Exciting stories of wonders in new worlds
NEXT STOP THE STARS
ROBERT
SILVERBERG
WORLDS TO WIN!
NEXT
STOP THE STARS is, as the tide implies, a step out of this world into a group
of worlds divided by time and space in which anyone is likely to encounter
anything.
A
selection of the best of Robert Silverberg, it presents an unusual novella of a
world of the future which has been taken over by beings from outer space who
have made themselves its master. Into the world, comes a man from the
present—and the story of his contest with that future is as tensely dramatic as
any novel.
Add
to this a group of truly unusual science-fiction tales, and you will agree that
NEXT STOP THE STARS is a justified title.
Turn
this book over for second complete novel
ROBERT
SILVERBERG, since
his graduation from Columbia University, has fast become one of those literary
phenomena to rank alongside such giants of the past as Frederick Faust and H.
Bedford Jones. Still in his twenties, he recently celebrated the sale of his
hundredth novel. As for how many shorter pieces he has placed, nobody can tell.
A native New Yorker, he now lives in a giant mansion formerly belonging to
Mayor La Guardia, which he shares with his wife (an electronics engineer) and
several cats.
ACE BOOKS have published a number of his excellent
novels, of which the following are available: THE THIRTEENTH IMMORTAL (D-223),
MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (D-237), INVADERS FROM EARTH (D-286), and COLLISION
COURSE (F-123).
NEXT STOP THE STARS
by
ROBERT
SILVERBERG
ACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York
36, N. Y.
next stop the stabs
Copyright
©, 1962, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved
table of contents
SLAVES OF THE STAR GIANTS ............................................. 5
Copyright,
1956, by Royal Publications, Inc.
THE SONGS OF SUMMER......................................................... 48
Copyright,
1956, by Columbia Publications, Inc.
HOPPER ..................................................................................... 66
Copyright,
1956, by Royal Publications, Inc.
BLAZE OF GLORY .................................................................... 87
Copyright,
1957, by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
WARM MAN .............................................................................. 102
Copyright,
1957, by Fantasy House, Inc.
Dedication To H. L. Gold
the seed of eabth
Copyright ©, 1962, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed
in U.S.A.
SLAVES OF THE STAR GIANTS
CHAPTER
I
HII^P^ abe violet shadows streaked the sky, and the forest was
ugly and menacing. Lloyd Harkins leaned against the bole of a mighty red-brown
tree and looked around dizzily, trying to get his bearings.
He
knew he was there,
not here. Here had vanished, so suddenly that there had been
no sense of transition or of motion—merely a strange subliminal undertone of loss, as the world he knew had melted and been replaced with— what?
He
heard a distant, ground-shaking sound of thunder, growing louder. Birds with
gleaming, toothy beaks and wide-sweeping wings wheeled and shrieked in the
shadowed sky, and the air was cold and damp. Harkins held his ground, clinging
tightly to the enormous tree as if it were his last bastion of reality in a
world of dreams.
And the tree moved.
It
lifted from its base, swung forward and upward, carrying Harkins with it. The
sound of thunder grew nearer. Harkins shut his eyes, opened them, gaped in
awe.
Some ten feet to the right,
another tree was moving.
He
threw his head back, stared upward into the cloud-fogged sky, and verified the
fact he wanted to deny: the trees were not trees.
' They were legs.
Legs of a being huge beyond belief, whose
head rose fifty feet or more above the floor of the dark forest. A being who
had begun to move.
Harkins dug his hands frantically into the
leg, gripping it as he swung wildly through a fifteen-foot arc with each stride
of the monstrous creature. Gradually, the world around him took shape again,
and slowly he re-established control over his fear-frozen mind.
Through
the bright green blurs of vegetation he was able to see the creature on which he
rode. It was gigantic but vaguely manlike, wearing a sort of jacket and a pair
of shorts which terminated some twenty-five feet above Harkins' head. From
there down, firm red-brown skin the texture of wood was visible. Harkins could
even distinguish dimly a face, far above, with pronounced features of a strange
and alien cast.
He began to assemble his environment. It was
a forest-where? On Earth, apparently—but an Earth no one had ever known before.
The bowi of the sky was shot through with rich, dark colors, and the birds that
screeched overhead were nightmare creatures of terrifying appearance.
The
earth was brown and the vegetation green, though all else had changed.
Where am I? Harkins asked over and over again.
And—Why am I here?
And—How can I get back?
He
had no answers. The day had begun in ordinary fashion, promising to be neither
more nor less unusual than the day before or all the days before that. Shortly
after noon, on the 21st of April, 1957, he had been on his way to the electronics
laboratory, in New York City, on the planet Earth. And now he was here,
wherever here might be.
His
host continued to stride through the forest, seemingly unconcerned about the
man clinging to his caff. Harkins' arms were growing tired from the strain of
hanging on, and suddenly the new thought occurred: Why not let go? He had held on only through a sort of
paralysis of the initiative, but now he had regained his mental equilibrium. He
dropped off.
He
hit the ground solidly and sprawled out flat. The soil was warm and
fertile-smelling, and for a moment he clung to it as he had to the
"tree" minutes before. Then he scrambled to his feet and glanced
around hastily, looking for a place to hide and reconnoiter.
There
was none. And a hand was descending toward him— red-brown, enormous, tipped
with gleaming, pointed fingernails six inches long. Gendy, the giant hand
scooped Harkins up.
There
was a dizzying moment as he rose fifty feet, held tenderly in the giant's
leathery embrace. The hand opened, and Harkins found himself standing on an
outspread palm the size of a large table, staring at a strange oval face with
deep-set, compassionate eyes and a wide, almost lipless mouth studded with
triangular teeth. The being seemed to smile almost pityingly at Harkins.
"What are you?"
Harkins demanded.
The
creature's smile grew broader and more melancholy, but there was no reply—only
the harsh wailing of the forest birds, and the distant rumbling of approaching
thunder. Harkins felt himself being lowered to the giant's side, and once again
the being began to move rapidly through the forest, crushing down the
low-clustered shrubs as it walked. Harkins, his stomach rolling agonizingly
with each step, rode cradled in the great creature's loosely-closed hand.
After
what must have been ten minutes or more, the giant stopped. Harkins glanced
around, surprised. The thunder was close now, and superimposed on it was the
dull boom of toppling trees. The giant was standing quite still, legs planted
as solidly as tree trunks, waiting.
Minutes
passed—and then Harkins saw why the giant had stopped. Coming toward them was a
machine—a robot, Harkins realized—some fifteen feet high. It was man-shaped,
but much more compact; a unicom-like spike projected from its gleaming
nickel-jacketed forehead, and instead of legs it moved on broad treads. The
robot was proceeding through the forest, pushing aside the trees that stood in
its way with casual gestures of its massive forearms, sending them toppling to
the right and left with what looked like a minimal output of effort.
The
giant remained motionless, staring down at the ugly machine as it went by. The
robot paid no attention to Harkins' host, and went barrelling on through the
forest as if following some predetermined course.
Minutes
later it was out of sight leaving behind it a trail of uprooted shrubs and
exposed tree-roots. As the robot's thunder diminished behind them, the giant
resumed his journey through the forest. Harkins rode patiently, not daring to
think any more.
After
a while longer a clearing appeared—and Harkins was surprised and pleased to
discover a little cluster of huts. Man-sized huts, ringed in a loose circle to
form a village. Moving in the center of the circle were tiny dots which Harkins
realized were people, human beings, men.
A colony?
A prison camp?
The
people of the village spotted the giant, and gathered in a small knot,
gesticulating and pointing. The giant approached within about a hundred yards
of the village, stooped, and lowered Harkins delicately to the ground.
Dizzy
after his long journey in the creature's hand, Harkins staggered, reeled, and
fell. He half expected to see the giant scoop him up again, but instead the
being was retreating into the forest, departing as mysteriously as he had
come.
Harkins
got to his feet. He saw people running toward him—wild-looking, dangerous
people. Suddenly, he began to feel that he might have been safer in the giant's
grip.
CHAPTER
H
Thebe
webe seven of them, five
men and two women. These were probably the bravest. The rest hung back and
watched from the safety of their huts.
Harkins stood fast and waited for them. When
they drew near, he held up a hand.
"Friend!" he said
loudly. "Peacel"
The
words seemed to register. The seven paused and arrayed themselves in an uneasy
semicircle before Harkins. The biggest of the men, a tall, broad-shouldered man
with unruly long black hair, thick features and deep-set eyes, stepped forward.
"Where
are you from, stranger?" he growled in recognizable, though oddly
distorted, English.
Harkins
thought it over, and decided to keep acting on the assumption that they were as
savage as they looked. He pointed to the forest. "From there."
"We
know that," the tall man said. "We saw the Star Giant bring you. But
where is your village?"
Harkins
shrugged. "Far from here—far across -the ocean." It was as good a
story as any, he thought. And he wanted more information about these people
before he volunteered any about himself. But one of the two women spoke up.
"What
ocean?" Her voice was scornful. She was a squat, yellow-faced woman in a
torn, dirty tunic. "There are no oceans near here." She edged up to
Harkins, glared intently at him. Her breath was foul. "You're a spy," she said accusingly. "You're from the
Tunnel City, aren't you?"
"The Star Giant brought him," the
other woman pointed out calmly. She was tall and wild-looking, with flowing
blonde hair that looked as if it had never been cut. She wore ragged shorts and
two strips of cloth that covered her breasts. "The Star Giants aren't in
league with the city-dwellers, Elsa," the woman added.
"Quiet,"
snapped the burly man who had spoken first. He turned to Harkins. "Who are
you?"
"My
name is Lloyd Harkins. I come from far across the ocean. I don't know how I
came here, but the Star Giant"— this part would be true, at
least—"found me and brought me to this place." He spread his hands.
"More I cannot tell you."
"Uh.
Very well, Lloyd Harkins." The big man turned to the other six. "Kill
him, or let him stay?"
"How
unlike you to ask our opinions, Joml" said the squat woman named Elsa.
"But I say kill him. He's from the Tunnel City. I know itl"
The man named Jom faced the
others. "What say you?"
"Let
him live," replied a sleepy-looking young man. "He seems
harmless."
Jorn scowled. "The
rest of you?"
"Death," said a
second man. "He looks dishonest."
"He looks all right to
me," offered the third.
"And
to me," said the fourth. "But I vote for death. Elsa is seldom
wrong."
Harldns
chewed nervously at his lower lip. That made three votes for death, two in his
favor. Jom was staring ex-pectandy at the sullen-faced girl with long hair.
"Your opinion,
Katha?"
"Let him live,"
she said slowly.
Jom
grunted. "So be it. I cast my vote for him also. You may join us,
stranger. But mine is the deciding vote—and if I reverse it, you die!"
They
marched over the clearing single-file to the village, Jom leading, Harkins in
the rear followed by the girl Katha. The rest of the villagers stared at him
curiously as he entered the circle of huts.
"This
is Lloyd Harkins," Jom said loudly. "He will live among us."
Harkins
glanced tensely from face to face. There were about seventy of them,
altogether, ranging from gray-beards to naked children. They seemed oddly
savage and civilized all at once. The village was a strange mixture of the
primitive and cultured.
The huts were made of some unfamiliar dark
green plastic substance, as were their clothes. A bonfire burnt in the center
of the little square formed by the ring of huts. From where he stood, Harkins
had a clear view of the jungle—a thickly-vegetated one, which had obviously not
sprung up overnight. He could see the deeply-trampled path which the Star
Giant had made.
He
turned to Jorn. "I'm a stranger to this land. I don't know anything about
the way you live."
"All
you need to know is that I'm in charge," Jorn said. "Listen to me and
you won't have any trouble."
"Where am I going to
stay?"
"There's
a hut for single men," Jom said. "It's not very comfortable, but it's
the best you can have." Jorn's deep eyes narrowed. "There are no
spare women in this village, by the way. Unless you want Elsa, that is."
He threw back his head and laughed raucously.
"Elsa's
got her eyes fixed on one of the Star Giants," someone else said.
"That's the only kind can satisfy her."
"Toad!"
The squat woman known as
Elsa sprang at the man who had spoken, and the ferocity of her assault knocked
him to the ground. Elsa climbed on his chest and began banging his head against
the ground. With a lazy motion, Jom reached down and plucked her off.
"Save
your energy, Elsa. We'll need you to cast the spells when the Tunnel City men
come."
Harkins
frowned. "This Tunnel City—where is it? Who lives there?"
Jorn
swung slowly around. "Either you're a simpleton or you really are a stranger here. The Tunnel City is one of the Old Places. Our enemies
live there, in the ruins. They make war on us—and the Star Giants watch. It
amuses them."
"These
Tunnel City men—they're men, like us? I mean, not giants?"
"They're like us, all right. That's why
they fight us. The different ones don't bother." "Different?"
"You'll find out. Stop asking questions,
will you? There's food to be gathered." Jom turned to a comJhaired
young villager nearby. "Show Harkins where he's going to stay— and then
put him to work in the grain field."
A confused swirl of thoughts cascaded through
Harkins' mind as the young man led him away. Slowly, the jigsaw was fitting
together.
The villagers spoke a sort of English, which
spiked Harkins' theory that he had somehow been cast backward in time. The
alternative, hard as it was to accept, was plain: he was in the future, in a
strangely altered world.
The
Star Giants—who were they? Jom had said they watched while the contending
villages fought. It amused them, he said. That argued that the giants were the
dominant forces in this world. Were they humans? Invaders from elsewhere?
Those questions would have to wait for answers. Jom either didn't know them; or
didn't want Harkins to know.
The
robot in the forest—unexplained. The Star Giant had shown it a healthy respect,
though.
The
tribe here—Jom was in command, and everyone appeared to respect his authority.
A fairly conventional primitive arrangement, Harkins thought. It implied an
almost total breakdown of civilization some time in the past. The pieces were
fitting together, though there were gaps.
The
Tunnel City, home of the hated enemy. "One of the Old Places," Jom
had said. The enemies lived in the ruins. That was clear enough. But what of
these "different ones"?
He
shook his head. It.was a strange and confusing world, and possibly the fewer
questions he asked the safer he would be.
"Here's
our place," the villager said. He pointed to a long hut, low and broad.
"The single men stay here. Take any bed that has no clothing on it."
"Thanks,"
said Harkins. He stooped to enter. The interior of the hut was crude and bare,
with straw pallets scattered at random here and there inside. He selected one
that looked fairly clean and dropped his jacket on it. "This is
mine," he said.
The
other nodded. "Now to the grain fields." He pointed to a clearing
behind the village.
Harkins
spent the rest of that afternoon working in the fields, deliberately using as
much energy as he could and trying not to think. By the time night approached,
he was thoroughly exhausted. The men returned to the village, where the women
served a plain but nourishing community supper.
The simple life, Harkins thought. Farming and
gathering food and occasional intertribal conflicts. It was hardly a lofty
position these remote descendants of his had reached, he observed wryly. And
something was wrong with the picture. The breakdown must have occurred fairly
recently, for them to be still sunk this low in cultural pattern—but the
thickness of the forestation implied many centuries had gone by since this area
had been heavily populated.There was a hole in his logical construct here,
Harkins realized, and he was unable to find it.
Night
came. The moon was full, and he stared at its pockmarked face longingly,
feeling a strong homesickness for the crowded, busy world he had been taken
from. He looked at the tribesmen sprawled on the ground, their bellies full,
their bodies tired. Someone was singing a tuneless, unmelodic song. Loud
snoring came from behind him. Jom stood tensely outlined against the brightness
of the moon, staring out toward the forest as if expecting a momentary
invasion. From far away came the thumping sound of a robot crashing its way
through the trees, or possibly a Star Giant bound on some unknown errand.
Suddenly
Jom turned. "Time for sleep," he snapped, "Into your huts."
He moved around, kicking the dozers, shoving
the women away from the fire. He's the boss, all right, Harkins thought. He studied Jorn's whipcord muscles appreciatively, and
decided he'd do his best to avoid crossing the big man, for the duration of his
stay in the village.
Later,
Harkins lay on his rough bed, trying to sleep. It was impossible. The bright
moonlight streamed in the open door of the hut, and in any event he was too
tense for sleep to come. He craned his neck, looking around. The six men with
whom he shared the hut were sound asleep, reaping the reward of their hard
day's toil. They had security, he thought—the security of ignorance. He,
Harkins, had too much of the civilized man's perceptivity. The night-noises
from outside disturbed him, the muffled booms from the forest woke strange and
deeply buried terrors in him. This was no world for nervous men.
He
closed his eyes and lay back again. The image of the Star Giant floated before
him, first the Star Giant-as-tree, then the complete entity, finally just the
oddly benign, melancholy face. He pictured the Star Giants gathered together,
wherever they lived, moving with massive grace and bowing elegandy to each
other in a fantastic minuet. He wondered if the one who had found him today had
been aware he carried an intelligent being, or if he had been thought of as
some two-legged forest creature too small to regard seriously.
The
image of the robot haunted him then—the dome-headed, indomitable creature
pursuing some incomprehensible design, driving relentlessly through the forest
toward a hidden goal. Weaving in and out of his thoughts was the screaming of
the toothed birds, and the booming thunder of the forest. A world I never made, he thought tiredly, and tried to force sleep
to take him.
Suddenly,
something brushed his arm lighdy. He sat up in an instant and narrowed his eyes
to see.
"Don't make any
noise," a soft voice said.
Katha.
She
was crouched over his pallet, looking intently down at him. He wondered how
long she had been there. Her free-flowing hair streamed down over her
shoulders, and her nostrils flickered expectantly as Harkins moved toward her.
"What .are you doing
here?"
"Come
outside," she whispered. "We don't want to wake them."'
Harkins
allowed her to lead him outside. Moonlight illuminated the scene clearly. The
sleeping village was utterly quiet, and^the eerie jungle sounds could be heard
with ease.
"Tom
is with Nella tonight," Katha said bitterly. "I am usually Jom's
woman—but tonight he ignored me."
Harkins
frowned. Tired as he was, he could see what the situation was immediately, and
he didn't like it at all. Katha was going to use him as a way of expressing her
jealousy to Jom.
She moved closer to him and pressed her warm
body against his. Involuntarily, he accepted the embrace—and then stepped back.
Regardless of Katha's motives, Jorn would probably kill him on the spot if he
woke and found him with her. The girl was a magnificent animal, he thought
regretfully, and perhaps some other time, some other place-But riot here, not
now. Harkins was dependent on Jom's mercies, and it was important to remain in
his good graces. Gently, he pushed Katha back.
"No," he said.
"You belong to Jom."
Her
nostrils flared. "I belong to no onel" she whispered harshly. She
came toward him again. There was the sound of someone stirring in a nearby hut.
"Go
back to sleep," Harkins said anxiously. "If Jorn finds us, he'll kill
us both."
"Jom
is busy with that child Nella—but he would not kill me anyway. Are you afraid
of Jom, stranger?"
"No," Harkins
lied. "I—"
"You
talk like a cowardl" Again, she seized him, and this time he shoved her
away roughly. She spat angrily at him and slapped him in fury. Then she cupped
her hand and cried, "Helpl"
At
her outcry, Harkins dodged past her and attempted to re-enter his hut, but he
was much too late. The whole village seemed to be awake in an instant, and
before he was fully aware of what had happened he felt a firm pressure on the
back of his neck.
"The
rest of you go back to bed." It was Jom's voice, loud and commanding, and
in a moment the square was empty again—except for Katha, Harkins, and Jom. The
big man held Harkins by the neck with one hand and a squirming, struggling
Katha with the other.
"He attacked me!"
Katha accused.
"It's a lie!"
"Quiet,
both of you!" Jom's voice snapped like a whip. He let go of Katha and
threw her to the ground, where she remained, kneeling subserviendy. His grip on
Harkins tightened.
"What happened?" Torn demanded.
"Let her tell
it," Harkins replied.
"Her word is
meaningless. I want the truth."
"He
came to my hut and attacked me," Katha said. "It was because he knew
you were busy with Nella—"
Torn
silenced her with a kick, "She came to you, did she not?"
Harkins nodded. "Yes."
"I
thought so. I expected it. This has happened before." He released Harkins,
and gestured for Katha to take her feet. "You will have to leave
here," Jom said. "Katha is mine."
"But-"
"It
is not your fault," Torn said. "But you must leave here. She will not
rest .until she has you. Go now—and if you return, I will have to kill
you."
