of European government? Just how competent the new organization may be is on display at Berlaymont, the first European Commission headquarters. Forerunner of the current sumptuous building, this vast skyscraper now sits near the center of Brussels unoccupied, its entire outer structure swathed in heavy tarpaulin. Berlaymont has been closed for nine years after an asbestos scare and a botched cleanup: European taxpayers have paid $50 million so far merely to keep the building closed, with air pumps running around the clock to prevent any fibers from wafting out. A mountain of scientific studies has shown that asbestos in walls is almost never dangerous: The only dangerous thing is trying to rip it out because that causes fibers to become airborne--exactly what has happened at Berlaymont. And if the European Union can't manage its continent any better than it manages its own buildings ... Fortunately, Berlaymont isn't in my neighborhood, but a patisserie is. Bakeries are easier to find than gas stations in Brussels, and the neon bakery sign I can see from my office window often calls out to me the way signs for cocktail lounges once called out to earlier generations of writers. Think I'll answer now.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Reynolds, Mack	"I'm a Stranger Here Myself", Mack Reynolds, 1950. One can't be too cautious about the people one meets in Tangier. They're all weirdies of one kind or another. Me? Oh, I'm A Stranger Here Myself By MACK REYNOLDS The Place de France is the town's hub. It marks the end of Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag of the westernized part of the city, and the beginning of Rue de la Liberté, which leads down to the Grand Socco and the medina. In a three-minute walk from the Place de France you can go from an ultra-modern, California-like resort to the Baghdad of Harun al-Rashid. It's quite a town, Tangier. King-size sidewalk cafes occupy three of the strategic corners on the Place de France. The Cafe de Paris serves the best draft beer in town, gets all the better custom, and has three shoeshine boys attached to the establishment. You can sit of a sunny morning and read the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune while getting your shoes done up like mirrors for thirty Moroccan francs which comes to about five cents at current exchange. You can sit there, after the paper's read, sip your expresso and watch the people go by. Tangier is possibly the most cosmopolitan city in the world. In native costume you'll see Berber and Rif, Arab and Blue Man, and occasionally a Senegalese from further south. In European dress you'll see Japs and Chinese, Hindus and Turks, Levantines and Filipinos, North Americans and South Americans, and, of course, even Europeans—from both sides of the Curtain. In Tangier you'll find some of the world's poorest and some of the richest. The poorest will try to sell you anything from a shoeshine to their not very lily-white bodies, and the richest will avoid your eyes, afraid you might try to sell them something. In spite of recent changes, the town still has its unique qualities. As a result of them the permanent population includes smugglers and black-marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men, espionage and counter-espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced persons, ex-royalty, and subversives of every flavor. Local law limits the activities of few of these. Like I said, it's quite a town. I looked up from my Herald Tribune and said, "Hello, Paul. Anything new cooking?" He sank into the chair opposite me and looked around for the waiter. The tables were all crowded and since mine was a face he recognized, he assumed he was welcome to intrude. It was more or less standard procedure at the Cafe de Paris. It wasn't a place to go if you wanted to be alone. Paul said, "How are you, Rupert? Haven't seen you for donkey's years." The waiter came along and Paul ordered a glass of beer. Paul was an easy-going, sallow-faced little man. I vaguely remembered somebody saying he was from Liverpool and in exports. "What's in the newspaper?" he said, disinterestedly. "Pogo and Albert are going to fight a duel," I told him, "and Lil Abner is becoming a rock'n'roll singer." He grunted. "Oh," I said, "the intellectual type." I scanned the front page. "The Russkies have put up another manned satellite." "They have, eh? How big?" "Several times bigger than anything we Americans have." The beer came and looked good, so I ordered a glass too. Paul said, "What ever happened to those poxy flying saucers?" "What flying saucers?" A French girl went by with a poodle so finely clipped as to look as though it'd been shaven. The girl was in the latest from Paris. Every pore in place. We both looked after her. "You know, what everybody was seeing a few years ago. It's too bad one of these bloody manned satellites wasn't up then. Maybe they would've seen one." "That's an idea," I said. We didn't say anything else for a while and I began to wonder if I could go back to my paper without rubbing him the wrong way. I didn't know Paul very well, but, for that matter, it's comparatively seldom you ever get to know anybody very well in Tangier. Largely, cards are played close to the chest. My beer came and a plate of tapas for us both. Tapas at the Cafe de Paris are apt to be potato salad, a few anchovies, olives, and possibly some cheese. Free lunch, they used to call it in the States. Just to say something, I said, "Where do you think they came from?" And when he looked blank, I added, "The Flying Saucers." He grinned. "From Mars or Venus, or someplace." "Ummmm," I said. "Too bad none of them ever crashed, or landed on the Yale football field and said Take me to your cheerleader , or something." Paul yawned and said, "That was always the trouble with those crackpot blokes' explanations of them. If they were aliens from space, then why not show themselves?" I ate one of the potato chips. It'd been cooked in rancid olive oil. I said, "Oh, there are various answers to that one. We could probably sit around here and think of two or three that made sense." Paul was mildly interested. "Like what?" "Well, hell, suppose for instance there's this big Galactic League of civilized planets. But it's restricted, see. You're not eligible for membership until you, well, say until you've developed space flight. Then you're invited into the club. Meanwhile, they send secret missions down from time to time to keep an eye on your progress." Paul grinned at me. "I see you read the same poxy stuff I do." A Moorish girl went by dressed in a neatly tailored gray jellaba, European style high-heeled shoes, and a pinkish silk veil so transparent that you could see she wore lipstick. Very provocative, dark eyes can be over a veil. We both looked after her. I said, "Or, here's another one. Suppose you have a very advanced civilization on, say, Mars." "Not Mars. No air, and too bloody dry to support life." "Don't interrupt, please," I said with mock severity. "This is a very old civilization and as the planet began to lose its water and air, it withdrew underground. Uses hydroponics and so forth, husbands its water and air. Isn't that what we'd do, in a few million years, if Earth lost its water and air?" "I suppose so," he said. "Anyway, what about them?" "Well, they observe how man is going through a scientific boom, an industrial boom, a population boom. A boom, period. Any day now he's going to have practical space ships. Meanwhile, he's also got the H-Bomb and the way he beats the drums on both sides of the Curtain, he's not against using it, if he could get away with it." Paul said, "I got it. So they're scared and are keeping an eye on us. That's an old one. I've read that a dozen times, dished up different." I shifted my shoulders. "Well, it's one possibility." "I got a better one. How's this. There's this alien life form that's way ahead of us. Their civilization is so old that they don't have any records of when it began and how it was in the early days. They've gone beyond things like wars and depressions and revolutions, and greed for power or any of these things giving us a bad time here on Earth. They're all like scholars, get it? And some of them are pretty jolly well taken by Earth, especially the way we are right now, with all the problems, get it? Things developing so fast we don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there." I finished my beer and clapped my hands for Mouley. "How do you mean, where we're going ?" "Well, take half the countries in the world today. They're trying to industrialize, modernize, catch up with the advanced countries. Look at Egypt, and Israel, and India and China, and Yugoslavia and Brazil, and all the rest. Trying to drag themselves up to the level of the advanced countries, and all using different methods of doing it. But look at the so-called advanced countries. Up to their bottoms in problems. Juvenile delinquents, climbing crime and suicide rates, the loony-bins full of the balmy, unemployed, threat of war, spending all their money on armaments instead of things like schools. All the bloody mess of it. Why, a man from Mars would be fascinated, like." Mouley came shuffling up in his babouche slippers and we both ordered another schooner of beer. Paul said seriously, "You know, there's only one big snag in this sort of talk. I've sorted the whole thing out before, and you always come up against this brick wall. Where are they, these observers, or scholars, or spies or whatever they are? Sooner or later we'd nab one of them. You know, Scotland Yard, or the F.B.I., or Russia's secret police, or the French Sûreté, or Interpol. This world is so deep in police, counter-espionage outfits and security agents that an alien would slip up in time, no matter how much he'd been trained. Sooner or later, he'd slip up, and they'd nab him." I shook my head. "Not necessarily. The first time I ever considered this possibility, it seemed to me that such an alien would base himself in London or New York. Somewhere where he could use the libraries for research, get the daily newspapers and the magazines. Be right in the center of things. But now I don't think so. I think he'd be right here in Tangier." "Why Tangier?" "It's the one town in the world where anything goes. Nobody gives a damn about you or your affairs. For instance, I've known you a year or more now, and I haven't the slightest idea of how you make your living." "That's right," Paul admitted. "In this town you seldom even ask a man where's he's from. He can be British, a White Russian, a Basque or a Sikh and nobody could care less. Where are you from, Rupert?" "California," I told him. "No, you're not," he grinned. I was taken aback. "What do you mean?" "I felt your mind probe back a few minutes ago when I was talking about Scotland Yard or the F.B.I. possibly flushing an alien. Telepathy is a sense not trained by the humanoids. If they had it, your job—and mine—would be considerably more difficult. Let's face it, in spite of these human bodies we're disguised in, neither of us is humanoid. Where are you really from, Rupert?" "Aldebaran," I said. "How about you?" "Deneb," he told me, shaking. We had a laugh and ordered another beer. "What're you doing here on Earth?" I asked him. "Researching for one of our meat trusts. We're protein eaters. Humanoid flesh is considered quite a delicacy. How about you?" "Scouting the place for thrill tourists. My job is to go around to these backward cultures and help stir up inter-tribal, or international, conflicts—all according to how advanced they are. Then our tourists come in—well shielded, of course—and get their kicks watching it." Paul frowned. "That sort of practice could spoil an awful lot of good meat." THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Image of Splendor by Kella, Lu	"Image of Splendor", Lu Kella, 1964. IMAGE OF SPLENDOR By LU KELLA From Venus to Earth, and all the way between, it was a hell of a world for men ... and Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly particularly. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The intercom roared fit to blow O'Rielly back to Venus. "Burner Four!" "On my way, sir!" At the first flash of red on the bank of meters Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly had slammed the safety helmet on his head; he was already throwing open the lock to the burner room. The hot, throbbing rumble whipped around him and near crushed his breath away. Power! Power of the universe trapped here and ready to destroy its captors given one chance! Swiftly O'Rielly unlocked the controls and reset them. The throbbing rumble changed tone. Old Callahan's voice crackled now through the helmet's ear contact. "Well, Mr. O'Rielly?" "Fusion control two points low, sir." O'Rielly wondered had Callahan passed out, was so long before the old Burner Chief demanded hoarsely, "Didn't you lock them controls before blast-off?" "If every control hadn't been locked in correct setting," O'Rielly answered from his own angry bewilderment, "the error would have registered before blast-off—wouldn't it, sir?" "So a control reset itself in flight, hey?" "I don't know yet, sir." "Well, Mr. O'Rielly, you better know before we orbit Earth!" The icy knot in O'Rielly's stomach jerked tighter. A dozen burners on this ship; why did something crazy have to happen to O'Rielly's? In a hundred years, so the instructors—brisk females all—had told O'Rielly in pre-flight school, no control had ever been known to slip. But one had moved here. Not enough to cause serious trouble this far out from Earth. On blast-down, though, with one jet below peak, the uneven thrust could throw the ship, crash it, the whole lovely thing and all aboard gone in a churning cloud. Sweat pouring off him, O'Rielly prowled around his burner. Design of the thing had been bossed by dames of course; what on Earth wasn't any more? Anyway, nobody could get to a burner except through its watch room. Anyone entered or left there, a bell clanged, lights flashed and a meter registered beside the Burnerman's bunk and on the Burner Chief's console up in the flight room full of beautifully efficient officers. Ever since Venus blast-off O'Rielly had been in Four's watch room. Nobody had passed through. O'Rielly knew it. Callahan knew it. By now the Old Woman herself, Captain Millicent Hatwoody, had probably inquired what was in charge of Burner Four. Well, ma'am, O'Rielly searched every cranny where even a three-tailed mouse of Venus could have stowed away. His first flight, and O'Rielly saw himself washed out, busted to sweeper on the blast-off stands of some God-forsaken satellite. He staggered back into his watch room. And his brain was suddenly taken apart and slapped together again. Felt that way. She was sitting on his bunk. No three-tailed mouse. No Old Woman either. Oh, she was a female human, though, this creature at which O'Rielly stood gaping. Yes, ma'am! "I was in your burner room." Her voice matched the rest of her, a blend of loveliness unlike anything outside a guy's most secret dreams. "I couldn't stand the heat any longer and I couldn't open that big door. So I moved one of your controls a tiny bit. All the noise in there, naturally you couldn't hear me walk out while your back was turned resetting the control." O'Rielly suddenly felt like turning her over his knee and whaling her until she couldn't sit for a year. This, mind you, he felt in an age where no Earth guy for a thousand years had dared raise so much as a breath against woman's supremacy in all matters. That male character trait, however, did not seem to be the overpowering reason why O'Rielly, instead of laying violent hands upon this one's person, heard himself saying in sympathetic outrage, "A shame you had to go to all that bother to get out here!" "You're so kind. But I'm afraid I became rather sticky and smelly in there." "They ought to cool the air in there with perfume! I'll drop a suggestion in the Old Woman's box first chance I get." "You're so thoughtful. And do you have bathing facilities?" "That door right there. Oh, let me open it for you!" "You're so sweet." Her big dark eyes glowed with such pure innocence that O'Rielly could have torn down the universe and rebuilt it just for her. Yes, ma'am, O'Rielly was floating on a pink cloud with heavenly music in his head. Never felt so fine before. Except on the Venus layover when he'd been roped into a dice game with a bunch of Venus lads who had a jug to cheer one's parting with one's money. A bell suddenly clanged fit to wake the dead while the overhead lights flashed wildly. Only the watch room door. Only Callahan here now. Old buzzard had a drooped nose like a pick, chin like a shovel. When he talked he was like digging a hole in front of himself. "Well, what about that control?" "What control?" "Your fusion control that got itself two points low!" "Oh, that little thing." Callahan said something through his teeth, then studied O'Rielly sharply. "Hey, you been wetting your whistle on that Venus vino again? Lemme smell your breath! Bah. Loaded yourself full of chlorophyll again probably. All right, stand aside whilst I see your burner." "Charmed to, Burner Chief Callahan, sir," O'Rielly said while bowing gracefully. "Higher than a swacked skunk's tail again," Callahan muttered, then snapped back over his shoulder, "Use your shower!" O'Rielly stood considering his shower door. Somehow he doubted that Burner Chief Terrence Callahan's mood, or Captain Millicent Hatwoody's, would be improved by knowledge of she who was in O'Rielly's shower now. Not that the dear stowaway was less than charming. Quite the contrary. Oh, very quite! "You rockhead!" Only Callahan back from the burner. "Didn't I tell you to shower the stink off yourself? Old Woman's taking a Venus bigwig on tour the ship. Old Woman catches you like you been rassling skunks she'll peel both our hides off. Not to mention what she'll do anyway about your fusion control!" "Burner Chief Callahan, sir," O'Rielly responded courteously, "I have been thinking." "With what? Never mind, just keep on trying whilst I have a shower for myself here." Wherewith Callahan reached hand for O'Rielly's shower door. "Venus dames," O'Rielly said dreamily, "don't boss anything, do they?" Callahan yelped like he'd been bit in the pants by a big Jupiter ant. "O'Rielly! You trying to get both of us condemned to a Uranus moon?" Callahan also shot a wild look to the intercom switch. It was in OFF position; the flight room full of fancy gold-lace petticoats could not have overheard from here. Nevertheless Callahan's eyes rolled like the devil was behind him with the fork ready. "O'Rielly, open your big ears whilst for your own good and mine I speak of certain matters. "Thousand years ago, it was, the first flight reached Venus. Guys got one look at them dames. Had to bring some home or bust. So then everybody on Earth got a look, mostly by TV only of course. That did it. Every guy on Earth began blowing his fuse over them dames. Give up the shirt off his back, last buck in the bank, his own Earth dame or family—everything. "Well, that's when Earth dames took over like armies of wild cats with knots in their tails. Before the guys who'd brought the Venus dames to Earth could say anything they was taken apart too small to pick up with a blotter. Earth dames wound up by flying the Venus ones back where they come from and serving notice if one ever set foot on Earth again there wouldn't be enough left of Venus to find with an electron microscope. "Venus boys rared up and served notice that if Earth ever got any funny notions, right away there wouldn't be enough Earth left to hide in an atom's eyebrow. Touchy as hornets on a hot griddle, them Venus guys. Crazier than bed bugs about war. Could smell a loose dollar a million light years away too. Finagled around until they finally cooked up a deal. "No Venus dames allowed within fifty miles of their port. Earth guys stay inside the high-voltage fence. Any dame caught trying to leave Venus thrown to the tigers for supper. Same for any Earth guy caught around a Venus dame. In return, Earth could buy practically everything at bargain basement prices." "Oh, I was shown the history films in pre-flight," O'Rielly said, still dreamily. "But not a peek of any Venus dame." "Pray heaven you'll never lay eyes on one nor have one get within ten foot of you! Even though you'd know she'd be your damnation wouldn't make a whit difference—you'd still act sappier than thirty-seven angels flying on vino." Callahan suddenly stared at O'Rielly. "Holy hollering saints!" "Now, now, Burner Chief Callahan, sir," O'Rielly responded with an airy laugh. "No Earth guy for a hundred twenty-five years been near one and lived to tell it, has he?" "So the whispers run," Callahan murmured with a queer flame dancing into his eyes. "So the old whispers still run." "Never a name, though. Never how it was done." O'Rielly snorted. "Probably just a goofy tale set loose by some old space bum." "Oh?" Callahan bristled up like a bad name had been bandied about. "Seen them ditty bags Venus bigwigs have, ain't you? Some big enough to stuff a cow in. Notice how nobody ever dares question a bigwig's bags, even through customs? Just run 'em through the big Geiger that tells whether there's any fusionable junk inside. Well, our boy got himself one of them bags, stuffed himself inside and joined a bigwig's pile of 'em. "Didn't pull it whilst on the Venus port during a layover either, when a crew check would of turned him up missing. Pulled it on vacation. Started on the Earth end. Made himself a pair of beards to paste on his ears of course. Wove Jupiter wiggle worms in to keep the beards moving. Wasn't like the real thing, but good enough to flimflam Venus guys." With suddenly enlivened interest O'Rielly looked at Callahan. "Hey, how come you know so much?" "Hah? What?" Callahan blinked like waking from a trance; even groaned to himself, something that sounded like, "Blabbering like I'd had a nip myself—or one of them dillies was radiating nearby." Then Callahan glared fit to drill holes in O'Rielly's head. "Look! I was a full Burnerman before you was born. Been flying the spaces hundred twenty-five years now. Had more chances to hear more—just hear more, you hear! Only tried to clear your mind about Venus dames so you could put your brain on your control mess. So now put it! If you ain't high on vino and ain't been made nuts by a Venus dame, what answer do we feed the Old Woman?" "Search me," Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly responded cheerfully. "Of all the loony apprentices I ever had to answer the Old Woman for! Awp, lemme out where I can think of something to save me own neck at least!" Was all O'Rielly could do to keep from rolling on the deck with glee. Old Callahan had been flimflammed for fair! The dear little stowaway was saved! And O'Rielly would now think of grand ways to save her lovely neck and his own forever. O'Rielly's shower door, however, opened abruptly. O'Rielly had not opened it. O'Rielly, however, suffered a cruel stab of dismay. Surely his dear stowaway had been listening through the door. Why didn't she have brains enough to stay hid until Callahan was gone! At sight of her, of course, Callahan's eyes near popped from his old head. "Berta!" "Oh, I'm Trillium," she assured Callahan sweetly. "But Grandmamma's name is Berta and people say I'm just like she was a hundred and twenty-five years ago." "Hah? What?" Callahan blinked like his brain had been taken apart and was being slapped together again. "O'Rielly! Awp, you angel-faced pirate, couldn't you hide her somewheres better than that? Shut up, you don't have to explain to me, but God help the whole universe if we don't flimflam the Old Woman!" With which ominous remark, rendered in a zesty devil-may-care manner, however, Callahan threw himself into O'Rielly's shower. O'Rielly stood looking thoughtfully at lovely, womanly, exquisite Trillium. Just like that, O'Rielly felt as sparkling of mind as a spiral nebula. "My locker!" he crowed with inspiration and yanked open the doors under his bunk. He glimpsed a black ditty bag, also the cap and coverall uniform of a baggage boy. "I threw them in there before you came on duty before blast-off," Trillium explained. "I knew the burner room would be warm." Trillium—with her shape—passing as a boy hustling bags through this ship. O'Rielly chortled as he tucked her under his bunk. "Now don't you worry about another thing!" "Oh, I'm not," she assured him happily. "Everything is going just the way Grandmamma knew it would!" O'Rielly's shower opened and Callahan, glowing like a young bucko, bounced onto the bunk. "Well, did you hide her good this time? No, don't tell me! I want to be surprised if the Old Woman ever finds her." "If what old woman finds whom?" a voice like thin ice crackling wanted to know. The watch room's door had opened. Wouldn't think the Old Woman was a day over seventy-five, let alone near two hundred. Cut of her uniform probably lent a helping hand or three to the young snap of her figure. Frosty blue of fancy hair-do, she was, though, and icy of eye as she looked at O'Rielly and Callahan still lolling on the bunk. Her voice was an iceberg exploding. "At attention!" Never in his right mind would any crewman dare fail to come stiffly erect the instant the Old Woman appeared. Behind her stood a colorfully robed specimen of Venus man. Handsome as the devil himself. Fit to snap lesser men in two with his highly bejeweled hands. Fuzzy beards trailed from his ears and kept twitching lazily as he sneered at the spectacle of two men meekly acknowledging the superiority of a woman. She was fit to put frost on a hydrogen burner. "Mr. Callahan, I asked you a question, did I not?" "Believe you did, ma'am," Callahan responded cheerfully. "And the answer is, ma'am, that Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly and me was discussing—ah—matrimony, ma'am. Mr. Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly here is considering it, ma'am." Wasn't too bad a fib. The more O'Rielly thought of Trillium, the more ideas he got of doing things he'd never dreamt of before in his life. Yes, ma'am! "Wasting your time talking nonsense!" Old Woman's look was fit to freeze O'Rielly's brain, then she gave Callahan the look. "I sent you down here to find the answer to that fusion control slippage!" "Oh, you'll have the best answer you ever heard of before long, ma'am!" Callahan assured her heartily. "The subject of nonsense—I mean, women—merely chanced to arise whilst we was scientifically analyzing the control phenomenon, ma'am. Naturally I offered this innocent young Burnerman the benefit of me long years of experience. Why," Callahan said with a jaunty laugh, "dames mean nothing to me. Indeed 'twouldn't bother me none if there wasn't one of the things left in the world! Present company excepted, of course," Callahan hastened to say with a courtly bow. "Stay at attention!" Old Woman sniffed the air near Callahan's face, then in O'Rielly's vicinity. "Smothered it with chlorophyll probably," she muttered through her teeth, "if it is that vino." Something horrible as a plague flickered in her eyes, then the old ice was there again. "Apprentice Burnerman, don't you know what your shower is for? Then use it! Mr. Callahan, remain at attention while I inspect this burner!" She tendered a cool glance at the Venus bigwig. "Care to join me, Your Excellency?" "May as well." His Excellency glanced at O'Rielly and Callahan much as he might at a couple of worms. Could bet your last old sox no female ever told any Venus man what to do. The shower units were equipped so no Burnerman need be more than two steps from his responsibility. To keep the Old Woman from possibly blowing her gaskets completely, O'Rielly simply stepped in, shut the door, flipped a switch and tingled as he was electronically cleansed of person and clothes. By time he finished, the Old Woman and His Excellency were already coming out of the burner room, dripping with sweat. Old Woman opened the shower with her customary commanding air. "You first, Your Excellency." "My dear Captain," His Excellency replied like a smoothly drawn dagger, "always the lesser gender enjoys precedence." No Earth dame ever admitted any guy was even equal to any female. Old Woman, a prime symbol of her gender's superiority, whipped a razor edge onto her own words. "Facilities of the Captain's quarters are more satisfactory." "No more so than those of the Ambassadorial Suite." Seeming to grind her teeth, the Old O Woman turned abruptly to leave O'Rielly's watch room. Was all O'Rielly could do to keep from busting out laughing for joy. Old Woman had been flimflammed for fair! Dear Trillium was saved! And betwixt O'Rielly's grand brain and Callahan's great experience she'd be happy forever. A fine loud "thump," however, was now heard. Old Woman whirled back and yanked open the doors under O'Rielly's bunk. "Of all the sappy hiding places!" Callahan yelped, in surprise of course. "Trillium?" His Excellency bellowed as if stung by one of the sabre-tailed hornets of his native planet. "Trillium!" "Trillium," O'Rielly pleaded in loving anguish, "why do you have to keep coming out of hiding just when nobody's going to find you?" Her eyes merely became deep pools in which O'Rielly would have gladly drowned himself if he could. "There are rewards," the Old Woman said with the deadly coldness of outer space, "for Earthmen found in a Venus woman's company, and for her leaving her planet." "Shut up!" His Excellency's ear beards were standing straight out sideways. "I'll handle this!" "May I remind His Excellency," the Old Woman snapped, "that I represent Earth and her dominion of space gained by right of original flight!" "May I remind the Captain," His Excellency declared fit to be heard back to his planet, "that I am the Personal Ambassador of the President of Venus and this thing can mean war!" "Yes! War in which people will actually die!" As His Excellency paled at that grisly remark, the Old Woman spoke through her teeth at O'Rielly, Callahan and Trillium. "All right, come along!" O'Rielly joined the death march gladly. He felt the way Callahan looked: ready to wrap his arms around Trillium's brave loveliness and protect it to his last breath of life. Old Woman led the way to her office. Jabbed some buttons on her desk. Panels on opposite walls lit up. "Presidents of Earth and Venus, please," the Old Woman stated evenly. "Interplanetary emergency." Highly groomed flunkies appeared on the panels and were impersonally pleasant. "Madame President's office. She is in a Cabinet meeting." "Mr. President's office. He is in personal command of our glorious war efforts." Old Woman sighed through her teeth. "Venus woman aboard this ship. Stowaway. Rattle that around your belfries." The flunkies' faces went slack with shock, then were replaced by a blizzard of scrambled faces and torrents of incoherent voices. Finally on the Earth panel appeared the famous classic features. "The facts, if you please, Captain Hatwoody." The Venus panel finally held steady on universally notorious features, that were as fierce as an eagle's, in a fancy war helmet. "Trillium! My own granddaughter? Impossible! Dimdooly," Mr. President roared at his Excellency, "what's this nonsense?" "Some loud creature is interfering," Madame President snapped with annoyance. "Blasted fools still have the circuits crossed," Mr. President swore. "Some silly female cackling now!" The parties in the panels saw each other now. Each one's left hand on a desk moved toward a big red button marked, ROCKETS. "So," Mr. President said evenly. "Another violation by your Earthmen." "By your granddaughter, at least," Madame President replied coolly. "An innocent child," Mr. President snapped, "obviously kidnapped by those two idiotic Earthmen there!" "Oh, no, Grandpapa," Trillium said swiftly; "I stole away all by myself, and Mr. O'Rielly and Callahan have been very helpful." "Impossible!" Grandpapa President's ear beards stood near straight up as he roared, "You couldn't have stolen away by yourself! Trillium, tell the truth!" "Very well. Grandmamma told me how." "Obviously Trillium's poor little brain has been drugged," His Excellency Dimdooly declared. "Grandmamma Berta wouldn't know the first thing about such things!" "Impossible!" Grandpapa President agreed. "I've been married to her for a hundred and twenty-four and a half years and she's the finest rattle-brain I ever knew!" "She learned," Trillium stated emphatically, "a hundred and twenty-five years ago." "Hundred twenty-five," Grandpapa president growled like a boiling volcano. "The year some Earthman.... Never did catch the devil.... Berta? Impossible!" Madame President's shapely finger now rested full on the button that could launch the fleets of war rockets that had been pre-aimed for a thousand years. "I'm afraid your Ambassador is unwelcome now," Madame President stated coolly. "Your granddaughter's actions have every mark of an invasion tactic by your government." "What do you mean, her actions?" Grandpapa President's finger now lay poised on the button that had been waiting a thousand years to blow Earth out of the universe. "My grandchild was kidnapped by men under your official command! Weren't you, Trillium dear?" "No. One of us stowing away was the only way we Venus women could bring our cause to the attention of Earth's President. If Earth will only stop buying from Venus, you won't have any money to squander on your wars any longer no matter what happens to we revolutionaries!" "Revolutionaries? Such claptrap! And what's wrong with my wars? People have to have something to keep their minds off their troubles! Nobody around here gets hurt. Oh, maybe a few scratches here and there. But nobody on Venus dies from the things any more." "But Venus men are so excited all the time about going to war they haven't time for us women. That's why we always radiated such a fatal attraction for Earthmen. We want to be loved! We want our own men home doing useful work!" "Well, they do come home and do useful work! Couple weeks every ten months. Proven to be a highly efficient arrangement." "More boys to run off to your old wars and more girls to stay home and be lonely!" "Now you just listen to me, Trillium!" Grandpapa President was all Venus manhood laying down the law. "That's the way things have been on Venus for ten thousand years and all the women in the universe can't change it!" "I have been in constant contact with my Cabinet during these conversations," Madame President said crisply. "Earth is terminating all trade agreements with Venus as of this instant." "What?" Grandpapa's beards near pulled his ears off. "It's not legal! You can't get away with this!" "Take your finger off that trigger, boy!" a heavenly voice similar to Trillium's advised from the Venus panel. Whereupon Grandpapa glared to one side. "Berta! What are you doing here? I am deciding matters of the gravest interplanetary nature!" "Were." Features more beautifully mature than Trillium's crowded onto the panel too. "From now on I'm doing the deciding." "Nonsense! You're only my wife!" "And new President of Venus, elected by unanimous vote of all women." "Impossible! The men run Venus! Nobody's turning this planet into another Earth where a man can't even sneeze unless some woman says so!" "Take him away, girls," Berta ordered coolly, whereupon her spouse was yanked from view. His bellows, however, could be heard yet. "Unhand me, you fool creatures! Guards! Guards!" "Save your breath," Berta advised him. "And while you're in the cooler, enjoy this latest batch of surrender communiques. We women are in control everywhere now." "Dimmy," Trillium was saying firmly to His Excellency, "you have beat around the bush with me long enough. Now say it!" Dimdooly—the mighty, the lordly, who had sneered at the sight of mere Earthmen kowtowing to a mere woman—swelled up fit to blow his gaskets, then all the gas went out of him. His ear beards, however, still had enough zip left to flutter like butterflies. "Yes, Trillium dear. I love only you. Please marry me at your earliest convenience." "Well, Grandmamma," Trillium said with a highly self-satisfied air, "it works. And just like you said, Earthmen meant nothing once I knew we Venus women had our own men in our power." "Those crewmen there," Grandmamma President said, "seem to be proof enough that we Venus women no longer radiate any threat to Earth's tranquility." Yes, ma'am, O'Rielly sure felt like proof of something all of a sudden. Worse than the hangover from that crap game with Venus vino. He looked away from Trillium and took a look at Callahan. Old guy looked away from Grandmamma President like he was packing the second biggest headache in history. "Hmmmm, yes," Madame President of Earth observed. "Reactions agree perfectly with the psychoanalytical research project we have been conducting on the subject of the Venus female influence. Madame President of Venus, congratulations on your victory! "Long may the superior sex reign on Venus too! We shall be delighted to receive an Ambassadoress to discuss a new trade treaty at your earliest convenience." "Thank you for cancelling the old trade agreements at the psychological moment," Grandmamma President said cordially. "What with the communications mixup, we managed to have the scenes on these panels broadcast throughout all Venus. When the rug went out from under the top man, the tide really turned in our favor. Now, Trillium, you take over Dimmy's credentials." "The Ambassadorial Suite, too," Madame President of Earth said graciously. "Anything else now, Berta?" "I should like," Grandmamma President Berta said charmingly, "that Mr. O'Rielly and Mr. Callahan be suitably rewarded for assisting our revolution better than they knew." "Of course," Madame President of Earth was delighted to oblige. "No doubt Captain Hatwoody knows what reward would satisfy their needs best." The Madame Presidents switched to a private circuit, Trillium dragged Dimdooly off somewhere and the Old Woman eyed O'Rielly and Callahan. Especially she eyed Callahan, like running chilled drills through his old conniving brain. "I award the pair of you five minutes leisure before returning to your stations." "Oh, well," O'Rielly muttered, once he and Callahan were safely beyond earshot, "could have been rewarded worse, I suppose." "What you expect for being flimflammed by a foreign dame, the rings of Saturn? Lucky we ain't programmed to be hung, shot and thrown to the crows for breakfast." Callahan's old pick-and-shovel face wore a little grin like the cat that nobody could prove ate the canary. "You—I mean, that Earth guy a hundred twenty-five years ago," O'Rielly said in sudden thought. "If Venus dames wanted to be loved so bad, why did Trillium's Grandmamma let him go?" "Venus guys wasn't so busy playing war all the time," Callahan mumbled, like to himself, "they'd of found out the answer centuries ago. Yep, guess our boy was the only guy on Earth or Venus to find out and live. Dames bossing both planets now, though, his old secret won't be one much longer. Venus dames could of let it out centuries ago themselves but didn't, just to spite Earth probably. Later, was part of organizing to take over Venus, I guess." O'Rielly still had memories of the way he had felt about Trillium before her revolution. "All right, Callahan, why did 'our boy' leave Grandmamma?" "Yes, ma'am," Callahan sighed like he hadn't heard a word O'Rielly said, "you could sweet-talk 'em, kiss 'em and hold 'em tighter'n Billy-be-damned. And that's all." "I'm not sure," O'Rielly said, "what you mean by, 'that's all.'" "Anybody ever seen anybody but a Venus guy come built with ear beards? Course not." "But I thought our boy was wearing the best fakes ever." "Ain't nothing can match the natural growed-on variety, no, ma'am. Venus guy kisses a Venus dame, his beards grabs her roundst the ears." "So what?" "Tickles 'em, boy, tickles 'em!"