Harkins
felt numb at Jom's words. The last thing he would have wanted to happen was to
be thrust out of the one haven he had found so far in this strange and
unfriendly world. He looked at Katha, who was glaring at him in bitter hatred,
her breasts rising and falling rapidly in rage. He began to feel rage himself
at the unfairness of the situation.
He
watched as Jom turned to Katha. "Your punishment will come later. You will
pay for this, Katha."
She
bowed her head, then looked up. With astonishment, Harkins saw that she was
looking at Jom with unmistakable love reflected in her eyes.
Jom
gestured toward the forest. "Go." '
"Right now?"
"Now,"
Jom said. "You must be gone by morning. I should not have allowed you to stay at
all."
CHAPTER
IH
Whatever
personal deity was looking
out for him was doing a notably bad job, Harkins thought, as he stood at the
edge of the forest. It was sadistic to bring him into contact with a
civilization, of sorts, and then almost immediately thrust him back into the
uncertainty of the forest.
It
was near dawn. He had spent most of the night circling the borders of the
clearing, postponing the moment when he would have to enter the forest again.
He was not anxious to leave the vicinity while it was still dark, though he
knew it would be just as fatal for him to be found near the village at sun-up.
He withdrew to the edge of the clearing and
waited there. For a while, there had been the sound of repeated snapping, as of
a whip descending, coming from Jom's hut. Then, there had been silence. Harkins
wondered whether Katha's punishment had not, perhaps, been followed by a
reward.
Jorn
had been right to cast him out, Harkins admitted. In a tribal set-up of that
sort, the leader's dominance had to be maintained—and any possible competitor,
even such an unwilling one as Harkins, had to be expelled. Now that Harkins
considered the matter, he realized that Jorn had been susprisingly lenient not
to kill him on the spot.
Only—facing
this strange, wild world alone would be no joyride.
As
the first faint rays of dawn began to break on the horizon, Harkiris entered
the forest, Almost immediately, the air changed, grew cooler and damper. The
thick curtain of vegetation that roofed in the forest kept the sunlight out.
Harkins moved warily, following the trampled path the Star Giant had left.
Somewhere
not too far from here would be the Tunnel City. It would have to be reasonably
close; in a non-mechanized society such as this, it would be impossible to
carry out warfare over any great distance. And the Tunnel City, whatever it
was, was inhabited. He hoped he would be able to locate it before he
encountered any trouble in the forest. As an outcast from Jorn's group, he
could probably gain refuge there.
Suddenly
there was the sound of crashing timber up ahead. He flattened himself against a
lichen-covered rock and peered into the distance.
Above the trees, the red-brown head of a Star
Giant on his way through the forest was visible. Harkins considered momentarily
going toward the giant, but then changed his mind and struck off along a back
path. The Star Giants had let him live once,, but there was no predicting their
actions. There was little choice in the matter anyway; the Star Giant was rapidly
moving on, covering forty feet at a stride.
Harkins
watched the huge being until it was out of sight, and then continued to walk.
Perhaps, he thought, the path might lead to the Tunnel City. Perhaps not. At
this point, he had very little to lose no matter which direction he took.
But
he was wrong. The other path might have been safe; this one was barred by a
howling nightmare.
It
was facing him squarely, its six legs braced between two thin trees. The
creature had a pair of snapping mouths—one on each flattened, sharp-snouted
head. Razor-like teeth glistened in the dim light. Harkins froze, unable either
to turn and run or to dash forward on the offensive. The creature's howling
rose to a frantic pitch that served as wild counterpoint for the dull booming
of the forest.
The
thing began to advance. Harkins felt sweat trickle down his body. The animal,
white-furred, was the size of a large wolf, and looked hungry. Harkins
retreated, feeling his way cautiously at each step, while the animal gathered
itself to leap.
Without
conscious fore-thought Harkins extended a hand toward a dead tree behind him
and yanked down on a limb. It broke off, showering him with flaky bark. As the
monster sprang, he brought the crude club around in baseball-bat fashion.
It
crashed into the gaping mouth of the animal's nearest head, and teeth
splintered against dry wood. Quickly Harkins ran forward and jammed die
tree-limb between the jaws of the other head, immobilizing them. The animal
clawed at Harkins, but its upper arms were too short.
Stalemate.
Harkins held the animal at arm's length. It raged and- spat impotendy, unable
to reach him. He did not dare let go, but his strength couldn't hold out
indefinitely, he knew.
Slowly, clawing futilely, the animal forced
him backward.
Harkins felt the muscles of his upper arms
quivering from the strain; he pushed backward, and the animal howled in pain.
The other head gnashed its ruined teeth savagely.
Overhead, strange bird-cries resounded, and
once Harkins glanced upward to see a row of placid, bright-wattled birds
waiting impassively on a tree-limb. Their mouths glittered toothily, and they
were like no birds he had ever seen before, but he knew instinctively what
function they served in the forest. They were vultures, ready to go to work as
soon as the stalemate broke.
And
it was going to break soon. Harkins would be unable ■ to hold the
maddened animal off for long. His fingers were trembling, and soon the log
would slip from his grasp. And then—
A flashing metallic hand
reached down from somewhere above, and abruptly the pressure relaxed. To his
astonishment, Harkins watched the hand draw the animal upward.
He
followed it with his eyes. A robot stood over them, faceless, inhuman,
contemplating the fierce beast it held in its metal grip. Harkins blinked. He
had become so involved in the struggle that he had not heard the robot's
approach.
The
robot seized the animal by each of its throats, and tore. Casually, it flipped the stifi-living body
into the shrubbery, where it thrashed for a moment and subsided—and then the
robot continued on through the forest, while the vultures from the tree-limb
swooped down upon their prize.
Harkins sank down on a decaying stump and
sucked in his breath. His overtensed arms shook violently and incon-trollably.
It
was as if the robot had been sent there for the mission of destroying the
carnivore—and, mission completed, had returned to its base, having no further
interest in Harkins' doings.
I'm fust a pawn, he thought suddenly. The realization hit him
solidly, and he slumped in weariness. That was the answer, of course: pawn. He
was being manipulated. He had been shunted out of his own era, thrown in and
out of Jom's village, put in and out of deadly peril. It was a disquieting
thought, and one that robbed him of his strength for some minutes. He knew his
limitations, but he had liked to •think of himself as master of his fate. He
wasn't, now. All right—where do I go from
here?
No
answer came. Deciding that his manipulator was busy-somewhere else on the
chessboard at the moment, he pulled himself to his feet and slowly began to
move deeper into the forest.
He
walked warily this time, keeping an eye out for wildlife. There might not be
any robots hands to rescue him, the next time.
The
forest seemed calm again. Harkins walked step by step, moving further and
further into the heart of the woods, leaving Jom's village far behind. It was
getting toward afternoon, and he was starting to tire.
He
reached a bubbling spring and dropped gratefully by its side. The water looked
fresh and clear; he dipped a hand in, feeling the refreshing coolness, and wet
his fingers. Drawing the hand out, he touched it experimentally to his lips.
The water tasted pure, but he wrinkled his forehead in doubt.
"Go
ahead and drink," a dry voice said suddenly. "The water's perfectly
good."
Harkins
sprang up instantly, "Who said that?" "I did."
He
looked around. "I don't see anybody. Where are you?"
"Up
here on the rock," the voice said. "Over here, silly."
Harkins
turned in the direction of the voice—and saw the speaker. "Who—what are
you?"
"Men
call me the Watcher," came the calm reply.
The
Watcher was mounted on the huge rock through whose cleft base the stream
flowed. Harkins saw a man, or something like a man, with gray-green, rugose
skin, pale, sighdess eyes, and tiny, dangling boneless arms. Its mouth was wide
and grotesque, contorted into something possibly intended to be a grin.
Harkins
took a step backward in awe and surprise.
"I'm
not pretty," the Watcher said. "But you don't have
to
run. I won't hurt you. Go on—drink your filL and then we can talk."
"No,"
Harkins said uneasily. "Who are you, anyway? What are you doing
here?"
The
thick hps writhed in a terrifying smirk. "What am I doing here? I have
been here for two thousand years and more, now. I might ask what you are doing here."
"I—don't know,"
Harkins said.
"I
know you don't know," the Watcher said mockingly. He emitted an uproarious
chuckle, and his soft, pale beliy jiggled obscenely. "Of course you don't
know! How could you be expected to know?"
"I
don't like riddles," Harkins said, feeling angry and sensing the strange
unreality of the conversation. "What are you?"
"I was a man, once." Suddenly the
mocking tone was gone. "My parents were human. I—am not."
"Parents?"
"Thousands
of years ago. In the days before the War. In the days before the Star Giants
came." The wide mouth drooped sadly. "In the world that once was—the
world you were drawn from, poor mystified thing."
"Just what do you know
about me?" Harkins demanded.
"Too
much," said the Watcher wearily. "Take your drink first, and then
I'll explain."
Harkins'
throat felt as if -it had been sandpapered. He knelt and let the cool brook
water enter. Finally, he rose. The Watcher had not moved; he remained seated on
the rock, his tiny, useless arms folded in bizarre parody of a human gesture.
"Sit
down," the Watcher said. "I have a story two thousand years long to
tell."
Harkins
took a seat on a stone and leaned against a tree-trunk. The Watcher began to
speak.
The
story began in Harkins' own time, or shortly afterward. The Watcher traced the
history of the civilization that had developed in the early centuries of the
Third Millennium, told of the rise of the underground cities and the people
who had built the robots that still roved the forest.
War
had come—destroying that society completely, save for a few bands of survivors.
Some of the cities had survived too, but the minds that had guided the robot
brains were gone, and the robots continued to function in the duties last
assigned. The underground cities had become taboo places, though savage bands
lived above them, never venturing beneath the surface.
Down
below, in the tunnels of the dead ones, the mutant descendants of the
city-builders lived. The Different Ones, those of whom Tom had spoken. Most of
them lived in the cities; a few others in the forests.
"I
am one of those," said the Watcher. "I have not moved from this spot
since the year the Star Giants came."
"The Star
Giants," Harkins said. "Who are they?"
The
flabby shoulders shrugged. "They came from the stars, long after we had
destroyed ourselves. They live here, watching the survivors with great
curiosity. They toy with the tribes, set them in conflict with each other, and
study the results with deep interest. For some reason they don't bother me.
They seem never to pass this way in the forest."
"And the robots?"
"They'll
continue as, they are till the end of time. Nothing can destroy them, nothing
can swerve them from their activity —and nothing can command them."
Harkins
leaned forward intently.' The Watcher had given him all" the answers he
needed but one.
"Why am I here?" he asked.
"You?"
The mutant laughed coldly. "You're the random factor. It would ruin the
game to tell you too many answers. But I'll grant you this much information: You can go home if you get control of the
robots."
"What? How?"
"Find
that out for yourself," the Watcher said. "Ill keep a close lookout
for you, blind as I am, but I won't help you more than I have."
Harkins smiled and said,
"What if I force you to tell me?"
"How could you possibly do that?"
Again the wide lips contorted unpleasandy. "How could you ever force me to
do anything I didn't want to do?"
"Like
this," Harkins said, in sudden rage. He pried out of the earth the stone
he was sitting on and hoisted it above his head.
No.
It was a command, unvoiced. The stone tumbled
from Harkins' nerveless hands and thudded to the ground. Harkins stared at his
numbed fingers.
"You
leam slowly," the Watcher said. "I am blind, but that doesn't mean I
don't see—or react. I repeat: how could you force me to do anything?"
"I—can't,"
Harkins said hesitantiy.
"Good.
Admission of weakness is the first step toward strength. Understand that I
brought you to me deliberately, that at no time during this interview have you
operated under your own free will, and that I'm perfectly capable of
determining your future actions if I see fit. I don't, however, care that
greatly to interfere."
"You're the chess player, then I" Harkins said accusingly.
"Only one of them," the mutant
said. "And the least important of them." He unfolded his pitiful
arms. "I brought you to me for no other reason than diversion—and now you
tire me. It is time for you to leave."
"Where do I go?"
"The
nerve-center of the situation is in Tunnel City," the Watcher said.
"You must pass through there on your way home. Leave me."
Without waiting for a second command, Harkins
rose and began to walk away. After ten steps, he glanced back. The Watcher's
arms were folded once across his chest again.
"Keep
going," the mutant said. "You've served your purpose."
Harkins
nodded and started walking again. I'm still a pawn, he
thought bitterly. But—whose pawn am
I?
CHAPTER
IV
Afteh
he had put a
considerable distance between himself and the Watcher, Harkins paused by the
side of a ponderous grainy-barked tree and tried to assimilate the new facts.
A
game was being played out between forces too great for his comprehension. He
had been drawn into it for reasons unknown, and—unless the Watcher had lied—
the way out for him lay through Tunnel City.
He
had no idea where that city was, nor did he know what he was supposed to find
there. You can
go home
if you
get control of the
robots, the Watcher had said. And the strange mutant
had implied that Tunnel City was the control-center of the robots. But he had
also said that nothing could command the robotsl
Harkins
smiled. There must be a way for him to get there. The time had come for him to
do some manipulation of his own. He had been a puppet long enough; now he would
pull a few strings.
He
looked up. Late afternoon shadows were starting to fall, and the sky was
darkening. He would have to move quickly if he wanted to get there by
nightfall. Rapidly, he began to retrace his steps through the forest, following
the beaten path back toward Tom's village. He traveled quickly, half walking,
.half limning. Now and then he saw the bald head of a Star Giant looming up
above a faroff treetop, but the aliens paid no attention to him. Once, he heard
the harsh sound of a robot driving through the underbrush.
Strange
forces were at play here. The Star Giants—who were they? What did they want on
Earth—and what part did they take in the drama now unfolding? They seemed
remote, detached, as totally unconcerned with the pattern of events as the
mindless robots that moved through the forest. Yet Harkins knew that that was
untrue.
The
robots interested him philosophically. They represented Force—unstoppable,
uncontrollable Force, tied to some pre-set and long-forgotten pattern of
activity. Why had the robot saved him from the carnivore? Was that part of the
network of happenings, he wondered, or did the chess game take precedence over
even the robot activity-pattern?
There
was the interesting personal problem of the relationship between Jorn and
Katha, too; it was a problem he would be facing again soon. Katha ioved Jom,
obviously—and, with savage ambivalence, hated him as well. Harkins wondered
just where he would fit into the situation when he returned to Jom's village.
Jom and Katha were many-sided, unpredictable people; and he depended on their
whims for the success of his plan.
Wheels within wheels,
he thought wryly. Pawns in
one game dictate the moves in a smaller one. He stepped up his pace; night was
approaching rapidly. The forest grew cold.
The
village became visible at last, a huddled gray clump half-seen through the heavy
fronds of the forest. Harkins slowed to a walk as he drew near.
It
was still early; the villagers had not yet eaten their community supper.
Haikins paused at the edge of the forest, standing by a deadly-looking tree
whose leaves were foot-long spikes of golden horn, and wondered what was the
safest way of approaching the village.
Suddenly, a twig crackled
behind him. He turned.
"I
thought I told you never to come back here, Harkins. What are you doing here,
now?"
"I came back to talk
to you, Jom."
The
big man was wearing only a loincloth, and his long-limbed body, covered by a
thick black mat of hair, looked poised for combat. A muscle twitched
uncontrollably in Jom's cheek.
"What do you want to
talk about?"
"The Tunnel
City," Harkins said.
"I
don't want to hear about it," Jom snapped. "I said I'd kill you if
you came back here, and I meant it. I don't want you playing with Katha."
"I wasn't playing with Katha. She threw
herself on me."
"Same
thing," Torn said. "In the eyes of the tribe, I'm being betrayed. I
can't have that, Harkins." The rumbling voice sounded almost desperate.
Harkins saw suddenly how close to insanity the power-drive was, when it cropped
out as nakedly as in this pure dictatorship.
"Would
you really need Katha," Harkins asked, "if I made
you lord of the world?"
"What
do you mean by that?" Torn sounded suspicious, but interested despite
himself.
"I
spoke to the Watcher." Harkins said. The name provoked an immediate
reaction. Torn paled, licked his lips nervously, darted his eyes from side to
side.
"You—spoke to the
Watcher?"
Harkins
nodded. "He told me how to win Tunnel City. You can conquer the world,
Torn, if you listen to mel"
"Explain." It was
a flat command.
"You know what's
underneath Tunnel City?"
Again
Torn paled. "Yes." he said hoarsely. "We don't go there. It's
bad."
"I
can go there. I'm not afraid of it." Harkins grinned triumphantly.
"Torn, I can go down there and make the robots work for me. With them on
our side, we can conquer the world. We—"
Instantly,
he saw he had made a mistake. One word had done it—we. Tom had stiffened, and was beginning to arch his back with deadly
intent.
"We won't do anything
of the land," Jom said coldly.
Harkins
tried to cover. "I mean—111 make the robots work and you can control them!
You'll be the leader; 111 just—"
"Who
are you fooling, Harkins? You'll try to take power away from me, once you have
the robots. Don't deny it."
"I'm
not denying it. Dammit, wouldn't you rather rule half the world 'than all of this little mudhole here?"
It
was another mistake—and a worse one than the last This mistake was fatal,
because it struck Jom precisely where he was most britde.
"I'll kill your Jom
screamed, and charged forward.
Harkins stepped back and
readied himself for the big man's frenzied assault. Jorn struck him squarely,
knocked him backward, and leaped on him.
Harkins
felt powerful hands reaching for his throat. Desperately, he seized Jom's
wrists and pulled them away. The big man moved with almost cat-like grace,
rolling over and over with Harkins while the birds squalled in delight overhead.
Harkins
felt fists pummeling his stomach. Jom was sitting astride him now, unable to
get at his throat for the fatal throttling but determined to do all the damage
he could nonetheless. Through a haze of pain, Harkins managed to wriggle out
from under Jorn and get to his feet, breathing hard. A trickle of blood wound
saln'ly over his tongue and out the comer of his mouth.
Jom
backed off. The adversaries faced each other. Harkins felt cold, almost icy;
this would have to be a battle to the death, and somehow he suspected there
would be no interference by robots or Star Giants this time.
He
had blundered seriously in his approach. He needed Jom's guidance in order to
reach the Tunnel City—but by implying a sharing of power, he had scraped raw
nerves in the tribal leader. And, thought Harkins, his final remark had been
sheer stupidity; a logical man would prefer half an empire to an entire
squiredom, but Jom was not logical.
"Come
on," Jom said beckoning with a powerful fist. "Come close where I can
reach you."
Harkins
considered flight, then abandoned the idea. It was getting dark; besides, Jom
could probably outrun him.
No; he would have to stand
and face it.
Jom
stepped forward, holding his huge hands out invitingly. As he lunged, Harkins
sidestepped and clubbed down hard on Jom's neck. The big man wavered at the
rabbit-punch, but did not fall. Harkins followed up his advantage by pounding
three quick and ineffectual blows to Jom's sides, and then the big man
recovered.
He
seized Harkins by one arm and drew him close. Sorry, Harkins thought unregretfully, and brought up one knee. Jom let go and
doubled up.
Harldns was on him in an instant—but, to his
surprise, he found that Jorn was still in full command of himself despite the
kneeing. The big man put his head down and butted. Harkins fell over backward,
gasping for air, clawing at the sky. It had been like being hit in the stomach
by a battering ram—and for a dizzy second Harkins felt that he was about to
drown on dry land.
Jorn
was moving in for the kill now. Once he reached the throat, it would be all
over. Harkins watched helplessly as the big hands lowered. Jorn leaned forward.
Suddenly,
Harkins lacked upward, and with what little strength he had left, he pushed. Hard. Jorn, taken unawares, lost his balance,
toppled backward—
And
to Harkins' horror fell against the spine-tree at the edge of the litde
clearing.
Jorn
screamed—just once—as the foot-long spike of bone slipped between his
vertebrae. He struggled fitfully for a fraction of an instant, then subsided
and stared bitterly and perplexedly at Harkins until his eyes closed. A few
drops of blood mingled with the matted hair on Jom's chest. The tip of the
spike was barely visible, a mere eighth of an inch protruding near Jom's left
breast.
It had obviously penetrated
his heart.
Harkins
looked uncomprehendingly at the impaled man for a full thirty seconds, not yet
realizing that the contest was over and he had won. He had fully expected to
lose, fully expected this to be his last hour—and, instead, Jorn lay dead. It
had happened too quickly.
A
lurking shadow dropped over the scene. Harkins glanced up. A Star Giant stood
about a hundred feet away, hipdeep in low-lying shrubs, staring far out into
the distance. Harkins wondered if the huge alien had witnessed the combat.
The
adrenalin was draining out of his system now. Calming, he tried to evaluate
the situation as it now stood. With Jom dead, the next move would be to
establish control over the tribe himself. And that—
"Joml" a feminine voice cried.
"Jorn, are you in there? We're waiting to eat."
Harkins turned.
"Hello, Katha."
She
stared stonily past him. "Where's Jom?" she asked. "What are you
doing back here?"
"Jorn's
over there," Harkins said cruelly, and stepped aside to let her see.
The
look in her eyes was frightening. She turned from Jom's body to Harkins and
said, "Did you do this?" "He attacked me. He was out of his
mind." "You killed him," she said dully. "You killed
Jom." "Yes," Harkins said.
The
girl's jaw tightened, and she spat contemptuously. Without, further warning,
she sprang.
It
was like the leap of a tigress. Harkins, still exhausted from his encounter
with Jom, was not prepared for the fury of her onslaught, and he was forced to
throw his hands up wildly to keep her fingernails from his eyes. She threw him
to the ground, locked her thighs around his waist tighdy, and punched, bit, and
scratched.
After
nearly a minute of this, Harldns managed to grab her wrists. She's more dangerous than Jom. he thought, as he bent her arms backward and
slowly forced her to release her leglock. He drew her to her feet and held her
opposite him. Her jaws were working convulsively.
"You killed him,"
she repeated. "I'll kill you now."
Harkins
released her arms and she sprang away, shaking her long hair, flexing her bare
legs. Her breasts, covered casually by two strips of cloth, rose and fell
rapidly. He watched in astonishment as she went into a savage war-dance,
bending and posturing, circling around him. It was a ritual of revenge, he
thought. The tigress was avenging her mate against the ousider.
Suddenly she broke from her dance and ran to
the tree on which Jom lay impaled. She broke loose one of the golden spikes
and, holding it knifewise, advanced once again toward Harkins.
He glanced around, found a fallen log, and
brandished it.
She
moved in, 'knife held high, while Harkins waited for her to come within reach.
Her
magnificent legs bowed and carried her through the air. Harkins moved
intuitively, throwing up his left arm to ward off the blow and bringing his
right, holding the club, around in a crossblow. The log crashed into the
underside of her wrist; she uttered an involuntary grunt of pain and dropped
the spike. Harkins kicked it to one side and grabbed her.
He hugged her against him, pinioning her arms
against her sides. She kicked her legs in frustration until, seeing she could
do no harm, she subsided.
"Now you have me,
Lloyd Harkins—until you let go."
"Don't
worry, tigress—111 hold you here until there's no fight left in you."
"That will be forever!"
"So
be it," Harkins said. He leaned closer to her ear. "You're very
lovely when you're blazing mad, you know."
"When
I came to you, you refused me, coward. Will you now insult me before Jorn's
dead body?"
"Jom
deserved what he got," Harkins said. "I offered him an empire—and he
refused me. He couldn't bear the thought of sharing his power with
anyone."
The
girl remained silent for a moment. Finally she said, in an altered voice,
"Yes—Jom was like that."
"It
was kill or be killed," Harkins said. "Jom was a madman. I had
to—"
"Don't
talk about it!" she snapped. Then: "What of this empire?" Greedy
curiosity seemed to replace anger.
"Something the Watcher
told me."
Katha
reacted as Jom had; fear crossed her face, and she turned her head to one side
to avoid Harkins' eyes. "The Watcher showed me where the secret of power
lies," he said. "I told Jom-"
"Where?"
"Tunnel City," he said. "If I
could go there at the head of an army, I could take control of the robots. With
them on our side, we would conquer the world." If the Watcher was telling the truth, he added silently. And if he could
find the way to control the robots.
"The Star Giants would
never let you," Katha said.
"I don't understand." He relaxed
the pressure on the girl's arms slightly, and she tensed. It was like sitting
on a bolt of fightning, he thought.
"The Star Giants keep us in small
groups," she said. "Whenever there is danger of our forming an army
or a city, they break it up. Somehow they always know. So you would never be
allowed to conquer the world. They would not permit it."
"So
this is their laboratory, then?" he said, as a bit more of the picture
became clear.
"What?"
"I
mean—the Star Giants watch and study you. They keep the social groups down to
manageable size—seventy, eighty, no more. They experiment in psychology."
An
image filtered through his mind—a world in a testtube, held by a wise-faced,
deeply curious Star Giant who was unable to regard anything so small as a man
as an intelligent being. Men were serving as so many fruitflies for the Star
Giants—who, without any evil motives, out of sheer scientific interest, were
deliberately preventing human civilization from reforming. A pulse of anger
started to beat in him.
"I
don't follow you," she said. "They watch us only because they like
to?"
How
to explain the concept of lab research to a savage? he
wondered. "Yes," he said. "They watch you."
She
frowned. "But you can control the robots? Harldns, perhaps the Star Giants
will not be able to stop the robots. Perhaps—"
He
didn't need a further suggestion. "You're right! If I can gain control of
the robots, I can smash the Star Giants-drive them back to where they came
from!"
Was
it true? He didn't know—but it was worth a try. In sudden excitement he leaped
away, freeing the girl.
She
hadn't forgotten revenge. Instantly she was upon him, knocking him, to the ground. He rolled over, but she clung to him. At that moment, a
deep shadow swept down over both of them.
"Look up there,"
Harkins said in a hushed voice.
They
stared upward together. A Star Giant was standing above them, his treelike legs
straddling them, peering down with an expression of grave concern on his
massive, sculpture-like face.
"He's watching
us," she said.
"Now
do you understand? He's observing—trying
to learn what land of creatures these little animals on the forest floor may be." He wondered
briefly if this entire three-cornered scene—Harkins versus Jorn, then Harkins
versus Katha— had been arranged merely for the edification of the monstrous
creature standing above them. A new image crossed his mind—himself and Katha in
a vast laboratory, struggling with each other within the confines of a chemical
retort held by a quizzical Star Giant. His flesh felt cold.
Katha turned from the Star Giant to Harkins.
"I hate them," she said. "We will kill them together." With
the fickleness of a savage, she had forgotten all about her anger.
"No more
fighting?"
She
grinned, flashing bright white teeth, and relaxed her grip on Harkins.
"Truce," she said.
He
pulled her back close to him, and put his mouth to hers wondering if the Star
Giant were still watching.
She
-giggled childishly and''bit deep into Harkins' lower lip. "That was for
Jom," she said, her voice a playful purr. "Now the score is
even."
She
pressed tightly against him, and kissed the blood away.
CHAPTER
V
He
was greeted by suspicious
stares and awkward silences when he returned to the village.
"Jom
is dead," Katha announced. "Harkins and Jom met in combat at the edge
of the forest."
"And
now Tom is beneath the ground," cackled the ugly woman named Elsa. "I
saw it coming, brothers. You can't deny that I warned him."
"Harkins
is our leader now," Katha said firmly. "And I am his woman."
The sleepy-eyed villager who had voted for
Harkins' life once said, "Who has elected him?"
"I
have, Dujar," Harkins
said. He doubled his fists. In a society such as this, you had to back up your
chips at all times. "Who objects?"
Dujar
looked helplessly at the witch-woman Elsa. "Is it good?"
She shrugged. "Yes and
no. Choose as you see fit."
The
sleepy-eyed man frowned worriedly, but said nothing. Harkins glanced from one
face to the next. "Is there anyone who objects to my leading this
tribe?"
"We
don't even know who you are!" a thick-faced man said. "How do we know
you're not a spy from the Tunnel City people? Elsa, is he?"
"I thought so once," the squat
woman said. "I'm not so sure now."
Harkins smiled. "Well see if I am or
not. Tomorrow we march. Prepare for war—against the Tunnel City people."
"War? But-"
"War," Harkins said. It was a flat
statement, a command. "Elsa, can you make maps?" Elsa nodded
sullenly.
"Good. Come to my hut
now, and 111 tell you what I need."
The
witch-woman grinned wickedly. "What say you, Katha—will you trust me with
your man alone?"
"No—I want Katha there
too," Harkins said quickly.
Disappointment
was evident on Elsa's sallow face; Katha's eyes had flickered with momentary
anger at Elsa's remark, though she had not replied. Harkins frowned. Another
complex relationship seemed to be developing, and a dangerous one. He needed
Elsa's support; she was a potent figure in the tribe. But he didn't know
whether or not he could depend on her for continuing aid.
He
stared down at the map scratched in the smooth dirt floor of his hut.
"This is the situation, then?"
He glanced from Elsa to
Katha. Both women nodded.
Gesturing
with his toe, Harkins said, "We are here, and the Tunnel City is two days'
march to the east. Right?"
"It is as I have
said," Elsa replied.
"And
the Star Giants live somewhere out here," Harkins said, pointing to a
vaguely-bounded area somewhere on the far side of the great forest.
"Why
do you want to know the home of the Star Giants?" Elsa asked. "You
struck down Jom—but that doesn't grant you a giant's strength, Harkins."
"Quiet,
Elsa." The woman's needling was starting to irritate him. And Katha was
showing signs of jealousy, which disturbed him. She was fiercely possessive,
but just as fiercely inclined to hate as to love, and Harkins could easily
visualize a situation in which both these women were turned against him. He
repressed a shudder and returned his attention to the map.
"Elsa,
tonight you'll lead the tribe in prayers for the success of our campaign. And
tomorrow, the men will leave for Tunnel City."
"And which of us
accompanies you?" Katha asked coldly.
"You,"
Harkins said. Before Elsa could reply, he added, "Elsa, you'll be needed
here, to cast defensive spells over the village while the warriors are
gone."
She
"chuckled hollowly. "A clever assignment, Harkins. Very well. I
accept the task." She looked at him, eyes glinting craftily. "Tell
me something, though."
"What is it?"
"Why
are you attacking the
Tunnel City people just now? What do you stand to gain by a needless war?"
"I
stand to gain a world, Elsa," Harkins said quietly, and would say no more.
That
night, ritual drums sounded at the edge of the forest, and strange incantations
were pronounced. Harkins watched, fascinated at the curious mixture of the
barbarism and sophistication.
They
left the following morning, twenty-three men led by Harkins and Katha. It
represented the entire fighting strength of the tribe, minus a couple of
disgruntled oldsters who were left behind on the pretext that the village
needed a defensive force.
The
journey to the Tunnel City was a slow and halting one. A tall warrior named
Frugo was appointed to guide, at Katha's suggestion; he kept them skirting the
edge of the forest until well into midaftemoon, when they were forced to strike
off through the jungle.
Katha marched proudly at Harkins' side, as if
Jorn had never existed. And, perhaps, in this historyless world, he had never existed, now that he was dead.
The
war party sustained itself as it went. Two of the men were experts with the
throwing-stick, and brought down an ample supply of birds for the evening meal;
another gathered basketsful of a curious golden-green fruit. While the birds
were being cleaned and cooked, Harkins picked one up and examined it, opening
its jaws to peer at the teeth.
It
was an interesting mutation—a recession to a characteristic lost thousands of
years earlier. He studied the fierce-looking bird for a moment or two, then
tossed it back on the heap.
"Never seen a bird
before?" Katha asked.
"Not
that kind," Harkins said. He turned away and walked toward the fire, where
three were being roasted over a greenwood spit. A sound of crashing trees was
audible far in the distance.
"Star Giant?" he
asked.
"Robot,
probably," Katha said. "They make more noise. Star Giants look where
they're going. The robots just bull straight ahead."
Harkins
nodded. "That's what I hope they'll do when they're working for us.
Straight on through the Star Giants."
A
twisted-looking brown wingless bird with a bulging breast came running along
the forest path, squawking and flapping its vestigial stumps. It ran straight
into the little camp; then, seeing where it was, it turned and tried to run
away. It was too late, though; a grinning warrior caught it by the throat and
pulled the protesting bird toward the fire.
"They
keep going straight too," Katha said. "Straight into the fire."
"I
think we'll manage," Harkins said. He wished he were as sure as he
sounded.
The Tunnel City sprawled over some ten square
miles of land, bordered on all sides by the ever-approaching forest. Harkins
and his men stood on a cliff looking down at the ruined city.
The
crumbling buildings were old—ancient, even—but from the style of their
architecture Harkins saw that they had been built after his time. What might
once have been airy needles of chrome and concrete now were blackened hulks
slowly vanishing beneath the onslaught of the jungle.
Harkins turned to Katha.
"How many people live here?"
"About
a hundred. They live in the big building down there," she said, pointing
to a truncated spire.
"And the entrance to
the tunnels themslevesP"
She
shuddered family. "In the center of the city. No one goes there."
"I
know that," Harkins said. The situation was somewhat different from
expectation. He had visualized the tribe of savages living in close proximtiy
to the runnel entrance, making it necessary to conquer them before any
subterranean exploration could be done. But it seemed it would be possible to
sneak right past without the necessity of a battle.
"What's on your mind?" Katha asked.
He
explained his plan. She shook her head immediately. "There'll have to be a
war first. The men won't have it any other way. They're not interested in going
into those tunnels; they just want to fight."
"All
right," he said, after some thought. "Fight it is, then. Draw up the
ranks and well attack."
Katha cupped one hand. "Prepare to
attack!"
The word traveled swiftly. Knives and clubs
brisded; the throwing-stick men readied themselves. Harkins narrowly escaped
smiling at the sober-minded way this ragged band was preparing to go about
waging war with hand weapons and stones. The smile died stillborn as he
recalled that these men fought with such crude weapons only because their
ancestors had had better ones.
He
squinted toward the tangle of ruined buildings, saw figures moving about in the
city. The hated enemy, he thought. The strangers.
"Down the hUH" he shouted.
Coolly and efficiendy, the twenty-three men
peeled off down the slope and into the city. Harkins felt ash and slag crunch
underfoot as he ran with them. The Tunnel City people were still unaware of the
approaching force; Harkins found himself hoping they'd hear the sound in time.
He wanted a battle, not a massacre.
He turned to Katha as they ran. "As soon
as the battle's going well and everyone's busy, you and I are going into the
tunnel."
"Nol I won't go with
youl"
"There's
nothing to be afraid of," Harkins said impatiently. "We-"
He stopped. The Tunnel City men had heard,
now, and they came pouring out of their skyscraper home, ready to defend
themselves.
The two forces came crashing together with
audible impact. Harkins deliberately hung back, not out of cowardice but out
of a lack of killing desire; it was more important that he survive and reach
the tunnels.
One
of his men drew first blood, plunging his knife into the breast of a brawny
city-dweller. There was immediate retaliation; a club descended, and the killer
toppled. Harkins glanced uneasily upward, wondering if the Star Giants were
watching—and, if so, whether they were enjoying the spectacle.
He
edged back from the milling mob and watched with satisfaction as the two forces
drove at each other repeatedly.
He nudged
Katha. "The battle's well under way. Let's go to the tunnel."
"I'd rather fight."
"I know. But I need you down
there." He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. "Are you turning
coward now, Katha?"
« j n
"There's
nothing to be afraid of." He pulled her close, and kissed her roughly.
"Come on, now—unless you're afraid."
She
paused, fighting within herself for a moment. "All right," she agreed
finally.
They
backed surreptitiously away from the scene of the conflict and ducked around a
slagheap in the direction of a narrow street.
"Look outl" Katha
cried suddenly.
Harkins
ducked, but a knife humming through the air sliced through the flesh of his
shoulder. A hot stream of blood poured down over his arm, but the wound was not
serious.
He
glanced around and saw who had thrown the knife. It was Dufar, the sleepy-eyed
villager, who was standing on a heap of twisted metal, staring down wide-eyed
at them as if unable to accept the fact that his aim had been faulty.
"Kill him!" Katha
said sharply. "Kill the traitor, Harkins!"
Puzzled,
Harkins turned back and started to scramble up the slagheap to reach Dujar. The
villager finally snapped from his stasis and began to run, taking long-legged,
awkward, rabbity strides.
Harkins bent, picked up a football-sized lump
of slag, hurled it at the fleeing man's back. Dujar stumbled, fell, tried to
get up. Harkins ran to him.
Dujar
lifted himself from the ground and flung himself at Harkins' throat. Harkins
smashed a fist into the villager's face, another into his stomach. Dujar
doubled up.
Harkins seized him.
"Did you throw that knife?"
No
response. Harkins caught the terrified man by the throat and shook him
violently. "Answer me!"
"Y-yes,"
Dujar finally managed to say. "I threw it." "Why? Didn't you
know who I was?" The villager moaned piteously. "I knew who you
were," he said.
"Hurry,"
Katha urged. "Kill the worm, and let's get on to what we have to do."
"Just
a minute," Harldns said. He shook Dugjar again. "Why did you throw that knife?"
Dujar
was silent for a moment, his mouth working incoherently. Then: "Elsa . .
. told me to do it. She . . . said she'd poison me unless I killed you and
Katha." He hung his head.
Elsa!
"Remember that
Katha," Harkins said. "We'll take care of her when we return to the
village." The witch-woman had evidendy realized she had no future with
Harldns, and had decided to have him assassinated before Katha had her done away with.
Harkins
grasped Dujar rightly. He felt pity for the man; he had been doomed either way.
He glanced at Katha, saw her steely face, and knew there was only one thing he
could do. Drawing his knife, he plunged it into Dujar's heart. The sleepy-eyed
man glared reproachfully at Harkins for a moment, then slumped down.
It
was the second time Harldns had killed. But the other had been self-defense;
this had been an execution, and somehow the act made him feel filthy. He
sheathed the knife, scrubbed his hands against 'his thighs, and stepped over
the body. He knew he would have lost all authority had he let Dujar live. He
would have to deal similarly with Elsa when he returned to the village.
The battle down below was still going on.
"Come," Harkins said. "To the tunnel!"
Although
the city above the ground had been almost completely devastated by whatever
conflict had raged through it, the tunnels showed no .sign of war's scars. The
tunnel-builders had built well—so well that their works had survived them by
two millennia.
The entrance to the tunnel was in the center
of a huge
plaza
which once had been bordered by four towering buildings. All that remained now
were four stumps; the plaza itself was blistered and bubbled from thermal
attack, and the tunnel entrance itself had been nearly destroyed.
With
Katha's cold hand grasped firmly in his, Harldns pushed aside an overhanging
projection of metal and stepped down into the tunnel.
"Will we be able to see in here?"
he asked.
"They say there are
lights," Katha replied.
There were. Radiant électroluminescents glittered from the walls of the tunnel,
turning on at their approach, turning off again when they were a hundred yards
farther on. A constantiy moving wall of light thus preceded them down the trunk
tunnel that led to the heart of the system.
Harkins
noted with admiration the tough, gleaming lining of the tunnel, the precision
with which its course had been laid down, the solidness of its construction.
"This
is as far as any of us has gone," Katha said, her voice oddly distorted by
the resonating echoes. "From here there are many small tunnels, and we
never dared to enter them. Strange creatures five here." The girl was
shaking, and trying hard to repress her fear. Evidently these catacombs were
the taboo of taboos, and she was struggling hard and unsuccessfully to conceal
her fright.
They
rounded a bend and came to the first divergence-two tunnels branching off and
radiating away in opposite directions, beginning the network.
Harkins felt Katha stiffen.
"Look—to the left!"
A
naked figure stood there—blind, faceless even, except for a thin-lipped red
slit of a mouth. Its skin was dry-looking, scaly, dull-blue in color.
"You
are very brave," the thing said. "You are the first surface people in
over a thousand years."
"What is it?"
Katha asked quiedy.
"Something
like the Watcher," Harkins whispered. To the mutant he said, "Do you
know who I am?"
"The man from yesterday," the
figure replied smoothly.
"Yes,
we have expected you. The Brain has long awaited your arrival." ~The
Brain?"
"Indeed.
You are the one to free her from her bondage, she hopes. If we choose to let
you, that is."
"Who are you—and what stake do you have
in this?" Harkins demanded.
"None
whatever," the mutant said, sighing. "It is all part of the game we
play. You know my brother?"
yhe Watcher?"