In Case of Fire by Garrett, Randall	"In Case of Fire", Randall Garrett, 1957. IN CASE OF FIRE By RANDALL GARRETT There are times when a broken tool is better than a sound one, or a twisted personality more useful than a whole one. For instance, a whole beer bottle isn't half the weapon that half a beer bottle is ... Illustrated by Martinez In his office apartment, on the top floor of the Terran Embassy Building in Occeq City, Bertrand Malloy leafed casually through the dossiers of the four new men who had been assigned to him. They were typical of the kind of men who were sent to him, he thought. Which meant, as usual, that they were atypical. Every man in the Diplomatic Corps who developed a twitch or a quirk was shipped to Saarkkad IV to work under Bertrand Malloy, Permanent Terran Ambassador to His Utter Munificence, the Occeq of Saarkkad. Take this first one, for instance. Malloy ran his finger down the columns of complex symbolism that showed the complete psychological analysis of the man. Psychopathic paranoia. The man wasn't technically insane; he could be as lucid as the next man most of the time. But he was morbidly suspicious that every man's hand was turned against him. He trusted no one, and was perpetually on his guard against imaginary plots and persecutions. Number two suffered from some sort of emotional block that left him continually on the horns of one dilemma or another. He was psychologically incapable of making a decision if he were faced with two or more possible alternatives of any major importance. Number three ... Malloy sighed and pushed the dossiers away from him. No two men were alike, and yet there sometimes seemed to be an eternal sameness about all men. He considered himself an individual, for instance, but wasn't the basic similarity there, after all? He was—how old? He glanced at the Earth calendar dial that was automatically correlated with the Saarkkadic calendar just above it. Fifty-nine next week. Fifty-nine years old. And what did he have to show for it besides flabby muscles, sagging skin, a wrinkled face, and gray hair? Well, he had an excellent record in the Corps, if nothing else. One of the top men in his field. And he had his memories of Diane, dead these ten years, but still beautiful and alive in his recollections. And—he grinned softly to himself—he had Saarkkad. He glanced up at the ceiling, and mentally allowed his gaze to penetrate it to the blue sky beyond it. Out there was the terrible emptiness of interstellar space—a great, yawning, infinite chasm capable of swallowing men, ships, planets, suns, and whole galaxies without filling its insatiable void. Malloy closed his eyes. Somewhere out there, a war was raging. He didn't even like to think of that, but it was necessary to keep it in mind. Somewhere out there, the ships of Earth were ranged against the ships of the alien Karna in the most important war that Mankind had yet fought. And, Malloy knew, his own position was not unimportant in that war. He was not in the battle line, nor even in the major production line, but it was necessary to keep the drug supply lines flowing from Saarkkad, and that meant keeping on good terms with the Saarkkadic government. The Saarkkada themselves were humanoid in physical form—if one allowed the term to cover a wide range of differences—but their minds just didn't function along the same lines. For nine years, Bertrand Malloy had been Ambassador to Saarkkad, and for nine years, no Saarkkada had ever seen him. To have shown himself to one of them would have meant instant loss of prestige. To their way of thinking, an important official was aloof. The greater his importance, the greater must be his isolation. The Occeq of Saarkkad himself was never seen except by a handful of picked nobles, who, themselves, were never seen except by their underlings. It was a long, roundabout way of doing business, but it was the only way Saarkkad would do any business at all. To violate the rigid social setup of Saarkkad would mean the instant closing off of the supply of biochemical products that the Saarkkadic laboratories produced from native plants and animals—products that were vitally necessary to Earth's war, and which could be duplicated nowhere else in the known universe. It was Bertrand Malloy's job to keep the production output high and to keep the materiel flowing towards Earth and her allies and outposts. The job would have been a snap cinch in the right circumstances; the Saarkkada weren't difficult to get along with. A staff of top-grade men could have handled them without half trying. But Malloy didn't have top-grade men. They couldn't be spared from work that required their total capacity. It's inefficient to waste a man on a job that he can do without half trying where there are more important jobs that will tax his full output. So Malloy was stuck with the culls. Not the worst ones, of course; there were places in the galaxy that were less important than Saarkkad to the war effort. Malloy knew that, no matter what was wrong with a man, as long as he had the mental ability to dress himself and get himself to work, useful work could be found for him. Physical handicaps weren't at all difficult to deal with. A blind man can work very well in the total darkness of an infrared-film darkroom. Partial or total losses of limbs can be compensated for in one way or another. The mental disabilities were harder to deal with, but not totally impossible. On a world without liquor, a dipsomaniac could be channeled easily enough; and he'd better not try fermenting his own on Saarkkad unless he brought his own yeast—which was impossible, in view of the sterilization regulations. But Malloy didn't like to stop at merely thwarting mental quirks; he liked to find places where they were useful . The phone chimed. Malloy flipped it on with a practiced hand. "Malloy here." "Mr. Malloy?" said a careful voice. "A special communication for you has been teletyped in from Earth. Shall I bring it in?" "Bring it in, Miss Drayson." Miss Drayson was a case in point. She was uncommunicative. She liked to gather in information, but she found it difficult to give it up once it was in her possession. Malloy had made her his private secretary. Nothing—but nothing —got out of Malloy's office without his direct order. It had taken Malloy a long time to get it into Miss Drayson's head that it was perfectly all right—even desirable—for her to keep secrets from everyone except Malloy. She came in through the door, a rather handsome woman in her middle thirties, clutching a sheaf of papers in her right hand as though someone might at any instant snatch it from her before she could turn it over to Malloy. She laid them carefully on the desk. "If anything else comes in, I'll let you know immediately, sir," she said. "Will there be anything else?" Malloy let her stand there while he picked up the communique. She wanted to know what his reaction was going to be; it didn't matter because no one would ever find out from her what he had done unless she was ordered to tell someone. He read the first paragraph, and his eyes widened involuntarily. "Armistice," he said in a low whisper. "There's a chance that the war may be over." "Yes, sir," said Miss Drayson in a hushed voice. Malloy read the whole thing through, fighting to keep his emotions in check. Miss Drayson stood there calmly, her face a mask; her emotions were a secret. Finally, Malloy looked up. "I'll let you know as soon as I reach a decision, Miss Drayson. I think I hardly need say that no news of this is to leave this office." "Of course not, sir." Malloy watched her go out the door without actually seeing her. The war was over—at least for a while. He looked down at the papers again. The Karna, slowly being beaten back on every front, were suing for peace. They wanted an armistice conference—immediately. Earth was willing. Interstellar war is too costly to allow it to continue any longer than necessary, and this one had been going on for more than thirteen years now. Peace was necessary. But not peace at any price. The trouble was that the Karna had a reputation for losing wars and winning at the peace table. They were clever, persuasive talkers. They could twist a disadvantage to an advantage, and make their own strengths look like weaknesses. If they won the armistice, they'd be able to retrench and rearm, and the war would break out again within a few years. Now—at this point in time—they could be beaten. They could be forced to allow supervision of the production potential, forced to disarm, rendered impotent. But if the armistice went to their own advantage ... Already, they had taken the offensive in the matter of the peace talks. They had sent a full delegation to Saarkkad V, the next planet out from the Saarkkad sun, a chilly world inhabited only by low-intelligence animals. The Karna considered this to be fully neutral territory, and Earth couldn't argue the point very well. In addition, they demanded that the conference begin in three days, Terrestrial time. The trouble was that interstellar communication beams travel a devil of a lot faster than ships. It would take more than a week for the Earth government to get a vessel to Saarkkad V. Earth had been caught unprepared for an armistice. They objected. The Karna pointed out that the Saarkkad sun was just as far from Karn as it was from Earth, that it was only a few million miles from a planet which was allied with Earth, and that it was unfair for Earth to take so much time in preparing for an armistice. Why hadn't Earth been prepared? Did they intend to fight to the utter destruction of Karn? It wouldn't have been a problem at all if Earth and Karn had fostered the only two intelligent races in the galaxy. The sort of grandstanding the Karna were putting on had to be played to an audience. But there were other intelligent races throughout the galaxy, most of whom had remained as neutral as possible during the Earth-Karn war. They had no intention of sticking their figurative noses into a battle between the two most powerful races in the galaxy. But whoever won the armistice would find that some of the now-neutral races would come in on their side if war broke out again. If the Karna played their cards right, their side would be strong enough next time to win. So Earth had to get a delegation to meet with the Karna representatives within the three-day limit or lose what might be a vital point in the negotiations. And that was where Bertrand Malloy came in. He had been appointed Minister and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to the Earth-Karn peace conference. He looked up at the ceiling again. "What can I do?" he said softly. On the second day after the arrival of the communique, Malloy made his decision. He flipped on his intercom and said: "Miss Drayson, get hold of James Nordon and Kylen Braynek. I want to see them both immediately. Send Nordon in first, and tell Braynek to wait." "Yes, sir." "And keep the recorder on. You can file the tape later." "Yes, sir." Malloy knew the woman would listen in on the intercom anyway, and it was better to give her permission to do so. James Nordon was tall, broad-shouldered, and thirty-eight. His hair was graying at the temples, and his handsome face looked cool and efficient. Malloy waved him to a seat. "Nordon, I have a job for you. It's probably one of the most important jobs you'll ever have in your life. It can mean big things for you—promotion and prestige if you do it well." Nordon nodded slowly. "Yes, sir." Malloy explained the problem of the Karna peace talks. "We need a man who can outthink them," Malloy finished, "and judging from your record, I think you're that man. It involves risk, of course. If you make the wrong decisions, your name will be mud back on Earth. But I don't think there's much chance of that, really. Do you want to handle small-time operations all your life? Of course not. "You'll be leaving within an hour for Saarkkad V." Nordon nodded again. "Yes, sir; certainly. Am I to go alone?" "No," said Malloy, "I'm sending an assistant with you—a man named Kylen Braynek. Ever heard of him?" Nordon shook his head. "Not that I recall, Mr. Malloy. Should I have?" "Not necessarily. He's a pretty shrewd operator, though. He knows a lot about interstellar law, and he's capable of spotting a trap a mile away. You'll be in charge, of course, but I want you to pay special attention to his advice." "I will, sir," Nordon said gratefully. "A man like that can be useful." "Right. Now, you go into the anteroom over there. I've prepared a summary of the situation, and you'll have to study it and get it into your head before the ship leaves. That isn't much time, but it's the Karna who are doing the pushing, not us." As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy said softly: "Send in Braynek, Miss Drayson." Kylen Braynek was a smallish man with mouse-brown hair that lay flat against his skull, and hard, penetrating, dark eyes that were shadowed by heavy, protruding brows. Malloy asked him to sit down. Again Malloy went through the explanation of the peace conference. "Naturally, they'll be trying to trick you every step of the way," Malloy went on. "They're shrewd and underhanded; we'll simply have to be more shrewd and more underhanded. Nordon's job is to sit quietly and evaluate the data; yours will be to find the loopholes they're laying out for themselves and plug them. Don't antagonize them, but don't baby them, either. If you see anything underhanded going on, let Nordon know immediately." "They won't get anything by me, Mr. Malloy." By the time the ship from Earth got there, the peace conference had been going on for four days. Bertrand Malloy had full reports on the whole parley, as relayed to him through the ship that had taken Nordon and Braynek to Saarkkad V. Secretary of State Blendwell stopped off at Saarkkad IV before going on to V to take charge of the conference. He was a tallish, lean man with a few strands of gray hair on the top of his otherwise bald scalp, and he wore a hearty, professional smile that didn't quite make it to his calculating eyes. He took Malloy's hand and shook it warmly. "How are you, Mr. Ambassador?" "Fine, Mr. Secretary. How's everything on Earth?" "Tense. They're waiting to see what is going to happen on Five. So am I, for that matter." His eyes were curious. "You decided not to go yourself, eh?" "I thought it better not to. I sent a good team, instead. Would you like to see the reports?" "I certainly would." Malloy handed them to the secretary, and as he read, Malloy watched him. Blendwell was a political appointee—a good man, Malloy had to admit, but he didn't know all the ins and outs of the Diplomatic Corps. When Blendwell looked up from the reports at last, he said: "Amazing! They've held off the Karna at every point! They've beaten them back! They've managed to cope with and outdo the finest team of negotiators the Karna could send." "I thought they would," said Malloy, trying to appear modest. The secretary's eyes narrowed. "I've heard of the work you've been doing here with ... ah ... sick men. Is this one of your ... ah ... successes?" Malloy nodded. "I think so. The Karna put us in a dilemma, so I threw a dilemma right back at them." "How do you mean?" "Nordon had a mental block against making decisions. If he took a girl out on a date, he'd have trouble making up his mind whether to kiss her or not until she made up his mind for him, one way or the other. He's that kind of guy. Until he's presented with one, single, clear decision which admits of no alternatives, he can't move at all. "As you can see, the Karna tried to give us several choices on each point, and they were all rigged. Until they backed down to a single point and proved that it wasn't rigged, Nordon couldn't possibly make up his mind. I drummed into him how important this was, and the more importance there is attached to his decisions, the more incapable he becomes of making them." The Secretary nodded slowly. "What about Braynek?" "Paranoid," said Malloy. "He thinks everyone is plotting against him. In this case, that's all to the good because the Karna are plotting against him. No matter what they put forth, Braynek is convinced that there's a trap in it somewhere, and he digs to find out what the trap is. Even if there isn't a trap, the Karna can't satisfy Braynek, because he's convinced that there has to be—somewhere. As a result, all his advice to Nordon, and all his questioning on the wildest possibilities, just serves to keep Nordon from getting unconfused. "These two men are honestly doing their best to win at the peace conference, and they've got the Karna reeling. The Karna can see that we're not trying to stall; our men are actually working at trying to reach a decision. But what the Karna don't see is that those men, as a team, are unbeatable because, in this situation, they're psychologically incapable of losing." Again the Secretary of State nodded his approval, but there was still a question in his mind. "Since you know all that, couldn't you have handled it yourself?" "Maybe, but I doubt it. They might have gotten around me someway by sneaking up on a blind spot. Nordon and Braynek have blind spots, but they're covered with armor. No, I'm glad I couldn't go; it's better this way." The Secretary of State raised an eyebrow. " Couldn't go, Mr. Ambassador?" Malloy looked at him. "Didn't you know? I wondered why you appointed me, in the first place. No, I couldn't go. The reason why I'm here, cooped up in this office, hiding from the Saarkkada the way a good Saarkkadic bigshot should, is because I like it that way. I suffer from agoraphobia and xenophobia. "I have to be drugged to be put on a spaceship because I can't take all that empty space, even if I'm protected from it by a steel shell." A look of revulsion came over his face. "And I can't stand aliens!" THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction March 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
In the Garden by Lafferty, R. A.	"In the Garden", R. A. Lafferty, 1958. IT WAS A DULL, ROUTINE LITTLE WORLD. IT DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A CITY. EVERYTHING IT HAD WAS IN THE GARDEN BY R. A. LAFFERTY [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The protozoic recorder chirped like a bird. Not only would there be life traces on that little moon, but it would be a lively place. So they skipped several steps in the procedure. The chordata discerner read Positive over most of the surface. There was spinal fluid on that orb, rivers of it. So again they omitted several tests and went to the cognition scanner. Would it show Thought on the body? Naturally they did not get results at once, nor did they expect to; it required a fine adjustment. But they were disappointed that they found nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. Then it came—clearly and definitely, but from quite a small location only. "Limited," said Steiner, "as though within a pale. As though there were but one city, if that is its form. Shall we follow the rest of the surface to find another, or concentrate on this? It'll be twelve hours before it's back in our ken if we let it go now." "Let's lock on this one and finish the scan. Then we can do the rest of the world to make sure we've missed nothing," said Stark. There was one more test to run, one very tricky and difficult of analysis, that with the Extraordinary Perception Locator. This was designed simply to locate a source of superior thought. But this might be so varied or so unfamiliar that often both the machine and the designer of it were puzzled as to how to read the results. The E. P. Locator had been designed by Glaser. But when the Locator had refused to read Positive when turned on the inventor himself, bad blood developed between machine and man. Glaser knew that he had extraordinary perception. He was a much honored man in his field. He told the machine so heatedly. The machine replied, with such warmth that its relays chattered, that Glaser did not have extraordinary perception; he had only ordinary perception to an extraordinary degree. There is a difference , the machine insisted. It was for this reason that Glaser used that model no more, but built others more amenable. And it was for this reason also that the owners of Little Probe had acquired the original machine so cheaply. And there was no denying that the Extraordinary Perception Locator (or Eppel) was a contrary machine. On Earth it had read Positive on a number of crack-pots, including Waxey Sax, a jazz tootler who could not even read music. But it had also read Positive on ninety per cent of the acknowledged superior minds of the Earth. In space it had been a sound guide to the unusual intelligences encountered. Yet on Suzuki-Mi it had read Positive on a two-inch-long worm, only one of them out of billions. For the countless identical worms no trace of anything at all was shown by the test. So it was with mixed expectations that Steiner locked onto the area and got a flick. He then narrowed to a smaller area (apparently one individual, though this could not be certain) and got very definite action. Eppel was busy. The machine had a touch of the ham in it, and assumed an air of importance when it ran these tests. Finally it signaled the result, the most exasperating result it ever produces: the single orange light. It was the equivalent of the shrug of the shoulders in a man. They called it the "You tell me light." So among the intelligences there was at least one that might be extraordinary, though possibly in a crackpot way. It is good to be forewarned. "Scan the remainder of the world, Steiner," said Stark, "and the rest of us will get some sleep. If you find no other spot then we will go down on that one the next time it is in position under us, in about twelve hours." "You don't want to visit any of the other areas first? Somewhere away from the thoughtful creature?" "No. The rest of the world may be dangerous. There must be a reason that thought is in one spot only. If we find no others then we will go down boldly and visit this." So they all, except Steiner, went off to their bunks then: Stark, the Captain; Gregory Gilbert, the executive officer; Wolfgang Langweilig, the engineer; Casper Craig, super-cargo, tycoon and 51% owner of the Little Probe, and F. R. Briton, S.J., a Jesuit priest who was linguist and checker champion of the craft. Dawn did not come to the moon-town. The Little Probe hovered stationary in the light and the moon-town came up under the dawn. Then the Probe went down to visit whatever was there. "There's no town," said Steiner. "Not a building. Yet we're on the track of the minds. There's nothing but a meadow and some boscage, a sort of fountain or pool, and four streams coming out of it." "Keep on towards the minds," said Stark. "They're our target." "Not a building, not two sticks or stones placed together. That looks like an Earth-type sheep there. And that looks like an Earth-lion, I'm almost afraid to say. And those two ... why, they could well be Earth-people. But with a difference. Where is that bright light coming from?" "I don't know, but they're right in the middle of it. Land here. We'll go to meet them at once. Timidity has never been an efficacious tool with us." Well, they were people. And one could only wish that all people were like them. There was a man and a woman, and they were clothed either in very bright garments or in no garments at all, but only in a very bright light. "Talk to them, Father Briton," said Stark. "You are the linguist." "Howdy," said the priest. He may or may not have been understood, but the two of them smiled at him, so he went on. "Father Briton from Philadelphia," he said, "on detached service. And you, my good man, what is your handle, your monicker, your tag?" "Ha-Adamah," said the man. "And your daughter, or niece?" It may be that the shining man frowned momentarily at this; but the woman smiled, proving that she was human. "The woman is named Hawwah," said the man. "The sheep is named sheep, the lion is named lion, the horse is named horse and the hoolock is named hoolock." "I understand. It is possible that this could go on and on. How is it that you use the English tongue?" "I have only one tongue; but it is given to us to be understood by all; by the eagle, by the squirrel, by the ass, by the English." "We happen to be bloody Yankees, but we use a borrowed tongue. You wouldn't have a drink on you for a tubful of thirsty travellers, would you?" "The fountain." "Ah—I see." But the crew all drank of the fountain to be sociable. It was water, but water that excelled, cool and with all its original bubbles like the first water ever made. "What do you make of them?" asked Stark. "Human," said Steiner. "It may even be that they are a little more than human. I don't understand that light that surrounds them. And they seem to be clothed, as it were, in dignity." "And very little else," said Father Briton, "though that light trick does serve a purpose. But I'm not sure they'd pass in Philadelphia." "Talk to them again," said Stark. "You're the linguist." "That isn't necessary here, Captain. Talk to them yourself." "Are there any other people here?" Stark asked the man. "The two of us. Man and woman." "But are there any others?" "How would there be any others? What other kind of people could there be than man and woman?" "But is there more than one man or woman?" "How could there be more than one of anything?" The captain was a little puzzled by this, but he went on doggedly: "Ha-Adamah, what do you think that we are? Are we not people?" "You are not anything till I name you. But I will name you and then you can be. You are named Captain. He is named Priest. He is named Engineer. He is named Flunky." "Thanks a lot," said Steiner. "But are we not people?" persisted Captain Stark. "No. We are the people. There are no people but two. How could there be other people?" "And the damnest thing about it," muttered Langweilig, "is, how are you going to prove him wrong? But it does give you a small feeling." "Can we have something to eat?" asked the Captain. "Pick from the trees," said Ha-Adamah, "and then it may be that you will want to sleep on the grass. Being not of human nature (which does not need sleep or rest), it may be that you require respite. But you are free to enjoy the garden and its fruits." "We will," said Captain Stark. They wandered about the place, but they were uneasy. There were the animals. The lion and lioness were enough to make one cautious, though they offered no harm. The two bears had a puzzling look, as though they wanted either to frolic with you or to mangle you. "If there are only two people here," said Casper Craig, "then it may be that the rest of the world is not dangerous at all. It looked fertile wherever we scanned it, though not so fertile as this central bit. And those rocks would bear examining." "Flecked with gold, and possibly with something else," said Stark. "A very promising site." "And everything grows here," added Steiner. "Those are Earth-fruits and I never saw finer. I've tasted the grapes and plums and pears. The figs and dates are superb, the quince is as flavorsome as a quince can be, the cherries are excellent. And I never did taste such oranges. But I haven't yet tried the—" and he stopped. "If you're thinking what I'm afraid to think," said Gilbert, "then it will be the test at least: whether we're having a pleasant dream or whether this is reality. Go ahead and eat one." "I won't be the first to eat one. You eat." "Ask him first. You ask him." "Ha-Adamah, is it allowed to eat the apples?" "Certainly. Eat. It is the finest fruit in the garden." "Well, the analogy breaks down there," said Stark. "I was almost beginning to believe in the thing. But if it isn't that, then what. Father Briton, you are the linguist, but in Hebrew does not Ha-Adamah and Hawwah mean—?" "Of course they do. You know that as well as I." "I was never a believer. But would it be possible for the exact same proposition to maintain here as on Earth?" "All things are possible." And it was then that Ha-Adamah, the shining man, gave a wild cry: "No, no. Do not approach it. It is not allowed to eat of that one!" It was the pomegranate tree, and he was warning Langweilig away from it. "Once more, Father," said Stark, "you should be the authority; but does not the idea that it was the apple that was forbidden go back only to a medieval painting?" "It does. The name of the fruit is not mentioned in Genesis. In Hebrew exegesis, however, the pomegranate is usually indicated." "I thought so. Question the man further, Father. This is too incredible." "It is a little odd. Adam, old man, how long have you been here?" "Forever less six days is the answer that has been given to me. I never did understand the answer, however." "And have you gotten no older in all that time?" "I do not understand what 'older' is. I am as I have been from the beginning." "And do you think that you will ever die?" "To die I do not understand. I am taught that it is a property of fallen nature to die, and that does not pertain to me or mine." "And are you completely happy here?" "Perfectly happy according to my preternatural state. But I am taught that it might be possible to lose that happiness, and then to seek it vainly through all the ages. I am taught that sickness and ageing and even death could come if this happiness were ever lost. I am taught that on at least one other unfortunate world it has actually been lost." "Do you consider yourself a knowledgeable man?" "Yes, since I am the only man, and knowledge is natural to man. But I am further blessed. I have a preternatural intellect." Then Stark cut in once more: "There must be some one question you could ask him, Father. Some way to settle it. I am becoming nearly convinced." "Yes, there is a question that will settle it. Adam, old man, how about a game of checkers?" "This is hardly the time for clowning," said Stark. "I'm not clowning, Captain. How about it, Adam? I'll give you choice of colors and first move." "No. It would be no contest. I have a preternatural intellect." "Well, I beat a barber who was champion of Germantown. And I beat the champion of Morgan County, Tennessee, which is the hottest checker center on Earth. I've played against, and beaten, machines. But I never played a preternatural mind. Let's just set up the board, Adam, and have a go at it." "No. It would be no contest. I would not like to humble you." They were there for three days. They were delighted with the place. It was a world with everything, and it seemed to have only two inhabitants. They went everywhere except into the big cave. "What is there, Adam?" asked Captain Stark. "The great serpent lives there. I would not disturb him. He has long been cranky because plans he had for us did not materialize. But we are taught that should ever evil come to us, which it cannot if we persevere, it will come by him." They learned no more of the real nature of the sphere in their time there. Yet all but one of them were convinced of the reality when they left. And they talked of it as they took off. "A crowd would laugh if told of it," said Stark, "but not many would laugh if they had actually seen the place, or them. I am not a gullible man, but I am convinced of this: that this is a pristine and pure world and that ours and all the others we have visited are fallen worlds. Here are the prototypes of our first parents before their fall. They are garbed in light and innocence, and they have the happiness that we have been seeking for centuries. It would be a crime if anyone disturbed that happiness." "I too am convinced," said Steiner. "It is Paradise itself, where the lion lies down with the lamb, and where the serpent has not prevailed. It would be the darkest of crimes if we or others should play the part of the serpent, and intrude and spoil." "I am probably the most skeptical man in the world," said Casper Craig the tycoon, "but I do believe my eyes. I have been there and seen it. It is indeed an unspoiled Paradise; and it would be a crime calling to the wide heavens for vengeance for anyone to smirch in any way that perfection. "So much for that. Now to business. Gilbert, take a gram: Ninety Million Square Miles of Pristine Paradise for Sale or Lease. Farming, Ranching, exceptional opportunities for Horticulture. Gold, Silver, Iron, Earth-Type Fauna. Terms. Special Rates for Large Settlement Parties. Write, Gram, or call in person at any of our planetary offices as listed below. Ask for Brochure—Eden Acres Unlimited." Down in the great cave that Old Serpent, a two-legged one among whose names were "Snake-Oil Sam," spoke to his underlings: "It'll take them fourteen days to get back with the settlers. We'll have time to overhaul the blasters. We haven't had any well-equipped settlers for six weeks. It used to be we'd hardly have time to strip and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of." "I think you'd better write me some new lines," said Adam. "I feel like a goof saying those same ones to each bunch." "You are a goof, and therefore perfect for the part. I was in show business long enough to know never to change a line too soon. I did change Adam and Eve to Ha-Adamah and Hawwah, and the apple to the pomegranate. People aren't becoming any smarter—but they are becoming better researched, and they insist on authenticity. "This is still a perfect come-on here. There is something in human nature that cannot resist the idea of a Perfect Paradise. Folks will whoop and holler to their neighbors to come in droves to spoil and mar it. It isn't greed or the desire for new land so much—though that is strong too. Mainly it is the feverish passion to befoul and poison what is unspoiled. Fortunately I am sagacious enough to take advantage of this trait. And when you start to farm a new world on a shoestring you have to acquire your equipment as you can." He looked proudly around at the great cave with its mountains and tiers of materials, heavy machinery of all sorts, titanic crates of foodstuff space-sealed; wheeled, tracked, propped, vaned and jetted vehicles; and power packs to run a world. He looked at the three dozen space ships stripped and stacked, and at the rather large pile of bone-meal in one corner. "We will have to have another lion," said Eve. "Bowser is getting old, and Marie-Yvette abuses him and gnaws his toes. And we do have to have a big-maned lion to lie down with the lamb." "I know it, Eve. The lion is a very important prop. Maybe one of the crackpot settlers will bring a new lion." "And can't you mix another kind of shining paint? This itches. It's hell." "I'm working on it." Casper Craig was still dictating the gram: "Amazing quality of longevity seemingly inherent in the locale. Climate ideal. Daylight or half-light. All twenty-one hours from Planet Delphina and from Sol. Pure water for all industrial purposes. Scenic and storied. Zoning and pre-settlement restrictions to insure congenial neighbors. A completely planned globular settlement in a near arm of our own galaxy. Low taxes and liberal credit. Financing our specialty—" "And you had better have an armed escort when you return," said Father Briton. "Why in cosmos would we want an armed escort?" "It's as phony as a seven-credit note!" "You, a man of the cloth doubt it? And us ready skeptics convinced by our senses? Why do you doubt?" "It is only the unbelieving who believe so easily in obvious frauds. Theologically unsound, dramaturgically weak, philologically impossible, zoologically rigged, salted conspicuously with gold and shot through with anachronisms. And moreover he was afraid to play me at checkers." "What?" "If I have a preternatural intellect I wouldn't be afraid of a game of checkers with anyone. Yet there was an unusual mind there somewhere; it was just that he chose not to make our acquaintance personally." "They looked at the priest thoughtfully. "But it was Paradise in one way," said Steiner at last. "How?" "All the time we were there the woman did not speak."