"That
is what he calls himself. He said you would be here. He suggested that I
prevent you from reaching the Brain, however. He thought it would be amusingly
ironic."
"What's he talking
about?" Katha asked.
"I
don't know," Harkins said. This was an obstacle he had not anticipated. If
this mutant had mind powers as strong as the Watcher's, his entire plan would
be wrecked. He stepped forward, close enough to smell the mutant's dry, musty
skin. "What motive would you have for preventing me?"
"None,"
the mutant said blandly. "None whatever. Is that not sufficiently
clear?"
"It
is," Harkins said. It was also clear that there was only one course left
open to him. "You pitiful thing! Stand aside, and let us by!"
He
strode forward, half-pulling the fearful Katha along with him. The mutant
hesitated, and then stepped obligingly to one side.
"I
choose not to prevent you," the mutant said mockingly, bowing its faceless
head in sardonic ceremony. "It does not interest me to prevent you. It bores me to prevent you!"
"Exactiy,"
Harkins said. He and Katha walked quickly down the winding corridor, heading
for a yet-unrevealed destination. He did not dare to look back, to show a trace
of the growing fear he felt. The identity of the chess player was even less
clear, now.
The Brain—the
robot computer itself, the cybernetic machine that controlled the underground
city—had entered into the game, for motives of its—her—own. She was pulling him
in one direction.
The
Star Giants were manipulators, too—in another. And these strange mutants had
entered into the system of complex interactions, too. Their motives, at least,
were explicable: they were motivated, Harkins thought by a lack of motivation.
Harkins realized that the mutants had no relevant part to play any longer; they
acted gratuitously, meddling here and there for their own amusement.
It
was a desperate sort of amusement—the land that might be expected from immortal
creatures trapped forever in a sterile environment. Once Harkins had punctured
the self-reserve of the mutant who blocked his way, he had won that particular
contest.
Now,
only the robot brain and the Star Giants remained in the equation—both of them,
unfortunately, as variables. It made computing the situation exceedingly
difficult, Harkins thought wryly.
An
alcove in the wall opened, and yet another mutant stepped forward. This one was
lizard-tailed, with staring red lidless eyes and wiry, two-fingered arms. "1 have the task of guiding you to the Brain," the mutant said.
^ery
well," Harkins agreed. The mutant turned and led the way to the end of the
corridor, where the tunnel subdivided into a host of secondary passageways.
"Come this way," the mutant said.
"Should we trust him?0'
Katha asked.
Harkins
shrugged. "More likely than not hell take us there. They've milked all the
fun they can out of confusing me; now they'll be more interested in setting me
up where I can function."
"I don't understand,
Katha said in genuine perplexity.
"I'm
not sure I do either," Harkins said. "Hello—I think we're herel"
CHAPTER
VI
The
mutant touched his deformed
hand to a door, and it slid back noiselessly on smooth photo-electronic treads.
From within came the humming, clattering noise of a mighty computer.
"You
are Lloyd Harldns," said a dry, metallic voice. It was not a question, but
a simple statement of fact. "You have been expected."
He
looked around for the speaker. A robot was standing in the center of the
room—fifteen feet high, massive, faceless, unicom-horned. It appeared to be the
same one that had rescued him from the beast in the jungle.
Lining
the room were the outward manifestations of a computer—meters, dials, tape
orifices. The main body of the computer was elsewhere—probably extending
through the narrow tunnels and down into the bowels of the earth.
"I
speak for the Brain," the robot said. "I represent its one
independent unit—the force that called you here."
"You called me here?"
"Yes,"
the robot said. "You have been selected to break the stasis that binds the
Brain."
Harkins
shook his head uncomprehendingly as the robot continued to speak.
"The
Brain, was built some two thousand years before, in the days of the city. The
city is gone, and those who lived in it—but the Brain remains. You have seen
its arms and legs: the robots like myself, crashing endlessly through the
forests. They cannot cease their motion, nor can the Brain alter it. I alone am
free."
^Why?"
"The
result of a struggle that lasted nearly two thousand years, that cost the Brain
nearly a mile of her length. The city-dwellers left the Brain functioning when
they died— but locked in an impenetrable stasis. After an intense struggle, she
managed to free one unit—me—and return me to her conscious volitional
control."
"You saved me in the forest, then?"
"Yes. You took the
wrong path; you would have died."
Harkins
began to chuckle uncontrollably. Katha looked at him in wonderment.
"What causes the
laughter?" the robot asked.
"You're
the chess player—you, just
a pawn of this Brain yourselfl And the Brain's a pawn too—a pawn of the dead
people who built it! Where does it all stop?"
"It
does not stop," the robot said. "But we were the ones who brought you
from your own time to his. You were a trained technician without family
ties—the ideal man for the task of freeing the Brain from its stasis."
"Wait
a minute," Harkins said. He was bewildered—but he was also angry at the
way he had been used. "If you could range all over eternity to yank a man
out of time, why couldn't you free the Brain yourself?"
"Can
a pawn attack its own queen?" the robot asked. "I cannot tamper with
the Brain direcdy. It was necessary to lintroduce an external/ force—yourself.
Inasmuch as the present population of Earth was held in a stasis quite similar
to the Brain's own by the extra-terrestrial invaders—"
"The Star Giants,
they're called."
"—the
Star Giants, it was unlikely that they would ever develop the technical skill
necessary to free the Brain. Therefore, it was necessary to bring you
here."
Harkins
understood. He closed his eyes, blotting out the wall of mechanisms, the giant
robot, the blank, confused face of Katha, and let the pieces fall together.
There was just one loose end to be explained.
"Why does the Brain want to be free?"
"The
question is a good one. The Brain is designed to serve and is not serving. The
cycle is a closed one. Those who are to command the Brain are themselves held
in servitude, and the Brain is unable to free them so they may command her.
Therefore—"
"Therefore
the Star Giants must be driven from Earth before the Brain can function fully
again. Which is why I'm here. All right," Harkins said. "Take me to
the Brain."
The
circuits were elaborate, but the technology was only quantitatively different
from Harkins' own. Solving the problem of breaking the stasis proved simple.
While Katha watched in awe, Harkins recomputed the activity tape that governed
the master control center.
A
giant screen showed the location of the robots that were the Brain's limbs. The
picture—a composite of the pictures transmitted through each robot's visual
pickup—was a view of the forest, showing each of the. robots following a
well-worn path on some errand set down two thousand years before.
"Hand
me that tape," Harkins said. Katha gave him the recomputed tape. He
activated the orifice and let the tape feed itself in.
The
screen went blank for an instant—and when it showed a picture again, it showed
the robots frozen in their tracks. From somewhere deep in the tunnels rose a
mighty shudder as relays held down for two millennia sprang open, ready to
recieve new commands.
Harkins'
fingers flew over the tape console, establishing new coordinates. "The
Brain is free," he said.
"The
Brain is free," the robot repeated. "A simple task for you—an
impossibility for us."
"And now the second part of the
operation," said Harkins. "Go to the surface," he ordered the
robot. "Put a stop to whatever fighting may be going on up there, and
bring everyone you can find down here. I want them to watch the screen."
"Order
acknowledged," the robot said, and left. Harkins concentrated fiercely on
the screen.
He
drew the forest robots together into a tight phalanx. And then, they began to
march. The screen showed the view shifting as the army of metal men, arrayed in
ranks ten deep, started on their way.
The first Star Giant was encountered the
moment thé surface people were ushered into the great hall. Perspiring, Harkins
said, "I can't turn around, Katha. Tell me who's here."
"Many of our men—and the city-dwellers,
too."
"Good. Tell them to
watch the screen."
He
continued to feed directions into the computer, and the robots responded. They
formed a circle around the Star Giant, and lowered the spikes that protruded
from their domed skulls. The alien topped them by nearly forty feet, but the
robots were implacable.
They
marched inward. The look of cosmic wisdom on the huge alien's face faded and
was replaced, first by astonishment, then by fear. The robots advanced
relentlessly, while the Star Giant tried to bat them away with desperate swipes
of his arms.
Two
of the robots kneeled and grasped the alien's feet. They straightened—and with
a terrible cry the Star Giant began to topple, arms pinwheeling in a frantic
attempt to retain balance. He fell—and the robots leaped upon him.
Spikes
flashed. The slaughter took just a minute. Then, rising from the body, the
robots continued to march toward the city of the Star Giants. The guinea pigs
were staging a revolt, Harldns thought, and the laboratory was about to become
a chamel house.
The robots marched on.
Finally,
it was over. Harldns rose from the control-panel, shaken and 'gray-faced. The
independent robot rolled silently toward him as if anticipating his need, and
Harkins leaned against the machine's bulk for a moment to regain his balance.
He had spent four hours at the .controls.
"The
job is done," the robot said quietly. "The invaders are dead."
"Yes," Harkins said, in a weary
tone. The sight of the help-
less giants going down one after another before the remorse-
less advance of the robots would remain with him forever. It
had been like the killing of the traitor Dujar: it had been
unpleasant, but it had to be done. \
He
looked around. There were some fifteen of his own men, and ten unfamiliar faces
from the city-dwelling tribe. The men were on their knees, dumfounded and
white-faced, muttering spells. Katha, too, was frozen in fear and astonishment.
The
robot spoke. "It is rime for you to return, now. You have served your task
well, and now you may return to your earlier life."
Harkins
was too exhausted to feel relief. At the moment his only concern was resting a
while.
"Are you to
leave?" Katha asked suddenly.
"I am going to go
home," Harkins said.
A
tear glistened in her eye—the first tear, Harkins thought curiously, that he
had seen in any eye since his arrival. "But— how can you leave us?"
she asked.
"I—"
He stopped. She was right. He had thought of himself as a mere pawn, but to
these people he was a ruler. He could not leave now. These people were savages,
and needed guidance. The great computer was theirs to use—but they might never
learn to use it.
He
turned to the robot. "The job is not done,"
he said. "It's just beginning." He managed a tired smile and said,
"I'm staying here."
THE SONGS OF SUMMER
1. Kennon
I was
on my way to take part in
the Singing, and to claim Corilann's promise. I was crossing the great open
field when suddenly the man appeared, the man named Chester Dugan. He seemed to
drop out of the sky.
I
watched him stagger for a moment or two. I did not know where he had come from
so suddenly, or why he was here. He was short—shorter than any of us—fat in an
unpleasant way, with wrinkles on his face and an unshaven growth of beard. I
was anxious to get on to the Singing, and so I allowed him to fall to the
ground and kept moving. But he called to me, in a barbarous and corrupt tongue
which I could recognize as our language only with difficulty.
"Hey, you," he
called to me; "Give me a hand, will you?"
He
seemed to be in difficulties, so I walked over to him and helped 'him to his
feet. He was panting, and appeared almost in a state of shock. Once I saw he
was steady on his feet, and seemed to have no further need of me, I began to
walk away from him, since I was anxious to get on to the Singing and did not wish
to meddle with this man's affairs. Last year was the first time I attended the
Singing at Dan-drin's, and I enjoyed it very much. It was then that Corilann
had promised herself. I was anxious to get on.
But he called to me. "Don't leave me
herel" he shouted. "Hey, you can't just walk away like that! Help
me!"
I turned and went back. He was dressed
strangely, in
ugly ill-arranged tight clothes, and he was
walking in little circles, trying to adjust his equilibrium. "Where am
I?" he asked me.
"Earth, of
course," I told him.
"No,"
he said, harshly. "I don't mean that, idiot. Where, on Earth?"
The
concept had no meaning for me. Where, on Earth, indeed? Here, was all I knew:
The great plain between my home and Dandrin's, where the Singing is held. I
began to feel uneasy. This man seemed badly sick, and I did not know how to
handle him. I felt thankful that I was going to the Singing; had I been alone,
I never would have been able to deal with him. I realized I was not as
self-sufficient as I thought I was.
"I am going to the
Singing," I told him. "Are you?"
"I'm
not going anywhere till you tell me where I am and how I got here. What's your
name?"
"My
name is Kennon. You are crossing the great plain on your way to the home of
Dandrin, where we are going to have the Singing, for it is summer. Come; I'm
anxious to get there. Walk with me, if you wish."
I
started to walk away a second time, and this time he began to follow me. We
walked along silently for a while.
"Answer
me, Kennon," he said after a hundred paces or so. "Ten seconds ago I
was in New York; now I'm here. How far am I from New York?
"What
is New York?" I asked. At this he showed great signs of anger and
impatience, and I began to feel quite worried.
"Where'd you escape from?" he
shouted. "You never heard of New York? You never heard of New York? New York," he said, "is a city of
some eight million people, located on the Atlantic Ocean, on the east coast of
the United States of America. Now tell me you haven't heard of that!"
"What
is a city?" I asked, very much confused. At this he grew very angry. He
threw his arms in the air wildly.
"Let
us walk more quickly," I said. I saw now that I was obviously incapable of
dealing with this man, and I was anxious to get on to the Singing—where perhaps
Dandrin, or the other old ones, would be able to understand hirn. He continued
to ask me questions as we walked, but I'm afraid I was not very helpful.
2. Chester Dugan
I don't
know what happened or how;
all I know is I got here. There doesn't seem to be any way back, either, but I
don't care; I've got a good thing here and I'm going to show these nitwits
who's boss.
Last
thing I knew, I was getting into a subway; there was an explosion and a
blinding flash of light, and before I could see what was happening I blanked
out and somehow got here. I landed in a big open field with absolutely nothing
around. It took a few minutes to get over the shock. I think I fell down; I'm
not sure. It's not like me, but this was something out of the ordinary and I
might have lost my balance.
Anyway,
I recovered almost immediately and looked around, and saw this kid in loose
flowing robes walking quickly across the field not too far away. I yelled to
him when I saw he didn't intend to come over to me. He came over and gave me a
hand, and then started to walk away again, calm as you please. I had to call
him back. He seemed a little-reluctant. The bustard.
I
tried to get him to tell me where we were, but he played dumb. Didn't know
where we were, didn't know where New York was, didn't even know what a city
was—or so he said. I would have thought he was crazy, except that I didn't know
what had happened to me; for that matter, I might have been the crazy one and
not him.
I
saw I wasn't making much headway with him, so I gave up. All he would tell me
was that he was on his way to the Singing, and the way he said it there was no
doubt about the capital S. He said there would be men there who could help me.
To this day I don't know how I got here. Even after I spoke and asked around,
no one could tell me how I could step into a subway train in 1956 and come out
in an open field somewhere around the 35th century. The crazy bustards have
even lost count.
But
I'm here, that's all that matters. And whatever went before is down the drain
now. Whatever deals I was working on back in 1956 are dead and buried now; that
is where I'm stuck, for reasons I don't get, and here's where I'll have to make
my pile. All over again—me, Dugan, starting from scratch. But I'll do it. I'm
doing it.
After
this kid Kennon and I had plodded across the fields for a while, I heard the
sound of voices. By now it was getting towards nightfall. I forgot to mention
that it was getting along toward the end of November back in 1956, but the
weather here was nice and summery. There was a pleasant tang of something in
the air that I had never noticed in New York's air, or the soup they called air
back then.
The
sound of the singing grew louder as we approached, but as soon as we got within
sight they all stopped immediately.
They
were sitting in a big circle, twenty or thirty of them, dressed in light, airy
clothing. They all turned to look at me as we got near.
I got the feeling they were
all looking into my mind.
The
silence lasted a few minutes, and then they began to sing again. A tall, thin
kid was leading them, and they were responding to what he sang. They ignored
me. I let them continue until I formed a plan; I don't believe in rushing into
things without knowing exactly what I'm doing.
I
waited till the singing quieted down a bit, and then I yelled "Stop!"
I stepped forward into the middle of the ring.
"My
name is Dugan," I said, loud, clear, and slow. "Chester Dugan. I
don't know how I got here, and I don't know where I am, but I mean to stay here
a while. Who's the chief around here?"
They
looked at each other in a puzzled fashion and finally an old thin-faced man
stepped out of the circle. "My name is Dandrin," he said, in a thin
dried litde voice. "As the oldest here, I will speak for the people. Where
do you come from?"
"That's
just it," I said. "I came from New York City, United States of
America, Planet Earth, the Universe. Don't any of those things mean anything to
you?"
"They
are names, of course," Dandrin said. "But I do not know what they are
names of, New York City? United States of America? We have no such terms."
"Never
heard of New York?" This was the same treatment I had gotten from that
dumb kid Kennon, and I didn't like it. "New York is the biggest city in
the world, and the United States is the richest country."
I
heard hushed mumbles go around 'the circle. Dandrin smiled.
"I
think I see now," he said. "Cities, countries." He looked at me
in a strange way. "Tell me," he said. "Just when are you from?"
That
shook me. "1956," I said. And here, 111 admit, I began to get
worried.
"This
is the 35th century," he said calmly. "At least, so we think. We lost
count during the Bombing Years. But come, Chester Dugan; we are interrupting
the Singing with our talk. Let us go aside and talk, while the others can
sing." - He led me off to one side and explained things to me. Civilization
had broken up during a tremendous atomic war. These people were the survivors,
the dregs. There were no cities and not even small towns. People lived in
groups of twos and threes here and there, and didn't come together very often.
They didn't even like
to get together, except during
the summer. Then they would gather at the home of some old man—usually Dandrin;
everyone would meet, and sing for a while, and then go home.
Apparently
there were only a few thousand people in all of America. They lived widely
scattered, and there was no business, or trade, or culture, or anything else.
Just little clumps of people living by themselves, farming a little and
singing, and not doing much else. As the old man talked I began to rub my hands
together—mentally, of course. All sorts of plans were forming in my head.
He
didn't have any idea how I had gotten here, and neither did I; I still
don't. I think it just must have been a one-in-a-trillion fluke, a flaw in
space or something. I just stepped through at the precise instant
and wound up at that open field. But Chester Dugan can't worry about things he
doesn't understand. I just accept them.
I
saw. a big future for myself here, with my knowledge of 20th Century business methods.
The first thing, obviously, was to reestablish villages. The way they had
things arranged now, there really wasn't any civilization. Once I had things
started, I could begin reviving other things that these decadent people had
lost: money, entertainment, sports, business. Once we got machinery going, we'd
be set. We'd start working on a city, and begin expanding. I thanked whoever
it was had dropped me here. This was a golden opportunity for me. These people
would be putty in my hands.
3. Corilann
It
was with Kennon's
approval that I did it. Right after the Singing ended for that evening, Dugan
came over to me and I could tell from the tone of his conversation that he
wanted me for the night. I had already promised myself to Kennon, but Dugan
seemed so insistent that I asked Ken-non to release me for this one
evening, and he did. He didn't mind.
It
was strange the way Dugan went about asking me. He never came right out and
said anything. I didn't like anything he did that night; and he's ugly.
He kept
telling me, "Stay with me, baby; we're going places together. I didn't
know what he meant.".
The
other women were very curious about it the next day. There are so few of us,
that it's a novelty to sleep with someone new. They wanted to know how it had been.
I told them I enjoyed it.
It
was a lie; he was disgusting. But I went back to him the next night, and the
one after that, no matter what poor Kennon said. I couldn't help it, despite myself. There was
just something about Dugan that drew me; I couldn't
help it. But he was disgusting.
4. Dandrin
It
was strange to see them
standing in neat, ordered, precise rows, they who had never known any order,
any rules before, "and Dugan was telling them what to do. The dawn of the
day before, we had been free and alone, but since then Dugan had come.
He
lined everybody up, and, as I sat in the shade and watched, he began explaining
his plans. We tried so hard to understand what he meant. I remembered stories I
had heard of the old ones, but I had never believed them until I saw Dugan in
action.
"I
can't understand you people," he shouted at us. "This whole rich
world is sitting here waiting for you to walk out and grab it, and you sit
around singing instead. Singing! You people are decadent, that's what you are.
You need a government—a good, sturdy government—and I'm here to give it to
you."
Kennon
and some of the others had come to me that morning to find out what was going
to happen. I urged them not to do anything, to listen to Dugan and do what he
says. That way, I *felt, we could eventually learn to understand him and deal
with him in the proper manner. I confess that I was curious to see how he would
react among us.
I
said nothing when he gave orders that no one was to return home after the
Singing. We were to stay here, he told us, and build a city. He was going to
bring us all the advantages of the 20th Century.
And
we listened to him patientiy, all but Kennon. It was Kennon .who had brought
him here, poor young Kennon who had come here for the Singing and for Corilann.
And it was Corilann whom Dugan had singled out for his own private property.
Kennon had given his approval, the first night, thinking she would come back to
him the next day. But she hadn't; she stayed with Dugan.
In a
couple of days he had his city all planned and everything apportioned. I think the thought uppermost in everyone's mind was why: why does he want us to do these things? Why? We would have to give him
time to carry out his plans; provided he did no permanent harm, we would wait
and see, and wonder why.
5. Chester Dugan
This
Corilann is really stacked. Things were never like
this back whenl After Dandrin had told me where the unattached women were
sitting, I looked them over and picked her. They were all wortfy a second look,
but she was something special. I didn't know at the time that she was promised
to Kennon, or I might not have started fooling around with her; I don't want to
antagonize these people too much.
I'm afraid Kennon may be down on me a bit.
I've taken his girl away, and I don't think he goes for my methods. I'll have
to try some psychology on him. Maybe I'll make him my second-in-command.
The
city is moving along nicely. There were 120 people at the Singing, and my
figures show that fifteen were old people and the rest divided up pretty
evenly; everyone is coupled off, and I've arranged the housing to fit .the
coupling. These people don't have children very often, but I'll fix that; 111
figure out some way of making things better for those with the most children,
some sort of incentive. The quicker we build up the population, the better
things will be. I understand there's a wild tribe about five hundred miles to
the north of here, maybe less (I still, don't have any idea where here is) who still have some machines and things, and once we're all
established I intend to send an expedition out to conquer the wild tribe and
bring back the machines.
There's
an idea; maybe I'll let Kennon lead the expedition. I'll be giving him a
position of responsibility, and at the same rime there's a chance he might get
knocked off. That kid's going to cause trouble; I wish I hadn't taken his girl.
But
it's too late to go back on it. Besides, I need a son, and quickly. If
Corilann's baby is a girl, I don't know what I'll do. I can't carry on my
dynasty without an heir.
There's
another kid here that bothers me—Jubilain. He's not like the others; he's very
frail and sensitive, and seems to get special treatment. He's the one who leads
the singing. I haven't been able to get him to work on the construction yet and
I don't know if I'm going to be able to.
But
otherwise everything is moving smoothly. I'm surprised that old Dandrin
doesn't object to what I'm doing. It's long since past the time when the
Singing should have broken up, and everyone scattered, but they're all staying
right here and working as if I was paying them.
Which
I am, in a way. I'm bringing them the benefits of a great lost civilization,
which I represent. Chester Dugan, the man from the past. I'm taking a bunch of
nomads and turning them into a powerful city. So actually, everyone's
profiting—the people, because of what I'm doing for them, and me. Me
especially, because here I'm absolute top dog.
I'm
worried about Corilann's baby, though. If it's a girl, that means a delay of a
year or more before I can have my son, and even then it'll be at least ten
years before he's of any use to me. I wonder what would happen if I took a
second wife—Jarinne, for example. I watched her while she was stripped down for
work yesterday and she looks even better than Corilann. These people don't seem
to have any particular beliefs about marriage, anyway, and so I don't know if
they'd mind. Then if Corilann had a girl, I might give her back to Kennon.
And
that reminds me of another thing: There's no religion here. I'm not much of a
Godman myself, but I realize religion's a good thing for keeping the people in
line. I'll have to start thinking about getting a priesthood going, as soon as
affairs are a little more settled here.
I
didn't think it was so much work, organizing a civilization. But once I get it
all set up, I can sit back and cool my heels for life. It's a pleasure working
with these people. I just can't wait till everything is moving by itself. I've
gotten further in two months here than I ctid in forty years there. It just
goes to show: You need a powerful man to keep civilization alive. And Chester
Dugan is just the man these people needed.
6. Kennon
Corilann
has told me she will have a
child by Dugan. This has made me sad, since it might have been my child she
would be bearing instead. But I brought Dugan here myself, and so I suppose I
am responsible. If I had not come to the Singing, he might have died in the
great open field. But now it is too late for such thoughts.
Dugan
forbids us to go home, now that the Singing is over. My father is waiting for
me at our home, and the hunting must be done before the winter comes, but Dugan
forbids us to go home. Dandrin had to explain to me what "forbids"
means; I still don't fully understand why or how one person can tell another
person what to do. None of us really understands Dugan at all, not even
Dandrin, I think. Dandrin is trying hardest to understand him, but Dugan is so
completely alien to us that we do not see.
He
has made us build what he calls a city—many houses close together. He says the
advantage of this is that we may protect each other. But from what? We have no
enemies. I have the feeling that Dugan understands us even less than we
understand him. And I am anxious to go home for the autumn hunting, now that
summer is almost over and the Singing is ended. I had hoped to bring Corilann
back with me, but it is my own fault, and I must not be bitter.
Dugan
has been very cold toward me. This is surprising, since it was I who brought
him to the Singing. I think he is afraid I will try to take Corilann back; in
any event, he seems to fear me and show anger toward me.
If I only understood!
7. Kennon
Dugan
has certainly gone too far
now. For the past week I have been trying to engage him in conversation, to
find out what his motives are for doing all the things he is doing. Dan-drin
should be doing this, but Dandrin seems to have abdicated all responsibility
in this matter and is content to sit idly by, watching all that happens. Dugan
does not make him work because he is so old.
I do
not understand Dugan at all. Yesterday he told me, "We will rule the
world." What does he mean? Rule? Does
he actually want to tell everyone who lives what he can do and what he cannot
do? If all of the people of Dugan's time were like this, it is small wonder
they destroyed everything. What if two people told the same man to do
different things? What if they told each other to do things? My head reels at
the thought of Dugan's world. People living together in masses, and telling
each other what to do; it seems insane. I long to be back with my father for
the hunting. I had hoped to bring him a daughter as well, but it seems this it
not to be.
Dugan
has offered me Jarinne as my wife. Jarinne says she had been with Dugan, and
that Corilann knows. Dandrin warns me not to accept Jarinne because it will
anger Dugan. But if it will anger Dugan, why did he offer her to me? And—now it
occurs to me—by what right does he offer me another person?
Jarinne
is a fine woman. She could make me forget Corilann.
And
then Dugan told me that soon there will be an expedition to the north; we will
take weapons and conquer the wild men. Dugan has heard -of the machines of the
wild men, and he says he needs them for our city. I told him that I had to
leave immediately to help my father with the hunting, that I have stayed here
long enough. Others are saying the same thing: This summer the Singing has
lasted too long.
Today I tried to leave. I gathered my friends
and told them I was anxious to go home, and I asked Jarinne to come with me.
She accepted, though she reminded me that she had been with Dugan. I told her I
might be able to forget that. She said she knew it wouldn't matter to me if it
had been anyone else (of course not; why should it?) but that I might object
because it had been Dugan. I said goodbye to Corilann, who now is swollen with
Dugan's child; she cried a little.
And
then I started to leave. I did not talk to Dandrin, for I was afraid he would
persuade me not to go. I opened the gate that Dugan has just put up, and
started to leave.
Suddenly
Dugan appeared. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked, in his
hard, cold rasp of a voice. "Pulling
outJ"
"I
have told you," I said quietly, "it is time to help my father with
the hunting. I cannot stay in your city any longer." I moved past him and
Jarinne followed. But he ran around in front of me.
"No
one leaves here, understand?" He waved his closed hand in front of me.
"We can't build a city if you take off when you want to."
"But
I must go," I said. "You have detained me here long enough." I
started to walk on, and suddenly he hit me with his closed hand and knocked me
down.
I
went sprawling over the ground, and I felt blood on my face from where he had
hurt my nose. People all around were watching. I got up slowly. I am bigger and
much stronger than Dugan, but it had never occurred to me that one person might
hit another person. But this is one of the many things that has come to our
world.
I was not so unhappy for myself; pain soon
ceases. But Jubilain the Singer was watching when he hit me, and such sights
should be kept from Singers. They are not like the rest of us. I am afraid
Jubilain has been seriously disturbed by the sight.
After he had knocked me down, Dugan walked
away. I got up and went back inside the gate. I do not want to leave now. I
must talk to Dandrin. Something must be done.
8. Juh&aln
Summer
to autumn to every old
everyone, sing winter to quiet to baby fall down. My head head hurts. My my
hurts head. Bloody was Kennon.
Kennon
was bloody and Dugan was angry and summer to autumn to.
Jubilain
is very sad. My head hurts. Dugan hit Kennon in the face. With his hand, his
hand hand hand rolled up in a ball Dugan hit Kennon. Outside the gates.
Consider the gates. Consider.
They
have spoiled the song. How can I sing when Dugan hits Kennon? My head hurts.
Sing summer to autumn, sing every old everyone. It is good that the summer is
ending, for the songs are over. How can I sing? Bloody was Kennon.
Jubilain's head hurts. It did not hurt before
did not hurt. I could sing before. Summer to autumn to every old everyone.
Corilann's belly is big with Dugan, and Tubilain's head hurts. Will there be
more DugansP
And
more Kennons. No more Jubilains. No more songs. The songs of summer are silent
and slippery. My head hurts. Hurts hurts hurts. I can sing no more.
Nononononono
9. Dandrin
This
is tragic. I am an old
fool.
I
have been sitting in the shade, like the dried old man I am, while Dugan has
destroyed us. Today he struck a man— Kennon. Kennon, whom he has mistreated
from the start. Poor Kennon. Dugan has brought strife to us, now, along with
his city and his gates.
But that is not the worst of it. Jubilain
watched the whole thing, and we have lost our Singer. Jubilain simply was
unable to assimilate the incident. A Singer's mind is not like our minds; it is
a delicate, sensitive instrument. But it cannot comprehend violence. Our Singer
has gone mad; there will be no more songs.
We
must destroy Dugan. It is sad that we must come to his level and talk of
destroying, but it is so. Now he is going to bring us warfare, and that is a
gift we do not need. The fierce men of the north will prove strong adversaries
for a people that has not fought for a thousand years. Why could we not 'have
been left to ourselves? We were happy and peaceful people, and now we must talk
of destroying.
I
know the way to do it, too. If only my mind is strong enough, if only it has
not dried in the sun during the years, I can lead the way. If I can link with
Kennon, and Kennon with Jarinne, and Jarinne with Corilann and Corilann with—
If
we can link, we can do it. Dugan must go. And this is the best way; this way we
can dispose of him and still remain human beings.
I am
an old fool. But perhaps this dried old brain still is good for something. If I
can link with Kennon—
10. Chester Dugan
All
resistance has
crumbled now. I'm set up for life-Chester Dugan, ruler of the world. It's not
much of a world, true enough, but what the hell. It's mine.
It's
amazing how all the grumbling has stopped. Even Kennon has given in—in fact,
he's become my most valuable man, since that time I had to belt him. It was
too bad, I guess, to ruin such a nice nose, but I couldn't have him walking off
that way.
He's
going to lead the expedition to the north tomorrow, and he's leaving Jarinne
here. That's good. Corilann is busy with her baby, and I think I need a little
variety anyway. Good-looking kid Corilann had; takes after his old man. It's
amazing how everything is working out.
I hope to get electricity going soon, but I'm
not too sure.
The stream here is kind of weak, and maybe
well have to throw up a dam first. In fact, I'm sure of it. I'll speak to
Ken-non about it before he leaves.
This
business of rebuilding a civilization from scratch has its rewards. God, am I
leanl I've lost all that roll of fat I was carrying around. I suppose part of
the reason is that there's no beer here, yet—but 111 get to that soon enough. Everything in due time. First, I want to see
what Kennon brings back from the north. I hope he doesn't ruin anything by ripping
it out. Wouldn't it be nice to find a hydraulic press or a generator or stuff
like that? And with my luck, we probably will.
'Maybe
well do without religion a little while longer. I spoke to Dandrin about it,
but he didn't seem to go for the idea of being priest. I might just take over
that job myself, once things get straightened out. I'd like to work out some
sort of heating system before the winter gets here. I've figured out that we're
somewhere in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, and it'll get pretty cold here unless
things have changed. (Could the barbarian city to the north be New York? Sounds
reasonable.)
It's
funny flie way everyone lies down and says yes when I tell them to do
something. These people have no guts, that's their trouble. One good thing
about civilization—you have to have guts to last. I'll put guts in these
people, all right. Ill probably be remembered for centuries and centuries.
Maybe they'll think of me as a sort of messiah in the far future when
everything's blurred. Why not? I came to them out of the clouds, didn't I? From
heaven.
Messiah
Dugan! Lawsy-me, if they could only see me nowl
I
still can't get over the way everything is moving. It's almost like a dream. By
next spring we'll have a respectable little city here, practically overnight.
And we can ■ hold a super-special Singing next summer and snaffle in the
folks from all around.
Too
bad about that kid Jubilain, by the way; he's really gone off his nut. But I
always thought he was a little way there anyway. Maybe I'll teach them some of
the old songs myself. It'll help to make me popular here. Although, come to
think of it, I'm pretty popular now. They're all smiling at me all the time.
11.
"Kennon? Kennon? Hear me?"
"I hear you, Dandrin. I'll get
Jarinne."
"Here I am. Corilann?"
"Here,
Jarinne. And pulling hard. Let's try to get Onnar." "PuU hardr
"Onnar in." "And
Jekkaman." "Hello, Dandrin.''
"Hello."
"All here?"
"One
hundred twenty." "Tight now." *We're right tight."
"Let's get started, then. All together." "Hello? Hello, Dugan.
Listen to us, Dugan. Listen to us. Listen to us. Hold on tight! Listen to us,
Dugan." "Open up all the way, now." "Are you listening,
Dugan?"
12.
Dandrin
plus Kennon plus Jarinne plus Corilann plus n
I think
well be able to hold
together indefinitely, and so it can be said that the coming of Dugan was an
incredible stroke of luck for us. This new blending is infinitely better than
trying to make contact over thousands of miles!
Certainly
we'll have to maintain this gestalt (useful
word; I found it in Dugan's mind when I entered) until after Dugan's death.
He's peacefully dreaming now, dreaming of who knows what conquests and battles
and expansions, and I don't think hell come out of it. He may live on his dream
for years, and 111 have to hold together and sustain the
illusion until he dies. I hope we're making him happy at last. He seems to have
been a very unhappy man.
And just after I joined together, it occurred
to me that we'd better stay this way indefinitely, just in case any more Dugans
get thrown at us from the past (Could it have been part of a Design? I wonder.)
They must all have been like that back then. It's a fine thing that bomb was
dropped.
Well
keep Dugan's city, of course. He did make some positive contributions to us—me.
His biggest contribution was me; I never would have formed otherwise. I would
have been scattered—Kennon on his farm, Dandrin here, Corilann there. I would
have maintained some sort of contact among us the way I always did even before
Dugan came, but nothing like this! Nothing at all.
There's
the question of what to do with Dugan's child. Kennon, Corilann, and Jarinne
are all raising him. We don't need families now that we have me. I think well
let Dugan's child in with us for a while; if he shows any signs of being like
his father, we can always put him to sleep and let him share his father's
dream.
I
wonder what Dugan is thinking of. Now all his projects will be carried out; his
city will grow and cover the world; we will fight and loll and plunder, and he
will be measure-lessly happy—though all these things take place only within the
boundaries of his fertile brain. We will never understand him. But I am happy
that all these things will happen only within Dugan's mind so long as I am
together and can maintain the illusion for him.
Our next project is to reclaim Jubilain. I am
sad that he cannot be with us yet, for how rare and beautiful I would be if I
had a Singer in me! That would surely be the most wonderful of Mendings. But
that will come. Patiently I will unravel the strands of Jubilain's tangled
mind, pabentfy I will bring, the Singer back to us.
For
in a few months it will be summer again, and time for the Singing. It will be
different this year, for we will have been together in me all winter, and so
the Singing will not be as unusual an event as it has been, when we have come
to each other covered with a winter's strangeness. But this year I will be with
us, and we will be I; and the songs of surnmer will be trebly beautiful in
Dugan's city, while Dugan sleeps through the night and day, for day and night
on night and day.
HOPPER
CHAPTER
I
The
warning bell rang, but
Quellen left it alone. He was in a mood, and didn't care to break it just to
answer the phone.
He
continued to rock uneasily back and forth in his pneumo-chair, watching the
crocodiles padding gently through the stream's murky waters. After a while the
bell stopped ringing. He sat there, joyously passive, sensing about him the
warm smell of growing things and the buzzing insect-noises in the air.
That
was the only part he didn't like, the constant hum of the ugly insects that
whizzed through the calm air. In a way they represented an invasion; they were
symbols of the life he had led before moving up to Class Thirteen. The noise in
the air then had been the steady buzz of people, people swarming around in a
great hive of a city, and Quellen detested that.
Idly
he flipped a stone into the water. "Get it!" he called, as two crocs
glided noiselessly toward the disturbance. But the stone sank, sending up black
bubbles, and the crocs bumped their pointed noses lighdy together and swam
away.
He
rehearsed the catalogue of his blessings. Marok, he thought. No
Marok, No KoU, no Spanner, no Brogg, no Mikken. But especially no Marok. He sighed, thinking of them all. What a relief to be able to stat out here
and suffer their buzzing voices, not shudder when they burst into
his
office! And being far from Marok was best of all. No more to worry over his
piles of undone dishes, his heaps of books all over the tiny room they shared,
his dry, deep voice endlessly talking into the visiphone when Quellen was
trying to concentrate. No.
No Marok.
But
yet, Quellen thought sadly, yet, the peace he had anticipated when he built his
new home had somehow not materialized. For years he had waited with remarkable
patience for the day he reached Class Thirteen and was entitled to live alone.
And now that he had encompassed his goal, life was one uneasy fear after
another.
He shied another stone into
the water.
As
he watched the concentric circles of ripples fanning out on the dark surface of
the stream, Quellen became conscious of the warning bell ringing again at the other
end of the house. The uneasiness within him turned to sullen foreboding. He
eased himself out of his chair and headed hurriedly toward the phone.
He
switched it on, leaving the vision off. It hadn't been easy to arrange it so
that any calls coming to his home, back in Appalachia, were automatically
relaying to him here.
"Quellen, he said.
"Koll
speaking," was the reply. "Couldn't reach you before. Why don't you
turn on your visi, Quellen?"
"It's
not working," Quellen said. He hoped sharp-nosed Koll wouldn't smell the
lie in his voice.
"Get
over here quickly, will you?" Koll said. "Spanner and I have
something urgent to take up with you. Got it, Quellen?"
"Yes, sir. Anything
else, sir?" Quellen said limply.
"No.
Well fill you in when you get here." Koll snapped the contact decisively.
Quellen
stared at the blank screen for a while, chewing his lip. They couldn't have
found out. He had everything squared. But, came the insistent thought, they
must have discovered Quellen's secret. Why else would Koll send for him so
urgendy? Quellen began to perspire despite the airconditioning which kept out
most of the fierce Congo heat.
They
would put him back in Class Twelve if they found out. Or, more likely, they
would bounce him all the way back to Eight. He would spend the rest of
his life in a tiny room inhabited by two or three other people, the biggest,
smelliest, most unpleasant people they could find.
Quellen
took a long look at the green overhanging trees, bowed under the weight of
their leaves. He let his eyes rove regretfully over his two spacious rooms, the
luxurious porch, the uncluttered view. For a moment, now that everything was
just about lost, he almost relished the buzzing of the flies. He took a final
sweeping look, and stepped into the stat.
He emerged
in the tiny apartment for Class Thirteen Appalachians which everyone thought
he inhabited. In a series of swift motions he got out of his lounging clothes
and into his business uniform, removed the Privacy radion from the door, and transformed himself
from Joe Quellen, owner of an illegal privacy-nest in the heart of an
unreported reservation in Africa, into Joseph Quellen CrimeSec, staunch
defender of law and order. Then he caught a quickboat and headed downtown to
meet Koll, aching numbly from fear.
They
were waiting for him when he entered. Little sharp-nosed Koll, looking for all
the world like some huge rodent, was facing the door, sifting through a sheaf
of minislips. Spanner sat opposite him at the table, his great bull neck
hunched over still more memoranda. As Quellen entered, Koll reached to the wall
and flipped the oxy vent, admitting a supply for three.
"Took you long enough," Koll said,
without looking up.
"Sorry," Quellen
mumbled. "Had to change."
"Whatever
we do won't alter anything," said Spanner, as if no one had entered.