Innocent at Large by Anderson, Poul; Anderson, Karen	"Innocent at Large", Anderson, Poul; Anderson, Karen, 1954. INNOCENT AT LARGE By POUL AND KAREN ANDERSON Illustrated by WOOD [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction July 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] A hayseed Martian among big-planet slickers ... of course he would get into trouble. But that was nothing compared to the trouble he would be in if he did not get into trouble! The visiphone chimed when Peri had just gotten into her dinner gown. She peeled it off again and slipped on a casual bathrobe: a wisp of translucence which had set the president of Antarctic Enterprise—or had it been the chairman of the board?—back several thousand dollars. Then she pulled a lock of lion-colored hair down over one eye, checked with a mirror, rumpled it a tiny bit more and wrapped the robe loosely on top and tight around the hips. After all, some of the men who knew her private number were important. She undulated to the phone and pressed its Accept. "Hello-o, there," she said automatically. "So sorry to keep you waiting. I was just taking a bath and—Oh. It's you." Gus Doran's prawnlike eyes popped at her. "Holy Success," he whispered in awe. "You sure the wires can carry that much voltage?" "Well, hurry up with whatever it is," snapped Peri. "I got a date tonight." "I'll say you do! With a Martian!" Peri narrowed her silver-blue gaze and looked icily at him. "You must have heard wrong, Gus. He's the heir apparent of Indonesia, Inc., that's who, and if you called up to ask for a piece of him, you can just blank right out again. I saw him first!" Doran's thin sharp face grinned. "You break that date, Peri. Put it off or something. I got this Martian for you, see?" "So? Since when has all Mars had as much spending money as one big-time marijuana rancher? Not to mention the heir ap—" "Sure, sure. But how much are those boys going to spend on any girl, even a high-level type like you? Listen, I need you just for tonight, see? This Martian is strictly from gone. He is here on official business, but he is a yokel and I do mean hayseed. Like he asked me what the Christmas decorations in all the stores were! And here is the solar nexus of it, Peri, kid." Doran leaned forward as if to climb out of the screen. "He has got a hundred million dollars expense money, and they are not going to audit his accounts at home. One hundred million good green certificates, legal tender anywhere in the United Protectorates. And he has about as much backbone as a piece of steak alga. Kid, if I did not happen to have experience otherwise with a small nephew, I would say this will be like taking candy from a baby." Peri's peaches-and-cream countenance began to resemble peaches and cream left overnight on Pluto. "Badger?" she asked. "Sure. You and Sam Wendt handle the routine. I will take the go-between angle, so he will think of me as still his friend, because I have other plans for him too. But if we can't shake a million out of him for this one night's work, there is something akilter. And your share of a million is three hundred thirty-three—" "Is five hundred thousand flat," said Peri. "Too bad I just got an awful headache and can't see Mr. Sastro tonight. Where you at, Gus?" The gravity was not as hard to take as Peter Matheny had expected. Three generations on Mars might lengthen the legs and expand the chest a trifle, but the genes had come from Earth and the organism readjusts. What set him gasping was the air. It weighed like a ton of wool and had apparently sopped up half the Atlantic Ocean. Ears trained to listen through the Martian atmosphere shuddered from the racket conducted by Earth's. The passport official seemed to bellow at him. "Pardon me for asking this. The United Protectorates welcome all visitors to Earth and I assure you, sir, an ordinary five-year visa provokes no questions. But since you came on an official courier boat of your planet, Mr. Matheny, regulations force me to ask your business." "Well—recruiting." The official patted his comfortable stomach, iridescent in neolon, and chuckled patronizingly. "I am afraid, sir, you won't find many people who wish to leave. They wouldn't be able to see the Teamsters Hour on Mars, would they?" "Oh, we don't expect immigration," said Matheny shyly. He was a fairly young man, but small, with a dark-thatched, snub-nosed, gray-eyed head that seemed too large for his slender body. "We learned long ago that no one is interested any more in giving up even second-class citizenship on Earth to live in the Republic. But we only wanted to hire——uh, I mean engage—an, an advisor. We're not businessmen. We know our export trade hasn't a chance among all your corporations unless we get some—a five-year contract...?" He heard his words trailing off idiotically, and swore at himself. "Well, good luck." The official's tone was skeptical. He stamped the passport and handed it back. "There, now, you are free to travel anywhere in the Protectorates. But I would advise you to leave the capital and get into the sticks—um, I mean the provinces. I am sure there must be tolerably competent sales executives in Russia or Congolese Belgium or such regions. Frankly, sir, I do not believe you can attract anyone out of Newer York." "Thanks," said Matheny, "but, you see, I—we need—that is.... Oh, well. Thanks. Good-by." He backed out of the office. A dropshaft deposited him on a walkway. The crowd, a rainbow of men in pajamas and robes, women in Neo-Sino dresses and goldleaf hats, swept him against the rail. For a moment, squashed to the wire, he stared a hundred feet down at the river of automobiles. Phobos! he thought wildly. If the barrier gives, I'll be sliced in two by a dorsal fin before I hit the pavement! The August twilight wrapped him in heat and stickiness. He could see neither stars nor even moon through the city's blaze. The forest of multi-colored towers, cataracting half a mile skyward across more acreage than his eyes reached, was impressive and all that, but—he used to stroll out in the rock garden behind his cottage and smoke a pipe in company with Orion. On summer evenings, that is, when the temperature wasn't too far below zero. Why did they tap me for this job? he asked himself in a surge of homesickness. What the hell is the Martian Embassy here for? He, Peter Matheny, was no more than a peaceful professor of sociodynamics at Devil's Kettle University. Of course, he had advised his government before now—in fact, the Red Ankh Society had been his idea—but still he was at ease only with his books and his chess and his mineral collection, a faculty poker party on Tenthday night and an occasional trip to Swindletown— My God , thought Matheny, here I am, one solitary outlander in the greatest commercial empire the human race has ever seen, and I'm supposed to find my planet a con man! He began walking, disconsolately, at random. His lizardskin shirt and black culottes drew glances, but derisive ones: their cut was forty years out of date. He should find himself a hotel, he thought drearily, but he wasn't tired; the spaceport would pneumo his baggage to him whenever he did check in. The few Martians who had been to Earth had gone into ecstasies over the automation which put any service you could name on a twenty-four-hour basis. But it would be a long time before Mars had such machines. If ever. The city roared at him. He fumbled after his pipe. Of course , he told himself, that's why the Embassy can't act. I may find it advisable to go outside the law. Please, sir, where can I contact the underworld? He wished gambling were legal on Earth. The Constitution of the Martian Republic forbade sumptuary and moral legislation; quite apart from the rambunctious individualism which that document formulated, the article was a practical necessity. Life was bleak enough on the deserts, without being denied the pleasure of trying to bottom-deal some friend who was happily trying to mark the cards. Matheny would have found a few spins of roulette soothing: it was always an intellectual challenge to work out the system by which the management operated a wheel. But more, he would have been among people he understood. The frightful thing about the Earthman was the way he seemed to exist only in organized masses. A gypsy snake oil peddler, plodding his syrtosaur wagon across Martian sands, just didn't have a prayer against, say, the Grant, Harding & Adams Public Relations Agency. Matheny puffed smoke and looked around. His feet ached from the weight on them. Where could a man sit down? It was hard to make out any individual sign through all that flimmering neon. His eye fell on one that was distinguished by relative austerity. THE CHURCH OF CHOICE Enter, Play, Pray That would do. He took an upward slideramp through several hundred feet of altitude, stepped past an aurora curtain, and found himself in a marble lobby next to an inspirational newsstand. "Ah, brother, welcome," said a red-haired usherette in demure black leotards. "The peace that passeth all understanding be with you. The restaurant is right up those stairs." "I—I'm not hungry," stammered Matheny. "I just wanted to sit in—" "To your left, sir." The Martian crossed the lobby. His pipe went out in the breeze from an animated angel. Organ music sighed through an open doorway. The series of rooms beyond was dim, Gothic, interminable. "Get your chips right here, sir," said the girl in the booth. "Hm?" said Matheny. She explained. He bought a few hundred-dollar tokens, dropped a fifty-buck coin down a slot marked CONTRIBUTIONS, and sipped the martini he got back while he strolled around studying the games. He stopped, frowned. Bingo? No, he didn't want to bother learning something new. He decided that the roulette wheels were either honest or too deep for him. He'd have to relax with a crap game instead. He had been standing at the table for some time before the rest of the congregation really noticed him. Then it was with awe. The first few passes he had made were unsuccessful. Earth gravity threw him off. But when he got the rhythm of it, he tossed a row of sevens. It was a customary form of challenge on Mars. Here, though, they simply pushed chips toward him. He missed a throw, as anyone would at home: simple courtesy. The next time around, he threw for a seven just to get the feel. He got a seven. The dice had not been substituted on him. "I say!" he exclaimed. He looked up into eyes and eyes, all around the green table. "I'm sorry. I guess I don't know your rules." "You did all right, brother," said a middle-aged lady with an obviously surgical bodice. "But—I mean—when do we start actually playing ? What happened to the cocked dice?" The lady drew herself up and jutted an indignant brow at him. "Sir! This is a church!" "Oh—I see—excuse me, I, I, I—" Matheny backed out of the crowd, shuddering. He looked around for some place to hide his burning ears. "You forgot your chips, pal," said a voice. "Oh. Thanks. Thanks ever so much. I, I, that is—" Matheny cursed his knotting tongue. Damn it, just because they're so much more sophisticated than I, do I have to talk like a leaky boiler? The helpful Earthman was not tall. He was dark and chisel-faced and sleekly pomaded, dapper in blue pajamas with a red zigzag, a sleighbell cloak and curly-toed slippers. "You're from Mars, aren't you?" he asked in the friendliest tone Matheny had yet heard. "Yes. Yes, I am. M-my name's Peter Matheny. I, I—" He stuck out his hand to shake and chips rolled over the floor. "Damn! Oh, excuse me, I forgot this was a church. Never mind the chips. No, please. I just want to g-g-get the hell out of here." "Good idea. How about a drink? I know a bar downshaft." Matheny sighed. "A drink is what I need the very most." "My name's Doran. Gus Doran. Call me Gus." They walked back to the deaconette's booth and Matheny cashed what remained of his winnings. "I don't want to—I mean if you're busy tonight, Mr. Doran—" "Nah. I am not doing one thing in particular. Besides, I have never met a Martian. I am very interested." "There aren't many of us on Earth," agreed Matheny. "Just a small embassy staff and an occasional like me." "I should think you would do a lot of traveling here. The old mother planet and so on." "We can't afford it," said Matheny. "What with gravitation and distance, such voyages are much too expensive for us to make them for pleasure. Not to mention our dollar shortage." As they entered the shaft, he added wistfully: "You Earth people have that kind of money, at least in your more prosperous brackets. Why don't you send a few tourists to us?" "I always wanted to," said Doran. "I would like to see the what they call City of Time, and so on. As a matter of fact, I have given my girl one of those Old Martian rings last Ike's Birthday and she was just gazoo about it. A jewel dug out of the City of Time, like, made a million years ago by a, uh, extinct race ... I tell you, she appreciated me for it!" He winked and nudged. "Oh," said Matheny. He felt a certain guilt. Doran was too pleasant a little man to deserve— "Of course," Matheny said ritually, "I agree with all the archeologists it's a crime to sell such scientifically priceless artifacts, but what can we do? We must live, and the tourist trade is almost nonexistent." "Trouble with it is, I hear Mars is not so comfortable," said Doran. "I mean, do not get me wrong, I don't want to insult you or anything, but people come back saying you have given the planet just barely enough air to keep a man alive. And there are no cities, just little towns and villages and ranches out in the bush. I mean you are being pioneers and making a new nation and all that, but people paying half a megabuck for their ticket expect some comfort and, uh, you know." "I do know," said Matheny. "But we're poor—a handful of people trying to make a world of dust and sand and scrub thorn into fields and woods and seas. We can't do it without substantial help from Earth, equipment and supplies—which can only be paid for in Earth dollars—and we can't export enough to Earth to earn those dollars." By that time, they were entering the Paul Bunyan Knotty Pine Bar & Grill, on the 73rd Level. Matheny's jaw clanked down. "Whassa matter?" asked Doran. "Ain't you ever seen a ecdysiastic technician before?" "Uh, yes, but—well, not in a 3-D image under ten magnifications." Matheny followed Doran past a sign announcing that this show was for purely artistic purposes, into a booth. There a soundproof curtain reduced the noise level enough so they could talk in normal voices. "What'll you have?" asked Doran. "It's on me." "Oh, I couldn't let you. I mean—" "Nonsense. Welcome to Earth! Care for a thyle and vermouth?" Matheny shuddered. "Good Lord, no!" "Huh? But they make thyle right on Mars, don't they?" "Yes. And it all goes to Earth and sells at 2000 dollars a fifth. But you don't think we'd drink it, do you? I mean—well, I imagine it doesn't absolutely ruin vermouth. But we don't see those Earthside commercials about how sophisticated people like it so much." "Well, I'll be a socialist creeper!" Doran's face split in a grin. "You know, all my life I've hated the stuff and never dared admit it!" He raised a hand. "Don't worry, I won't blabbo. But I am wondering, if you control the thyle industry and sell all those relics at fancy prices, why do you call yourselves poor?" "Because we are," said Matheny. "By the time the shipping costs have been paid on a bottle, and the Earth wholesaler and jobber and sales engineer and so on, down to the retailer, have taken their percentage, and the advertising agency has been paid, and about fifty separate Earth taxes—there's very little profit going back to the distillery on Mars. The same principle is what's strangling us on everything. Old Martian artifacts aren't really rare, for instance, but freight charges and the middlemen here put them out of the mass market." "Have you not got some other business?" "Well, we do sell a lot of color slides, postcards, baggage labels and so on to people who like to act cosmopolitan, and I understand our travel posters are quite popular as wall decoration. But all that has to be printed on Earth, and the printer and distributor keep most of the money. We've sold some books and show tapes, of course, but only one has been really successful— I Was a Slave Girl on Mars . "Our most prominent novelist was co-opted to ghostwrite that one. Again, though, local income taxes took most of the money; authors never have been protected the way a businessman is. We do make a high percentage of profit on those little certificates you see around—you know, the title deeds to one square inch of Mars—but expressed absolutely, in dollars, it doesn't amount to much when we start shopping for bulldozers and thermonuclear power plants." "How about postage stamps?" inquired Doran. "Philately is a big business, I have heard." "It was our mainstay," admitted Matheny, "but it's been overworked. Martian stamps are a drug on the market. What we'd like to operate is a sweepstakes, but the anti-gambling laws on Earth forbid that." Doran whistled. "I got to give your people credit for enterprise, anyway!" He fingered his mustache. "Uh, pardon me, but have you tried to, well, attract capital from Earth?" "Of course," said Matheny bitterly. "We offer the most liberal concessions in the Solar System. Any little mining company or transport firm or—or anybody—who wanted to come and actually invest a few dollars in Mars—why, we'd probably give him the President's daughter as security. No, the Minister of Ecology has a better-looking one. But who's interested? We haven't a thing that Earth hasn't got more of. We're only the descendants of a few scientists, a few political malcontents, oddballs who happen to prefer elbow room and a bill of liberties to the incorporated state—what could General Nucleonics hope to get from Mars?" "I see. Well, what are you having to drink?" "Beer," said Matheny without hesitation. "Huh? Look, pal, this is on me." "The only beer on Mars comes forty million miles, with interplanetary freight charges tacked on," said Matheny. "Heineken's!" Doran shrugged, dialed the dispenser and fed it coins. "This is a real interesting talk, Pete," he said. "You are being very frank with me. I like a man that is frank." Matheny shrugged. "I haven't told you anything that isn't known to every economist." Of course I haven't. I've not so much as mentioned the Red Ankh, for instance. But, in principle, I have told him the truth, told him of our need; for even the secret operations do not yield us enough. The beer arrived. Matheny engulfed himself in it. Doran sipped at a whiskey sour and unobtrusively set another full bottle in front of the Martian. "Ahhh!" said Matheny. "Bless you, my friend." "A pleasure." "But now you must let me buy you one." "That is not necessary. After all," said Doran with great tact, "with the situation as you have been describing—" "Oh, we're not that poor! My expense allowance assumes I will entertain quite a bit." Doran's brows lifted a few minutes of arc. "You're here on business, then?" "Yes. I told you we haven't any tourists. I was sent to hire a business manager for the Martian export trade." "What's wrong with your own people? I mean, Pete, it is not your fault there are so many rackets—uh, taxes—and middlemen and agencies and et cetera. That is just the way Earth is set up these days." Matheny's finger stabbed in the general direction of Doran's pajama top. "Exactly. And who set it up that way? Earthmen. We Martians are babes in the desert. What chance do we have to earn dollars on the scale we need them, in competition with corporations which could buy and sell our whole planet before breakfast? Why, we couldn't afford three seconds of commercial time on a Lullaby Pillow 'cast. What we need, what we have to hire, is an executive who knows Earth, who's an Earthman himself. Let him tell us what will appeal to your people, and how to dodge the tax bite and—and—well, you see how it goes, that sort of, uh, thing." Matheny felt his eloquence running down and grabbed for the second bottle of beer. "But where do I start?" he asked plaintively, for his loneliness smote him anew. "I'm just a college professor at home. How would I even get to see—" "It might be arranged," said Doran in a thoughtful tone. "It just might. How much could you pay this fellow?" "A hundred megabucks a year, if he'll sign a five-year contract. That's Earth years, mind you." "I'm sorry to tell you this, Pete," said Doran, "but while that is not bad money, it is not what a high-powered sales scientist gets in Newer York. Plus his retirement benefits, which he would lose if he quit where he is now at. And I am sure he would not want to settle on Mars permanently." "I could offer a certain amount of, uh, lagniappe," said Matheny. "That is, well, I can draw up to a hundred megabucks myself for, uh, expenses and, well ... let me buy you a drink!" Doran's black eyes frogged at him. "You might at that," said the Earthman very softly. "Yes, you might at that." Matheny found himself warming. Gus Doran was an authentic bobber. A hell of a swell chap. He explained modestly that he was a free-lance business consultant and it was barely possible that he could arrange some contacts.... "No, no, no commission, all done in the interest of interplanetary friendship ... well, anyhow, let's not talk business now. If you have got to stick to beer, Pete, make it a chaser to akvavit. What is akvavit? Well, I will just take and show you." A hell of a good bloke. He knew some very funny stories, too, and he laughed at Matheny's, though they were probably too rustic for a big-city taste like his. "What I really want," said Matheny, "what I really want—I mean what Mars really needs, get me?—is a confidence man." "A what?" "The best and slickest one on Earth, to operate a world-size con game for us and make us some real money." "Con man? Oh. A slipstring." "A con by any other name," said Matheny, pouring down an akvavit. Doran squinted through cigarette smoke. "You are interesting me strangely, my friend. Say on." "No." Matheny realized his head was a bit smoky. The walls of the booth seemed odd, somehow. They were just leatheroid walls, but they had an odd quality. "No, sorry, Gus," he said. "I spoke too much." "Okay. Forget it. I do not like a man that pries. But look, let's bomb out of here, how about it? Go have a little fun." "By all means." Matheny disposed of his last beer. "I could use some gaiety." "You have come to the right town then. But let us get you a hotel room first and some more up-to-date clothes." " Allez ," said Matheny. "If I don't mean allons , or maybe alors ." The drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered him; the room rate at the Jupiter-Astoria sobered him still more. Oh, well , he thought, if I succeed in this job, no one at home will quibble. And the chamber to which he and Doran were shown was spectacular enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to show the vertical incandescence of the towers. "Whoof!" Matheny sat down. The chair slithered sensuously about his contours. He jumped. "What the dusty hell—Oh." He tried to grin, but his face burned. "I see." "That is a sexy type of furniture, all right," agreed Doran. He lowered himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a cigarette. "Which speaking of, what say we get some girls? It is not too late to catch them at home. A date here will usually start around 2100 hours earliest." "What?" "You know. Dames. Like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. Such as you." "Me?" Matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. "Me? Exotic? Why, I'm just a little college professor. I g-g-g, that is—" His tongue got stuck on his palate. He pulled it loose and moistened uncertain lips. "You are from Mars. Okay? So you fought bushcats barehanded in an abandoned canal." "What's a bushcat? And we don't have canals. The evaporation rate—" "Look, Pete," said Doran patiently. "She don't have to know that, does she?" "Well—well, no. I guess not No." "Let's order you some clothes on the pneumo," said Doran. "I recommend you buy from Schwartzherz. Everybody knows he is expensive." While Matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with his new raiment, Doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer. "You said one thing, Pete," Doran remarked. "About needing a slipstring. A con man, you would call it." "Forget that. Please. I spoke out of turn." "Well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what Mars does need. And maybe I have got a few contacts." "What?" Matheny gaped out of the bathroom. Doran cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette, not looking at him. "I am not that man," he said frankly. "But in my line I get a lot of contacts, and not all of them go topside. See what I mean? Like if, say, you wanted somebody terminated and could pay for it, I could not do it. I would not want to know anything about it. But I could tell you a phone number." He shrugged and gave the Martian a sidelong glance. "Sure, you may not be interested. But if you are, well, Pete, I was not born yesterday. I got tolerance. Like the book says, if you want to get ahead, you have got to think positively." Matheny hesitated. If only he hadn't taken that last shot! It made him want to say yes, immediately, without reservations. And therefore maybe he became overcautious. They had instructed him on Mars to take chances if he must. "I could tell you a thing or two that might give you a better idea," he said slowly. "But it would have to be under security." "Okay by me. Room service can send us up an oath box right now." "What? But—but—" Matheny hung onto himself and tried to believe that he had landed on Earth less than six hours ago. In the end, he did call room service and the machine was trundled in. Doran swallowed the pill and donned the conditioner helmet without an instant's hesitation. "I shall never reveal to any person unauthorized by yourself whatever you may tell me under security, now or at any other time," he recited. Then, cheerfully: "And that formula, Pete, happens to be the honest-to-zebra truth." "I know." Matheny stared, embarrassed, at the carpet. "I'm sorry to—to—I mean of course I trust you, but—" "Forget it. I take a hundred security oaths a year, in my line of work. Maybe I can help you. I like you, Pete, damn if I don't. And, sure, I might stand to get an agent's cut, if I arrange—Go ahead, boy, go ahead." Doran crossed his legs and leaned back. "Oh, it's simple enough," said Matheny. "It's only that we already are operating con games." "On Mars, you mean?" "Yes. There never were any Old Martians. We erected the ruins fifty years ago for the Billingsworth Expedition to find. We've been manufacturing relics ever since." " Huh? Well, why, but—" "In this case, it helps to be at the far end of an interplanetary haul," said Matheny. "Not many Terrestrial archeologists get to Mars and they depend on our people to—Well, anyhow—" "I will be clopped! Good for you!" Doran blew up in laughter. "That is one thing I would never spill, even without security. I told you about my girl friend, didn't I?" "Yes, and that calls to mind the Little Girl," said Matheny apologetically. "She was another official project." "Who?" "Remember Junie O'Brien? The little golden-haired girl on Mars, a mathematical prodigy, but dying of an incurable disease? She collected Earth coins." "Oh, that. Sure, I remember—Hey! You didn't!" "Yes. We made about a billion dollars on that one." "I will be double damned. You know, Pete, I sent her a hundred-buck piece myself. Say, how is Junie O'Brien?" "Oh, fine. Under a different name, she's now our finance minister." Matheny stared out the wall, his hands twisting nervously behind his back. "There were no lies involved. She really does have a fatal disease. So do you and I. Every day we grow older." "Uh!" exclaimed Doran. "And then the Red Ankh Society. You must have seen or heard their ads. 'What mysterious knowledge did the Old Martians possess? What was the secret wisdom of the Ancient Aliens? Now the incredibly powerful semantics of the Red Ankh (not a religious organization) is available to a select few—' That's our largest dollar-earning enterprise." He would have liked to say it was his suggestion originally, but it would have been too presumptuous. He was talking to an Earthman, who had heard everything already. Doran whistled. "That's about all, so far," confessed Matheny. "Perhaps a con is our only hope. I've been wondering, maybe we could organize a Martian bucket shop, handling Martian securities, but—well, I don't know." "I think—" Doran removed the helmet and stood up. "Yes?" Matheny faced around, shivering with his own tension. "I may be able to find the man you want," said Doran. "I just may. It will take a few days and might get a little expensive." "You mean.... Mr. Doran—Gus—you could actually—" "I cannot promise anything yet except that I will try. Now you finish dressing. I will be down in the bar. And I will call up this girl I know. We deserve a celebration!"
Is gambling Hollywood or tobacco? by David Plotz	"Is gambling Hollywood or tobacco?", David Plotz, 1998. Is <A NAME= Gambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. In today's dispatch, we learn how gambling's foes seek to demonize wagering as a pernicious tobaccolike vice. In yesterday's dispatch, gambling's foes learn the folly of having brought their anti-sin crusade to an adult Disneyland. Tuesday's overpowering show of force by the Nevada gambling aristocracy has had at least one audible effect on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Wednesday, even commission Chair Kay Coles James, a gambling skeptic, succumbs to the hideous Vegas euphemism: She begins referring to the "gaming industry." After Tuesday's casino triumphalism, Wednesday is a comedown, eight hours of policy panels on teen gambling, compulsive gambling, gambling regulation, gambling marketing, and gambling credit practices. It is tough slogging, but for the first time I sense that this commission--though divided, underfunded, timid, and without any power beyond exhortation--isn't entirely useless. It may finally settle this question: Is gambling Hollywood or tobacco? Entertainment or vice? The sleek Vegas types, whose Strip palaces scramble casinos, theaters, restaurants, arcades, discos, cabarets, theme parks, concert halls, sports arenas, and museums into one giant orgy of amusement, have been selling the idea that gambling is just entertainment--Disney in the desert. This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. The antis, meanwhile, cry that gambling is like cigarettes: unsafe for kids, viciously addictive, deceptively marketed, unhealthy, expensive, and unacceptable unless mightily regulated. Judging by today's hearings and by conversations with most of the commissioners, the tobacco model is winning. Today's panelists tell the commission that kids are starting to gamble too young and are getting addicted too easily, that compulsive gambling appears to be increasing as gambling spreads, that gambling marketing may be designed to addict customers, and that the industry exploits problem gamblers by allowing them to draw repeated credit card advances from ATMs on casino floors. The testimony clearly impresses the commissioners and seems especially to impress the three nonaligned commissioners who will be the swing votes on the June 1999 report. It is starting to become clear what that report will say. The commission won't (and can't) take any grand stand against gambling. Instead it will opt for small, targeted policies, concentrating on compulsive gambling. It will probably propose that casinos and state lotteries fund gambling-addiction research and that casinos take much stronger measures to bar problem gamblers from wagering. The commission may recommend that gaming taxes be used to underwrite treatment of pathological gamblers and that insurance companies be encouraged to cover gambling addiction. Similarly, the commission will try to reduce gamblers' access to cash by limiting the size of ATM advances and prodding casinos to remove the machines from their floors. The commission will also push the industry to do more to prevent kids from gambling. It will call for heavier regulation of Indian gambling and will probably try to ban or severely regulate Internet gambling, perhaps by forbidding gambling companies from running online casinos. It will rebuke state lotteries for their deceptive marketing and will try to force them to post odds and stop targeting the poor. In short, it will treat gambling as a tobaccolike vice. If the comments of the pro-industry commissioners can be believed, the industry will happily endorse such a report. Gamblers don't quite accept the cigarette analogy--though commission member Bill Bible, a former chief of the Nevada Gaming Commission, did concede that gambling was like alcohol--but they're happy to sign on to the specific measures. The casino industry is even trying to get ahead of the commission. It has already established a (mostly) independent center to fund research into pathological gambling. I suspect that the industry will not only agree to the commission's recommendations but will become their strongest advocate. Casino owners will avidly lobby Congress and state legislatures to enact the recommendations into law. Why should the pro-gamblers cooperate with a critical study? Because it provides superb cover for them. It medicalizes the problem of compulsive gambling, blaming it on psychological abnormality rather than industry machination. Likewise, cracking down on compulsives is also politically cost-effective. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. The cigarette agenda will also distract the commission and the public from the true reasons for worry. A few years ago, gambling was confined to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It is now thriving in 48 states, and there is no sign that anyone can stop it. In this election, gambling interests dropped $100 million on a single California ballot initiative, toppled governors in two states, and bought senators and representatives by the crate. What the commission ought to be investigating is whether the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. But it can't, because the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. The antis can call gambling "tobacco." They can call it "vice." They can call it "a big red balloon" for all that the industry cares. As long as the commission just nibbles around the edges, the casino operators and state lotteries will be happy to indulge it. The pro-gambling folks will win credit for cooperating, without having to do anything that really hurts. The last national gambling commission was in the mid-1970s. If the gamblers play along with this commission's timid recommendations, they'll be safe for another 20 years. An Apology I owe an apology to Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan, whom I criticized yesterday for using the term "Indian country" during a speech critical of Indian casinos. As several readers pointed out to me, "Indian country" is a common phrase in the West and has no derogatory connotations. I'm sorry, Senator. Talk about quick defeats: The first sign I see outside the MGM Grand ballroom all but declares that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission has already lost. The sign reads: "National Gaming Impact Study Commission." "Gaming"? In Las Vegas, the euphemizers reign. Once upon a time, the casino owners decided that "gambling" was too crude, too avaricious, to describe their fair business. So "gambling" disappeared in Las Vegas, and "gaming" has risen in its place. He who controls language controls ideas, and at today's commission hearing, it is perfectly clear who controls the language. Video slot machines crammed into convenience stores--perhaps the most pernicious form of legal gambling there is--are called "retail gaming." People who own casinos are not "casino owners," they are "gaming visionaries." Pathological gamblers are "problem gamers"--as if they're having trouble mastering the rules of Monopoly. And the National Gambling Impact Study Commission is reborn as the National Gaming Impact Study Commission. The gambling industry did everything in its power to stop the establishment of this commission two years ago, but Congress and a fervent grassroots anti-gambling group eventually foisted it on the industry. The nine member blue-ribbon panel was charged with assessing the social and economic impact of gambling, and it will issue a final report to Congress and the president in June 1999. Even though the panel was carefully balanced between pro- and anti-gambling leaders, it was supposed to be Vegas' nemesis. The industry and Las Vegas' pro-gambling media quaked in anticipation of the onerous regulations and taxes the commission might recommend. But they quake no more. Whatever national momentum the anti-gamblers had dissolved in last week's elections. The industry routed opponents in state after state. Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative to allow boat casinos. Californians voted to expand Indian casinos. In South Carolina and Alabama, voters expelled anti-lottery, anti-gambling Republican governors and replaced them with pro-lottery Democrats. The gambling industry spent more than $100 million on political contributions and issue ads. It has never been fatter, happier, or more secure. "My goodness, no politician can withstand their resources," Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the commission's leading gambling opponent, tells me. The industry's political clout has emasculated the commission, Dobson continues: "Our report won't be acted on by the president or Congress. They are too heavily influenced by gambling money. Almost all the leaders of Congress are on the dole." It has also become obvious that the commission has too many pro-gambling members to produce a report that recommends taxes or other real penalties on the industry. So the commission's two day visit to Gomorrah has been transformed from a charged political event to a kind of victory lap for gaming. Nevada Gov. Bob Miller and the "gaming visionaries" have been planning for these hearings for months, hoping to use them to demonstrate the might and sanctity and goodness of the Nevada gambling industry. The MGM Grand, which is run by commission member Terrence Lanni, is itself the first exhibit of the Vegas triumphalists. It is gaudy testimony that consumers, at least, have no problem with this business. The MGM Grand, a k a "The City of Entertainment," has 5,000 rooms--the corridor outside my room is 200 yards long, so long I can't see its end--to feed the endless supply of slot machines, craps tables, and roulette wheels. David Cassidy performs here every night--twice! A few steps outside on the Strip is still more overwhelming evidence that Las Vegas has won the popular vote. New York, New York is just across the street, the $1.6 billion Bellagio is one door down, and a half-scale Eiffel Tower is going up next door. The setting has, as the pro-gambling folks no doubt hoped, stunned some of the gambling opponents. I asked one anti-gambling activist who had never before been to Vegas what she thinks of it. She could only blurt out "Wow." The hearings, too, reinforce the Glorious Las Vegas theme. Frank Fahrenkopf, the industry's top lobbyist (who is paid so much he can afford monogrammed shirt cuffs --I saw them), holds forth cheerfully outside the ballroom, celebrating the electoral triumph of freedom over religious moralist tyranny. Inside, the room is packed with more than 600 people in neon lime green T-shirts that read "Unions and Gaming: Together for a Better Life." They are members of the major casino union, here to cheer on their employers and their union. (Most of them, it must be said, are getting paid to do this.) Chairwoman Kay Coles James, a Christian conservative and skeptic of gambling, opens the hearing by assuring the crowd that the committee is toothless: "We're not here to take anyone's job. ... We have no power to do anything except make recommendations." This sets the mood for most of the day: Vegas is great, so you'd better leave it alone! The local government, by all appearances a wholly owned subsidiary of the casinos, puts on a bravura performance. Gov. Miller opens the show with a 15 minute hymn to Las Vegas. It is the first of many statistical barrages about Nevada's one-ders: No. 1 in job growth, No. 1 in population growth, and No. 1 on planet Earth in per capita Girl Scout troops--and Boy Scout troops! Later in the day, Nevada's senators and both its congressmen appear to chew out the commission for even thinking that Nevada might have a dark side. They pay tribute to Nevada's sophisticated gambling industry, especially its regulation (much stricter than other gambling states) and its use of gambling taxes to fund state services. It is one of the ironies of Nevada politics that its Republican congressmen (Jim Gibbons and John Ensign) end up crediting their state's success to government regulation and corporate taxation. There are also a fair share of gleeful gambling regulators, bookmakers, and casino employees among the panels of expert witnesses the commission hears from. Critics who gripe about the perils of sports gambling and the evils of convenience store slot machines leaven the pro-gambling folks. Everyone, including the gambling industry shills, agrees that Internet gambling is evil and should be destroyed. Everyone agrees to this because no one in Las Vegas is making any money off Internet gambling. If they were, you can be sure they would explain why it's as American as nickel slots and scratch-off games. Pro-Vegas forces are also perfectly happy to take shots at Indian gambling, the chief economic threat to Nevada's prosperity. The expansion of Indian casinos resulting from last week's California voter initiative will slam Las Vegas, cutting its gambling revenues by $400 million a year. So the Vegans repeatedly swing at casinos in "Indian country" (that's Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan's term--I'm not joking) for being insufficiently regulated and taxed. One tribal chief I spoke to calls this "red baiting." (Pause for an aesthetic observation: I am sitting right behind the witnesses, and after a while I begin to separate them into the Wides and the Narrows. The Wides are men in suits with enormous backs and enormous bellies, men who eat and eat and used to play football. They all testify to their love of gambling. The Narrows are thin and generally disapprove of it. I begin to wonder whether fondness for gambling correlates with general indulgence, and dislike correlates with asceticism, and decide that they probably do.) During the last hour of the day, the public comment period, the union sends a parade of casino employees to the microphone to hallelujah the gaming industry. Housekeepers, cooks, and slot change girls, almost all black or Latina, tell the same story: I was working a dead-end job in another state, "then I heard about Las Vegas, where there's opportunity!" I moved here, landed a job at a union casino with high pay, free medical insurance, a pension, and "now I am buying a house." The stories are intensely moving, by far the most persuasive tribute to the Strip that I've ever heard. Still, for all the Vegan triumphalism in the air, it's impossible not to be charmed by the chief gambling opponent, the Rev. Tom Grey. Grey is utterly irrepressible. A Vietnam rifleman turned Methodist minister, Grey has spent the last eight years evangelizing against gambling. He founded the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, the primary force behind the commission's creation. (Grey, in a rare acknowledgement of defeat, has just renamed it the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, tacitly recognizing that gambling is here to stay.) He is a genial motormouth and shameless promoter of the cause. He wears a gigantic "CasiNO" button in the casino. He posed for People in a shepherd's robe. He says "I would do anything short of lighting myself on fire in the Capitol rotunda to stop gambling." He is so excitable that I have to yank him out of the way of an oncoming car when he gets too wrapped up in one of his soliloquies. He and his Las Vegas allies, a former Las Vegas city councilman named Steve Miller and an inner city venture capitalist named Otis Harris, invite me on a tour of Las Vegas. "Behind the Mirage," they call it. For two hours, we cruise the streets behind the casinos. They show me all the evidence of gambling blight you'd never want to see, from a youth-center-turned-crack-house to pawn shops to sex shops to down at heels casinos to quickie motels. All the while, they keep up a patter about how terrible a neighbor the casino industry is and how superficial Las Vegas' prosperity is. It's very grim and mostly persuasive. Still, when we turn back on to the Strip, and pass the jaw-dropping Stratosphere and Circus Circus and Bellagio and the MGM Grand--a 30 story tower bathed in fabulous emerald light, I realize why Grey's task is hopeless here. He is committing the cardinal sin of Vegas. All he wants to do is talk about losers. In Las Vegas, under the thrilling lights of the Strip, no one wants to hear about losers. In the land of gaming, not gambling, everyone is sure he's a winner.
Jamieson by Doede, William R.	"Jamieson", William R. Doede, 1958. JAMIESON By BILL DOEDE Illustrated by GRAY [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine December 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] A Konv cylinder was the key to space—but there was one power it could not match! They lived in a small house beside the little Wolf river in Wisconsin. Once it had been a summer cottage owned by a rich man from Chicago. The rich man died. His heirs sold it. Now it was well insulated and Mrs. Jamieson and her son were very comfortable, even in the coldest winter. During the summer they rented a few row boats to vacationing fishermen, and she had built a few overnight cabins beside the road. They were able to make ends meet. Her neighbors knew nothing of the money she had brought with her to Wisconsin. They didn't even know that she was not a native. She never spoke of it, except at first, when Earl was a boy of seven and they had just come there to live. Then she only said that she came from the East. She knew the names of eastern Wisconsin towns, and small facts about them; it lent an air of authenticity to her claim of being a native. Actually her previous residence was Bangkok, Siam, where the Agents had killed her husband. That was back in '07, on the eve of his departure for Alpha Centaurus; but she never spoke of this; and she was very careful not to move from place to place except by the conventional methods of travel. Also, she wore her hair long, almost to the shoulders. People said, "There goes one of the old-fashioned ones. That hair-do was popular back in the sixties." They did not suspect that she did this only to cover the thin, pencil-line scar, evidence that a small cylinder lay under her skin behind the ear. For Mrs. Jamieson was one of the Konvs. Her husband had been one of the small group who developed this tiny instrument. Not the inventor— his name was Stinson, and the effects produced by it were known as the Stinson Effect. In appearance it resembled a small semi-conductor device. Analysis by the best scientific minds proved it to be a semi-conductor. Yet it held the power to move a body instantly from one point in space to any other point. Each unit was custom built, keyed to operate only by the thought pattern of the particular individual. Several times in the past seven years Mrs. Jamieson had seen other Konvs, and had been tempted to identify herself and say, "Here I am. You are one of them; so am I. Come, and we'll talk. We'll talk about Stinson and Benjamin, who helped them all get away. And Doctor Straus. And my husband, E. Mason Jamieson, who never got away because those filthy, unspeakable Agents shot him in the back, there in that coffee shop in Bangkok, Siam." Once, in the second year after her husband's death, an Agent came and stayed in one of her cabins. She learned that he was an Agent completely by accident. While cleaning the cabin one morning his badge fell out of a shirt pocket. She stood still, staring at the horror of it there on the floor, the shirt in her hands, all the loneliness returning in a black wave of hate and frustration. That night she soundlessly lifted the screen from the window over his bed and shot him with a .22 rifle. She threw the weapon into the river. It helped very little. He was one Agent, only one out of all the thousands of Agents all over Earth; while her husband had been one of twenty-eight persons. She decided then that her efforts would be too ineffective. The odds were wrong. She would wait until her son, Earl, was grown. Together they would seek revenge. He did not have the cylinder—not yet. But he would. The Konvs took care of their own. Her husband had been one of the first, and they would not forget. One day the boy would disappear for a few hours. When he returned the small patch of gauze would be behind his ear. She would shield him until the opening healed. Then no one would ever know, because now they could do it without leaving the tell-tale scar. Then they would seek revenge. Later they would go to Alpha Centaurus, where a life free from Agents could be lived. It happened to Earl one hot summer day when he was fourteen. Mrs. Jamieson was working in her kitchen; Earl supposedly was swimming with his friends in the river. Suddenly he appeared before her, completely nude. At sight of his mother his face paled and he began to shake violently, so that she was forced to slap him to prevent hysteria. She looked behind his ear. It was there. "Mom!" he cried. "Mom!" He went to the window and looked out toward the river, where his friends were still swimming in the river, with great noise and delight. Apparently they did not miss him. Mrs. Jamieson handed him a pair of trousers. "Here, get yourself dressed. Then we'll talk." He started for his room, but she stopped him. "No, do it right here. You may as well get used to it now." "Get used to what?" "To people seeing you nude." "What?" "Never mind. What happened just now?" "I was swimming in the river, and a man came down to the river. His hair was all white, and his eyes looked like ... well, I never saw eyes like his before. He asked who was Earl Jamieson, and I said I was. Then he said, 'Come with me.' I went with him. I don't know why. It seemed the right thing. He took me to a car and there was another man in it, that looked like the first one only he was bigger. We went to a house, not far away and went inside. And that's all I can remember until I woke up. I was on a table, sort of. A high table. There was a light over it. It was all strange, and the two men stood there talking in some language I don't know." Earl ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head. "I don't remember clearly, I guess. I was looking around the room and I remember thinking how scared I was, and how nice it would be to be here with you. And then I was here." Earl faced the window, looking out, then turned quickly back. "What is it?" he asked, desperately. "What happened to me?" "Better put your trousers on," Mrs. Jamieson said. "It's something very unusual and terrible to think of at first, but really wonderful." "But what happened? What is this patch behind my ear?" Suddenly his face paled and he stopped in the act of getting into his trousers. "Guess I know now. They made me a Konv." "Well, don't take on so. You'll get used to it." "But they shouldn't have! They didn't even ask me!" He started for the door, but she called him back. "No, don't run away from it now. This is the time to face it. There are two sides to every story, you know. You hear only one side in school—their side. There is also our side." He turned back, a dawning comprehension showing in his eyes. "That's right, you're one, too. That is why you killed that Agent in the third cabin." It was her turn to be surprised. "You knew about that?" "I saw you. I wasn't sleeping. I was afraid to stay inside alone, so I followed you. I never told anyone." "But you were only nine!" "They would have taken you away if I'd said anything." Mrs. Jamieson held out her hand. "Come here, son. It's time I told you about us." So he sat across the kitchen table from her, and she told the whole history, beginning with Stinson sitting in the laboratory in New Jersey, holding in his hand a small cylinder moulded from silicon with controlled impurities. He had made it, looking for a better micro-circuit structure. He was holding this cylinder ... and it was a cold day outside ... and he was dreaming of a sunny Florida beach— And suddenly he was there, on the beach. He could not believe it at first. He felt the sand and water, and felt of himself; there was no mistake. On the plane back to New Jersey he came to certain conclusions regarding the strange power of his device. He tried it again, secretly. Then he made more cylinders. He was the only man in the world who knew how to construct it, and he kept the secret, giving cylinders to selected people. He worked out the basic principle, calling it a kinetic ordinate of negative vortices, which was very undefinitive. It was a subject of wonder and much speculation, but no one took serious notice of them until one night a federal Agent arrested one man for indecency. It was a valid charge. One disadvantage of this method of travel was that, while a body could travel instantaneously to any chosen spot, it arrived without clothes. The arrested man disappeared from his jail cell, and the next morning the Agent was found strangled to death in his bed. This set off a campaign against Konvs. One base act led to another, until the original reason for noticing them at all was lost. Normal men no longer thought of them as human. Mrs. Jamieson told how Stinson, knowing he had made too many cylinders and given them unwisely, left Earth for Alpha Centaurus. He went alone, not knowing if he could go so far, or what he would find when he arrived. But he did arrive, and it was what he had sought. He returned for the others. They gathered one night in a dirty, broken-down farmhouse in Missouri—and disappeared in a body, leaving the Agents standing helplessly on Earth, shaking their fists at the sky. "You have asked many times," Mrs. Jamieson said, "how your father died. Now I will tell you the truth. Your father was one of the great ones, along with Stinson and Benjamin and Dr. Straus. He helped plan the escape; but the Agents found him in Bangkok fifteen minutes before the group left. They shot him in the back, and the others had to go on without him. Now do you know why I killed the Agent in the third cabin? I had to. Your father was a great man, and I loved him." "I don't blame you, mother," Earl said simply. "But we are freaks. Everybody says, 'Konv' as if it is something dirty. They write it on the walls in rest rooms." "Of course they do—because they don't understand! They are afraid of us. Wouldn't you be afraid of someone who could do the things we do, if you couldn't do them?" Just like that, it was over. That is, the first shock was over. Mrs. Jamieson watched Earl leave the house, walking slowly along the river, a boy with a man's problems. His friends called to him from the river, but he chose not to hear. He wanted to be alone. He needed to think, to feel the newness of the thing. Perhaps he would cross the river and enter the deep forest there. When the initial shock wore off he might experiment with his new power. He would not travel far, in these first attempts. Probably he would stay within walking distance of his clothes, because he still lacked the tricks others had learned. It was a hot, mucky afternoon with storm clouds pushing out of the west. Mrs. Jamieson put on her swimming suit and wandered down to the river to cool herself. For the remainder of that summer they worked together. They practiced at night mostly, taking longer and longer jumps, until Earl's confidence allowed him to reach any part of the Earth he chose. She knew the habits of Agents. She knew how to avoid them. They would select a spot sufficiently remote to insure detection, she would devise some prank to irritate the Agents; then they would quickly return to Wisconsin. The Agents would rush to the calculated spot, but would find only the bare footprints of a woman and a boy. They would swear and drive back to their offices to dig through files, searching for some clue to their identity. It was inevitable that they should identify Mrs. Jamieson as one of the offenders, since they had discovered, even before Stinson took his group to Centaurus, that individuals had thought patterns peculiar to themselves. These could be identified, if caught on their detectors, and even recorded for the files. But the files proved confusing, for they said that Mrs. Jamieson had gone to Centaurus with the others. Had she returned to Earth? The question did not trouble them long. They had more serious problems. Stinson had selected only the best of the Konvs when he left Earth, leaving all those with criminal tendencies behind. They could have followed if they chose—what could stop them? But it was more lucrative to stay. On Earth they could rob, loot, even murder—without fear of the law. Earl changed. Even before the summer was over, he matured. The childish antics of his friends began to bore him. "Be careful, Earl," his mother would say. "Remember who you are. Play with them sometimes, even if you don't like it. You have a long way to go before you will be ready." During the long winter evenings, after they had watched their favorite video programs, they would sit by the fireplace. "Tell me about the great ones," he would say, and she would repeat all the things she remembered about Stinson and Benjamin and Straus. She never tired of discussing them. She would tell about Benjamin's wife, Lisa, and try to describe the horror in Lisa's young mind when the news went out that E. Mason Jamieson had been killed. She wanted him to learn as much as possible about his father's death, knowing that soon the Agents would be after Earl. They were so clever, so persistent. She wanted him to be ready, not only in ways of avoiding their traps ... but ready with a heart full of hate. Sometimes when she talked about her husband, Mrs. Jamieson wanted to stand up and scream at her son, "Hate, hate! Hate! You must learn to hate!" But she clenched her hands over her knitting, knowing that he would learn it faster if she avoided the word. The winter passed, and the next summer, and two more summers. Earl was ready for college. They had successfully kept their secret. They had been vigilant in every detail. Earl referred to the "damn Agents" now with a curl of his lip. They had been successful in contacting other Konvs, and sometimes visited them at a remote rendezvous. "When you have finished college," Mrs. Jamieson told her son, "we will go to Centaurus." "Why not now?" "Because when you get there they will need men who can contribute to the development of the planet. Stinson is a physicist, Benjamin a metallurgist, Straus a doctor. But Straus is an old man by this time. A young doctor will be needed. Study hard, Earl. Learn all you can. Even the great ones get sick." She did not mention her secret hope, that before they left Earth he would have fully avenged his father's death. He was clever and intelligent. He could kill many Agents. So she exhumed the money she had hidden more than ten years before. The house beside the Little Wolf river was sold. They found a modest bungalow within walking distance of the University's medical school. Mrs. Jamieson furnished it carefully but, oddly, rather lavishly. This was her husband's money she was spending now. It needed to last only a few years. Then they would leave Earth forever. A room was built on the east side of the bungalow, with its own private entrance. This was Earl's room. Ostensibly the private entrance was for convenience due to the irregular hours of college students. It was also convenient for coming home late at night after Agent hunting. Mrs. Jamieson was becoming obvious. Excitement brought color to her cheeks when she thought of Earl facing one of them—a lean, cunning jaguar facing a fat, lazy bear. It was her notion that federal Agents were evil creatures, tools of a decadent, bloodthirsty society, living off the fat of the land. She painted the room herself, in soft, pastel colors. When it was finished she showed Earl regally into the room, making a big joke of it. "Here you can study and relax, and have those bull sessions students are always having," she said. "There will be no friends," he answered, "not here. No Konvs will be at the university." "Why not? Stinson selected only educated, intelligent people. When one dies the cylinder is taken and adjusted to a new thought pattern—usually a person from the same family. I would say it is very likely that Konvs will be found here." He shook his head. "No. They knew we were coming, and no one said a word about others being here. I'm afraid we are alone." "Well, I think not," she said firmly. "Anyway, the room will be comfortable." He shook his head again. "Why can't I be in the house with you? There are two bedrooms." She said quickly, "You can if you wish. I just thought you'd like being alone, at your age. Most boys do." "I'm not like most boys, mother. The Konvs saw to that. Sometimes I'm sorry. Back in high school I used to wish I was like the others. Do you remember Lorane Peters?" His mother nodded. "Well, when we were seniors last year she liked me quite a lot. She didn't say so, but I knew it. She would sit across the aisle from me, and sometimes when I saw how her hair fell over her face when she read, I wanted to lean over and whisper to her, 'Hey, Lorrie—' just as if I was human—'can I take you to the basketball game?'" Mrs. Jamieson turned to leave the room, but he stopped her. "You understand what I'm saying, don't you?" "No, I don't!" she said sharply. "You're old enough to face realities. You are a Konv. You always will be a Konv. Have you forgotten your own father? " She turned her back and slammed the door. Earl stood very still for a long time in the room that was to have been happy for him. She was crying just beyond the wall. Earl did not use the room that first year. He slept in the second bedroom. He did not mention his frustrated desires to be normal, not after the first attempt, but he persisted in his efforts to be so. Use of the cylinder was out of the question for them now, anyway. In the spring Mrs. Jamieson caught a virus cold which resulted in a long convalescence. Earl moved into the new bedroom. At first she thought he moved in an effort to please her because of the illness, but she soon grew aware of her mistake. One day he disappeared. Mrs. Jamieson was alarmed. Had the Agents found him? She watched the papers daily for some word of Konvs being killed. The second day after his disappearance she found a small item. A Konv had raided the Agent's office in Stockholm, killing three, and getting killed himself. Mrs. Jamieson dropped the paper immediately and went to Stockholm. She did not consider the risk. In Stockholm she found clothes and made discreet inquiries. The slain man had been a Finnish Konv, one of those left behind by Stinson as an undesirable. His wife had been killed by the Agents the week before. He had gone completely insane and made the raid singlehanded. Mrs. Jamieson read the account of crimes committed by the man and his wife, and determined to prevent Earl from making the mistake of taking on more than he could handle. When she arrived at her own home, Earl was in his room. "Where have you been?" she asked petulantly. "Oh, here and there." "I thought you were involved in that fight in Stockholm." He shook his head. She stood in the doorway and watched him leaning over his desk, attempting to write something on a sheet of paper. She was proud of his profile, tow-headed as a boy, handsome in a masculine way. He cracked his knuckles nervously. "What did you do?" she asked. Suddenly he flung the pencil down, jumped from his chair and paced the floor. "I talked to an Agent last night," he said. "Where?" "Bangkok." Mrs. Jamieson had to sit down. Finally she was able to ask, "How did it happen?" "I broke into the office there to get at the records. He caught me." "What were you looking for?" "I wanted to learn the names of the men who killed Father." He said the word strangely. He was unaccustomed to it. "Did you find them?" He pointed to the paper on his desk. Mrs. Jamieson, trembling, picked it up and read the names. Seeing them there, written like any other names would be written, made her furious. How could they? How could the names of murderers look like ordinary names? When she thought them in her mind, they even sounded like ordinary names—and they shouldn't! She had always thought that those names, if she ever saw them, would be filthy, unholy scratches on paper, evil sounds, like the rustle of bedclothes to a jealous lover listening at a keyhole. "Tom Palieu" didn't sound evil; neither did "Al Jonson." She was shaken by this more than she would permit Earl to see. "Why did you want the names?" "I don't know," he said. "Curiosity, maybe, or a subconscious desire for revenge. I just wanted to see them." "Tell me what happened! If an Agent saw you ... well, either he killed you or you killed him. But you're here alive." "I didn't kill him. That's what seems so strange. And he didn't try to kill me. We didn't even fight. He didn't ask why I broke in without breaking the lock or even a window. He seemed to know. He did ask what I was doing there, and who I was. I told him, and ... he helped me get the names. He asked where I lived. 'None of your damn business,' I told him. Then he said he didn't blame me for not telling, that Konvs must fear Agents, and hate them. Then he said, 'Do you know why we kill Konvs? We kill them because there is no prison cell in the world that will hold a Konv. When they break the law, we have no choice. It is a terrible thing, but must be done. We don't want your secret; we only want law and order. There is room enough in the world for both of us.'" Mrs. Jamieson was furious. "And you believed him?" "I don't know. I just know what he said—and that he let me go without trying to shoot me." Mrs. Jamieson stopped on her way out of the room and laid a hand on his arm. "Your father would have been proud of you," she said. "Soon you will learn the truth about the Agents." Beyond the closed door, out of sight of her son, Mrs. Jamieson gave rein to the excitement that ran through her. He had wanted the names! He didn't know why—not yet—but he would. "He'll do it yet!" she whispered to the flowered wallpaper. She didn't care that no one heard her. She didn't know where the men were now, those who had killed her husband. They could be anywhere. Agents moved from post to post; in ten years they might be scattered all over Earth. In the killing of Konvs, some cylinders might even be taken by Agents—and used by them, for the power and freedom the cylinders gave must be coveted even by them. And they were in the best position to gain them. She was consumed by fear that one or more of the men on Earl's list might have acquired a cylinder and were now Konvs themselves. Two weeks later she read a news item saying that Tom Palieu had been killed by a Konv. The assassin's identity was unknown, but agents were working on the case. She knew. She had found a gun in Earl's desk. She took the paper into Earl's room. "Did you do this?" He turned away from her. "It doesn't matter whether I did or not. They will suspect me. His name was on the list." "They will," she agreed. "It doesn't matter who the Konv is, now that an Agent has been killed. The one in Bangkok will tell them about you and the list of names, and it's all they need." "Well, what else can he do?" Earl asked. "After all, he is an Agent. If one of them is killed, he will have to tell what he knows." "You're defending him? Why?" she cried. "Tell me why!" He removed her hand from his arm. Her nails were digging into his flesh. "I don't know why. Mother, I'm sorry, but Agents are just people to me. I can't hate them the way you do." Mrs. Jamieson's face colored, then drained white. Suddenly, with a wide, furious sweep of her hand, she slapped his face. So much strength and rage was in her arm that the blow almost sent him spinning. They faced each other, she breathing hard from the exertion, Earl stunned immobile—not by the blow, but from the knowledge that she could hate so suddenly, viciously. She controlled herself. "We must find a way to leave here," she said, calmly. "They won't find us." "Oh, yes they will," she said. "Don't underestimate them. Agents are picked from the most intelligent people on Earth. It will be a small job for them. Don't forget they know who you are. Even if you hadn't been so stupid as to tell them, they'd know. They knew my pattern from the time your father was alive. They got yours when we were together years ago, teasing them. They linked your pattern with mine. They know that your father and I had a son. Your birth was recorded. The only difficult aspect of their job now is to find where you live, and it won't be impossible. They will drive their cars through every city on Earth with those new detectors, until they pick up your pattern or mine. I'm afraid it's time to leave Earth." Earl sat down suddenly, "It's just as well. I thought maybe some day I might hate them too, or learn to like them. But I can do neither, so I am halfway between, and no man can live this way." She did not answer him. Finally he said, "It doesn't make sense to you, does it?" "No, it doesn't. This is not the time for such discussions, anyway. The Agents have their machines working at top speed, while we sit here and talk." Suddenly they were not alone. No sound was generated by the man's coming. One instant they were talking alone, the next he was here. Earl saw him first. He was a middle-aged man whose hair was completely white. He stood near the desk, easily, as if standing there were the most natural way to relax. He was entirely nude ... but it seemed natural and right. Then Mrs. Jamieson saw him. "Benjamin!" she cried. "I knew someone would come." He smiled. "This is your son?" "Yes," she said. "We are ready." "I remember when you were born," he said, and smiled in reminiscence. "Your father was afraid you would be twins." Earl said, "Why was my father killed?" "By mistake. Back in those days, like now, there were good Konvs and bad. One of those not selected by Stinson to join us was enraged, half crazy with envy. He killed two women there in Bangkok. The Agents thought Jamieson—I mean, your father—did it. Jamieson was the greatest man among us. It was he who first conceived the theory that there was a basic, underlying law in the operation of the cylinders. Even now, no one knows how the idea of love ties in with the Stinson Effect; but we do know that hate and greed as motivating forces can greatly minimize the cylinders' power. That is why the undesirables with cylinders have never reached Centaurus." Heavy steps sounded on the porch outside. "We'd better hurry," Mrs. Jamieson said. Benjamin held out his hands. They took them, to increase the power of the cylinders. As the Agents pounded on the door, Mrs. Jamieson flicked one thought of hatred at them, but of course they did not hear her. Benjamin's hands gripped tightly. Mrs. Jamieson slowly opened her eyes.... She no longer felt the hands. She was still in the room! Benjamin and her son were gone. Her outstretched hands touched nothing. Her power was gone! The Agents stepped into the room over the broken door. She stared at them, then ran to Earl's desk, fumbling for the gun. The Agents' guns rattled. Love, Benjamin said, the greatest of these is love. Or did someone else say that? Someone, somewhere, perhaps in another time, in some misty, forgotten chip of time long gone, in another frame of reference perhaps.... Mrs. Jamieson could not remember, before she died.