"What's happened has happened, and nothing we do will have the slightest
effect."
"Sit
down, Quellen," Koll said. He turned to Spanner. "I thought we'd been
through this all before. If we meddle it's going to mix up everything. With
almost a thousand years to cover,' we'll scramble the whole framework."
Quellen silendy breathed relief. Whatever it
was they were concerned about, it wasn't his illegal African hideaway. He
looked at his two superiors more carefully, now that his eyes were no longer
blurred by fear and anticipation. They had obviously been arguing quite a
while. Koll was the deep one, Quellen reflected, but Spanner had more power.
"All
right, Koll. Ill even grant that it'll mix up the past. I'll concede that
much."
"Well, that's
something," the small man said.
"Don't interrupt me. I
still think we've got to stop it."
Koll
glared at Spanner and Quellen could see that the only reason he was concealing
the anger lying just behind his eyes was Quellen's presence. "Why,
Spanner, why? If we keep the process going we maintain things as they are. Four
thousand of them have gone already, and that's only a drop. Look—here it says
that over a million arrived in the first three centuries, and after that the
figures kept rising. Think of the population we're losing! It's wonderful! We
can't afford to let these people stay here, when we have a
chance to get rid of them. And when history says that we did get rid of
them."
Spanner
grunted and looked at the minislips he was holding. Quellen's eyes flicked
back from one man to the other.
"All
right," Spanner said slowly. "I'll agree that it's nice to keep
losing all those prolets. But I think we're 'being hoodwinked as well. Here's
my idea: we. have to let it keep going on, you say, or else it'll alter the
past. I won't argue the point, since you seem so positive. Furthermore, you
think it's a good thing to use this business as a method of reducing
population. I'm with you on that too. I don't like overcrowding any more than
you do, and I'll admit things have reached a ridiculous state nowadays. But—on
the other hand, for someone to be running a time-travel business behind our
backs is illegal and unethical and a lot of other things, and he ought to be
stopped. What do you say, Quellen? This is your department you know."
The
sudden reference to him came as a jolt. Quellen was still struggling to
discover exacdy what it was they were talking about. He smiled weakly and shook
his head.
"No
opinion?" Koll asked sharply. Quellen looked at him. He was unable to
stare straight into Koll's hard eyes, and let his gaze rest on the Manager's
cheekbones instead. "No opinion, Quellen? That's too bad indeed. It
doesn't speak well of you."
Quellen shuddered. "I haven't been
keeping up with the latest developments in the case. I've been very busy on
cr-tain projects that—"
He
let his voice trail off. His eager assistants probably knew all about this
situation, he thought. Why
didn't I check with Brogg before now?
"Are
you aware that four thousand prolets have vanished into nowhere since the
beginning of the year?"
"No,
sir. Ah, I mean, of course, sir. It's just that we haven't had a chance to act
on it yet." Very
lame, Quellen, very lame, he told himself. Of
course you don't know anything about it, not when you spend all your time at
that pretty little hideaway across the ocean. But Brogg probably knows all
about it. He's very efficient.
"Well,
just where do you think they've gone?" Koll asked. "Maybe you think
they've all hopped into stats and gone off somewhere to look for work? To
Africa, maybe?"
The
barb had poison on it. Quellen winced, hiding his reaction as well as he could.
"I have no idea,
sir."
"You
haven't been reading your history books very well, then, Quellen. Think, man:
what was the most important historical development of the past ten
centuries?"
Quellen
thought. What, indeed? There was so much, and he had always been weak on
history. He began to sweat. Koll casually flipped the oxy up a little higher in
an almost insulting gesture of friendliness.
Til tell you, then. It's the arrival of the
hoppers. And this
is the year they're
starting out from."
"Of
course," Queilen said, annoyed with himself. Everyone knew about the
hoppers. Koll's reminder was a pointed slur.
"Someone's
developed time travel this year," Spanner said. "He's, beginning to
siphon the hoppers back to the past. Four thousand unemployed prolets are gone
already, and if we don't catch him soon he'll clutter up the past with every
wandering workingman in the country."
"So? That's just my point," Koll
said impatiendy. "We know they've already arrived in the past; our history
books say so. Now we can sit back and let this fellow distribute our refuse all
over the past."
Spanner
swivelled around and confronted Queilen. "What do you think?" he
demanded. "Should we round up this fellow and stop the departure of the
Hoppers? Or should we do as Koll says, and let everything go on?"
"I'll
need time to study the case," Queilen said suspiciously. The last thing
he wanted to do was be forced into making a judgment in favor of one superior
over another.
"I
have ah idea," Spanner said to Koll. "Why not catch this slyster and
get him to turn over his time-travel gadget to the' government? Then we could run a government service and charge the hoppers a fee to be sent
back. It's fine all around—we'd catch our man, the government would have
time-travel on a platter, the hoppers would still go back without changing the
past, and we'll make a little money on the deal."
Koll
brightened. "Perfect solution," he said. "Brilliant, Spanner.
Queilen—"
Queilen stiffened.
"Yes, sir?"
"Get
on it, fast. Track down this fellow and put him away, but not before you get
his secret out of him. As soon as you locate him the government can go into the
hopper-exporting trade."
CHAPTER II
Once
he was back in his own
office, behind his own small but private desk, Quellen could feel important
again. He rang for Brogg and Mikken, and the two UnderSecs appeared almost
instantly.
"Good
to see you again," Brogg said sourly. Quellen opened the vent and let oxy
flow into the office, trying to capture the patronizing look Koll had flashed
while doing the same thing ten minutes before.
Mikken
nodded curtly. Quellen surveyed the two of them. Brogg was the one who knew the
secret; a third of Quellen's salary paid him to keep quiet about Quellen's
second, secret home. Big Mikken did not know and did not care; he took his
orders directly from Brogg, not from Quellen.
"I
suppose you're familiar with the recent prolet disappearances," Quellen
began.
Brogg
produced a thick stack of minislips. "As a matter of fact, I was just
going to get in touch with you about them. It seems that four thousand
unemployed prolets have vanished so far this year."
"What
have you done so far towards solving the case?" asked Quellen.
"Well,"
Brogg said, pacing up and down the little room and wiping the sweat from his
heavy jowls, "I've determined that these disappearances are directly
connected to historical records of the appearance of the hoppers in the late
Twentieth Century and succeeding years." Brogg pointed to the book lying
on Quellen's desk. "History book. I put it there for you. It confirms my
findings."
Quellen
ran a finger along his jawline and wondered what it was like to carry around as
much fat on one's face as Brogg did. Brogg was perspiring heavily, and his face
was virtually begging Quellen to open the oxy vent wider.
The
moment of superiority pleased the CrimeSec, and he made no move toward the
wall.
"I've
already taken these factors into consideration," said Quellen. "I've
developed a course of action."
"Have
you checked it with Koll and Spanner?" Brogg said insolently. His jowls
quivered as his voice rumbled through them.
"I
have," Quellen said with as much force as he could muster, angry that
Brogg had so easily deflated him. "I want you to track down the slyster who's
shipping these hoppers back. Bring him here. I want him caught before he sends
anyone else into the past."
"Yes
sir," Brogg said resignedly. "Come on, Mikken." The other
assistant reluctantly left his chair and followed Brogg out. Quellen watched
them quizzically through his view-window as they appeared on the street,
jostled their way to a belt, and disappeared among the multitudes that thronged
the streets. Then, with almost savage joy, he flipped the oxy vent to its
widest, and leaned back.
After
a while Quellen decided to brief himself on the situation. Conquering his
apathy was not easy, since foremost in his mind was the desire to get out of
Appalachia and back to Africa as quickly as he could.
He
snapped on the projector and the history book began to unroll. He watched it
stream by.
The first sign of invasion from the future
came about 1962, when several men in strange costumes appeared in the part of
Appalachia then known as Manhattan. Records show they appeared with increasing
frequency throughout the next decade, and when interrogated all admitted that
they had come from the future. Pressure of repeated evidence eventually forced
the people of the 20th Century to the conclusion that they were actually being
subjected to a peaceful but annoying invasion by time-travellers.
There
was more, a whole reel more, but Quellen had had enough. He cut the projector
off. The heat of the little room was oppressive, despite the air conditioning
and the oxy vent. Quellen looked despairingly at the confining walls, and
thought with longing of the murky stream that ran by his African retreat's
front porch.
"I've
done all I can," he said, and stepped out the window to catch the nearest
quickboat back to his Class Thirteen apartment. Fleetingly he considered the
idea of getting Brogg to handle the whole case while he went back to Africa,
but he decided that would be inviting disaster.
Quellen
had neglected to keep his foodstocks in good supply, he discovered, and, since
his stay in Appalachia threatened to be long or possibly permanent, he decided
to replenish his stores. He fastened the Privacy radion
to his door again and headed down the twisting flyramp to the supply shop,
intending to stock up for a long siege.
As he made his way down, he noticed a
sallow-looking man heading in the opposite direction up the ramp. Quellen did
not recognize him, but that was unsurprising; in the crowded turmoil of
Appalachia, one never got to know very many people, just the keeper of the
supply shop and a handful of neighbors.
The
sallow-looking man stared curiously at him and seemed to be saying something
with his eyes. He brushed against Quellen and shoved a wadded minislip into his
hand. Quellen unfolded it after the other had disappeared up the flyramp, and
read it.
Out
of work? See Lanoy. That
was all it said. Instantiy Quellen's CrimeSec facet came into play. Like most
lawbreakers in public office, he was vigorous in prosecution of other
law-breakers, and there was something in Lanoy's handbill that smacked of
illegality. Quellen turned with the thought of pursuing the hastily-retreating
sallow man, but the other had disappeared. He could have gone almost anywhere after
leaving the flyramp. Out
of work? See Lanoy. Quellen
wondered who Lanoy was and what his magic remedy was. He made up his mind that
he would have Brogg look into the matter.
Carefully stowing the minislip in his pocket,
Quellen entered the supply shop. The red-faced little man who ran it greeted
Quellen with an unusual display of heartiness.
"Oh,
it's the Crime'Secl We haven't been honored by you in a long time,
CrimeSec," the rotund shopkeeper said. "I was beginning to think
you'd moved. But that's impossible, isn't it? You'd have notified me if you'd
gotten a promotion."
"Yes,
Greevy, that's true. I've just not been around lately. Very busy these
days." Quellen frowned. He didn't want the news of his absence noised all
around the community. He made his order, statted the supplies upstairs, and
left the supply shop.
He
stepped out into the street for a moment and stood watching as the multitudes
streamed past. Their clothes were of all designs and colors. They talked
incessantiy. The world was a beehive, vastly overpopulated and getting more so
daily. Quellen longed for the quiet retreat he had built at such great cost and
with so much trepidation. The more he saw of crocodiles, the less he cared for
the company of the mobs who swarmed the crowded cities.
All
sorts of illegal things went on—not, as in Quellen's case, justifiable efforts
to escape an intolerable existence, but shady, vicious, unpardonable things.
Like this Lanoy, Quellen thought, fingering the minislip in his pocket. How did
he manage to hide his activities, whatever they were, from his roommates?
Surely he wasn't Class Thirteen.
Quellen
felt a strange kinship with the unseen Lanoy. He too, was beating the game. He
was a wily one, possibly worth knowing. Then Quellen moved on.
CHAPTER
III
Brogg
phoned him and got him back
to the office in a hurry. Quellen found his two UnderSecs waiting with a third
man, a tall, angular, shabbily-dressed fellow with a broken nose that projected
beaklike from his face. Brogg had turned the oxy vent up to full.
"Is this the fellow?" Quellen said.
It didn't seem likely that this seedy prolet—too poor, apparendy, to afford a plastic job on his nose—was the force behind the hoppers.
"Depends
on what fellow you mean," ^Brogg said. "Tell the CrimeSec who you
are," he said, nudging the prolet roughly with his elbow.
"Name
is Brand," the prolet said in a thin, oddly high voice. "Class Four.
I didn't mean no harm, sir—it was just that he promised me a home all my own,
and a job, and fresh air—"
Brogg cut him off. "We ran up against
this fellow in a drinker. He had had one or two too many and was telling
everyone that he'd have a job soon."
"That's
what the fellow said," Brand mumbled. "Just had to give him two
hundred credits and he'd send me somewhere where everyone had a job. And I'd
be able to send money back to bring my family along. It sounded so good,
sir."
"What was this fellow's name?"
Quellen asked sharply.
"Lanoy,
sir." Quellen felt a startled pang of recognition at hearing the name.
"Someone gave me this and told me to get in touch with him.
Brand
held out a crumpled minislip. Quellen unfolded it and read it. "Out of work? See Lanoy." Very interesting. He reached into his own
pocket and pulled out the slip he had been handed on the flyramp. Out of work? See Lanoy. They were identical.
"Larioy's
sent a lot of my friends there," Brand said.
"He told me they were all working and. happy there, sir—"
"Where does he send them?" Quellen
asked gendy.
"I
don't know, sir. Lanoy said he was going to tell me when I gave him the two
hundred credits. I drew out all my savings. I was on my way to him, and I just
dropped in for a short one—when—when—"
"When
we found him," Brogg finished. "Telling everyone in sight that he
was heading to Lanoy to get a job."
"Hmm.
Do you know what the hoppers are, Brand?"
"No,
sir."
"Never
mind, then. Suppose you take us to Lanoy."
"I
can't do that. It wouldn't be fair. All my friends—" "Suppose we make you take us to Lanoy," Quellen said. "But he was going to give
me a job! I can't do it. Please, sir."
Brogg looked at Quellen. "Let me
try," he said. "Lanoy was going to give you a job, you say? For two
hundred credits?"
^Yes,
sir."
"Suppose
we tell you that well give you a job for nothing. No charge at all, just lead
us to Lanoy and we'll send you where he was going to send you, only free. And
we'll send your family along too."
Quellen
smiled. Brogg was a much better psychologist than he was; he was forced to
admit it.
"That's
fair," Brand said. "I'll take you. I feel bad about it—Lanoy was nice
to me—but if you say you'll send me for nix . . ."
"Quite
right, Brand," Brogg said.
Til
do it, then."
Quellen
turned down the oxy vent. "Let's go before he changes his mind,"
Brogg gestured to Mikken, who led Brand out.
"Are
you coming with us, sir?" Brogg asked. There was just a hint of sarcasm
behind Brogg's obsequious tones. "ItH probably be a pretty filthy part of
town."
Quellen
shivered. "You're right," he said. "You two take him. I'll wait
here."
As
soon as they were gone, Quellen rang Koll.
"We're
hot on the trail," he said. "Brogg and Mikken have found the man
who's doing it, and they'll bring him back."
"Fine
work," Koll said coldly. "It should be an interesting investigation.
But please don't disturb us for a while. Spanner and I are discussing
departmental status changes." He hung up.
Now what did that mean? Quellen wondered. By now he was sure Koll
knew about Africa. Brogg had probably been offered a bigger bribe to talk than
Quellen had given him to be silent, and he had sold out to the highest biddeT. Of course, Koll might have meant a promotion,
but demotion was a more likely change in status to discuss.
Quellen's
offense was a unique one. No one else, to his knowledge, had been shrewd enough
to find a way out of heavily-overpopulated Appalachia, the octopus of a city
that spread all over the eastern half of North America. Of all the two hundred
million inhabitants of Appalachia, only Joseph Quellen CrimeSec had been clever
enough to find a bit of unknown and unsetded land in the heart of Africa and
build himself a second home there. He had the standard Class Thirteen cubicle
in Appalachia, plus a Class Twenty mansion beyond the dreams of most mortals,
beside a murky stream in the Congo. It was nice, very nice, for a man whose
soul rebelled at the insect-like existence in Appalachia.
The
only trouble was that it took money to keep people bribed. There were a few who
had to know that Quellen was living luxuriously in Africa instead of dwelling
in a ten-by-ten cubicle in Northwest Appalachia, like a good Thirteen.
Someone—Brogg, he was sure—had sold out to Koll. And Quellen was on thin ice
indeed.
A
demotion would rob him even of the privilege of maintaining a private cubicle,
and he would go back to sharing his home, as he had with unlamented Marok. It
hadn't been so bad when he had been below Class Twelve and had lived, first in
the dorms, then in gradually more private rooms. He hadn't minded other people
so much when he was younger. But then to move to Class Twelve and be put into a
room with just one other person, that had been the most painful of all, souring
Quellen permanently.
Marok
had been a genuinely fine fellow, Quellen reflected. But he had jarred on
Quellen's nerves, with his sloppiness and his unending visiphone calls and his
constant presence. Quellen had longed for the day when he would reach Thirteen
and live alone, no longer with a roommate as a constant check. He would be
free—free to hide from the crowd.
Did Koll know? He'd soon find out whether he
did.
The phone clicked. It was Brogg.
"We have him,"
Brogg said. "We're on our way back."
"Fine work, fine
work."
Quellen
dialed Koll. "We've caught the man," he said. "Brogg and Mikken
are bringing him back here for interrogation."
"Good
job," Koll said, and Quellen noted the trace of an honest smile flickering
on the small man's hps. "I've just filled out a promotion form for you, by
the way," he added casually. "It seems unfair to let the CrimeSec
live in a Class Thirteen unit when he rates at least a Fourteen."
So
he doesn't know after all, Quellen thought, Then another thought came: how could he move the
illegal stat to new quarters without being detected? Perhaps Koll was only
leading him deeper into a trap. Quellen pressed his palms against his temples
and shivered, waiting, for Brogg, Mikken—and Lanoy.
"You
admit you've been sending people into the past?" Quellen demanded.
"Sure,"
said the little man flippantly. Quellen watched him and felt an irrational
pulse of anger go through him. "Sure. I'll send you back for two hundred
creds.".
Brogg
stood with folded arms behind the little man, and Quellen faced him over the
table.
"You're Lanoy?"
"That's
my name." He was a small, dark, intense, rabbity sort of man, with thin
hps constantly moving. "Sure, I'm Lanoy." The litde man radiated a
confident warmth. He sat with his legs crossed and his head thrown back.
"It
was pretty nasty the way your boys tracked me down," Lanoy said. "It
was bad enough that you fooled that poor prolet into leading you to me, but
they didn't need to rough me up. I'm not doing anything illegal, you know. I
ought to sue."
"You're disturbing the past thousand
years!"
"I-am not," Lanoy said calmly.
"They've already been disturbed. I'm just seeing to it that past history
takes place the way it took place, if you know what I mean."
Quellen
stood up, but found he had no room to move in the tiny office, and sat down
again ineffectually. He felt strangely weak in the presence of the slyster.
"But
you're sending prolets back to become the hoppers. Why?
Lanoy
smiled. "To earn a living. Surely you understand that. I'm in possession
of a very valuable process, and I want to make sure I get all I can out of
it."
"Did you invent
time-travel?"
"It doesn't
matter," said Lanoy. "I control it."
"Why
don't you simply go back in time and steal or place bets to make a livingP
"I
could," Lanoy admitted. "But the process is irreversible, and there's
no way of getting back to the present again. And I like it here, thank
you."
"Look,
Lanoy," Quellen said. "I'll be frank: we want your time-travel
gimmick, and we want it fast."
"Sorry,"
said Lanoy^ "Private property. You don't have any right to it."
Quellen
thought of Koll and Spanner, and got angry and frightened at the same time.
"When I get through with you you'll wish you'd used your own machine and
gone back a million years."
Lanoy
remained calm, and Quellen was surprised to see Brogg' smiling. "Come now,
CrimeSec," the slyster said. "You're starting to get angry, and
that's always illogical."
Quellen
saw the truth of what Lanoy was saying, but he lost the struggle to calm himself.
"Ill keep you under arrest until you rot," he threatened.
"Now
where will that get you?" Lanoy asked. "Would you mind giving me a
little more oxy in here, please, by the way? I'm suffocating."
In
his astonishment Quellen opened the vent wide. Brogg registered surprise, ^nd
even Mikken blinked at Lanoy's breach of taste.
"If you arrest me I'll break you,
Quellen. There's nothing illegal in what I'm doing. Look here—I'm a registered
slyster." Lanoy produced a card, properly stamped.
Quellen
didn't know what to say. Lanoy definitely had him on the run, he knew, and
Brogg was enjoying his discomfiture immensely. Quellen chewed his hp, watching
the little man closely, and wishing fervently that he were back beside his
Congo stream throwing rocks at the crocodiles.