Jaywalker by Rocklynne, Ross	"Jaywalker", Ross Rocklynne, 1950. JAYWALKER BY ROSS ROCKLYNNE Illustrated by DON DIBLEY [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Women may be against progress because it means new pseudo-widowhoods. Space-widowhood, for instance.... At last she was on the gangplank, entering the mouth of the spaceship—and nothing could ever stop her now. Not unless she broke down completely in front of all these hurrying, Moon-bound passengers, in plain sight of the scattered crowd which clustered on the other side of the space-field barriers. Even that possibility was denied her when two gently insistent middle-aged ladies indicated she was blocking the way.... Somehow, dizzily, she was at her seat, led there by a smiling, brown-clad stewardess; and her azure-tipped fingers were clutching at the pearl-gray plasta-leather of the chair arm. Her eyes, the azure of her nails, the azure (so she had been told) of Earth seen from interplanetary space, grew hot. She closed them, and for a moment gave herself up to an almost physical yearning for the Toluca Lake house—the comfort, the safety, the—the sanity of it. Stubbornly she forced herself back to reality. At any moment Jack, dark-eyed and scrappy, might come swinging down the long, shining aisle. Jack—Captain Jack McHenry, if you please—must not know, yet, what she was doing to patch up their marriage. She turned her face away from the aisle, covered her cheek with her hand to hide it. Her gaze went out through the ray-proof glass port to the field, to the laboring beetle of a red tractor bearing the gangway on its busy back, to the low, blast-proof administration building. When her gaze came to the tall sign over the entrance, she hurried it past; it was too late to think about that now, the square, shouting type that read: CAUTION HAVE YOU PASSED YOUR PHYSICAL EXAMINATION? Avoiding It May Cost Your Life! "May I see your validation, please?" Marcia McHenry stiffened. Had she read the sign aloud? She turned startled eyes up to the smiling stewardess, who was holding out a well-groomed hand. Marcia responded weakly to the smile, overcame a sudden urge to blurt out that she had no validation—not her own, anyway. But her stiff fingers were already holding out the pink card with Nellie Foster's name on it. "You're feeling well, Mrs. Foster?" Feeling well? Yes, of course. Except for the—usual sickness. But that's so very normal .... Her numb lips moved. "I'm fine," she said. Miss Eagen (which, her neat lapel button attested, was her name) made a penciled frown as lovely as her machined smile. "Some day," she told Marcia, "we won't have to ask the passengers if they're well. It's so easy to come aboard on someone else's validation, and people don't seem to realize how dangerous that is." As Miss Eagen moved to the next seat, Marcia shrank into a small huddle, fumbling with the card until it was crammed shapeless into her purse. Then from the depths of her guilt came rebellion. It was going to be all right. She was doing the biggest thing she'd ever done, and Jack would rise to the occasion, and it would be all right. It had to be all right.... After this—if this didn't work—there just would be nothing else she could do. She wasn't a scheming woman. No one would ever know how difficult it had been for her to think up the whole plan, to find Nellie Foster (someone Jack had never met) and to persuade Nellie to register for the trip and take the physical for her. She'd had to lie to Nellie, to make Nellie think she was brave and adventurous, and that she was just doing it to surprise Jack. Oh, he'd be surprised, all right. The flash walls on the field were being raised to keep the blow-by from the ship's jets from searing the administration building and the area beyond. Marcia realized with crushing suddenness that the ship was about to blast off in seconds. She half-rose, then sank back, biting her lip. Silly ... Jack had said that—her fear of space was silly. He'd said it during the quarrel, and he'd roared at her, "And that's why you want me to come back—ground myself, be an Earth-lubber—so I can spare you the anguish of sitting home wondering if I'll come back alive!" And then he'd been sorry he'd shouted, and he sat by her, taking her chin in his hand. "Marcia, Marcia," he'd said gently, "you're so silly ! It's been nineteen whole years since your father died in the explosion of a Moon-rocket. Rocket motors just don't explode any more, honey! Ships travel to the Moon and back on iron-clad, mathematical orbits that are figured before the ship puffs a jet—" "The Elsinore ?" She'd said it viciously, to taunt him, and something in her had been pleased at the dull flush that rose to his face. Everyone knew about the Elsinore , the 500-foot Moon-ferry that almost missed the Moon. "That," he said bitterly, "was human damnfoolishness botching up the equations. Too many lobbyists have holdings on the Moon and don't want to risk not being able to go there in a hurry. So they haven't passed legislation to keep physically unfit people off spaceships. One of the passengers got aboard the Elsinore on somebody else's validation—which meant that nobody knew he was taking endocrine treatments to put hair on his brainless head and restore his—Oh, the Jaywalker !" Jack spat in disgust. "Anyway, he was the kind of idiot who never realizes that certain glandular conditions are fatal in free fall." Even now she distinctly recalled the beginnings of the interplanetary cold that always seeped into the warm house when he talked about space, when he was about to leave her for it. And this time it was worse than ever before. He went on remorselessly, "Once the Elsinore reached the free-fall flight, where power could be shut off, the skipper had to put the ferry into an axial spin under power, creating artificial gravity to save the worthless life of that fool. So of course he lost his trajectory, and had to warp her in as best he could, without passing the Moon or crashing into it. And of course you're not listening." "It's all so dull!" she had flared, and then, "How can I be interested in what some blundering space-jockey did?" "Blun—Marcia, you really don't realize what that skipper did was the finest piece of shiphandling since mankind got off the ground." "Was it?" she'd yawned. "Could you do it?" "I—like to think I could," he said. "I'd hate to have to try." She'd shrugged. "Then it can't be very difficult, darling." She hadn't meant to be so cruel. Or so stupid. But when they were quarreling, or when he talked that repugnant, dedicated, other-world garble, something always went cold and furious and—lonely inside her, and made her fight back unfairly. After he'd gone—for good, he said—her anger had sustained her for a few weeks. Then, bleakly, she knew she'd go to the ends of Earth for Jack. Or even to the Moon.... Sitting rigid in the tense stillness of a rocket ship that was about to leap from Earth, Marcia started as an officer ducked his head into the passenger compartment from the pilot room's deep glow. But it wasn't Jack. The officer's lips moved hurriedly as he counted over the seats. He ducked back out of sight. From the bulk-heads, the overhead, everywhere, came a deep, quiet rumble. Some of the passengers looked anxious, some excited, and some just leafed casually through magazines. Now the brown-clad Miss Eagen was speaking from the head of the aisle. "Those of you who haven't been in a rocket before won't find it much different from being in an airplane. At the same time—" She paused, quiet brown eyes solemn. "What you are about to experience is something that will make you proud to belong to the human race." That again! thought Marcia furiously; and then all emotion left her but cold, ravening fear as the rumble heightened. She tried to close her eyes, her ears against it, but her mind wouldn't respond. She squirmed in her chair and found herself staring down at the field. It looked the way she felt—flat and pale and devoid of life, with a monstrous structure of terror squatting in it. The scene was abruptly splashed with a rushing sheet of flame that darkened the daytime sky. Then it was torn from her vision. It was snatched away—the buildings, the trees, the roads surrounding the field seemed to pour in upon it, shrinking as they ran together. Roads dried up like parched rivers, thinning and vanishing into the circle of her horrified vision. A great, soft, uniform weight pressed her down and back; she fought it, but it was too big and too soft. Now Earth's surface was vague and Sun-splashed. Marcia's sense of loss tore at her. She put up her hands, heavily, and pressed the glass as if she could push it out, push herself out, go back, back to Earth and solidity. Clouds shot by like bullets, fell away until they were snowflakes roiling in violet haze. Then, in the purling universe that had grown around the ship, Earth was a mystic circle, a shallow dish floating darkly and heavily below. "We are now," said Miss Eagen's calm voice, "thirty-seven miles over Los Angeles." After that, there was scarcely room for thought—even for fear, though it lurked nearby, ready to leap. There was the ascent, the quiet, sleeplike ascent into space. Marcia very nearly forgot to breathe. She had been prepared for almost anything except this quality of peace and awe. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, awestruck, spellbound, when she realized that she had to finish the job she'd started, and do it right now, this minute. It might already be too late ... she wished, suddenly, and for the very first time, that she'd paid more attention to Jack's ramblings about orbits and turn-over points and correction blasts, and all that gobbledegook. She glanced outside again and the sky was no longer deep blue, but black. She pressed herself up out of the soft chair—it was difficult, because of the one-and-a-half gravities the ship was holding—and plodded heavily up the aisle. Miss Eagen was just rising from the chair in which she sat for the take-off. "Miss Eagen—" "Yes, Mrs. Fos—why, what's the matter?" Seeing the startled expression on the stewardess' face, Marcia realized she must be looking like a ghost. She put a hand to her cheek and found it clammy. "Come along," said Miss Eagen cheerfully. She put a firm arm around Marcia's shoulder. "Just a touch of space-sickness. This way. That's it. We'll have you fixed up in a jiffy." "It isn't s-space sickness," said Marcia in a very small and very positive voice. She let herself be led forward, through the door and to the left, where there was a small and compact ship's hospital. "Now, now," said Miss Eagen briskly, "just you lie down there, Mrs. Foster. Does it hurt any special place?" Marcia lay down gratefully. She closed her eyes tightly and said, "I'm not Mrs. Foster. It doesn't hurt." "You're not—" Miss Eagen apparently decided to take one thing at a time. "How do you feel?" "Scared," said Marcia. "Why, what—is there to be scared of?" "I'm pregnant." "Well, that's no—You're what ?" "I'm Mrs. McHenry. I'm Jack's wife." There was such a long pause that Marcia opened her eyes. Miss Eagen was looking at her levelly. She said, "I'll have to examine you." "I know. Go ahead." Miss Eagen did, swiftly and thoroughly. "You're so right," she breathed. She went to the small sink, stripping off her rubber gloves. With her back to Marcia, she said, "I'll have to tell the captain, you know." "I know. I'd rather ... tell him myself." "Thanks," said Miss Eagen flatly. Marcia felt as if she'd been slapped. Miss Eagen dried her hands and crossed to an intercom. "Eagen to Captain." "McHenry here." "Captain McHenry, could you come back to the hospital right away?" "Not right away, Sue." Sue! No wonder he had found it so easy to walk out! She looked at the trim girl with hating eyes. The intercom said, "You know I've got course-correction computations from here to yonder. Give me another forty minutes." "I think," said Sue Eagen into the mike, "that the computations can wait." "The hell you do!" The red contact light on the intercom went out. "He'll be right here," said Miss Eagen. Marcia sat up slowly, clumsily. Miss Eagen did not offer to help. Marcia's hands strayed to her hair, patted it futilely. He came in, moving fast and purposefully, as always. "Sue, what in time do you think you— Marcia! " His dark face broke into a delighted grin and he put his arms out. "You—you're here— here , on my ship!" "I'm pregnant, Jack," she said. She put out a hand to ward him off. She couldn't bear the thought of his realizing what she had done while he had his arms around her. "You are ? You—we—" He turned to Miss Eagen, who nodded once, her face wooden. "Just find it out?" This time Miss Eagen didn't react at all, and Marcia knew that she had to speak up. "No, Jack. I knew weeks ago." There was no describable change in his face, but the taut skin of his space-tanned cheek seemed, somehow, to draw inward. His eyebrow ridges seemed to be more prominent, and he looked older, and very tired. Softly and slowly he asked, "What in God's name made you get on the ship?" "I had to, Jack. I had to." "Had to kill yourself?" he demanded brutally. "This tears it. This ties it up in a box with a bloody ribbon-bow. I suppose you know what this means—what I've got to do now?" "Spin ship," she replied immediately, and looked up at him pertly, like a kindergarten child who knows she has the right answer. He groaned. "You said you could do it." "I can ... try," he said hollowly. "But—why, why ?" "Because," she said bleakly, "I learned long ago that a man grows to love what he has to fight for." "And you were going to make me fight for you and the child—even if the lives of a hundred and seventy people were involved?" "You said you could handle it. I thought you could." "I'll try," he said wearily. "Oh, I'll try." He went out, dragging his feet, his shoulders down, without looking at her. There was a stiff silence. Marcia looked up at Miss Eagen. "It's true, you know," she said. "A man grows to love the things he has to defend, no matter how he felt about them before." The stewardess looked at her, her face registering a strange mixture of detachment and wonder. "You really believe that, don't you?" Marcia's patience, snapped. "You don't have to look so superior. I know what's bothering you . Well, he's my husband, and don't you forget it." Miss Eagen's breath hissed in. Her eyes grew bright and she shook her head slightly. Then she turned on her heel and went to the intercom. Marcia thought for a frightened moment that she was going to call Jack back again. Instead she dialed and said, "Hospital to Maintenance. Petrucelli?" "Petrucelli here." "Come up with a crescent wrench, will you, Pet?" Another stiff silence. A question curled into Marcia's mind and she asked it. "Do you work on all these ships at one time or another?" Miss Eagen did not beat around the bush. "I've been with Captain McHenry for three years. I hope to work with him always. I think he's the finest in the Service." "He—th-thinks as well of you, no doubt." Petrucelli lounged in, a big man, easy-going, powerful. "What's busted, muscles?" "Bolt the bed to the bulkhead, Pet. Mrs. McHenry—I'm sorry, but you'll have to get up." Marcia bounced resentfully off the cot and stood aside. Petrucelli looked at her, cocked an eyebrow, looked at Miss Eagen, and asked, "Jaywalker?" "Please hurry, Pet." She turned to Marcia. "I've got to explain to the passengers that there won't be any free fall. Most of them are looking forward to it." She went out. Marcia watched the big man work for a moment. "Why are you putting the bed on the wall?" He looked at her and away, quickly. "Because, lady, when we start to spin, that outside bulkhead is going to be down . Centrifugal force, see?" And before she could answer him he added, "I can't talk and work at the same time." Feeling very much put-upon, Marcia waited silently until he was finished, and the bed hung ludicrously to the wall like a walking fly. She thanked him timidly, and he ignored it and went out. Miss Eagen returned. "That man was very rude," said Marcia. Miss Eagen looked at her coolly. "I'm sorry," she said, obviously not meaning sorry at all. Marcia wet her lips. "I asked you a question before," she said evenly. "About you and the captain." "You did," said Sue Eagen. "Please don't." "And why not?" "Because," said Miss Eagen, and in that moment she looked almost as drawn as Jack had, "I'm supposed to be of service to the passengers at all times no matter what. If I have feelings at all, part of my job is to keep them to myself." "Very courteous, I'm sure. However, I want to release you from your sense of duty. I'm most interested in what you have to say." Miss Eagen's arched nostrils seemed pinched and white. "You really want me to speak my piece?" In answer Marcia leaned back against the bulkhead and folded her arms. Miss Eagen gazed at her for a moment, nodded as if to herself, and said, "I suppose there always will be people who don't pay attention to the rules. Jaywalkers. But out here jaywalkers don't have as much margin for error as they do crossing against a traffic light on Earth." She looked Marcia straight in the eye. "What makes a jaywalker isn't ignorance. It's a combination of stupidity and stubbornness. The jaywalker does know better. In your case...." She sighed. "It's well known—even by you—that the free-fall condition has a weird effect on certain people. The human body is in an unprecedented situation in free fall. Biologically it has experienced the condition for very short periods—falling out of trees, or on delayed parachute jumps. But it isn't constituted to take hour after hour of fall." "What about floating in a pool for hours?" asked Marcia sullenly. "That's quite a different situation. 'Down' exists when you're swimming. Free-fall means that everything around you is 'up.' The body's reactions to free-fall go much deeper than space-nausea and a mild feeling of panic. When there's a glandular imbalance of certain kinds, the results can be drastic. Apparently some instinctual part of the mind reacts as if there were a violent emergency, when no emergency is recognized by the reasoning part of the mind. There are sudden floods of adrenalin; the 17-kesteroids begin spastic secretions; the—well, it varies in individuals. But it's pretty well established that the results can be fatal. It kills men with prostate trouble—sometimes. It kills women in menopause—often. It kills women in the early stages of pregnancy— always ." "But how?" asked Marcia, interested in spite of her resentment. "Convulsions. A battle royal between a glandular-level panic and a violent and useless effort of the will to control the situation. Muscles tear, working against one another. Lungs rupture and air is forced into the blood-stream, causing embolism and death. Not everything is known about it, but I would guess that pregnant women are especially susceptible because their protective reflexes, through and through, are much more easily stimulated." "And the only thing that can be done about it is to supply gravity?" "Or centrifugal force (or centripetal, depending on where you're standing, but why be technical?)—or, better yet, keep those people off the ships." "So now Jack will spin the ship until I'm pressed against the walls with the same force as gravity, and then everything will be all right." "You make it sound so simple." "There's no need to be sarcastic!" Marcia blurted. "Jack can do it. You think he can, don't you? Don't you?" "He can do anything any space skipper has ever done, and more," said Sue Eagen, and her face glowed. "But it isn't easy. Right this minute he's working over the computer—a small, simple, ship-board computer—working out orbital and positional and blast-intensity data that would be a hard nut for the giant calculators on Earth to crack. And he's doing it in half the time—or less—than it would take the average mathematician, because he has to; because it's a life-and-death matter if he makes a mistake or takes too long." "But—but—" "But what?" Miss Eagen's composure seemed to have been blasted to shreds by the powerful currents of her indignation. Her eyes flashed. "You mean, but why doesn't he just work the ship while it's spinning the same way he does when it isn't?" Through a growing fear, Marcia nodded mutely. "He'll spin the ship on its long axis," said the stewardess with exaggerated patience. "That means that the steering jet tubes in the nose and tail are spinning, too. You don't just turn with a blast on one tube or another. The blasts have to be let off in hundreds of short bursts, timed to the hundredth of a second, to be able to make even a slight course correction. The sighting instruments are wheeling round and round while you're checking your position. Your fuel has to be calculated to the last ounce—because enough fuel for a Moon flight, with hours of fuelless free-fall, and enough fuel for a power spin and course corrections while spinning, are two very different things. Captain McHenry won't be able to maneuver to a landing on the Moon. He'll do it exactly right the first time, or not at all." Marcia was white and still. "I—I never—" "But I haven't told you the toughest part of it yet," Miss Eagen went on inexorably. "A ship as massive as this, spinning on its long axis, is a pretty fair gyroscope. It doesn't want to turn. Any force that tries to make it turn is resisted at right angles to the force applied. When that force is applied momentarily from jets, as they swing into position and away again, the firing formulas get—well, complex. And the ship's course and landing approach are completely new. Instead of letting the ship fall to the Moon, turning over and approaching tail-first with the main jets as brakes, Captain McHenry is going to have to start the spin first and go almost the whole way nose-first. He'll come up on the Moon obliquely, pass it, stop the spin, turn over once to check the speed of the ship, and once again to put the tail down when the Moon's gravity begins to draw us in. There'll be two short periods of free-fall there, but they won't be long enough to bother you much. And if we can do all that with the fuel we've got, it will be a miracle. A miracle from the brain of Captain McHenry." Marcia forced herself away from the bulkhead with a small whimper of hurt and hatred—hatred of the stars, of this knowledgeable, inspired girl, and—even more so—of herself. She darted toward the door. Miss Eagen was beside her in an instant, a hard small hand on her arm. "Where are you going?" "I'm going to stop him. He can't take that chance with his ship, with these people...." "He will and he must. You surely know your husband." "I know him as well as you do." Miss Eagen's firm lips shut in a thin hard line. "Do as you like," she whispered. "And while you're doing it—think about whom he's spinning ship for." She took her hand from Marcia's arm. Marcia twisted away and went into the corridor. She found herself at the entrance to the pilot room. In one sweeping glance she saw a curved, silver board. Before it a man sat tranquilly. Nearer to her was Jack, hunched over the keyboard of a complex, compact machine, like a harried bookkeeper on the last day of the month. Her lips formed his name, but she was silent. She watched him, his square, competent hands, his detached and distant face. Through the forward view-plate she saw a harsh, jagged line, the very edge of the Moon's disc. Next to it, and below, was the rear viewer, holding the shimmering azure shape of Earth. " All Earth watches me when I work, but with your eyes. " Jack had said that to her once, long ago, when he still loved her. "... human damnfoolishness botching up the equations...." He had said that once, too. Miss Eagen was standing by the hospital door, watching her. When Marcia turned away without speaking to Jack, Miss Eagen smiled and held out her hand. Marcia went to her and took the hand. They went into the hospital. Miss Eagen didn't speak; she seemed to be waiting. "Yes, I know who Jack's spinning the ship for," said Marcia. Miss Eagen looked an unspoken question. Marcia said, painfully, "He's like the Captain of the Elsinore . He's risking his life for a—a stranger. A jaywalker. Not for me. Not even for his baby." "Does it hurt to know that?" Marcia looked into the smooth, strong face and said with genuine astonishment, "Hurt? Oh, no! It's so—so big!" There was a sudden thunder. Over Miss Eagen's shoulder, through the port, Marcia saw the stars begin to move. Miss Eagen followed her gaze. "He's started the spin. You'll be all right now." Marcia could never recall the rest of the details of the trip. There was the outboard bulkhead that drew her like a magnet, increasingly, until suddenly it wasn't an attracting wall, but normally and naturally "down." Then a needle, and another one, and a long period of deep drowsiness and unreality. But through and through that drugged, relaxed period, Jack and the stars, the Moon and Sue Eagen danced and wove. Words slipped in and out of it like shreds of melody: "A man comes to love the things he has to fight for." And Jack fighting—for his ship, for the Moon, for the new-building traditions of the great ones who would carry humanity out to the stars. Sue Eagen was there, too, and the thing she shared with Jack. Of course there was something between them—so big a thing that there was nothing for her to fear in it. Jack and Sue Eagen had always had it, and always would have; and now Marcia had it too. And with understanding replacing fear, Marcia was free to recall that Jack had worked with Sue Eagen—but it was Marcia that he had loved and married. There was a long time of blackness, and then a time of agony, when she was falling, falling, and her lungs wanted to split, explode, disintegrate, and someone kept saying, "Hold tight, Marcia; hold tight to me," and she found Sue Eagen's cool strong hands in hers. Marcia. She called me Marcia. More blackness, more pain—but not so much this time; and then a long, deep sleep. A curved ceiling, but a new curve, and soft rose instead of the gunmetal-and-chrome of the ship. White sheets, a new feeling of "down" that was unlike either Earth or the ship, a novel and exhilarating buoyancy. And kneeling by the bed— "Jack!" "You're all right, honey." She raised herself on her elbow and looked out through the unglazed window at the ordered streets of the great Luna Dome. "The Moon.... Jack, you did it!" He snapped his fingers. He looked like a high-school kid. "Nothin' to it." She could see he was very proud. Very tired, too. He reached out to touch her. She drew back. "You don't have to be sweet to me," she said quietly. "I understand how you must feel." "Don't have to?" He rose, bent over her, and slid his arms around her. He put his face into the shadowed warmth between her hair and her neck and said, "Listen, egghead, there's no absolute scale for courage. We had a bad time, both of us. After it was over, and I had a chance to think, I used it trying to look at things through your eyes. And that way I found out that when you walked up that gangway, you did the bravest thing I've ever known anyone to do. And you did it for me. It doesn't matter what else happened. Sue told me a lot about you that I didn't know, darling. You're ... real huge for your size. As for the bad part of what happened—nothing like it can ever happen again, can it?" He hugged her. After a time he reached down and touched her swelling waist. It was like a benediction. "He'll be born on the Moon," he whispered, "and he'll have eyes the color of all Earth when it looks out to the stars." " She'll be born on the Moon," corrected Marcia, "and her name will be Sue, and ... and she'll be almost as good as her father."
Jinx Ship to the Rescue by Coppel, Alfred	"Jinx Ship to the Rescue", Alfred Coppel, 1962. Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.
Judas Ram by Merwin, Sam	"Judas Ram", Sam Merwin, 1953. JUDAS RAM BY SAM MERWIN, Jr. Illustrated by JAMES VINCENT [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The house was furnished with all luxuries, including women. If it only had a lease that could be broken— Roger Tennant, crossing the lawn, could see two of the three wings of the house, which radiated spoke-like from its heptagonal central portion. The wing on the left was white, with slim square pillars, reminiscent of scores of movie sets of the Deep South. That on the right was sundeck solar-house living-machine modern, something like a montage of shoeboxes. The wing hidden by the rest of the house was, he knew, spired, gabled and multicolored, like an ancient building in pre-Hitler Cracow. Dana was lying under a tree near the door, stretched out on a sort of deck chair with her eyes closed. She wore a golden gown, long and close-fitting and slit up the leg like the gown of a Chinese woman. Above it her comely face was sullen beneath its sleek cocoon of auburn hair. She opened her eyes at his approach and regarded him with nothing like favor. Involuntarily he glanced down at the tartan shorts that were his only garment to make sure that they were on properly. They were. He had thought them up in a moment of utter boredom and they were extremely comfortable. However, the near-Buchanan tartan did not crease or even wrinkle when he moved. Their captors had no idea of how a woven design should behave. "Waiting for me?" Tennant asked the girl. She said, "I'd rather be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe we're all dead and this is Hell." He stood over her and looked down until she turned away her reddening face. He said, "So it's going to be you again, Dana. You'll be the first to come back for a second run." "Don't flatter yourself," she replied angrily. She sat up, pushed back her hair, got to her feet a trifle awkwardly because of the tight-fitting tubular gown. "If I could do anything about it...." "But you can't," he told her. "They're too clever." "Is this crop rotation or did you send for me?" she asked cynically. "If you did, I wish you hadn't. You haven't asked about your son." "I don't even want to think about him," said Tennant. "Let's get on with it." He could sense the restless stirring of the woman within Dana, just as he could feel the stirring toward her within himself—desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted within them by their captors. They walked toward the house. It didn't look like a prison—or a cage. Within the dome of the barrier, it looked more like a well-kept if bizarre little country estate. There was clipped lawn, a scattering of trees, even a clear little brook that chattered unending annoyance at the small stones which impeded its flow. But the lawn was not of grass—it was of a bright green substance that might have been cellophane but wasn't, and it sprouted from a fabric that might have been canvas but was something else. The trees looked like trees, only their trunks were bark all the way through—except that it was not bark. The brook was practically water, but the small stones over which it flowed were of no earthly mineral. They entered the house, which had no roof, continued to move beneath a sky that glowed with light which did not come from a sun or moon. It might have been a well-kept if bizarre little country estate, but it wasn't. It was a prison, a cage. The other two women were sitting in the heptagonal central hall. Eudalia, who had borne twin girls recently, was lying back, newly thin and dark of skin and hair, smoking a scentless cigarette. A tall woman, thirtyish, she wore a sort of shimmering green strapless evening gown. Tennant wondered how she maintained it in place, for despite her recent double motherhood, she was almost flat of bosom. He asked her how she was feeling. "Okay, I guess," she said. "The way they manage it, there's nothing to it." She had a flat, potentially raucous voice. Eudalia had been a female foreman in a garment-cutting shop before being captured and brought through. "Good," he said. "Glad to hear it." He felt oddly embarrassed. He turned to Olga, broad, blonde and curiously vital, who sat perfectly still, regarding him over the pregnant swell of her dirndl-clad waist. Olga had been a waitress in a mining town hash-house near Scranton. Tennant wanted to put an encouraging hand on her shoulder, to say something that might cheer her up, for she was by far the youngest of the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not. "I guess I wasn't cut out to be a Turk," he said. "I don't feel at ease in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own." "You're not doing so badly," Dana replied acidly. "Lay off—he can't help it," said Eudalia unexpectedly. "He doesn't like it any better than we do." "But he doesn't have to—have them," objected Olga. She had a trace of Polish accent that was not unpleasant. In fact, Tennant thought, only her laughter was unpleasant, a shrill, uncontrolled burst of staccato sound that jarred him to his heels. Olga had not laughed of late, however. She was too frightened. "Let's get the meal ordered," said Dana and they were all silent, thinking of what they wanted to eat but would not enjoy when it came. Tennant finished with his order, then got busy with his surprise. It arrived before the meal, materializing against one of the seven walls of the roofless chamber. It was a large cabinet on slender straight legs that resembled dark polished wood. Tennant went to it, opened a hingeless door and pushed a knob on the inner surface. At once the air was hideous with the acerate harmony of a singing commercial.... ... so go soak your head, be it gold, brown or red, in Any-tone Shampoo! A disc jockey's buoyant tones cut in quickly as the final ooooo faded. "This is Grady Martin, your old night-owl, coming to you with your requests over Station WZZX, Manhattan. Here's a wire from Theresa McManus and the girls in the family entrance of Conaghan's Bar and Grill on West...." Tennant watched the girls as a sweet-voiced crooner began to ply an unfamiliar love lyric to a melody whose similarity to a thousand predecessors doomed it to instant success. Olga sat up straight, her pale blue eyes round with utter disbelief. She looked at the radio, at Tennant, at the other two women, then back at the machine. She murmured something in Polish that was inaudible, but her expression showed that it must have been wistful. Eudalia grinned at Tennant and, rising, did a sort of tap dance to the music, then whirled back into her chair, green dress ashimmer, and sank into it just to listen. Dana stood almost in the center of the room, carmine-tipped fingers clasped beneath the swell of her breasts. She might have been listening to Brahms or Debussy. Her eyes glowed with the salty brilliance of emotion and she was almost beautiful. " Rog! " she cried softly when the music stopped. "A radio and WZZX! Is it—are they—real?" "As real as you or I," he told her. "It took quite a bit of doing, getting them to put a set together. And I wasn't sure that radio would get through. TV doesn't seem to. Somehow it brings things closer...." Olga got up quite suddenly, went to the machine and, after frowning at it for a moment, tuned in another station from which a Polish-speaking announcer was followed by polka music. She leaned against the wall, resting one smooth forearm on the top of the machine. Her eyes closed and she swayed a little in time to the polka beat. Tennant caught Dana looking at him and there was near approval in her expression—approval that faded quickly as soon as she caught his gaze upon her. The food arrived then and they sat down at the round table to eat it. Tennant's meat looked like steak, it felt like steak, but, lacking the aroma of steak, it was almost tasteless. This was so with all of their foods, with their cigarettes, with everything in their prison—or their cage. Their captors were utterly without a human conception of smell, living, apparently, in a world without odor at all. Dana said suddenly, "I named the boy Tom, after somebody I hate almost as much as I hate you." Eudalia laid down her fork with a clatter and regarded Dana disapprovingly. "Why take it out on Rog?" she asked bluntly. "He didn't ask to come here any more than we did. He's got a wife back home. Maybe you want him to fall in love with you? Maybe you're jealous because he doesn't? Well, maybe he can't! And maybe it wouldn't work, the way things are arranged here." "Thanks, Eudalia," said Tennant. "I think I can defend myself. But she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as—laboratory animals. They have the means to make us do whatever they want." "Rog," said Dana, looking suddenly scared, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know it's not your fault. I'm— changing ." He shook his head. "No, Dana, you're not changing. You're adapting. We all are. We seem to be in a universe of different properties as well as different dimensions. We're adjusting. I can do a thing or two myself that seem absolutely impossible." "Are we really in the fourth dimension?" Dana asked. Of the three of them, she alone had more than a high-school education. "We may be in the eleventh for all I know," he told her. "But I'll settle for the fourth—a fourth dimension in space, if that makes scientific sense, because we don't seem to have moved in time. I wasn't sure of that, though, till we got the radio." "Why haven't they brought more of us through?" Eudalia asked, tamping out ashes in a tray that might have been silver. "I'm not sure," he said thoughtfully. "I think it's hard for them. They have a hell of a time bringing anyone through alive, and lately they haven't brought anyone through—not alive." "Why do they do it—the other way, I mean?" asked Dana. Tennant shrugged. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose it's because they're pretty human." " Human! " Dana was outraged. "Do you call it human to—" "Hold on," he said. "They pass through their gateway to Earth at considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who don't—or can't—they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just laboratory specimens." "Maybe," Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. "But the things they do—stuffing people, mounting their heads, keeping them on display in their—their whatever they live in. You call that human, Rog?" "Were you ever in a big-game hunter's trophy room?" Tennant asked quietly. "Or in a Museum of Natural History? A zoo? A naturalist's lab? Or even, maybe, photographed as a baby on a bear-skin rug?" "I was," said Olga. "But that's not the same thing." "Of course not," he agreed. "In the one instance, we're the hunters, the breeders, the trophy collectors. In the other"—he shrugged—"we're the trophies." There was a long silence. They finished eating and then Dana stood up and said, "I'm going out on the lawn for a while." She unzipped her golden gown, stepped out of it to reveal a pair of tartan shorts that matched his, and a narrow halter. "You thought those up while we ate," he said. It annoyed him to be copied, though he did not know why. She laughed at him silently, tossed her auburn hair back from her face and went out of the roofless house, holding the gold dress casually over her bare arm. Eudalia took him to the nursery. He was irritated now in another, angrier way. The infants, protected by cellophane-like coverlets, were asleep. "They never cry," the thin woman told him. "But they grow—God, how they grow!" "Good," said Tennant, fighting down his anger. He kissed her, held her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their captors had seen to that; it wasn't Eudalia's turn. Tennant said, "I wish I could do something about this. I hate seeing Dana so bitter and Olga so scared. It isn't their fault." "And it's not yours," insisted Eudalia. "Don't let them make you think it is." "I'll try not to," he said and stopped, realizing the family party was over. He had felt the inner tug of command, said good-by to the women and returned to his smaller compound within its own barrier dome. Then came the invisible aura of strain in the air, the shimmering illusion of heat that was not heat, that was prelude to his teleportation ... if that were the word. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant; it was , that was all. He called it the training hall, not because it looked like a training hall but because that was its function. It didn't actually look like anything save some half-nourished dream a surrealist might have discarded as too nightmarish for belief. As in all of this strange universe, excepting the dome-cages in which the captives were held, the training hall followed no rules of three-dimensional space. One wall looked normal for perhaps a third of its length, then it simply wasn't for a bit. It came back farther on at an impossible angle. Yet, walking along it, touching it, it felt perfectly smooth and continuously straight. The opposite wall resembled a diagonal cross-section of an asymmetrical dumbbell—that was the closest Tennant could come to it in words. And it, too, felt straight. The floor looked like crystal smashed by some cosmic impact, yet it had reason. He knew this even though no reason was apparent to his three-dimensional vision. The ceiling, where he could see it, was beyond description. The captor Tennant called Opal came in through a far corner of the ceiling. He—if it was a he—was not large, although this, Tennant knew, meant nothing; Opal might extend thousands of yards in some unseen direction. He had no regular shape and much of him was iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name Opal. Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled or sung Mississippi Mud and Opal would have shown no reaction. Yet Tennant suspected that the captors could hear somewhere along the auditory scale, just as perhaps they could smell, although not in any human sense. You will approach without use of your appendages. The command was as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. Tennant took a deep breath. He thought of the space beside Opal. It took about three seconds and he was there, having spanned a distance of some ninety feet. He was getting good at it. Dog does trick, he thought. He went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last he was allowed to relax, he wondered, not for the first time, if he weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as curious as a cat—or a human being. Tennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless repetition before his workout was done. On Earth, dogs were said to be intellectually two-dimensional creatures. He wondered if they felt this helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to retrieve. Some days later, the training routine was broken. He felt a sudden stir of near-sick excitement as he received the thought: Now you are ready. We are going through at last. Opal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended. Or perhaps that was his intent; Tennant could never be sure. They were going through to Tennant's own dimension. He wondered briefly just what his role was to be. He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him. There was the blurring wrench of forced teleportation and they were in another room, a room which ended in a huge irregular passage that might have been the interior of a giant concertina—or an old-fashioned kodak. He stood before a kidney-shaped object over whose jagged surface colors played constantly. From Opal's thoughts it appeared to be some sort of ultradimensional television set, but to Tennant it was as incomprehensible as an oil painting to an animal. Opal was annoyed that Tennant could make nothing of it. Then came the thought: What cover must your body have not to be conspicuous? Tennant wondered, cynically, what would happen if he were to demand a costume of mediaeval motley, complete with Pied Piper's flute. He received quick reproof that made his head ring as from a blow. He asked Opal where and when they were going, was informed that he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors, seemed to have no understanding of time in a human sense. Waiting, Tennant tried not to think of his wife, of the fact that he hadn't seen her in—was it more than a year and a half on Earth? He could have controlled his heartbeat with one of his new powers, but that might have made Opal suspicious. He should be somewhat excited. He allowed himself to be, though he obscured the reasons. He was going to see his wife again ... and maybe he could trick his way into not returning. The maid who opened the door for him was new, although her eyes were old. But she recognized him and stood aside to let him enter. There must, he thought, still be pictures of him around. He wondered how Agatha could afford a servant. "Is Mrs. Tennant in?" he asked. She shook her head and fright made twin stoplights of the rouge on her cheeks as she shut the door behind him. He went into the living room, directly to the long silver cigarette box on the coffee table. It was proof of homecoming to fill his lungs with smoke he could smell . He took another drag, saw the maid still in the doorway, staring. "There's no need for fright," he told her. "I believe I still own this house." Then, "When do you expect Mrs. Tennant?" "She just called. She's on her way home from the club." Still looking frightened, she departed for the rear of the house. Tennant stared after her puzzledly until the kitchen door swung shut behind her. The club? What club? He shrugged, returned to the feeling of comfort that came from being back here, about to see Agatha again, hold her close in no more than a few minutes. And stay, his mind began to add eagerly, but he pushed the thought down where Opal could not detect it. He took another deep, lung-filling drag on his cigarette, looked around the room that was so important a part of his life. The three women back there would be in a ghastly spot. He felt like a heel for wanting to leave them there, then knew that he would try somehow to get them out. Not, of course, anything that would endanger his remaining with Agatha; the only way his captors would get him back would be as a taxidermist's specimen. He realized, shocked and scared, that his thoughts of escape had slipped past his mental censor, and he waited apprehensively for Opal to strike. Nothing happened and he warily relaxed. Opal wasn't tapping his thoughts. Because he felt sure of his captive ... or because he couldn't on Earth? It was like being let out of a cage. Tennant grinned at the bookcase; the ebony-and-ivory elephants that Agatha had never liked were gone, but he'd get them back or another pair. The credenza had been replaced by a huge and ugly television console. That, he resolved, would go down in the cellar rumpus room, where its bleached modernity wouldn't clash with the casual antiquity of the living room. Agatha would complain, naturally, but his being back would make up for any amount of furniture shifting. He imagined her standing close to him, her lovely face lifted to be kissed, and his heart lurched like an adolescent's. This hunger was real, not implanted. Everything would be real ... his love for her, the food he ate, the things he touched, his house, his life.... Your wife and a man are approaching the house. The thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank down in a chair, trying to refuse to listen to the rest of the command: You are to bring the man through the gateway with you. We want another live male. Tennant shook his head, stiff and defiant in his chair. The punishment, when it came, was more humiliating than a slap across a dog's snout. Opal had been too interested in the next lab specimen to bother about his thoughts—that was why he had been free to think of escape. Tennant closed his eyes, willed himself to the front window. Now that he had mastered teleportation, it was incredible how much easier it was in his own world. He had covered the two miles from the gateway to the house in a mere seven jumps, the distance to the window in an instant. But there was no pleasure in it, only a confirmation of his captor's power over him. He was not free of them. He understood all too well what they wanted him to do; he was to play the Judas goat ... or rather the Judas ram, leading another victim to the fourth-dimensional pen. Grim, he watched the swoop of headlights in the driveway and returned to the coffee table, lit a fresh cigarette. The front door was flung open and his diaphragm tightened at the remembered sound of Agatha's throaty laugh ... and tightened further when it was followed by a deeper rumbling laugh. Sudden fear made the cigarette shake in his fingers. "... Don't be such a stuffed-shirt, darling." Agatha's mocking sweetness rang alarm-gongs in Tennant's memory. "Charley wasn't making a grab for me . He'd had one too many and only wanted a little fun. Really, darling, you seem to think that a girl...." Her voice faded out as she saw Tennant standing there. She was wearing a white strapless gown, had a blue-red-and-gold Mandarin jacket slung hussar-fashion over her left shoulder. She looked even sleeker, better groomed, more assured than his memory of her. "I'm no stuffed-shirt and you know it." Cass' tone was peevish. "But your idea of fun, Agatha, is pretty damn...." It was his turn to freeze. Unbelieving, Tennant studied his successor. Cass Gordon—the man , the ex-halfback whose bulk was beginning to get out of hand, but whose inherent aggressive grace had not yet deserted him. The man , that was all—unless one threw in the little black mustache and the smooth salesman's manner. "You know, Cass," Tennant said quietly, "I never for a moment dreamed it would be you." " Roger! " Agatha found her voice. "You're alive !" "Roger," repeated Tennant viciously. He felt sick with disgust. Maybe he should have expected a triangle, but somehow he hadn't. And here it was, with all of them going through their paces like a trio of tent-show actors. He said, "For God's sake, sit down." Agatha did so hesitantly. Her huge dark eyes, invariably clear and limpid no matter how much she had drunk, flickered toward him furtively. She said defensively, "I had detectives looking for you for six months. Where have you been, Rog? Smashing up the car like that and—disappearing! I've been out of my mind." "Sorry," said Tennant. "I've had my troubles, too." Agatha was scared stiff—of him. Probably with reason. He looked again at Cass Gordon and found that he suddenly didn't care. She couldn't say it was loneliness. Women have waited longer than eighteen months. He would have if his captors had let him. "Where in hell have you been, Rog?" Gordon's tone was almost parental. "I don't suppose it's news to you, but there was a lot of suspicion directed your way while that crazy killer was operating around here. Agatha and I managed to clear you." "Decent of you," said Tennant. He got up, crossed to the cabinet that served as a bar. It was fully equipped—with more expensive liquor, he noticed, than he had ever been able to afford. He poured a drink of brandy, waited for the others to fill their glasses. Agatha looked at him over the rim of hers. "Tell us, Rog. We have a right to know. I do, anyway." "One question first," he said. "What about those killings? Have there been any lately?" "Not for over a year," Cass told him. "They never did get the devil who skinned those bodies and removed the heads." So, Tennant thought, they hadn't used the gateway. Not since they had brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him for his Judas ram duties. Agatha was asking him if he had been abroad. "In a way," he replied unemotionally. "Sorry if I've worried you, Agatha, but my life has been rather—indefinite, since I—left." He was standing no more than four inches from this woman he had desired desperately for six years, and he no longer wanted her. He was acutely conscious of her perfume. It wrapped them both like an exotic blanket, and it repelled him. He studied the firm clear flesh of her cheek and chin, the arch of nostril, the carmine fullness of lower lip, the swell of bosom above low-cut gown. And he no longer wanted any of it or of her. Cass Gordon— It didn't have to be anybody at all. For it to be Cass Gordon was revolting. "Rog," she said and her voice trembled, "what are we going to do? What do you want to do?" Take her back? He smiled ironically; she wouldn't know what that meant. It would serve her right, but maybe there was another way. "I don't know about you," he said, "but I suspect we're in the same boat. I also have other interests." "You louse!" said Cass Gordon, arching rib cage and nostrils. "If you try to make trouble for Agatha, I can promise...." " What can you promise?" demanded Tennant. When Gordon's onset subsided in mumbles, he added, "Actually, I don't think I'm capable of making more than a fraction of the trouble for either of you that you both are qualified to make for yourselves." He lit a cigarette, inhaled. "Relax. I'm not planning revenge. After this evening, I plan to vanish for good. Of course, Agatha, that offers you a minor nuisance. You will have to wait six years to marry Cass—seven years if the maid who let me in tonight talks. That's the law, isn't it, Cass? You probably had it all figured out." "You bastard," said Cass. "You dirty bastard! You know what a wait like that could do to us." "Tristan and Isolde," said Tennant, grinning almost happily. "Well, I've had my little say. Now I'm off again. Cass, would you give me a lift? I have a conveyance of sorts a couple of miles down the road." He needed no telepathic powers to read the thoughts around him then. He heard Agatha's quick intake of breath, saw the split-second look she exchanged with Cass. He turned away, knowing that she was imploring her lover to do something, anything , as long as it was safe. Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it. Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had run the sedan into a tree at the foot of the hill beyond the river. He had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They had simply picked him up. Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture. All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies. With women it was different—perhaps the captors' weapons, whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in body chemistry or psychology, perhaps. More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they wanted. Surprisingly there had been a definite fear reaction. As nearly as he could understand, it had been like asking an African pygmy, armed with a blowgun, to set up shop in the midst of a herd of wild elephants. It simply wasn't feasible—and furthermore he derived an impression of the tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself. They could be hurt, even killed by humans in a three-dimensional world. How? Tennant did not know. Perhaps as a man can cut finger or even throat on the edge of a near-two-dimensional piece of paper. It took valor for them to hunt men in the world of men. In that fact lay a key to their character—if such utterly alien creatures could be said to have character.
Junior Achievement by Lee, William M.	"Junior Achievement", William M. Lee, 1972. Fallout is, of course, always disastrous— one way or another JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT BY WILLIAM LEE ILLUSTRATED BY SCHOENHERR "What would you think," I asked Marjorie over supper, "if I should undertake to lead a junior achievement group this summer?" She pondered it while she went to the kitchen to bring in the dessert. It was dried apricot pie, and very tasty, I might add. "Why, Donald," she said, "it could be quite interesting, if I understand what a junior achievement group is. What gave you the idea?" "It wasn't my idea, really," I admitted. "Mr. McCormack called me to the office today, and told me that some of the children in the lower grades wanted to start one. They need adult guidance of course, and one of the group suggested my name." I should explain, perhaps, that I teach a course in general science in our Ridgeville Junior High School, and another in general physics in the Senior High School. It's a privilege which I'm sure many educators must envy, teaching in Ridgeville, for our new school is a fine one, and our academic standards are high. On the other hand, the fathers of most of my students work for the Commission and a constant awareness of the Commission and its work pervades the town. It is an uneasy privilege then, at least sometimes, to teach my old-fashioned brand of science to these children of a new age. "That's very nice," said Marjorie. "What does a junior achievement group do?" "It has the purpose," I told her, "of teaching the members something about commerce and industry. They manufacture simple compositions like polishing waxes and sell them from door-to-door. Some groups have built up tidy little bank accounts which are available for later educational expenses." "Gracious, you wouldn't have to sell from door-to-door, would you?" "Of course not. I'd just tell the kids how to do it." Marjorie put back her head and laughed, and I was forced to join her, for we both recognize that my understanding and "feel" for commercial matters—if I may use that expression—is almost nonexistent. "Oh, all right," I said, "laugh at my commercial aspirations. But don't worry about it, really. Mr. McCormack said we could get Mr. Wells from Commercial Department to help out if he was needed. There is one problem, though. Mr. McCormack is going to put up fifty dollars to buy any raw materials wanted and he rather suggested that I might advance another fifty. The question is, could we do it?" Marjorie did mental arithmetic. "Yes," she said, "yes, if it's something you'd like to do." We've had to watch such things rather closely for the last ten—no, eleven years. Back in the old Ridgeville, fifty-odd miles to the south, we had our home almost paid for, when the accident occurred. It was in the path of the heaviest fallout, and we couldn't have kept on living there even if the town had stayed. When Ridgeville moved to its present site, so, of course, did we, which meant starting mortgage payments all over again. Thus it was that on a Wednesday morning about three weeks later, I was sitting at one end of a plank picnic table with five boys and girls lined up along the sides. This was to be our headquarters and factory for the summer—a roomy unused barn belonging to the parents of one of the group members, Tommy Miller. "O.K.," I said, "let's relax. You don't need to treat me as a teacher, you know. I stopped being a school teacher when the final grades went in last Friday. I'm on vacation now. My job here is only to advise, and I'm going to do that as little as possible. You're going to decide what to do, and if it's safe and legal and possible to do with the starting capital we have, I'll go along with it and help in any way I can. This is your meeting." Mr. McCormack had told me, and in some detail, about the youngsters I'd be dealing with. The three who were sitting to my left were the ones who had proposed the group in the first place. Doris Enright was a grave young lady of ten years, who might, I thought, be quite a beauty in a few more years, but was at the moment rather angular—all shoulders and elbows. Peter Cope, Jr. and Hilary Matlack were skinny kids, too. The three were of an age and were all tall for ten-year-olds. I had the impression during that first meeting that they looked rather alike, but this wasn't so. Their features were quite different. Perhaps from association, for they were close friends, they had just come to have a certain similarity of restrained gesture and of modulated voice. And they were all tanned by sun and wind to a degree that made their eyes seem light and their teeth startlingly white. The two on my right were cast in a different mold. Mary McCready was a big husky redhead of twelve, with a face full of freckles and an infectious laugh, and Tommy Miller, a few months younger, was just an average, extroverted, well adjusted youngster, noisy and restless, tee-shirted and butch-barbered. The group exchanged looks to see who would lead off, and Peter Cope seemed to be elected. "Well, Mr. Henderson, a junior achievement group is a bunch of kids who get together to manufacture and sell things, and maybe make some money." "Is that what you want to do," I asked, "make money?" "Why not?" Tommy asked. "There's something wrong with making money?" "Well, sure, I suppose we want to," said Hilary. "We'll need some money to do the things we want to do later." "And what sort of things would you like to make and sell?" I asked. The usual products, of course, with these junior achievement efforts, are chemical specialties that can be made safely and that people will buy and use without misgivings—solvent to free up rusty bolts, cleaner to remove road tar, mechanic's hand soap—that sort of thing. Mr. McCormack had told me, though, that I might find these youngsters a bit more ambitious. "The Miller boy and Mary McCready," he had said, "have exceptionally high IQ's—around one forty or one fifty. The other three are hard to classify. They have some of the attributes of exceptional pupils, but much of the time they seem to have little interest in their studies. The junior achievement idea has sparked their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just what they need." Mary said, "Why don't we make a freckle remover? I'd be our first customer." "The thing to do," Tommy offered, "is to figure out what people in Ridgeville want to buy, then sell it to them." "I'd like to make something by powder metallurgy techniques," said Pete. He fixed me with a challenging eye. "You should be able to make ball bearings by molding, then densify them by electroplating." "And all we'd need is a hydraulic press," I told him, "which, on a guess, might cost ten thousand dollars. Let's think of something easier." Pete mulled it over and nodded reluctantly. "Then maybe something in the electronics field. A hi-fi sub-assembly of some kind." "How about a new detergent?" Hilary put in. "Like the liquid dishwashing detergents?" I asked. He was scornful. "No, they're formulations—you know, mixtures. That's cookbook chemistry. I mean a brand new synthetic detergent. I've got an idea for one that ought to be good even in the hard water we've got around here." "Well, now," I said, "organic synthesis sounds like another operation calling for capital investment. If we should keep the achievement group going for several summers, it might be possible later on to carry out a safe synthesis of some sort. You're Dr. Matlack's son, aren't you? Been dipping into your father's library?" "Some," said Hilary, "and I've got a home laboratory." "How about you, Doris?" I prompted. "Do you have a special field of interest?" "No." She shook her head in mock despondency. "I'm not very technical. Just sort of miscellaneous. But if the group wanted to raise some mice, I'd be willing to turn over a project I've had going at home." "You could sell mice?" Tommy demanded incredulously. "Mice," I echoed, then sat back and thought about it. "Are they a pure strain? One of the recognized laboratory strains? Healthy mice of the right strain," I explained to Tommy, "might be sold to laboratories. I have an idea the Commission buys a supply every month." "No," said Doris, "these aren't laboratory mice. They're fancy ones. I got the first four pairs from a pet shop in Denver, but they're red—sort of chipmunk color, you know. I've carried them through seventeen generations of careful selection." "Well, now," I admitted, "the market for red mice might be rather limited. Why don't you consider making an after-shave lotion? Denatured alcohol, glycerine, water, a little color and perfume. You could buy some bottles and have some labels printed. You'd be in business before you knew it." There was a pause, then Tommy inquired, "How do you sell it?" "Door-to-door." He made a face. "Never build up any volume. Unless it did something extra. You say we'd put color in it. How about enough color to leave your face looking tanned. Men won't use cosmetics and junk, but if they didn't have to admit it, they might like the shave lotion." Hilary had been deep in thought. He said suddenly, "Gosh, I think I know how to make a—what do you want to call it—a before-shave lotion." "What would that be?" I asked. "You'd use it before you shaved." "I suppose there might be people who'd prefer to use it beforehand," I conceded. "There will be people," he said darkly, and subsided. Mrs. Miller came out to the barn after a while, bringing a bucket of soft drinks and ice, a couple of loaves of bread and ingredients for a variety of sandwiches. The parents had agreed to underwrite lunches at the barn and Betty Miller philosophically assumed the role of commissary officer. She paused only to say hello and to ask how we were progressing with our organization meeting. I'd forgotten all about organization, and that, according to all the articles I had perused, is most important to such groups. It's standard practice for every member of the group to be a company officer. Of course a young boy who doesn't know any better, may wind up a sales manager. Over the sandwiches, then, I suggested nominating company officers, but they seemed not to be interested. Peter Cope waved it off by remarking that they'd each do what came naturally. On the other hand, they pondered at some length about a name for the organization, without reaching any conclusions, so we returned to the problem of what to make. It was Mary, finally, who advanced the thought of kites. At first there was little enthusiasm, then Peter said, "You know, we could work up something new. Has anybody ever seen a kite made like a wind sock?" Nobody had. Pete drew figures in the air with his hands. "How about the hole at the small end?" "I'll make one tonight," said Doris, "and think about the small end. It'll work out all right." I wished that the youngsters weren't starting out by inventing a new article to manufacture, and risking an almost certain disappointment, but to hold my guidance to the minimum, I said nothing, knowing that later I could help them redesign it along standard lines. At supper I reviewed the day's happenings with Marjorie and tried to recall all of the ideas which had been propounded. Most of them were impractical, of course, for a group of children to attempt, but several of them appeared quite attractive. Tommy, for example, wanted to put tooth powder into tablets that one would chew before brushing the teeth. He thought there should be two colors in the same bottle—orange for morning and blue for night, the blue ones designed to leave the mouth alkaline at bed time. Pete wanted to make a combination nail and wood screw. You'd drive it in with a hammer up to the threaded part, then send it home with a few turns of a screwdriver. Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his ideas on detergents, suggested we make black plastic discs, like poker chips but thinner and as cheap as possible, to scatter on a snowy sidewalk where they would pick up extra heat from the sun and melt the snow more rapidly. Afterward one would sweep up and collect the discs. Doris added to this that if you could make the discs light enough to float, they might be colored white and spread on the surface of a reservoir to reduce evaporation. These latter ideas had made unknowing use of some basic physics, and I'm afraid I relapsed for a few minutes into the role of teacher and told them a little bit about the laws of radiation and absorption of heat. "My," said Marjorie, "they're really smart boys and girls. Tommy Miller does sound like a born salesman. Somehow I don't think you're going to have to call in Mr. Wells." I do feel just a little embarrassed about the kite, even now. The fact that it flew surprised me. That it flew so confoundedly well was humiliating. Four of them were at the barn when I arrived next morning; or rather on the rise of ground just beyond it, and the kite hung motionless and almost out of sight in the pale sky. I stood and watched for a moment, then they saw me. "Hello, Mr. Henderson," Mary said, and proffered the cord which was wound on a fishing reel. I played the kite up and down for a few minutes, then reeled it in. It was, almost exactly, a wind sock, but the hole at the small end was shaped—by wire—into the general form of a kidney bean. It was beautifully made, and had a sort of professional look about it. "It flies too well," Mary told Doris. "A kite ought to get caught in a tree sometimes." "You're right," Doris agreed. "Let's see it." She gave the wire at the small end the slightest of twists. "There, it ought to swoop." Sure enough, in the moderate breeze of that morning, the kite swooped and yawed to Mary's entire satisfaction. As we trailed back to the barn I asked Doris, "How did you know that flattening the lower edge of the hole would create instability?" She looked doubtful. "Why it would have to, wouldn't it? It changed the pattern of air pressures." She glanced at me quickly. "Of course, I tried a lot of different shapes while I was making it." "Naturally," I said, and let it go at that. "Where's Tommy?" "He stopped off at the bank," Pete Cope told me, "to borrow some money. We'll want to buy materials to make some of these kites." "But I said yesterday that Mr. McCormack and I were going to advance some cash to get started." "Oh, sure, but don't you think it would be better to borrow from a bank? More businesslike?" "Doubtless," I said, "but banks generally want some security." I would have gone on and explained matters further, except that Tommy walked in and handed me a pocket check book. "I got two hundred and fifty," he volunteered—not without a hint of complacency in his voice. "It didn't take long, but they sure made it out a big deal. Half the guys in the bank had to be called in to listen to the proposition. The account's in your name, Mr. Henderson, and you'll have to make out the checks. And they want you to stop in at the bank and give them a specimen signature. Oh, yes, and cosign the note." My heart sank. I'd never had any dealings with banks except in the matter of mortgages, and bank people make me most uneasy. To say nothing of finding myself responsible for a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar note—over two weeks salary. I made a mental vow to sign very few checks. "So then I stopped by at Apex Stationers," Tommy went on, "and ordered some paper and envelopes. We hadn't picked a name yesterday, but I figured what's to lose, and picked one. Ridge Industries, how's that?" Everybody nodded. "Just three lines on the letterhead," he explained. "Ridge Industries—Ridgeville—Montana." I got my voice back and said, "Engraved, I trust." "Well, sure," he replied. "You can't afford to look chintzy." My appetite was not at its best that evening, and Marjorie recognized that something was concerning me, but she asked no questions, and I only told her about the success of the kite, and the youngsters embarking on a shopping trip for paper, glue and wood splints. There was no use in both of us worrying. On Friday we all got down to work, and presently had a regular production line under way; stapling the wood splints, then wetting them with a resin solution and shaping them over a mandrel to stiffen, cutting the plastic film around a pattern, assembling and hanging the finished kites from an overhead beam until the cement had set. Pete Cope had located a big roll of red plastic film from somewhere, and it made a wonderful-looking kite. Happily, I didn't know what the film cost until the first kites were sold. By Wednesday of the following week we had almost three hundred kites finished and packed into flat cardboard boxes, and frankly I didn't care if I never saw another. Tommy, who by mutual consent, was our authority on sales, didn't want to sell any until we had, as he put it, enough to meet the demand, but this quantity seemed to satisfy him. He said he would sell them the next week and Mary McCready, with a fine burst of confidence, asked him in all seriousness to be sure to hold out a dozen. Three other things occurred that day, two of which I knew about immediately. Mary brought a portable typewriter from home and spent part of the afternoon banging away at what seemed to me, since I use two fingers only, a very creditable speed. And Hilary brought in a bottle of his new detergent. It was a syrupy yellow liquid with a nice collar of suds. He'd been busy in his home laboratory after all, it seemed. "What is it?" I asked. "You never told us." Hilary grinned. "Lauryl benzyl phosphonic acid, dipotassium salt, in 20% solution." "Goodness." I protested, "it's been twenty-five years since my last course in chemistry. Perhaps if I saw the formula—." He gave me a singularly adult smile and jotted down a scrawl of symbols and lines. It meant little to me. "Is it good?" For answer he seized the ice bucket, now empty of its soda bottles, trickled in a few drops from the bottle and swished the contents. Foam mounted to the rim and spilled over. "And that's our best grade of Ridgeville water," he pointed out. "Hardest in the country." The third event of Wednesday came to my ears on Thursday morning. I was a little late arriving at the barn, and was taken a bit aback to find the roadway leading to it rather full of parked automobiles, and the barn itself rather full of people, including two policemen. Our Ridgeville police are quite young men, but in uniform they still look ominous and I was relieved to see that they were laughing and evidently enjoying themselves. "Well, now," I demanded, in my best classroom voice. "What is all this?" "Are you Henderson?" the larger policeman asked. "I am indeed," I said, and a flash bulb went off. A young lady grasped my arm. "Oh, please, Mr. Henderson, come outside where it's quieter and tell me all about it." "Perhaps," I countered, "somebody should tell me." "You mean you don't know, honestly? Oh, it's fabulous. Best story I've had for ages. It'll make the city papers." She led me around the corner of the barn to a spot of comparative quiet. "You didn't know that one of your junior whatsisnames poured detergent in the Memorial Fountain basin last night?" I shook my head numbly. "It was priceless. Just before rush hour. Suds built up in the basin and overflowed, and down the library steps and covered the whole street. And the funniest part was they kept right on coming. You couldn't imagine so much suds coming from that little pool of water. There was a three-block traffic jam and Harry got us some marvelous pictures—men rolling up their trousers to wade across the street. And this morning," she chortled, "somebody phoned in an anonymous tip to the police—of course it was the same boy that did it—Tommy—Miller?—and so here we are. And we just saw a demonstration of that fabulous kite and saw all those simply captivating mice." "Mice?" "Yes, of course. Who would ever have thought you could breed mice with those cute furry tails?" Well, after a while things quieted down. They had to. The police left after sobering up long enough to give me a serious warning against letting such a thing happen again. Mr. Miller, who had come home to see what all the excitement was, went back to work and Mrs. Miller went back to the house and the reporter and photographer drifted off to file their story, or whatever it is they do. Tommy was jubilant. "Did you hear what she said? It'll make the city papers. I wish we had a thousand kites. Ten thousand. Oh boy, selling is fun. Hilary, when can you make some more of that stuff? And Doris, how many mice do you have?" Those mice! I have always kept my enthusiasm for rodents within bounds, but I must admit they were charming little beasts, with tails as bushy as miniature squirrels. "How many generations?" I asked Doris. "Seventeen. No, eighteen, now. Want to see the genetic charts?" I won't try to explain it as she did to me, but it was quite evident that the new mice were breeding true. Presently we asked Betty Miller to come back down to the barn for a conference. She listened and asked questions. At last she said, "Well, all right, if you promise me they can't get out of their cages. But heaven knows what you'll do when fall comes. They won't live in an unheated barn and you can't bring them into the house." "We'll be out of the mouse business by then," Doris predicted. "Every pet shop in the country will have them and they'll be down to nothing apiece." Doris was right, of course, in spite of our efforts to protect the market. Anyhow that ushered in our cage building phase, and for the next week—with a few interruptions—we built cages, hundreds of them, a good many for breeding, but mostly for shipping. It was rather regrettable that, after the Courier gave us most of the third page, including photographs, we rarely had a day without a few visitors. Many of them wanted to buy mice or kites, but Tommy refused to sell any mice at retail and we soon had to disappoint those who wanted kites. The Supermarket took all we had—except a dozen—and at a dollar fifty each. Tommy's ideas of pricing rather frightened me, but he set the value of the mice at ten dollars a pair and got it without any arguments. Our beautiful stationery arrived, and we had some invoice forms printed up in a hurry—not engraved, for a wonder. It was on Tuesday—following the Thursday—that a lanky young man disentangled himself from his car and strolled into the barn. I looked up from the floor where I was tacking squares of screening onto wooden frames. "Hi," he said. "You're Donald Henderson, right? My name is McCord—Jeff McCord—and I work in the Patent Section at the Commission's downtown office. My boss sent me over here, but if he hadn't, I think I'd have come anyway. What are you doing to get patent protection on Ridge Industries' new developments?" I got my back unkinked and dusted off my knees. "Well, now," I said, "I've been wondering whether something shouldn't be done, but I know very little about such matters—." "Exactly," he broke in, "we guessed that might be the case, and there are three patent men in our office who'd like to chip in and contribute some time. Partly for the kicks and partly because we think you may have some things worth protecting. How about it? You worry about the filing and final fees. That's sixty bucks per brainstorm. We'll worry about everything else." "What's to lose," Tommy interjected. And so we acquired a patent attorney, several of them, in fact. The day that our application on the kite design went to Washington, Mary wrote a dozen toy manufacturers scattered from New York to Los Angeles, sent a kite to each one and offered to license the design. Result, one licensee with a thousand dollar advance against next season's royalties. It was a rainy morning about three weeks later that I arrived at the barn. Jeff McCord was there, and the whole team except Tommy. Jeff lowered his feet from the picnic table and said, "Hi." "Hi yourself," I told him. "You look pleased." "I am," he replied, "in a cautious legal sense, of course. Hilary and I were just going over the situation on his phosphonate detergent. I've spent the last three nights studying the patent literature and a few standard texts touching on phosphonates. There are a zillion patents on synthetic detergents and a good round fifty on phosphonates, but it looks"—he held up a long admonitory hand—"it just looks as though we had a clear spot. If we do get protection, you've got a real salable property." "That's fine, Mr. McCord," Hilary said, "but it's not very important." "No?" Jeff tilted an inquiring eyebrow at me, and I handed him a small bottle. He opened and sniffed at it gingerly. "What gives?" "Before-shave lotion," Hilary told him. "You've shaved this morning, but try some anyway." Jeff looked momentarily dubious, then puddled some in his palm and moistened his jaw line. "Smells good," he noted, "and feels nice and cool. Now what?" "Wipe your face." Jeff located a handkerchief and wiped, looked at the cloth, wiped again, and stared. "What is it?" "A whisker stiffener. It makes each hair brittle enough to break off right at the surface of your skin." "So I perceive. What is it?" "Oh, just a mixture of stuff. Cookbook chemistry. Cysteine thiolactone and a fat-soluble magnesium compound." "I see. Just a mixture of stuff. And do your whiskers grow back the next day?" "Right on schedule," I said. McCord unfolded his length and stood staring out into the rain. Presently he said, "Henderson, Hilary and I are heading for my office. We can work there better than here, and if we're going to break the hearts of the razor industry, there's no better time to start than now." When they had driven off I turned and said, "Let's talk a while. We can always clean mouse cages later. Where's Tommy?" "Oh, he stopped at the bank to get a loan." "What on earth for? We have over six thousand in the account." "Well," Peter said, looking a little embarrassed, "we were planning to buy a hydraulic press. You see, Doris put some embroidery on that scheme of mine for making ball bearings." He grabbed a sheet of paper. "Look, we make a roller bearing, this shape only it's a permanent magnet. Then you see—." And he was off. "What did they do today, dear?" Marge asked as she refilled my coffee cup. "Thanks," I said. "Let's see, it was a big day. We picked out a hydraulic press, Doris read us the first chapter of the book she's starting, and we found a place over a garage on Fourth Street that we can rent for winter quarters. Oh, yes, and Jeff is starting action to get the company incorporated." "Winter quarters," Marge repeated. "You mean you're going to try to keep the group going after school starts?" "Why not? The kids can sail through their courses without thinking about them, and actually they won't put in more than a few hours a week during the school year." "Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?" "Child labor nothing. They're the employers. Jeff McCord and I will be the only employees—just at first, anyway." Marge choked on something. "Did you say you'd be an employee?" "Sure," I told her. "They've offered me a small share of the company, and I'd be crazy to turn it down. After all, what's to lose?" Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Jupiter's Joke by Haley, A. L.	"Jupiter's Joke", A. L. Haley, 1964. JUPITER'S JOKE By A. L. HALEY Casey Ritter, the guy who never turned down a dare, breathed a prayer to the gods of idiots and spacemen, and headed in toward the great red spot of terrible Jupiter. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Those methane and ammonia planets, take it from me, they're the dead-end of creation, and why the Old Man ever thought them up I'll never know. I never thought I'd mess around any of them, but things can sure happen. A man can get himself backed into a corner in this little old solar system. It just ain't big enough for a gent of scope and talent; and the day the Solar System Customs caught me red-handed smuggling Kooleen crystals in from Mars, I knew I was in that corner, and sewed up tight. Sure, the crystals are deadly, but I was smuggling them legitimately, in a manner of speaking, for this doctor to experiment with. He wasn't going to sell them for dope. But—and this was the 'but' that was likely to deprive the System of my activities—even experimenting with them was illegal even if it needed to be done; also, I had promised not to rat on him before taking the job. Well, Casey Ritter may be a lot of things we won't mention, but he doesn't rat on his clients. So there I was, closeted with the ten members of the S.S. Customs Court, getting set to hear the gavel fall and the head man intone the sentence that would take me out of circulation for a long, long time. And instead, blast me, if they didn't foul me with this trip to good old Jupiter. I didn't get it at first. I'd argued with 'em, but inside I'd been all set for the sentence, and even sort of reconciled to it. I could even hear the words in my mind. But they didn't match what the judge was saying. I stood there gaping like a beached fish while I sorted it out. Then I croaked, "Jupiter! What for? Are you running outa space in stir? Want to choke me to death in chlorine instead?" Being civil to the court didn't seem important just then. Jupiter was worse than the pen, a lot worse. Jupiter was a death sentence. The senior judge rapped sharply with his gavel. He frowned me down and then nodded at the judge on his right. This bird, a little old hank of dried-up straw, joined his fingertips carefully, cleared his scrawny throat, and told me what for. "You've no doubt heard tales of the strange population of Jupiter," he said. "Every spaceman has, I am sure. Insect-like creatures who manifestly migrated there from some other system and who inhabit the Red Spot of the planet, floating in some kind of artificial anti-gravity field in the gaseous portion of the atmosphere—" I snorted. "Aw, hell, judge, that's just one of those screwy fairy tales! How could any—" The senior judge rapped ferociously, and I skidded to a halt. Our little story teller patiently cleared his skinny throat again. "I assure you it is no fairy tale. We possess well-authenticated photographs of these inhabitants, and if you are prepared to visit them and in some way worm from them the secret of their anti-gravity field, the government stands ready to issue you a full pardon as well as a substantial monetary reward. Your talents, Mr. Ritter, seem, shall we say, eminently suited to the task." He beamed at me. I looked around. They were all beaming. At me! Suddenly I smelled a rat as big as an elephant. That whole Kooleen caper: Had it been just a trap to lead me straight to this? I hadn't been able to figure how they'd cracked my setup.... At the thought my larynx froze up tight. This was worse than I'd thought. Government men trapping me and then beaming at me. And a full pardon. And a reward. Oh, no! I told myself, it wasn't possible. Not when I already had more counts against me than a cur has fleas. Not unless it was a straight suicide mission! I feebly massaged my throat. "Pictures?" I whispered. "Show me 'em." Crude, but it was all I could squeeze out. I squeezed out more when I saw those pictures, though. Those inhabitants were charming, just charming if you like scorpions. Well, a cross between a scorpion and a grasshopper, to be accurate. Floating among that red stuff, they showed up a kind of sickly purple turning to gangrene around the edges. The bleat of anguish that accompanied my first view of those beauties had taken my voice again. "How big?" I whispered. He shrugged, trying for nonchalance. "About the size of a man, I believe." I raised my shrinking head. "Take me to jail!" I said firmly, and collapsed onto my chair. A crafty-eyed buzzard across the table leaned toward me. "So this is the great Casey Ritter, daredevil of the Solar System!" he sneered. "Never loses a bet, never turns down a dare!" I shuddered. "You're telling that one! And besides, a man's got to draw the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it right here. Take me to jail!" They were really stumped. They hadn't expected me to take this attitude at all. No doubt they had it figured that I'd gratefully throw myself into a sea of ammonia among man-size scorpions just for the hell of it. Nuts! After all, in the pen a man can eat and breathe, and a guard won't reach in and nip off an arm or leg while he's got his back turned. How stupid could they get? When I finally wore them down and got to my little cell, I looked around it with a feeling of real coziness. I even patted the walls chummily and snapped a salute at the guard. It makes me grind my molars now to think of it. The way that bunch of stuffed shirts in the S.S.C. made a gold-barred chimpanzee out of me has broken my spirit and turned me into an honest trader. Me, Casey Ritter, slickest slicker in the Solar System, led like a precious infant right where I'd flatly refused to go! In plain English, I underestimated the enemy. Feeling safe and secure in the grip of the good old Iron College, I relaxed. At this strategic point, the enemy planted a stoolie on me. Not in my cell block. They were too smart for that. But we met at recreation, and his mug seemed familiar, like a wisp of smoke where no smoke has got a right to be; and after awhile I braced him. I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week when we met, and then I asked him what's his rap this trip. "Oh, a pretty good jolt if they can keep hold of me," he says. "I just made a pass at the Killicut Emeralds, that's all, and got nabbed." "Oh, no!" I moaned. "What were you trying to do, start a feud between us and Mars?" He shrugged, but his little black-currant eyes began to sparkle with real passion, the high voltage kind that only a woman in a million, or a million in a bank, can kindle in a guy. "Buddy," he said reverently, "I'd start more than that just to get me mitts on them stones again! Why, you ain't never seen jools till you've seen them! Big as hen's eggs, an even dozen of 'em; and flawless, I'm a-shoutin', not a flaw!" His eyes watered at the memory, yearning like a hound-dog's over a fresh scent. I couldn't believe it. Those emeralds were in the inner shrine of the super-sacred, super-secret temple of the cavern-dwelling tribe of Killicuts on Mars—the real aborigines. Bleachies, we call them, sort of contemptuously; but those Bleachies are a rough lot when they're mad, and if Pard had really got near those emeralds, he should be nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's champion liar or its bravest son, and either way I took my hat off to him. "How'd you make the getaway?" I asked, taking him at his word. He looked loftily past me. "Sorry. Gotta keep that a secret. Likewise where I cached 'em." "Cached what?" "The rocks, stupe." I hardly heard the cut. "You mean you really did get away with them?" My jaw must've been hanging down a foot, because I'd just been playing along with him, not really believing him, and now all of a sudden I somehow knew that he'd really lifted those emeralds. But how? It was impossible. I'd investigated once myself. He nodded and then moved casually away. I looked up and saw a guard coming. That night I turned on my hard prison cot until my bones were so much jelly, trying to figure that steal. The next morning I got up burning with this fever for information, only to find that Pard had got himself put in solitary for mugging a guard, and that really put the heat on me. I chewed my fingernails down to the quick by the time he got out a week later. By that time he really had me hooked. I'd of sworn he was leveling with me. But he wouldn't tell me how he'd worked the steal. Instead, he opened up on the trade he'd booked for the string. He said, "When I chisel me way outa this squirrel cage, I'm gonna hit fer good old Jupe and sell 'em to Akroida. She's nuts about jools. What that old girl won't give me fer 'em—" He whistled appreciatively, thinking about it. "Jupiter!" I goggled at him. "Akroida! Who's she?" He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he was sure I'd been born. "Don't you know nothin', butterhead?" From him I took it. I even waited patiently till the master spoke again. The memory still makes me fry. "Akroida," he explained in his own sweet time, "is the queen-scorp of them idiotic scorpions that lives on Jupiter. I sold her the Halcyon Diamond that disappeared from the World Museum five years ago, remember?" He winked broadly. "It come from Mars in the first place, you know. Mars! What a place fer jools! Damn desert's lousy with 'em, if it wasn't so much trouble to dig 'em out—" He went off into a dream about the rocks on Mars but I jerked him back. "You mean those scorpions have really got brains?" "Brains!" he snorted. "Have they got brains! Why, they're smarter than people! And not ferocious, neither, in spite of how they look, if you just leave 'em alone. That's all they want, just to be left alone. Peace an' quiet, and lots of methane and ammonia and arsenic, that's fer them. Besides, the space suit rig you got to wear, they can't bite you. Akroida's not a bad old girl. Partial to arsenic on her lettuce, so I brought her a hundred pounds of the stuff, an' she went fer that almost like it was diamonds, too. Did I rate around there fer awhile!" He sighed regretfully. "But then I went and made her mad, an' I'm kinda persona non grata there right now. By the time I gnaw outa this here cheese trap, though, I figger she'll be all cooled off and ready fer them emeralds." I went back to my cot that night, and this time instead of biting my nails, I bit myself. So I faced it. Casey Ritter lost his nerve, and along with it, the chance of a lifetime. A better man than me had already penetrated the Great Red Spot of old Jupiter and come out alive. That thought ate me to the quick, and I began to wonder if it was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so that I could pry more information out of Pard Hoskins. But I didn't see Pard for a few days. And then, a week later, a group of lifers made a break that didn't jell, and the whole bunch was locked up in the blockhouse, the special building reserved for escapees. Pard Hoskins was in the bunch. He'd never get out of there, and he knew it. So did I. For three more days I worked down my knuckles, my nails being gone, while I sat around all hunched up, wondering feverishly if Pard would make a deal about those emeralds. Then I broke down and sent out a letter to the S.S.C. The Big Sneer of the conference table promptly dropped in on me, friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to shell out, like where the emeralds were, and how to communicate with those scorpions, and how he'd made Akroida mad. "I put on a yeller slicker," he confessed sadly. "That there ammonia mist was eatin' into the finish on my spacesuit, so I draped this here slicker around me to sorta fancy up the rig before goin' in to an audience with the old rip." He shook his head slowly. "The kid that took me in was colorblind, so I didn't have no warning at all. I found out that them scorpions can't stand yeller. It just plain drives them nuts! Thought they'd chaw me up and spit me out into the chlorine before I could get outa the damn thing. If my colorblind pal hadn't helped me, they'd of done it, too. And Akroida claimed I done it a-purpose to upset her." Then he winked at me. "But then I got off in a corner and cooked up some perfume that drives them nuts the other way; sorta frantic with ecstasy, like the book says. Didn't have a chance to try it on Akroida, though. She wouldn't give me another audience. It's in the stuff they cleaned outa me room: a poiple bottle with a bright green stopper." He ruminated a few minutes. "Tell you what, chump. Make them shell out with a green an' poiple spacesuit—them's the real Jupiter colors—an' put just a touch o' that there perfume on the outside of it. Akroida'll do anything fer you if she just gets a whiff. Just anything! But remember, don't use but a drop. It's real powerful." II Real powerful, said the man. What an understatement! But the day I was set adrift in that sea of frozen ammonia clouds mixed with nice cozy methane gas I sure prayed for it to be powerful, and I clutched that tiny bottle like that boy Aladdin clutching his little old lamp. I'd had a lot of cooperation getting that far. An Earth patrol had slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut Emeralds from where Pard Hoskins had cached them; and safe out in space again, we had pored over that string of green headlights practically slobbering. But the Big Sneer of the S.S.C., the fellow that had got me into this caper, was right there to take the joy out of it all and to remind me that this was public service, strictly. "These—" he had proclaimed with a disdainful flourish, like a placer miner pointing to a batch of fool's gold—"These jewels are as nothing, Ritter, compared with the value of the secret you are to buy with them. And be assured that if you're man enough to effect the trade—" He paused, his long nose twitching cynically—"IF you succeed, your reward will be triple what you could get for them in any market. Added to which, IF you succeed, you will be a free man." That twitch of the nose riled me no little. "I ain't failed yet!" I snarled at him. "Just you wait till I do, feller!" I slipped the string of emeralds back into its little safe. "Instead of sniping at me, why don't you get that brain busy and set our rendezvous?" With that we got down to business and fixed a meeting point out on Jupiter's farthest moon; then they took me in to the edge of Jupiter's ice-cloud and turned me loose in a peanut of a space boat with old Jupe looming ahead bigger than all outdoors and the Red Spot dead ahead. I patted my pretty enameled suit, which was a study in paris green and passionate purple. I patted the three hundred pounds of arsenic crystals for Akroida and anyone else I might have to bribe. I anxiously examined my suit's air and water containers and the heating unit that would keep them in their proper state. I had already gone over the space boat. Yeah, I was as nervous as a cat with new kittens. Feeling again for my little bottle of horrid stench, I breathed a prayer to the god of idiots and spacemen, and headed in. The big ship was long gone, and I felt like a mighty small and naked microbe diving into the Pacific Ocean. That famous Red Spot was that big, too. It kept expanding until the whole universe was a fierce, raw luminous red. Out beyond it at first there had been fringes of snow-white frozen ammonia, but now it was all dyed redder than Mars. Then I took the plunge right into it. Surprise! The stuff was plants! Plants as big as meadows, bright red, floating around in those clouds of frozen ammonia like seaweed! Then I noticed that the ammonia around them wasn't frozen any more and peeked at the outside thermometer I couldn't believe it. It was above zero. Then I forgot about the temperature because it dawned on me that I was lost. I couldn't see a thing but drifting ammonia fog and those tangles of red floating plants like little islands all around. Cutting down the motor, I eased along. But my green boat must have showed up like a lighthouse in all that red, because it wasn't long until I spotted a purple and green hopper-scorp traveling straight toward me, sort of rowing along with a pair of stubby wings. He didn't seem to be making much effort, even though he was climbing vertically up from the planet. In fact, he didn't seem to be climbing at all but just going along horizontally. There just wasn't any up or down in that crazy place. It must be that anti-grav field, I concluded. The air was getting different, too, now that I was further in. I'm no chemist, and I couldn't have gotten out there to experiment if I had been, but those plants were certainly doing something to that ammonia and methane. The fog thinned, for one thing, and the temperature rose to nearly forty. Meanwhile the hopper-scorp reached the ship. Hastily I squirted some of my Scorpion-Come-Hither lure on the chest of my spacesuit, opened the lock, and popped out, brave as could be. Face to face with that thing, though, I nearly lost my grip on the handle. In fact, I'd have fainted dead away right there if Pard Hoskins hadn't been there already and lived. If that little shrimp could do it, I could, too. I braced up and tapped out the greeting Pard had taught me. My fiendish-looking opponent tapped right back, inquiring why the hell I was back so soon when I knew that Akroida was all set to carve me into steaks for just any meal. But the tone was friendly and even intimate—or rather, the taps were. There was even a rather warm expression discernible in the thing's eyes, so I took heart and decided to ignore the ferocious features surrounding those eyes. After all, the poor sinner's map was made of shell, and he wasn't responsible for its expression. I tapped back very politely that he must be mistaking me for someone else. "I've never been here before, and so I've never met the charming lady," I informed him. "However, I have something very special in the way of jewels—not with me, naturally—and the rumor is that she might be interested." He reared back at that, and reaching up, plucked his right eye out of the socket and reeled it out to the end of a two-foot tentacle, and then he examined me with it just like an old-time earl with one of those things they called monocles. Pard hadn't warned me about those removable eyes, for reasons best known to himself. I still wake up screaming.... Anyway, when that thing pulled out its eye and held it toward me, I backed up against the side of the ship like I'd been half-electrocuted. Then I gagged. But I could still remember that I had to live in that suit for awhile, so I held on. Then that monstrosity reeled in the eye, and I gagged again. My actions didn't bother him a bit. "Jewels, did you say?" he tapped out thoughtfully, just like an ordinary business man, and I managed to tap out yes. He drifted closer; close enough to get a whiff.... A shudder of ecstasy stiffened him. His head and eyes rolled with it, and he wafted closer still. Right there I began to harbor a premonition that there might be such a thing as being too popular in Scorpdom, but I thrust this sneak-thief idea back into limbo. Taking advantage of his condition, I boldly tapped out, "How's about taking me on a guided tour through this red spinach patch to Akroida, old pal?" Or words to that effect. He lolled his hideous cranium practically on my shoulder. "Anything! Just anything you desire, my dearest friend." I tried to back off from him a bit, but the ship stopped me. "I'm Casey Ritter. What's your label, chum?" "Attaboy," he ticked coyly. "Attaboy?" Things blurred around me. It couldn't be. It was just plain nuts. Then I got a glimmer through my paralyzed gray matter. "Who named you that?" He simpered. "My dear friend, Pard Hoskins." I breathed again. How simple could I get? He'd already mistaken me for Pard, hadn't he? Then I remembered something else. "How come you aren't mad at him? Don't you hate yellow, too?" He hung his silly head. "I fear I am colorblind," he confessed sadly. Right there I forgave him for pulling that eye on me. He was the guide I needed, the one who had got Pard out alive. I almost hugged him. "Lead off, old pal," I sang out, and then had to tap it. "I'll follow in my boat." Well, I'd met the first of the brood and was still alive. Not only alive but loved and cherished, thanks to Pard's inventiveness and to a kindly fate which had sent Pard's old pal my way. A great man, Pard Hoskins. How had he made friends with the brute in the first place? Being once more inside my spaceboat, I raised my helmet, which was like one of those head-pieces they used to put on suits of armor instead of the usual plastic bubble. And it was rigged out with phony antennae and mandibles and other embellishments calculated to interest my hosts. Whether it interested them or not, it was plenty uncomfortable for me. Peeking out the porthole I saw that my guide was fidgeting and looking over his shoulder at my ship, so I eased in the controls and edge after him. To my surprise a vapor shot out of a box that I had taken for a natural lump on his back, and he darted away from me. I opened the throttle and tore after him among the immense red blobs that were now beginning to be patterned with dozens of green-and-purple scorpions, all busy filling huge baskets with buds and tendrils, no doubt. Other scorpions oared and floated about in twos and threes in a free and peaceable manner that almost made me forget that I was scared to death of them, and they stared at my boat with only a mild interest that would have taught manners to most of my fellow citizens of Earth. It wasn't until we had covered some two hundred miles of this that something began to loom out of the mist, and I forgot the playboys and the field workers. It loomed higher and higher. Then we burst out into a clearing several miles in diameter, and I saw the structure clearly. It was red, like everything else in this screwy place, and could only have been built out of compressed blocks of the red plant. In shape it was a perfect octagon. It hung poised in the center of the cleared space, suspended on nothing. It had to be at least a mile in diameter, and its sides were pierced with thousands of openings through which its nightmare occupants appeared and disappeared, drifting in and out like they had all the time in the world. I stared until my eyeballs felt paralyzed. Pard was right again. These critters had brains. And my S.S.C. persecutor was right, too. That anti-grav secret was worth more than any string of rocks in the system, including the Killicut Emeralds. Then I swallowed hard. Attaboy was leading me straight across to a window. Closing my helmet, my fingers fumbled badly. My brain was fumbling, too. "Zero hour, chump!" it told me, and I shuddered. Picking up the first hundred pounds of the arsenic, I wobbled over to the airlock. III That palace was like nothing on earth. Naturally, you'll say, it's on Jupiter. But I mean it was even queerer than that. It was like no building on any planet at all. And, in fact, it wasn't on a planet; it was floating up there only two hundred miles in from the raw edge of space. In that building everything stayed right where it was put. If it was put twelve or fifty feet up off the floor, it stayed there. Not that there wasn't gravity. There was plenty of gravity to suit me—just right, in fact—and still they had furniture sitting around in the air as solid as if on a floor. Which was fine for flying hopper-scorps, but what about Casey Ritter, who hadn't cultivated even a feather? Attaboy, however, had the answers for everything. Towing me from the airlock to the window ledge, he again sniffed that delectable odor on my chest, caressed me with his front pair of legs while I manfully endured, and then without warning tossed me onto his back above the little box and flew off with me along a tunnel with luminous red walls. We finally came to the central hall of the palace, and at the sight of all that space dropping away, I clutched at his shell and nearly dropped the arsenic. But he didn't have any brakes I could grab, so he just flew out into mid-air in a room that could have swallowed a city block, skyscrapers and all. It was like a mammoth red cavern, and it glowed like the inside of a red light. No wonder those scorpions like green and purple. What a relief from all that red! A patch in the middle of the hall became a floating platform holding up a divan twenty feet square covered with stuff as green as new spring grass, and in the center of this reclined Akroida. It had to be. Who else could look like that? No one, believe me, boys and girls, no one! Our little Akroida was a pure and peculiarly violent purple—not a green edge anywhere. She was even more purple than my fancy enameled space suit, and she was big enough to comfortably fill most of that twenty-foot couch. To my shrinking eyes right then she looked as big as a ten-ton cannon and twice as mean and dangerous. She was idly nipping here and there as though she was just itching to take a hunk out of somebody, and the way the servants were edging away out around her, I could see they didn't want to get in range. I didn't blame them a bit. Under the vicious sag of her Roman nose, her mandibles kept grinding, shaking the jewels that were hung all over her repulsive carcass, and making the Halcyon Diamond on her chest blaze like a bonfire. Attaboy dumped me onto a floating cushion where I lay clutching and shuddering away from her and from the void all around me, and went across to her alone with the arsenic. Akroida rose up sort of languidly on an elbow that was all stripped bone and sharp as a needle. She pulled an eyeball out about a yard and scanned Attaboy and the box. He closed in to the couch all hunched over, ducked his head humbly half-a-dozen times, and pushed the box over beside her. Akroida eased her eyeball back, opened the box and sniffed, and then turned to Attaboy with a full-blown Satanic grin. I could hear her question reverberate away over where I was. "Who from?" asked Akroida. That conversation was telegraphed to me blow by blow by the actions of those hopper-scorps. I didn't need their particular brand of Morse Code at all. "Who from?" Attaboy cringed lower and blushed a purple all-over blush. "Dear lady, it is from an interspace trader who possesses some truly remarkable jewels," he confessed coyly. Akroida toyed with the Halcyon Diamond and ignored the bait. "His name?" she demanded. And when he told her, with a bad stutter in his code, she reared up higher on her skinny elbow and glared in my direction. "Casey Ritter? Never heard of him. Where's he from?" Well, after all, she wasn't blind. He had to confess. "I—uh—the stones were so amazing, Royal Akroida, that I didn't pay much attention to the—uh—trader. He does seem to resemble an—ah—earthman." He ducked his head and fearfully waited. A sort of jerking quiver ran through Akroida. She reared up even higher. Her mean Roman nose twitched. "An earthman? Like Pard Hoskins?" Attaboy shrank smaller and smaller. He could only nod dumbly. The storm broke, all right. That old dame let out a scream like a maddened stallion and began to thrash around and flail her couch with that dragon's tail of hers.