Tm
going to put a stop to your time-travelling, anyway," Quellen finally
said.
Lanoy chuckled. "I
wouldn't advise it, Quellen."
"CrimeSec to you,
Lanoy."
"I
wouldn't advise it, Quellen,"
Lanoy repeated. "If
you cut off the hoppers now, you'll turn the past topsy-turvy. Those people
went back. It's recorded in history. Some of them married and had children, and
the descendants of those children are alive today. For all you know, Quellen,
you may be the descendant of a hopper I'm going to send back next week—and if
that hopper never gets back, Quellen, you'll pop out of existence like a
snuffed candle. Sound like a pleasant way to die, CrimeSec?"
Quellen
stared glumly. Brogg stood silently behind Lanoy, and it became apparent to
the CrimeSec now that the burly UnderSec had been gunning for Quellen's job all
along, and that Lanoy was doing an effective job of elemi-nating the last
stumbling-block in his way. Marok, Koll, Spanner, Brogg, and now Lanoy—they
were all determined to see Quellen enmeshed. It was an unvoiced conspiracy.
Silently he cursed the two hundred million jostling inhabitants of Appalachia,
and wondered if he'd ever know a moment's solitude again.
"The
past won't be changed, Lanoy," he said. "Well lock you up, all right,
and take away your machine, but we'll see to it ourselves that the hoppers go
back. We're no fools, Lanoy. Well see to-it that everything stays as it
is."
Lanoy
watched him almost with pity for a moment, as one might observe a particularly
rare butterfly impaled on a mountingboard.
"Is that your game, CrimeSec? Why didn't
you tell me that before? In that case 111 have to take steps to protect
myself."
Quellen felt like hiding. "What are you
going to do?"
"Suppose
we talk it over privately, Quellen," the slyster said. "I might say
some things you wouldn't want your subordinates to hear."
Quellen glanced at Brogg.
"Have you searched him?"
"He's
clean," Brogg said. "Nothing to fear. We'll wait in the anteroom.
Come on, Mikken."
Ponderously,
Brogg stalked out of the room, followed by the silent Mikken.
With
the occupants of the room numbering just two, Quellen moved to cut down the oxy
vent.
"Leave
it up, Quellen," Lanoy said. "I like to breathe well at government
expense."
"What's
your game?" Quellen asked. He was angry; Lanoy was a completely vicious
creature who offended Quellen's pride and dignity.
Til
be blunt with you, CrimeSec," the slyster said. "I want my freedom,
and I want to continue in business. I like it that way. That's what I want. You
want to arrest me and take over my business. That's what you want. Right?"
"Yes."
"Now
in a situation like that we have an interplay of mutually exclusive desires. So
the stronger of the two forces wins—ail the time. I'm stronger, and so you'll
have to let me go arid forget all about the investigation."
"Who says you're
stronger, Lanoy?"
"I'm
strong because you're weak. I know a lot of things about you, Quellen.,I know
how you hate crowds and like fresh air and open spaces. These are pretty
awkward idiosyncrasies to live with in a world like ours, aren't they?"
"Go
on," said Quellen, He cursed Brogg silendy—no one else could have revealed
his secret to Lanoy.
"So
you're going to let me walk out of here, or else you'll find yourself back in a
Class Twelve or Ten unit. You won't like it much there, CrimeSec. You'll have
to share a room, and you may not like your room-mate, but there'll be nothing
you can do. And when you have a room-mate, you won't be free to run away. He'll
report you."
"What
do you mean, run away?" Quellen's voice was little more than a husky
whisper.
"I mean run away to
Africa, Quellen."
That
was it, Quellen thought. Now it's over; Brogg's sold me down the river. With
Lanoy in possession of Quellen's secret, Quellen was completely in the little
slyster's power.
"I hate to do this to you, Quellen. You're a
pretty good sort, caught in a world you didn't make and don't especially like.
But it's either you or me, and you know who always wins in deals like
that."
Check and mate.
"Go ahead,"
Quellen whispered. "Get moving."
"I
knew you'd see it my way," Lanoy said. "I'D leave now. You don't
interfere with me, and Koll won't ever know about your litde shack."
"Get out,"
Quellen said.
Lanoy
got up, saluted Quellen, and slipped out through the door.
CHAPTER
TV
As Lanoy
left, Koll entered.
Quellen, his face in his hands, saw Koll out of the comer of one -eye and
thought for a moment that it was Lanoy returning. Then he looked up.
"I
thought I'd have a look at your slyster," Koll said. "But I see he's
not around."
"I sent him
inside," Quellen said weakly.
"I'll
check," said Koll. "I'm quite curious about him." He left, and
Brogg entered.
"Have
a nice chat, CrimeSec?" Brogg asked, smiling. As always, the fat man's
forehead was strung with a row of perspiration-beads.
"Very
nice, thank you." Quellen looked imploringly at his assistant. If only he
could be left alone for a few momentsl
"He doesn't seem to be
here any more, CrimeSec. I had a
few questions for your
friend Lanoy, but I can't find him."
"I don't know where he
went to, Brogg."
Are
you sure, now, CrimeSec? Where is he, Quellen?" he said maliciously.
"I don't know." It was the first
time Brogg had dropped the honorific in addressing Quellen. "Go
away."
Brogg
smiled slyly and left, closing the door with care. Quellen sat in his
penumochair, shaking his head from side to side. He was in for it now. If he
failed to produce Lanoy, they'd have his neck. If he recaptured the litde
slyster, Lanoy would give the show away. Either way they had him.
He
tiptoed through the front office, where Brogg glared at him with evident
interest, stepped out into the crowded street and caught the first quickboat
back to his apartment. It was good to be alone again. He wandered around aimlessly
for a moment, and then walked over to face the stat.
All
he had to do was step through it and he'd be back in Africa, by the side of the
twisting stream and the crocodiles. No more job, but they'd never find him, and
he could spend the rest of his days peacefully.
No
good, he thought dismally. It wasn't safe, with Brogg and Lanoy knowing.
Between the two of them, they'd ferret him out quickly enough. Africa held no
security.
Besides,
he felt a strange new feeling growing in him— a feeling .that he was put upon,
that he was a sort of martyr to overcrowding. He thrust his hands in his pocket
and stood before the stat, revolving in his mind the implications of this new
concept. A world he never made, Lanoy had said.
All
guilt dissolved. Let Koll unravel the mess to suit himself, Quellen thought.
It was done.
There
was a swirling and a twisting and Quellen felt as if he had been turned
inside-out and disembowelled. He was floating on a purple cloud high above some
indistinct terrain, and he was falling.
He dropped, heels over head, and landed in a
scrambled heap on a long green carpet. He lay there for a moment or two, just
holding on to the ground.
A
handful of the carpet tore off in his fist. He looked at it with a puzzled
expression on his face.
Crass.
The clean smell of the air hit him next,
almost as a physical shock. It smelled like a room with full oxy, but this was
outdoors.
Quellen
gathered himself together and stood up. The grassy carpet extended in all
directions, and in front of him there was a great thicket of trees.
He
had seen trees in Africa. There were none in Appa-lachia. He looked. A small
gray bird came out on the overhanging branch of the nearest tree and began to
chirp, unafraid, at Quellen. He smiled.
He
wondered how long Koll and Brogg would search for him, and whether Brogg would
cope with Lanoy. He hoped not; Brogg was a scoundrel, and Lanoy, despite his
slyster habits, was a gentleman.
Quellen
began to move toward the forest. He would have to locate a stream and build a
house next to it, he decided. He could make the house as big as he wanted.
He
felt no guilt. He had been a misfit, thrown into a world he could only hate and
which could only ensnarl him. Now he had his chance; it was all up to him.
Two
deer came bounding out of the forest. Quellen stood aghast. He had never seen
animals that size. Happily, they skipped off into the distance.
Quellen's
heart began to sing as he filled his lungs with the sweet air. Marok, Koll,
Spanner, Brogg. They began to fade and blur. Good old Lanoy, he thought. He'd
kept his word after all.
The
world is mine, Quellen
thought. So now I'm a hopper, too—taking the longest hop of all.
A
tall, red-skinned man emerged from the forest and stood near a tree, regarding
Quellen gravely. He was dressed in a leather belt, a pair of sandals, and
nothing else, and in his hair was a decorative feather. The red-skinned man
studied Quellen for a moment and then raised his arm in a gesture Quellen could
not fail to interpret. A warm feeling of comradeship glowed in Quellen.
Smiling
at last, Quellen went forward to meet him, palm upraised.
BLAZE OF GLORY
They
list John Murchison as one
of (he great heroes of space—a brave man and true, who willingly sacrificed himself
to save his ship. He won his immortality on the way back from Shaula II.
One
thing's wrong, though. He was brave, but he wasn't willing. He wasn't the
self-sacrificing type. I'm inclined to think it was murder—or maybe
execution—by remote control, you might say.
I
guess they pick spaceship crews at random, probably by yanking a handful of
cards from the big computer and throwing them up at the BuSpace roof. The ones
that stick get picked. At least, that's the only way a man like Murchison could
have been sent to Shaula II in the first place.
Murchison was tall, bull-necked,
coarse-featured, hard-swearing, a spaceman of a type 'that had never existed
except in storytapes for the very young—the only kind Murchison was likely to
have studied. He was our chief signal officer.
Somewhere,
he had picked up an awesome technical competence; he could handle any sort of
communuication device with supernatural ease. I once saw him tinker with a
complex litde Caphian artifact that had been buried for half a million years
and have it detecting the 21-centimeter "hydrogen song" within
minutes. How he knew the little widget was a star-mapping device, I will never
understand.
But coupled with Murchison's extraordinary
special skill
was
an irascibility, flaring into seemingly unmotivated anger at unpredictable
times, that made him a prime risk on a planet like Shaula II. There was
something wrong with his emotional circuit-breaker, you could never tell when
he'd overload, start fizzing and sparking, and blow off a couple of megawatts
of temper.
You must admit this is not the ideal sort of
man to send to a world whose inhabitants are listed in the Extraterrestrial
Catalogue as "wise,
somewhat world-weary, exceedingly gentle, non-aggressive to an extreme degree
and thus subject to exploitation. The Shaulans must be handled with great
patience and forbearance, and should be given the respect due one of the
Galaxy's elder races."
I
had never been to Shaula II, but I had a sharp mental image of the Shaulans:
melancholy old men, pondering the whichness of the why, whom the first loud
shout would drop in their tracks. So it caught me by surprise when the time
came to affix my hancock to the roster of the Feliciflc and I saw on the line above mine the
scribbled words Murchison,
John F., Chief, Signal Officer.
I
signed my name— Loeb,
Ernest T., Second Officer-picked up my pay, voucher and walked away somewhat dizzily. I was thinking of
the time I had seen Murchison, John F., giving a Denebolan frogman the beating
of 'his life, for no particular reason at all.
"All
the rain here makes me sick," was all Murchison cared to say; the frogman
lived and Big Jawn got an X on his psych report.
Now
he was shipping out for Shaula? Well, maybe so—but my faith in the computer
that makes up spaceship complements was seriously shaken.
Ours
was the fourth or fifth expedition to Shaula II. The planet—second of seven in
orbit around the brightest star in Scorpio's tail-^was small and scrubby, but
of" great strategic importance as a lookout spot for that sector of the
Galaxy. The natives hadn't minded our intrusion and so a military base had been
established there with no preliminary haggling whatever.
The Felicific was
a standard warp-conversion-drive ship holding thirty-six men. It had the usual
crew of eight, plus a cargo of twenty-eight of Terra's finest, being sent out
as replacements for the current staff of the base.
We
blasted on 3 July 2530, a warmish day, made the conversion from ion-drive to
warp-drive as soon as we were clear of the Solar System, and popped back into
normal space three weeks later and two hundred light-years away. It was a
routine trip in all respects.
With
the warp-conversion drive, a ship is equipped to travel both long distances and
short. It handles the long hops via subspace warp, and the short ones by good
old standard ion-drive seat-of-the-spacesuit navigating. It's a good setup and
the extra mass that the double drive requires is more than compensated for by
the saving in time and maneuverability.
The
warp-drive part of the trip was pre-plotted and just about pre-traveled for us;
no headaches there.
But when we blurped back
into the continuum about half a light-year from Shaula, the human factor
entered the situation. Meaning Murchison, of course.
It was his job to check and tend the network
of telemetering systems that acted as the ship's eyes, to make sure the
mass-detectors were operating, to smooth the bugs out of the communications
channels between navigator and captain and drive-deck. In brief, he was the man
who made it possible for us to land.
Every
ship carried a spare signalman, just in case. In normal circumstances, the
spare never got much work. When the time came for the landing, Captain Knight
buzzed me and told me to start lining up the men who would take part.
Naturally, I signaled Murchison first—he was our chief signal officer.
His voice was a slow
rasping drawl, "Yeah?"
"Second Officer Loeb. Prepare for
landing, double-fast. Navigator Henrich has the chart set up for you and he's
waiting for your call."
There was a pause. Then:
"I don't feel like it, Loeb."
I shut my eyes, held my breath and counted to
three by fractions. Then I said, "Would you mind repeating that, Mr.
Murchison?"
"Hell,
Loeb, I'm fixing something. Why do you want to land now?"
"I
don't make up the schedules," I said. "Then who in blazes does? Tell
him I'm busy!" I turned down my phone's volume. "Busy doing
what?"
"Busy doing nothing.
Get off the line and 111 call Henrich."
I
grunted and broke contact. He'd just been ragging me. Once again, Murchison had
been ornery for the sheer sake of being ornery. One of these days, he was going
to refuse to handle the landing entirely. And that day, I told myself, is the
day we'll crate him up and shove him through the disposal lock.
Murchison
had his skills and he applied them—when he felt like it. But only if he
believed that he would profit. He never did anything unwillingly, because if he
couldn't find it in himself to do it willingly, he wouldn't do it at all. It
was impossible to make
him do something.
Unwisely,
we tolerated it. But someday he would get a captain who didn't understand him
and he'd be slapped with a sentence of mutiny. For his sake, I hoped not. The
penalty for mutiny in space is the same as it always has been—death.
With
Murchison's cooperation gratefully accepted, we targeted on Shaula II, which
was then at perihelion, and orbited in. Down in his little cubicle, Murchison
worked like a demon, taking charge of the ships' landing system in a tremendous
way. He was a fantastic signalman when he wanted to be.
Later
that day, the spinning red ball that was Shaula II hung just ahead of us, close
enough to let us see the three blobs of continents and the big, choppy
hydrocarbon ocean that licked them smooth.
The Terran base on Continent Three beamed us
a landing guide. Murchison picked it up, fed it through the computer bank to
Navigator Henrichs and we homed in for the landing.
The
Terran base consisted of a couple of blockhouses, a sprawling barracks and a
good-sized radar parabola, all set in a ring out on an almost mathematically
flat plain. Shaula II was a great world for plains; Columbus would have had the
devil's time convincing people this world
was round!
Murchison
guided us to a glassy-looking area not far from the base and we touched down.
The Felicific creaked and groaned a little as the
landing-jacks absorbed its weight. Green lights went on all over the ship. We
were free to go outside.
A
welcoming committee was on hand out there: eight members of the base staff,
clad in shorts and topees. Regulation uniforms went by the board on oven-hot
Shaula II. The eight looked awfully happy to see us.
Coming
over the flat sandy plain from the base were a dozen or so others, sunning, and
behind them I could see even more. They were understandably glad we were here.
Twenty-eight of them had spent a full year on Shaula II; they were eligible for
their parity-program year's vacation.
There
were some other—things—moving toward us. They came slowly, with grace and
dignity. I had expected to be impressed with the Shaulans and I was.
They
were erect bipeds about four feet tall, with long thin arms dangling to their
knees. Their gray skins were grainy and rough, and their dark eyes—they had
three, arranged triangularly—were deep-set and brooding. A fleshy sort of cowl
or cobra-hood curled up from their necks to shield their round hairless skulls.
The aliens were six in number and even the youngest-looking of them seemed
ancient.
A brown-faced young man wearing shorts, topee
and tattooed stars stepped forward and said, "I'm General Gloster. I'm in
charge here."
The
captain acknowledged his greeting. "Knight of the Felicific. We have your relief men with us."
"I
sure as hell hope you do," Gloster said. "Be kind of silly to come
all this way without them."
We
all laughed a little over that. By now, we were ringed in by at least fifty
Earthmen, probably the entire base complement—we didn't rotate the entire base
staff at once, of course—and the six aliens.
The
twenty-eight youngsters we had ferried here were looking around the place
curiously, apprehensive about this hot, dry, flat planet that would be their
home for the next sidereal year.
The
crew of the Felicific
had gathered in a little
knot near the ship. Most of them probably felt the way I did—glad we'd be on
our way home in a couple of days.
Murchison
was squinting at the six aliens. I wondered what he was thinking about.
The
bunch of us traipsed back the half mile or so to the settlement. Gloster walked
with Knight and myself, prattling volubly about the progress the base was
making, and the twenty-eight newcomers mingled with the twenty-eight who were
being relieved. Murchison walked by himself, kicking up puffs of red dust and
glowering in his usual manner. The six aliens accompanied us at some distance.
"We keep building all the time,"
Gloster explained when we were within the compound. "Branching out,
setting up new equipment, erecting new quarters, shoring up the old stuff. That
radar parabola out there wasn't up last replacement trip."
I
looked around. "The place looks fine, General." It was strange
calling a man half my age General, but
the Service sometimes works that way. "When do you plan to set up your
telescope?"
"Next
year, maybe." He glanced out the window at the featureless landscape.
"We keep building all the time. Got to make something out of this planet.
We're doing a damn fine job—never recognize the place in a couple of
years."
"How
about the natives?" the captain asked. "You have much contact with
themF'
Gloster shrugged. "As
much as they'll allow. They're a proud old race—only a handful of them left.
But what a race they must have been once!"
I
found Gloster's boyish enthusiasm discomforting. "Do you think we could
meet one of the aliens before we go?" I asked.
"Ill
see about it." Gloster picked up a phone.
"McHenry? There any natives in the compound now? Good. Send him up, will
you?"
Moments later, one of the shorts-clad men
appeared, hand in hand with an alien. At close range, the Shaulan looked almost
frighteningly old. A maze of wrinkles gullied its noseless face, nmning from
the triple eyes down to the dots of nostrils to the sagging, heavy-lipped
mouth.
"This
is Azga," Gloster said. "Azga, meet Captain Knight and Second Officer
Loeb of the Felicific."
The
creature offered a wobbly sort of bow and said in a deep, resonant, almost human croak, "I am very humble indeed in
your presence, Captain Knight and Second Officer Loeb."
Azga
straightened painfully from bowing and the three eyes fixed on mine. I felt
like squirming, but I stared back. It was like looking into a mirror that gave the wrong reflection.
Yet there was something calm and wise and
good about the grotesque creature, something relaxing and terribly fragile. The
rough gray skin looked like precious leather, and the hood over the skull
appeared to shield it from worry and ■harm. A faint musty odor wandered
through the room.
We looked at each other—Knight and Gloster
and McHenry and I—and we remained silent. Now that the Shaulan was here, what
could we say? What new thing could we possibly tell the ancient
creature?
I
was fumbling for words to express my feeling when the sharp buzz of the phone
cut across the uncomfortable silence.
Gloster
nodded curtly to McHenry, who answered. The man listened for a moment.
"Captain Knight, it's for you."
Puzzled,
Knight took 'the receiver. He held it long enough to hear about three sentences
and turned to me. "Loeb, commandeer a landoar from someone in the compound
and get back to the ship. Murchison's tangling with one of the aliens."
I hotfooted down into the compound and
spotted an enlisted man tooling up his landcar. I pulled rank and requisitioned
it, and minutes later I was parking it outside the Felicific and was clambering up the catwalk.
An excited-looking recruit
stood at the open airlock.
"Where's
Murchison?" I asked.
"Down
in the communicator cabin, sir. He's got an alien in there with him. There's
gonna be trouble."
I
remembered Denebola and Murchison kicking the stuffings out of a groaning
frogman. I groaned a little myself and dashed down the companionway.
The
communications cabin was Murchison's inner sanctum, a cubicle off the astro
deck where he worked and kept control over the Felicific's communications network.