Just another free soul by Joi Ito	"Just another free soul", Joi Ito, None. Just another free soul In his foreword to the book, Lessig writes that you understand your subjects “by learning to see them in a certain way.” What is that certain way? I think I’m trying to get a mental image of a person, certain expressions, or what I think that person is about. I’m trying to capture what I think they look like, which is many times a minority of their typical expressions, or their typical stance. So, if I’m taking pictures of Larry [Lessig], I want to have his signature hand gestures, and not just random ones. I think I’m trying to capture pictures of people that help others see what they’re about. Some photographers will make someone look the way the photographer wants them to look, and not the way they appear, so they’ll pick the one picture out of 100 where the guy looks more egotistical than he really is. Some photographers are almost medical, and are going after a perfect portrait. I’m somewhere in between. It’s amazing how many people will upload snapshots of people where the pictures don’t look like them at all. To me, uploading a picture that is not an easily recognizable picture of that person defeats the point, which I’m working toward, to try to express who they are. On the other hand, professional photographers usually have a subject whom they don’t know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that they’ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they’re just freeing an image from a block? What I’m trying to do is free someone’s soul from his or her image. There are a lot of things that make this hard. A lot of people are uncomfortable in front of a camera, or might make expressions that aren’t very natural for them. And if the person is nervous, it’s very difficult to try to see what it is that you’re trying to capture. A lot of what I’m doing is, I just start shooting photos. After half an hour of having their picture taken, people start to ignore you. Or I’ll take pictures when I’m talking to people about what they’re doing, so after a while they get distracted by the conversation and forget about the camera. That’s something that I’m not perfect at, but I’m getting better. I think good photographers are also able to disarm people through conversation, but still, it’s difficult to have a disarming conversation with somebody you don’t know, or to make them laugh. Many times people make a face for me that they wouldn’t make for a professional photographer. For instance, a board meeting picture, like the one with Eric Saltzman: that was during a very tense discussion. I’ve found that people are at their most animated at these kinds of meetings, and look the most alive when they are under a lot of pressure, and super- focused. But usually if an outsider is in the room, they won’t get into that. I mean, it would be difficult for a cameraman to be in a room where a board is having a heated debate. But those are the things that I’m trying to capture, because most people don’t get to see that. At the Creative Commons board meeting, Larry asked me to put the camera away after awhile [laughs] because it was distracting. We were having a very heated discussion and I was taking all of these pictures. But he credited me later because afterward those pictures turned out the best. In your mind, what is a ‘Freesoul’ ? A freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free, liberated. You, as a human spirit, are open. And then, it also has the meaning that you are unencumbered legally, that you are free, as in ‘free software.’ There’s a paradox: with many people’s Wikipedia articles to which I’ve contributed, when it comes to the picture, many of these people don’t have any free photos of themselves on the web, so while they are “notable” on Wikipedia, their images aren’t free of the copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article can’t make an image available to the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community. This means that a lot of people who have a Net presence have a legally encumbered Net presence. People who are invited to conferences get asked all the time, “By the way, do you have a photo that we can use?” But they don’t. By making these pictures available under a Creative Commons license, now they do. This is solving the issue of legal freedom. The third part of the pun is that, since I’m asking for a model release from the subjects, I’m asking everyone to be much more open and giving about their image than most people typically are. I’m giving, you’re giving, we’re all giving to participate and to try to create this wonderful work, and allow others to create derivative works. Of course people can abuse that, just like they can abuse anything. But I want people to see the value in sharing over the fear in sharing. The fact is, it’s much more likely that somebody is going to use these pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I think we spend way too much of our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of the benefits. This is a celebration of all of the people who are willing to give. In a way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it’s the ultimate gift. In one way it’s kind of vain. [laughs] But in another way it’s wonderful. A Wikipedia article on some person but with no picture is sad. Besides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used? They can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the person. Now they can get a picture that represents the person, at least from my perspective. That said, I shouldn’t be the only person doing this. More people should do the same, and make the photographs available freely. For one, I feel that “free” CC licensed photos have a much higher chance of not disappearing. But I don’t know exactly how these photos are going to be used, so in a sense I’m curious. For example, recently I received the Harvard Berkman Center pamphlet. It was a report of what they’re doing, and they also had a bunch of my pictures in there. They all had attribution, and it made me feel really good. There were pictures of different Berkman Center members that I had taken in various places all over the world. I think that the subject is probably happy with this, and I’m happy, and the Berkman Center’s happy because they’re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman Center. There’s one more important thing: Creative Commons is great for original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin Mobile case, where Virgin used CC licensed images in an advertisement without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What we’re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it more thorough from a legal perspective. It’s also an important educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the Creative Commons licenses, we need people to provide other rights in cases where the law requires such rights to be cleared before reuse. What have you learned about the people in these networks, just in the past year? That’s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy academic discussion to a boardroom discussion. Yahoo announced that it will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure, and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search. Microsoft is working with CC as well and have a plug-in. Nine Inch Nails released their album, Ghost, under a Creative Commons license. The list goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business discussion. But one thing that happens when a movement like CC becomes a business thing, is that a lot of the pioneers fade into the background, and it becomes a part of industry. This happened to the Internet. And so while you still have the core people who still remember and hold the torch for the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business. Now, when you go to many Internet conferences, it’s mostly salesmen in attendance. I believe that the success of the Internet has two parts. The first part is the market- driven business side, which has made the Internet affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the business side from corrupting the fundamental elements that make the Internet great. The Net Neutrality or Open Network discussion going on right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance these principles with business interests. Similarly, I think that business interests can help make Creative Commons ubiquitous and more easily accessible to everyone. However, I think it’s important to remember to keep pushing to make content more “free” and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or destructive ways. In addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by educators to create open courseware around the world and in the area of science and technology to promote sharing in research. And as of now, we have the license ported to at least 44 jurisdictions, and the number of countries with projects continues to grow. In many ways, the movement outside of the United States has become much bigger than the movement in the United States. Although the United States is still slightly farther ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo exhibit was just amazing. There were some great images, and a lot of the photographers were professionals. This is beyond what anybody has done in the US. A lot of the progress that we’re making is international. What are your personal realizations or experiences? Well, we’re all getting old, if you look at these pictures. But there’s another thing, though, about this book: the number of professional-quality amateurs has increased significantly due to the importance of digital in both professional and high-end amateur photography I hate to say it, a lot of people love the darkroom, but it really feels like the death of the darkroom with this year. With new 22 megapixel cameras coming in under $10,000, and Lightroom and some of this software at a couple hundred dollars, it doesn’t really make sense, except for particularly fussy artists, to do wet-work anymore. If you’re a commercial photographer or a high-end amateur, you can do anything you used to do in the darkroom. I think it has really lowered the bar. I don’t know how that affects the industry directly, but for me, it bridged a huge gap. I used to be darkroom geek. I loved my darkroom, and even when I didn’t have my darkroom anymore, I still was shooting 6x6 Hasselblad 120 film and processing it in a special lab, and then digitizing it. For me, that film was it. You could never get as good as medium-format film or large-format film At the time, the digital Hasselblad backs were too expensive, and were still not as good as 8x10 film. So there was this whole period where the darkroom was not all that exciting, but the digital wasn’t perfect. I went through a limbo period. I had invested so much in my Hasselblad system, and my Leica M6 set. I had bought the Leica R8, but I was kicking myself because it was terrible. But then the Leica M8 came out, and I bought one at the beginning of 2007. The M8 really got me to where I could use my old gear, and it had enough megapixels to be as good as some film. Another way of saying it was that there was a gear breakthrough at the beginning of last year. Okay, that’s pretty materialistic! So there was a technology breakthrough, let’s call it that, that allowed me to switch completely away from film, and I think this happened to a lot of photographers. It caused an explosion of content and an increase in the quality of content on sites like Flickr. It has allowed amateurs to create a business model with professionals. Interestingly, I think these new high-end amateurs are buying more photography books and photographs and are probably providing an increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most amateurs, including myself, are paying homage to the professionals and not trying to “compete” with them. Despite the existence of social software, what is still important about meeting people face-to-face? For me, the right way to use a lot of the new social software is by making it easier to spend more physical time with the people you like best. Dopplr is a great example. When I visit a city, I will see all of the people who are in the city at the same time. When I went to London awhile ago, there were 47 people I knew in London, and a huge percentage of those people don’t live there. I would bet that more than half of the photos in this book are pictures of friends, and they’re not in their hometown. That’s the really interesting thing that is happening right now: it’s really increasing your ability to spend quality time with, actually, a smaller number of people. It allows you to actively filter. Your meetings don’t have to be random. If I look at the list of people in this book, although there are some obvious people missing whom I didn’t see last year, probably met more of my friends last year, my real friends, than I’ve met in any other year. I know my travels were crazy, but I think that the online world has allowed me to do that. What’s great about photography is that it captures the moment that I was sharing with that person. It’s not just a connection on a social network online, which is really pretty binary. I can look at all these photos and remember exactly what we were doing, what we were eating, what we were drinking, what we were talking about, and to me that’s a much more rich experience. It’s the combination of social software and photography. For me, reality is “the present” plus what you remember from the past. I think this project is really sharing memories with people. Blog posts contribute as well, but to me photography is a really good way of doing that. When I look at the expressions, I remember the moment and get a sense of presence. I think the main problem for me is the environmental impact of flying around. Just as I never believed that we would have a paperless office, being able to connect with people through social software mostly increases your travel, it doesn’t decrease it. It is great because you get to meet all these people. But it is bad for the environment, and bad for our jet lag. How would you characterize your contributions to free culture? I think it’s mostly incremental. I think there is very little we actually do all by ourselves, and I hate saying, “I did this” or “I did that.” I think that in most cases, focusing on individual contributions or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved. Having said that, I think my main contribution is probably in supporting Creative Commons as a fan, board member, chairman of the board and now CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in Free Culture. Specifically, I think that trying to keep an international focus and a balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement is essential. My job is to keep that focus and maintain that balance. Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free Culture movement, and helps me see things from that perspective as well. However, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to celebrate the community more than the heroes. Of course, I’m a huge fan of Larry’s and I have great respect for the leaders of our movement. But more than anything, I’m thankful for and respectful of all of the participants who aren’t so well known and who are essential to moving everything forward. Personally, I don’t think it’s ultimately meaningful to talk about one individual’s personal contribution to any movement. The real meaning is in the whole movement. I’m just one participant. Just another free soul.
Juvenile Delinquent by Ludwig, Edward W.	"Juvenile Delinquent", Edward W. Ludwig, 1955. juvenile delinquent BY EDWARD W. LUDWIG When everything is either restricted, confidential or top-secret, a Reader is a very bad security risk. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Tick-de-tock, tick-de-tock , whispered the antique clock on the first floor of the house. There was no sound save for the ticking—and for the pounding of Ronnie's heart. He stood alone in his upstairs bedroom. His slender-boned, eight-year-old body trembling, perspiration glittering on his white forehead. To Ronnie, the clock seemed to be saying: Daddy's coming, Daddy's coming. The soft shadows of September twilight in this year of 2056 were seeping into the bedroom. Ronnie welcomed the fall of darkness. He wanted to sink into its deep silence, to become one with it, to escape forever from savage tongues and angry eyes. A burst of hope entered Ronnie's fear-filled eyes. Maybe something would happen. Maybe Dad would have an accident. Maybe— He bit his lip hard, shook his head. No. No matter what Dad might do, it wasn't right to wish— The whirling whine of a gyro-car mushroomed up from the landing platform outside. Ronnie shivered, his pulse quickening. The muscles in his small body were like a web of taut-drawn wires. Sound and movement below. Mom flicking off the controls of the kitchen's Auto-Chef. The slow stride of her high heels through the living room. The slamming of a gyro-car door. The opening of the front door of the house. Dad's deep, happy voice echoed up the stairway: "Hi, beautiful!" Ronnie huddled in the darkness by the half-open bedroom door. Please, Mama , his mind cried, please don't tell Daddy what I did. There was a droning, indistinct murmur. Dad burst, "He was doing what ?" More murmuring. "I can't believe it. You really saw him?... I'll be damned." Ronnie silently closed the bedroom door. Why did you tell him, Mama? Why did you have to tell him? "Ronnie!" Dad called. Ronnie held his breath. His legs seemed as numb and nerveless as the stumps of dead trees. " Ronnie! Come down here! " Like an automaton, Ronnie shuffled out of his bedroom. He stepped on the big silver disk on the landing. The auto-stairs clicked into humming movement under his weight. To his left, on the wall, he caught kaleidoscopic glimpses of Mom's old pictures, copies of paintings by medieval artists like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Dali. The faces seemed to be mocking him. Ronnie felt like a wounded bird falling out of the sky. He saw that Dad and Mom were waiting for him. Mom's round blue eyes were full of mist and sadness. She hadn't bothered to smooth her clipped, creamy-brown hair as she always did when Dad was coming home. And Dad, handsome in his night-black, skin-tight Pentagon uniform, had become a hostile stranger with narrowed eyes of black fire. "Is it true, Ronnie?" asked Dad. "Were you really—really reading a book?" Ronnie gulped. He nodded. "Good Lord," Dad murmured. He took a deep breath and squatted down, held Ronnie's arms and looked hard into his eyes. For an instant he became the kind, understanding father that Ronnie knew. "Tell me all about it, son. Where did you get the book? Who taught you to read?" Ronnie tried to keep his legs from shaking. "It was—Daddy, you won't make trouble, will you?" "This is between you and me, son. We don't care about anyone else." "Well, it was Kenny Davis. He—" Dad's fingers tightened on Ronnie's arms. "Kenny Davis!" he spat. "The boy's no good. His father never had a job in his life. Nobody'd even offer him a job. Why, the whole town knows he's a Reader!" Mom stepped forward. "David, you promised you'd be sensible about this. You promised you wouldn't get angry." Dad grunted. "All right, son. Go ahead." "Well, one day after school Kenny said he'd show me something. He took me to his house—" "You went to that shack ? You actually—" "Dear," said Mom. "You promised." A moment of silence. Ronnie said, "He took me to his house. I met his dad. Mr. Davis is lots of fun. He has a beard and he paints pictures and he's collected almost five hundred books." Ronnie's voice quavered. "Go on," said Dad sternly. "And I—and Mr. Davis said he'd teach me to read them if I promised not to tell anybody. So he taught me a little every day after school—oh, Dad, books are fun to read. They tell you things you can't see on the video or hear on the tapes." "How long ago did all this start? "T—two years ago." Dad rose, fists clenched, staring strangely at nothing. "Two years," he breathed. "I thought I had a good son, and yet for two years—" He shook his head unbelievingly. "Maybe it's my own fault. Maybe I shouldn't have come to this small town. I should have taken a house in Washington instead of trying to commute." "David," said Mom, very seriously, almost as if she were praying, "it won't be necessary to have him memory-washed, will it?" Dad looked at Mom, frowning. Then he gazed at Ronnie. His soft-spoken words were as ominous as the low growl of thunder: "I don't know, Edith. I don't know." Dad strode to his easy chair by the fireplace. He sank into its foam-rubber softness, sighing. He murmured a syllable into a tiny ball-mike on the side of the chair. A metallic hand raised a lighted cigarette to his lips. "Come here, son." Ronnie followed and sat on the hassock by Dad's feet. "Maybe I've never really explained things to you, Ronnie. You see, you won't always be a boy. Someday you'll have to find a way of making a living. You've only two choices: You work for the government, like I do, or for a corporation." Ronnie blinked. "Mr. Davis doesn't work for the gover'ment or for a corpor-ation." "Mr. Davis isn't normal," Dad snapped. "He's a hermit. No decent family would let him in their house. He grows his own food and sometimes he takes care of gardens for people. I want you to have more than that. I want you to have a nice home and be respected by people." Dad puffed furiously on his cigarette. "And you can't get ahead if people know you've been a Reader. That's something you can't live down. No matter how hard you try, people always stumble upon the truth." Dad cleared his throat. "You see, when you get a job, all the information you handle will have a classification. It'll be Restricted, Low-Confidential, Confidential, High-Confidential, Secret, Top-Secret. And all this information will be in writing. No matter what you do, you'll have access to some of this information at one time or another." "B—but why do these things have to be so secret?" Ronnie asked. "Because of competitors, in the case of corporations—or because of enemy nations in the case of government work. The written material you might have access to could describe secret weapons and new processes or plans for next year's advertising—maybe even a scheme for, er, liquidation of a rival. If all facts and policies were made public, there might be criticism, controversy, opposition by certain groups. The less people know about things, the better. So we have to keep all these things secret." Ronnie scowled. "But if things are written down, someone has to read them, don't they?" "Sure, son. One person in ten thousand might reach the point where his corporation or bureau will teach him to read. But you prove your ability and loyalty first. By the time you're 35 or 40, they might want you to learn to read. But for young people and children—well, it just isn't done. Why, the President himself wasn't trusted to learn till he was nearly fifty!" Dad straightened his shoulders. "Look at me. I'm only 30, but I've been a messenger for Secret material already. In a few years, if things go well, I should be handling Top -Secret stuff. And who knows? Maybe by the time I'm 50 I'll be giving orders instead of carrying them. Then I'll learn to read, too. That's the right way to do it." Ronnie shifted uncomfortably on the hassock. "But can't a Reader get a job that's not so important. Like a barber or a plumber or—" "Don't you understand? The barber and plumbing equipment corporations set up their stores and hire men to work for them. You think they'd hire a Reader? People'd say you were a spy or a subversive or that you're crazy like old man Davis." "Mr. Davis isn't crazy. And he isn't old. He's young, just like you, and—" "Ronnie!" Dad's voice was knife-sharp and December-cold. Ronnie slipped off the hassock as if struck physically by the fury of the voice. He sat sprawled on his small posterior, fresh fear etched on his thin features. "Damn it, son, how could you even think of being a Reader? You've got a life-sized, 3-D video here, and we put on the smell and touch and heat attachments just for you. You can listen to any tape in the world at school. Ronnie, don't you realize I'd lose my job if people knew I had a Reader for a son?" "B—but, Daddy—" Dad jumped to his feet. "I hate to say it, Edith, but we've got to put this boy in a reformatory. Maybe a good memory-wash will take some of the nonsense out of him!" Ronnie suppressed a sob. "No, Daddy, don't let them take away my brain. Please—" Dad stood very tall and very stiff, not even looking at him. "They won't take your brain, just your memory for the past two years." A corner of Mom's mouth twitched. "David, I didn't want anything like this. I thought maybe Ronnie could have a few private psychiatric treatments. They can do wonderful things now—permi-hypnosis, creations of artificial psychic blocks. A memory-wash would mean that Ronnie'd have the mind of a six-year-old child again. He'd have to start to school all over again." Dad returned to his chair. He buried his face in trembling hands, and some of his anger seemed replaced by despair. "Lord, Edith, I don't know what to do." He looked up abruptly, as if struck by a chilling new thought. "You can't keep a two-year memory-wash a secret. I never thought of that before. Why, that alone would mean the end of my promotions." Silence settled over the room, punctuated only by the ticking of the antique clock. All movement seemed frozen, as if the room lay at the bottom of a cold, thick sea. "David," Mom finally said. "Yes?" "There's only one solution. We can't destroy two years of Ronnie's memory—you said that yourself. So we'll have to take him to a psychiatrist or maybe a psychoneurologist. A few short treatments—" Dad interrupted: "But he'd still remember how to read, unconsciously anyway. Even permi-hypnosis would wear off in time. The boy can't keep going to psychiatrists for the rest of his life." Thoughtfully he laced his fingers together. "Edith, what kind of a book was he reading?" A tremor passed through Mom's slender body. "There were three books on his bed. I'm not sure which one he was actually reading." Dad groaned. " Three of them. Did you burn them?" "No, dear, not yet." "Why not?" "I don't know. Ronnie seemed to like them so much. I thought that maybe tonight, after you d seen them—" "Get them, damn it. Let's burn the filthy things." Mom went to a mahogany chest in the dining room, produced three faded volumes. She put them on the hassock at Dad's feet. Dad gingerly turned a cover. His lips curled in disgust as if he were touching a rotting corpse. "Old," he mused, "—so very old. Ironic, isn't it? Our lives are being wrecked by things that should have been destroyed and forgotten a hundred years ago." A sudden frown contorted his dark features. Tick-de-tock, tick-de-tock , said the antique clock. "A hundred years old," he repeated. His mouth became a hard, thin line. "Edith, I think I know why Ronnie wanted to read, why he fell into the trap so easily." "What do you mean, David?" Dad nodded at the clock, and the slow, smouldering anger returned to his face. "It's your fault, Edith. You've always liked old things. That clock of your great-great-grandmother's. Those old prints on the wall. That stamp collection you started for Ronnie—stamps dated way back to the 1940's." Mom's face paled. "I don't understand." "You've interested Ronnie in old things. To a child in its formative years, in a pleasant house, these things symbolize peace and security. Ronnie's been conditioned from the very time of his birth to like old things. It was natural for him to be attracted by books. And we were just too stupid to realize it." Mom whispered hoarsely, "I'm sorry, David." Hot anger flashed in Dad's eyes. "It isn't enough to be sorry. Don't you see what this means? Ronnie'll have to be memory-washed back to the time of birth. He'll have to start life all over again." "No, David, no!" "And in my position I can't afford to have an eight-year-old son with the mind of a new-born baby. It's got to be Abandonment, Edith, there's no other way. The boy can start life over in a reformatory, with a complete memory-wash. He'll never know we existed, and he'll never bother us again." Mom ran up to Dad. She put her hands on his shoulders. Great sobs burst from her shaking body. "You can't, David! I won't let—" He slapped her then with the palm of his hand. The sound was like a pistol shot in the hot, tight air. Dad stood now like a colossus carved of black ice. His right hand was still upraised, ready to strike again. Then his hand fell. His mind seemed to be toying with a new thought, a new concept. He seized one of the books on the hassock. "Edith," he said crisply, "just what was Ronnie reading? What's the name of this book?" " The—The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ," said Mom through her sobs. He grabbed the second book, held it before her shimmering vision. "And the name of this?" " Tarzan of The Apes. " Mom's voice was a barely audible croak. "Who's the author?" "Edgar Rice Burroughs." "And this one?" " The Wizard of Oz. " "Who wrote it?" "L. Frank Baum." He threw the books to the floor. He stepped backward. His face was a mask of combined sorrow, disbelief, and rage. " Edith. " He spat the name as if it were acid on his tongue. "Edith, you can read !" Mom sucked in her sobs. Her chalk-white cheeks were still streaked with rivulets of tears. "I'm sorry, David. I've never told anyone—not even Ronnie. I haven't read a book, haven't even looked at one since we were married. I've tried to be a good wife—" "A good wife." Dad sneered. His face was so ugly that Ronnie looked away. Mom continued, "I—I learned when I was just a girl. I was young like Ronnie. You know how young people are—reckless, eager to do forbidden things." "You lied to me," Dad snapped. "For ten years you've lied to me. Why did you want to read, Edith? Why? " Mom was silent for a few seconds. She was breathing heavily, but no longer crying. A calmness entered her features, and for the first time tonight Ronnie saw no fear in her eyes. "I wanted to read," she said, her voice firm and proud, "because, as Ronnie said, it's fun. The video's nice, with its dancers and lovers and Indians and spacemen—but sometimes you want more than that. Sometimes you want to know how people feel deep inside and how they think. And there are beautiful words and beautiful thoughts, just like there are beautiful paintings. It isn't enough just to hear them and then forget them. Sometimes you want to keep the words and thoughts before you because in that way you feel that they belong to you." Her words echoed in the room until absorbed by the ceaseless, ticking clock. Mom stood straight and unashamed. Dad's gaze traveled slowly to Ronnie, to Mom, to the clock, back and forth. At last he said, "Get out." Mom stared blankly. "Get out. Both of you. You can send for your things later. I never want to see either of you again." "David—" "I said get out !" Ronnie and Mom left the house. Outside, the night was dark and a wind was rising. Mom shivered in her thin house cloak. "Where will we go, Ronnie? Where, where—" "I know a place. Maybe we can stay there—for a little while." "A little while?" Mom echoed. Her mind seemed frozen by the cold wind. Ronnie led her through the cold, windy streets. They left the lights of the town behind them. They stumbled over a rough, dirt country road. They came to a small, rough-boarded house in the deep shadow of an eucalyptus grove. The windows of the house were like friendly eyes of warm golden light. An instant later a door opened and a small boy ran out to meet them. "Hi, Kenny." "Hi. Who's that? Your mom?" "Yep. Mr. Davis in?" "Sure." And a kindly-faced, bearded young man appeared in the golden doorway, smiling. Ronnie and Mom stepped inside.
Kick Me by Eliza Truitt	"Kick Me", Eliza Truitt, 1999. Kick Me Not long ago, out of curiosity, I picked up some exercise videos by Billy Blanks, the king of Tae-Bo. What a flop. The sets were cheesy, the music was awful 1980s synth-pop, and despite their martial-arts pretensions, the routines felt more like aerobics in disguise than like kung fu. But after flailing away in my living room for a few nights, my interest was piqued, and I decided to find out more about the real thing. Which martial art teaches good self-defense tactics? Which one would give me a good aerobic workout? How daunting would it be to jump into a class as a complete beginner? And would I get pummeled by the other students? To find out, I tried a handful of karate, tae kwon do, aikido, jujitsu, and kung fu classes in the Seattle area. I scored each one in several areas: how intimidating the class would be to a novice; how much the exercises worked my muscles; how much of an I got; whether it would develop coordination and balance; how much physical contact with other people was involved; and, of course, its value in self-defense. All ratings are on a scale of one to five, with five being the hardest, most intimidating, or most valuable. To experts, this will look like a hopelessly biased and superficial inquiry. It is. But to beginners, it is one step toward figuring out which martial art might be right for you. Do you want a chance to kick the stuffing out of someone? Take tae kwon do. Do you want to improve your sense of balance? Take karate. Do you want to know what to do if someone tries to choke you? Take jujitsu. Just remember that if you're jumped by a mugger, the only thing Tae-Bo will be good for is making your attacker collapse into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Kung Fu Reputation: 1960s martial arts movies; Bruce Lee. Intimidation Factor: 4 In the all-levels group I observed at Seven Star Women's Kung Fu, there were a dozen or so women dressed completely in black. (Most classes I took were co-ed.) The school wouldn't let me take the class--I could only watch--but that was better than Temple Kung Fu, which made me sit for an interview before they'd even reveal any information on their classes. There seemed to be an active screening process to keep out those with only a casual interest. Strength Workout: 3 After meditating for a few minutes, students launched into traditional strengthening exercises (push-ups and sit-ups) and then broke into pairs, with one person kicking pads held by the other. It looked to be decent strength training. Their arms got a good workout from the push-ups and punching; abs, from the sit-ups; and the lower body, from the kicking. It was not extreme, and nobody seemed exhausted. Aerobic Workout: 2 After the strength work and partner work, the class broke into a few groups (according to skill level) and repeated choreographed routines called "kata ," which involve a series of punches, kicks, and blocks with an imaginary foe. The class had broken into a light sweat, but was not gasping for air. Coordination and Balance: 4 The rounded slinky movements of the dancelike kata looked specifically designed to develop grace, coordination, and balance. Degree of Contact: 1 Almost none. No direct body-to-body contact, but plenty of punching and kicking with pads. Self-Defense Value: 2 The moves were neat to look at, but they did not seem practical. And without sparring practice, it would be difficult to apply the drills in real life. Overall: Kicking, punching, and an aura of mystery. Tae Kwon Do Reputation: World's most popular martial art, new Olympic sport; lots of kicking; the martial art of the 1990s. Intimidation Factor: 1 I was instantly welcomed into the beginners class at Lee's Martial Arts. People called each other by their first name; there was laughing, joking, and none of the aloofness or self-importance of the kung fu class. Strength Workout: 3 This rating is a little misleading. The lower-body strength workout was fantastic--my legs and hips were sore for days--but there was almost no strength training for the upper body. We used our arms only for balance and blocking kicks. Aerobic Workout: 5 We began with everyone standing in lines and kicking into the air. Then we did a long series of running drills up and down the mats. Then there was more kicking: Turning kicks, straight kicks, low kicks, kicks with punching bags, kicks with partners â€¦ the list goes on. It was an excellent workout. Coordination and Balance: 4 Learning how to make contact with the pad (and not, say, the face of the person holding it) was important. Balance was crucial in the sparring. Degree of Contact: 4 At the end of class came a session of sparring (which I, alas, was not allowed to participate in). The students strapped on protective chest pads and helmets and began kicking the stuffing out of each other. Self-Defense Value: 4 Tae kwon do emphasizes sparring and gets students accustomed to dealing with an assault. Overall: More a sport than an art; will make short work of flabby legs. Karate Reputation: Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid ; the martial art of the 1980s. Intimidation Factor: 1 When I watched a class at the Feminist Karate Union, I asked some of the students how their class was different from the Seven Star Women's Kung Fu class, which is held in the same building. One woman immediately said, "Oh, kung fu? That's what the mean people downstairs do." This class was approachable and open. And karate's so familiar that you feel like you already know how to do it. Strength Workout: 2 We started with sit-ups and push-ups, which were the most demanding parts of the class. The kicking and punching made for decent exercise, but I wasn't aching the next day. Aerobic Workout: 3 The drills (lots of punches, blocking, and kicking) provided some aerobic workout, but were not particularly intense. Coordination and Balance: 4 Keeping yourself centered while kicking and punching develops your balance. Degree of Contact: 2 There was some contact in the paired kicking drills with a partner and pads, but most of the physical contact came during the sparring. Yet this was nothing like the tae kwon do sparring: They weren't clocking each other, just repeating the motions of punching and blocking over and over again. Self-Defense Value: 2 This was entirely focused on form; no full-force contact between students. Overall: Kicks and punches galore, with a dash of moral and spiritual teaching about self-discipline and obedience. Aikido Reputation: A greasy-haired Steven Seagal incapacitating the enemy in Under Siege . Intimidation Factor: 1 Despite its reputation, aikido is decidedly nonaggressive--it's about deflecting punches and immobilizing your attacker--and there was a mellow, pleasantly upbeat atmosphere to the class. Strength Workout: 3 No sit-ups or push-ups, but pulling and yanking on other people looked like it would build muscle, and the rolls worked on your abs. Aerobic Workout: 2 There was little aerobic work, save for the rolling on the mats (which may explain Seagal's ever-increasing flabbiness). Coordination and Balance: 5 The goal is to destabilize and control the other guy, so maintaining your balance--and learning to topple your opponent--is crucial. Degree of Contact: 4 To complete the partner exercises, you had to grab your partner, spin him this way and that, and generally come in very close contact. Self-Defense Value: 5 Learning how to neutralize a threat was the main goal of the class. Overall: You don't get to land any punches and it's noncompetitive, but you'll learn how to knock people over. Tai Chi Reputation: What those slow-moving people in the park are doing; martial arts for seniors. Intimidation Factor: 1 I found its New Age connections slightly off-putting, but it looks so easy to do that it wasn't daunting. Strength Workout: 2 While my heart didn't get pumping, the slow, controlled movements did give my arms, legs, back, and stomach a good resistance workout. You may just be working against gravity, but holding your arms up in the air for several minutes will give you a new appreciation for those slow-moving people in the park. Aerobic Workout: 0 Tai chi involves moving your body slowly in circular patterns, shifting weight from foot to foot, and lifting your arms in rounded gestures, all at a pace slower than you ever thought possible. The motions had names like "parting the wild horse's mane" and "repulsing the monkey." I did not break a sweat, but I was bored to tears. Coordination and Balance: 4 Balance and control of your body position are the heart of this art. Degree of Contact: 0 Self-Defense Value: 0 I learned how to repulse a monkey, not a person. Overall: A yawner, slightly embarrassing to perform, but I'm sure if done correctly it brings high-quality inner peace. Brazilian Jujitsu Reputation: For hurting people. Intimidation Factor: 5 Although the listing in the phone book advertised the "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy," the sign on the door said "Northwest Fight Club." Inside the club, huge holes had been punched in the walls--some back-size, some fist-size. Huge letters painted on the wall said "TRAIN & FIGHT HARD." The instructor, a handsome young Brazilian man, had a long scar curling out from the left side of his mouth and a fresh-looking purple one by his left eye. When I asked to try the class, he shrugged and lent me a gi (the white outfit most martial artists wear), on the back of which was a drawing of massive snarling pit bull and the slogan "PIT PULLING PURE POWER." I wondered if I was going to need an ambulance to take me home. Strength Workout: 5 The next day every inch of my body was sore--my stomach, arms, legs, feet, and neck. For Olympians only. Aerobic Workout: 5 This ranks as one of the hardest and most complete workouts I've ever had. After some stretching, we launched directly into hundreds of lightning-fast sit-ups, crunches, push-ups, leg lifts, and scissor kicks. I was quickly panting and my face turned a deep fuchsia. We did forward and backward rolls, learned to escape from various holds, and executed the sort of belly-crawl that marines always seem to be doing in movies about basic training. After an hour and a half I felt close to death, but there was still another hour to go. Coordination and Balance: 2 Coordination is important, but since you're tussling on a mat most of the time, balance isn't. Degree of Contact: 5 After drills, the instructor paired me with Isabella for partner work. He demonstrated how to get Isabella into choke-holds and leg-locks, as well as how to escape from them. We practiced on each other. It was a little unnerving to be choking Isabella so soon after meeting her, but she didn't seem to mind. I learned how to go from sitting on top of her with a knee in her stomach to a position where her arm was between my legs and I could break it over my stomach. The end of the class was spent with full-on grappling. Getting your face mashed into someone's armpit was de rigueur . Self-Defense Value: 5 Jujitsu's few-holds-barred grappling is far more effective when push comes to shove (and worse) than standing arts such as karate. Overall: Lots of grappling, throwing, and choking. Pragmatic, not pretty. High badass quotient.

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