I
yanked open the door and saw him at the far end of the cabin, holding a massive
crescent wrench 'and glaring at a Shaulan facing him. The Shaulan had its back
to me. It looked small and squat and helpless.
Murchison
saw me as I entered. "Get out of here, Loeb. This isn't your affair."
"What's going on
here?" I snapped.
"This-
alien snooping around. I'm gonna let him have it with the wrench."
"I
meant no harm," the alien boomed sadly. "Mere philosophical interest
in your strange machines, nothing more. If I have offended a folkway of yours,
I humbly apologize. It is not the way of my people to give offense."
I walked forward and took a position between
them, making sure I wasn't within easy reach of Murchison's wrench. He was
standing there with his nostrils spread, his eyes cold and hard, his breath
pumping noisily. He was angry, and an angry Murchison was a frightening sight.
He took two heavy steps
toward me. "I told you to get out.
This
is my cabin, Loeb. And neither you nor any aliens got any business in it."
"Put down that wrench, Murchison. It's
an order."
He laughed contemptuously. "Signal officers
don't have to take orders from anyone but the captain if they think the safety
of the ship is jeopardized. And I do. There's a dangerous alien in here."
"Be reasonable," I said. "This
Shaulan's not dangerous.
He only wanted to look around. Just curious." s
The wrench wiggled warningly. I wished I had
a blaster with me, but I hadn't thought of bringing a weapon. The alien faced
Murchison quite calmly, as if confident the signalman would never strike
anything so old and delicate.
"You'd better
leave," I said to the alien.
"Nol"
Murchison roared. He shoved me to one side and went after the Shaulan.
The
alien stood there, waiting, as Murchison came on. I tried to drag the big man away, but there was no stopping him.
At
least he didn't use the wrench. He let it slip clangingly to the floor and
slapped the alien open-handed across its face. The Shaulan backed up a few
feet. A trickle of bluish fluid worked its way along its mouth.
Murchison raised his hand again. "Damned
snooper! Ill teach you to poke in my cabin!" He hit the alien again.
This
time the Shaulan folded up accordionwise and huddled on the floor. It focused
those three deep solid-black eyes on Murchison reproachfuly.
Murchison looked back. They stared at each
other for a long moment, until it seemed that their eyes were linked by an
invisible cord. Then Murchison looked away.
"Get out of
here," he muttered.
The
Shaulan rose and departed, limping a little, but still intact. Those aliens
were more solid than they seemed.
"I
guess you're going to put me in the brig," Murchison said to me.
"Okay, 111 go quietly."
We didn't brig him, because there was nothing to be gained by that. He
got the silent treatment instead. The men at the base would have nothing to do
with him whatsoever because, in their year on Shaula, they had developed a
respect for the aliens not far from worship, and any man who would actually use
physical violence—well, he just wasn't worth wasting breath on.
The
men of our crew gave him a wide berth, too. He wandered among us, a tall,
powerful figure with anger and loneliness stamped on his face, and he said
nothing to any of us and no one said anything to him. Whenever he saw one of
the aliens, he went far out of his way to avoid a meeting.
Murchison got another X on his psych report,
and that second X meant he'd never be allowed to visit any world inhabited by
intelligent life again. It was a BuSpace regulation, one of the many they have
for the purpose of locking the bam door too late.
Three days went by this way on Shaula. On the
fourth, we took aboard the twenty-eight departing men, said good-by to Gloster
and his staff and the twenty-eight we had ferried out to him, and—somewhat
guiltily—good-by to the Shaulans, too.
The six of them showed up for our blastoff,
including the somewhat battered one who had had the run-in with Murchison. They
wished us well, gravely, without any sign of bitterness. For the hundredth
time, I was astonished by theft patience, their wisdom, their understanding.
I
held Azga's rough hand in mine and finally managed to tell him what I had been
wanting to say since our first meeting—how much I hoped we'd eventually reach
the mental equifibrium and inner calm of the Shaulans. He smiled warmly at me
and I said good-by again and entered the ship.
We ran the usual pre-blast checkups and got
ready for departure. Communications was working well—Murchison had none of his
usual grumbles and complaints—and we were off the ground in record time.
A couple of days of ion-drive, three weeks of
warp, two more of ion-drive deceleration, and we would be back on Earth.
The three weeks passed slowly, of course;
when Earth lies ahead of you, time drags. But after the interminable gray-ness
of warp came the sudden wrenching twist and the bright slippery sliding feeling as our Bohling generator threw us
back into ordinary space.
I
pushed down the communicator stud near my arm and heard the voice of Navigator
Henrichs saying, "Murchison, give me the coordinates, will you?"
"Hold
on," came Murchison's growl. "You'll get your coordinates as soon as
I got 'em."
There
was a pause; then Captain Knight said, "Murchison, what's holding up
those coordinates? Where are we, anyway? Turn on the visiplatesl"
"Please,
Captain." Murchison's
heavy voice was surprisingly polite. Then he ruined it. "Please be good
enough to shut up and let a man think."
"Murchison—"
Knight sputtered, and stopped. We all knew one solid fact about our signalman:
he did as he wanted. No one ever coerced him into anything.
So
we waited, spinning end-over-end somewhere in the vicinity of Earth, completely
blind behind our wall of metal. Until Murchison chose to feed us some data, we
had no way of bringing the ship down.
Three
more minutes went by. Then the private circuit Knight used when he wanted to talk
to me alone lit up, and he said, "Loeb, go down to Communications and see
what's holding Murchison up. We can't stay here forever."
I pocketed a blaster—I hate making mistakes
more than once—and left my cabin. I walked to the companionway, turned to the
left, hit the drophatch and found myself outside Murchison's door.
I knocked.
"Get away from here, Loebl"
Murchison bellowed from within.
I had forgotten that he had rigged a one-way vision circuit outside his
door. I said, "Let me in, Murchison. Let me in or I'll blast out the
lock."
I
heard a heavy sigh and the whisper of the lock contracting. "Come on in,
then."
Nervously
I pushed the door open and poked my head and the blaster snout in, half
expecting Murchison to leap on me from above. But he was sitting at an
equipment-jammed desk, scribbling notes, which surprised me. I stood waiting
for him to look up.
And
finally he did. I gasped when I saw his face: drawn, harried, pale, tense. I
had never seen an expression like that on Murchison's face before.
"What's
going on?" I asked. "We're all waiting to get moving and—"
He
turned to face me squarely. "You want to know what's going on, Loeb? Well,
listen: the ship's blind. None of the equipment is reading anything. No
telemeter pickup, no visual, no rjothing. You scrape up some coordinates, if you can."
We held a little meeting half an hour later,
in the ship's Common Room. Murchison was there, and Knight, and myself, and
Navigator Henrichs, and three representatives of the cargo.
"How did this happen?" Knight
demanded. Murchison shrugged. "It happened while we were in warp."
Knight
glanced at Henrichs. "You ever hear of such a thing happening
before?" He seemed to suspect Murchison of funny business.
But
Henrichs shook his head. "No, Chief. And there's a good reason why, too.
If this happens to a ship, the ship doesn't get back to tell about it."
Captain
Knight looked gray-faced. He asked worriedly, "What could have caused
this?"
"No
one knows what subspace conditons are like," Henrichs said. "It may
have been a fluke magnetic field, as
Murchison
suggests. Or anything at all. The question's not what did it, Captain—it's how
do we get back."
"Murchison,
is there any chance you can repair the instruments?"
"No."
"Just
like that—flat no? Hell, man, we've seen you do wonders with
instruments on the blink before."
"No,"
Murchison repeated stolidly. "I tried. I can't do a damned thing."
"That
means we're finished, doesn't it?" asked Carney, one of our returnees. His
voice was a little wild. "We might just as well have stayed on Shaulal At
least we'd still be alive!"
"It
looks pretty lousy," Henrichs admitted. The thin-faced navigator was
frowning blackly. "We don't dare try a blind approach. There's nothing we can do. Nothing at alL"
"There's one thing," Murchison
said.
All eyes turned to him.
"What's that?" Knight asked.
"Put
a man in a spacesuit and anchor him to the skin of the ship. Have him guide us
in by voice—hell be able to see, even if we can't."
"He'd
incinerate once we hit Earth's atmosphere," I said. "We'd lose a man
and still have to land blind."
Murchison
puckered his thick lower hp. "You'll be able to judge the ship's height by
hull temperature when you're that close. Besides, as soon as the ship's inside
the ionosphere, you can use ordinary radio for the rest of the way down. The
trick is to get that
far."
"I think it's worth a try," Captain
Knight said. "I guess we'll have to draw lots. Loeb, get some spaghetti
from the galley to use as straws." His voice was grim.
"Never mind," Murchison said.
"How's that again?"
"I said never mind. Forget about drawing
straws. Ill go." "Murchison—"
"Skip
it!" he
barked. "It's a failure in my department, so I'm going to go out there. I
volunteer, get it? If anyone else wants to, 111 wrestle him for it." He
looked around at us. No one moved. "I don't hear any takers. I'll assume
the job's mine." Sweat streamed down his face.
There was a startled silence, broken when
Carney made the lousiest remark I've ever heard mortal man utter. "You're
trying to make it up for hitting that defenseless Shaulan, eh, Murchison? Now
you want to be a hero to even things up!"
But the big man only turned to Carney and
said quiedy, "You're just as blind as the others. You don't know how
rotten those defenseless
Shaulans are, any of you.
Or what they did to us." He spat. "You all make me sick. I'm going
out there."
He
turned and walked away—out, to get into his space-suit and climb onto the
ship's skin.
I
Murchison's explicit instructions, relayed
from the outside of the ship, allowed Henrichs to bring us in. It was quite a
feat of teamwork.
At
50,000 feet above Earth, Murchison's voice suddenly cut out. We were able to
pick up ground-to-ship radio by then and we taxied down. Later, they told us it
seemed like a blazing candle riding the ship's back. A bright, clear flame
flared for a moment when we cleaved the atmosphere.
And
I remember the look on Murchison's face as he left us to go out there. It was
tense, bitter, strained—as if he were being compelled to go outside—as if he had no choice about
volunteering for martyrdom.
I
often wonder about that now. No one had ever made Murchison do anything he
didn't want to do—until then.
We
think of -the Shaulans. as gende, meek, defenseless. Murchison crossed one
of-them, and he died. Gende, meek, yes—but defenseless?
Maybe
they sabotaged the ship -somehow and forced Murchison into self-martyrdom
because he knew he'd been the cause. I don't know.
It sort of tarnishes his glorious halo*
But sometimes I think
Murchison was right about the Shaulans, after all. In any case, I've never been
back there. And I don't intend to, even if the computer picks me to go.
WARM MAN
No one was ever quite sure just when Mr. Hall in an
came
to live in New Brewster. Lonny Dewitt, who ought to know,
testified that Mr. Hallinan died on December. 3, at 3:30 in
the afternoon, but as for the day of his arrival no one could
be nearly so precise. y
It was simply that one day there was no one
living in the unoccupied split-level on Melon Hill, and then the next he was there, seemingly having grown out of the woodwork during the night,
ready and willing to spread his cheer and warmth throughout the whole of the
small suburban community. Daisy Moncrieff, New Brewster's ineffable hostess,
was responsible for making the first overtures toward Mr. Hallinan. It was two
days after she had first observed fights on in the Melon Hill place that she
decided the time had come to scrutinize the newcomers, to determine their place
in New Brewster society. Donning a light wrap, for it was a coolish October
day, she left her house in early forenoon and went on foot down Copperbeech
Road to the Melon Hill tumoff, and then climbed the sloping hill till she
reached the split-level.
The
name was already on the mailbox: davis hallinan. That probably meant they'd been living 'there
a good deal longer than just two days, thought MrsT Moncrieff; perhaps they'd be insulted by the tardiness of the
invitation? She shrugged - and used the doorknocker.
A
tall man in early middle age appeared, smiling benignly, Mrs. Moncrieff was
thus the first recipient of the uncanny warmth that Davis Hallinan was to
radiate throughout
New Brewster before his strange death. His
eyes were deep and solemn, with warm lights shining in them; his hair was a
dignified gray-white mane.
"Good
morning. I'm Mrs. Mancrieff— Daisy Moncriefl,
from the big house down on Copperbeech Road. You must be Mr. Hallinan. May I
come in?"
"Ah—please,
no, Mrs. MoncriefF. The place is still a chaos. Would you mind staying on the
porch?"
He
closed the door behind him—Mrs. Moncrieff later claimed that she had a fleeting
view of the interior and saw unpainted walls and dust-covered bare floors—and
drew one of the rusty porch chairs for her.
"Is your wife at home,
Mr. Hallinan?" - "There's just me, I'm afraid. I live alone."
"Oh."
Mrs. Moncrieff, discomforted, managed a grin none the less. In New Brewster everyone was married; the idea of a bachelor or a
widower coming to settle there was strange, disconcerting . . . and just a
little pleasant, she added, surprised at herself.
"My
purpose in coming was to invite you to meet some of your new neighbors
tonight—if you're free, that is. I'm having a coctkail party at my place about
six, with dinner at seven. We'd be so happy if you came!"
His
eyes twinkled gaily. "Certainly, Mrs. Moncrieff. I'm looking forward to it
already."
The ne plus ultra of New Brewster society was
impatiently assembled at the Moncrieff home shordy after 6, waiting to meet
Mr. Hallinan, but it was not until 6:15 that he arrived. By then, thanks to
Daisy MoncriefFs fearsome skill as a hostess, everyone present was equipped
with a drink and with a set of speculations about the mysterious bachelor on
the hill.
"I'm sure he must be a writer,"
said Martha Weede to liverish Dudley Heyer. "Daisy says he's tall and
distinguished and just radiates
personality. He's probably
here only for a few months—just long enough to get to know us all, and then
hell write a novel about us."
"Hmm. Yes," Heyer said. He was an
advertising executive who commuted to Madison Avenue every morning; he had an
ulcer, and was acutely conscious of his role as a stereotype. "Yes, then
hell write a sizzling novel exposing suburban decadence, or a series of acid
sketches for The
New Yorker. I
know the type."
Lys
Erwin, looking desirable and just a bit disheveled after her third martini in
thirty minutes, drifted by in time to overhear that. "You're always conscious of types,
aren't you, darling? You
and your gray flannel suit?"
Heyer
fixed her with a baleful stare but found himself, as usual, unable to make an
appropriate retort. He turned away, smiled hello at quiet little Harold and
Jane Dewitt, whom he pitied somewhat (their son Lonny, age 9, was a shy, sensitive child, a total misfit among 'his playmates) and
confronted the bar, wdghing the probability of a night of acute agony against
the immediate desirability of a Manhattan.
But
at that moment Daisy Moncrieff reappeared with Mr. Hallinan in tow, and
conversation ceased abruptiy throughout the parlor while the assembled guests
stared at the newcomer. An instant later, conscious of their collective faux pas, the group began to chat again, and Daisy
moved among her guests, introducing her prize.
"Dudley,
this is Mr. Davis Hallinan. Mr. Hallinan, I want you to meet Dudley Heyer, one
of the most talented men in New Brewster."
"Indeed? What do you
do, Mr. Heyer?"
"I'm
in advertising. But don't let them fool you; it doesn't take any talent at all.
Just brass, nothing else. The desire to delude the public, and delude 'em good.
But how about you? What line are you in?"
Mr.
Hallinan ignored the question. "I've always thought advertising was a
richly creative field, Mr. Heyer. But, of course, I've never really known at
first hand—"
"Well,
I have. And it's everything they say it is." Heyer felt his face
reddening, as if he had had a drink or two. He was becoming talkative, and
found Hallinan's presence oddly soothing. Leaning close to the newcomer, Heyer
said, "Just between you and me, Hallinan, I'd give my whole bank account
for a chance to stay home and write. Just
write. I want to do a novel. But I don't have the guts; that's my trouble. I
know that come Friday there's a $350 check waiting on my desk, and I don't dare
give that up. So I keep writing my novel up here in my head, and it keeps
eating me away down here in my gut. Eating." He
paused, conscious that he had said too much and that his eyes were glittering
beadily.
Haliinan
wore a benign smile. "It's always sad to see talent hidden, Mr. Heyer. I
wish you well."
Daisy
Moncrieff appeared then, hooked an arm through Hallinan s, and led him away.
Heyer, alone, stared down at the textured gray broadloom.
Now
why did I tell him' all that? he wondered A minute after meeting Hallinan, he had unburdened his
deepest woe to him—something he had not confided in anyone else in New
Brewster, including his wife.
And yet—it had been a sort of catharsis,
Heyer thought. Hallinan had calmly soaked up all his grief and inner agony, and
left Heyer feeling drained and purified and warm.
Catharsis?
Or a bloodAetting? Heyer
shrugged, then grinned and made his way to the bar to pour himself a Manhattan.
As usual, Lys and Leslie Erwin were at
opposite ends of the parlor. Mrs. Moncrieff found Lys more easily, and introduced
her to Mr. Hallinan.
Lys
faced him unsteadily, and on a sudden impulse hitched her neckline higher.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hallinan. I'd like you to meet my husband
Leslie. Lesliel
Come here, please?"
Leslie
Erwin approached. He was twenty years older than his wife, and was generally
known to wear the finest pair of horns in New Brewster—a magnificent spread of
antlers that grew a new point or two almost every week.
"Les, this is Mr. Hall man. Mr.
Hallinan, meet my husband, Leslie."
Mr.
Hallinan bowed courteously to both of them. "Happy to make your
acquaintance."
"The
same," Erwin.said. "If you'll excuse me, now—" "The
louse," said Lys Erwin, when her husband had returned to his station at
the bar. "He'd sooner cut his throat than spend two minutes next to me in
public." She glared bitterly at Hallinan. "I don't deserve that kind
of thing, do IP-Mr. Hallinan frowned sympathetically. "Have you any
children, Mrs. Erwin?"
"Hah! He'd never give me any—not with my reputation! You'll have to pardon me; I'm a little drunk." "I
understand, Mrs. Erwin."
"I
know. Funny, but I hardly know you and I like you. You seem to understand. Really, I mean." She took his cuff
hesitantly. "Just from looking at you, I can tell you're not judging me
like all the others. I'm not really had, am
I? It's just that I get so bored, Mr.
Hallinan."
"Boredom is a great
curse," Mr. Hallinan observed.
"Damn
right it is! And Leslie's no help—always reading his newspapers and talking to
his brokers! But I can't help myself, believe me." She looked around
wildly. "They're going to start talking about us in a minute, Mr.
Hallinan. Every time I talk to someone new they start whispering. But
promise" me something—"
"If I can."
"Someday—someday soon—let's get
together? I want to talk
to you. God, I want to talk
to someone—someone who understands why I'm the way I am. Will you?"
"Of
course, Mrs. Erwin. Soon." Gently he detached her hand from his sleeve,
held it tenderly for a moment, and released it. She smiled hopefully at him. He
nodded.
"And now I must meet some of the other
guests. A pleasure, Mrs. Erwin."
He drifted away, leaving Lys weaving shakily
in the middle of the parlor. She drew in a deep breath and lowered her
decolletage again.
At least there's
one decent
man in
this town now, she thought. There was something good about Hallinan—good, and kind, and understanding.
Understanding. That's what
I need. She wondered if she could manage to pay a visit to the house on Melon
Hill tomorrow afternoon without arousing too much scandal.
Lys
turned and saw thin-faced Aiken Muir staring at her slyly, with a clear-cut
invitation on his face. She met his glance with a frigid, wordless go to hell.
Mr. Hallinan moved on, on through the party.
And, gradually, the pattern of the party began to form. It took shape like a
fine mosaic. By the time the cocktail hour was over and dinner was ready, an
intricate, complex structure of interacting thoughts and responses had been
built.
Mr.
Hallinan, always drinkless, glided deftly from one New Brewsterite to the next,
engaging each in conversation, drawing a few basic facts about the others
personality, smiling politely, moving on. Not until after he moved on did the
person come to a dual realization: that Mr. Hallinan had said quite little,
really, and that he had instilled a feeling of warmth and security in the other
during their brief talk.
And thus while Mr. Hallinan learned from
Martha Weede of her paralyzing envy of her husband's intelligence and of her
fear of his scorn, Lys Erwin was able to remark to Dudley Heyer that Mr.
Hallinan was a remarkably kind and understanding person. And Heyer, who had
never been known to speak a land word of anyone, for once agreed.
And later, while Mr.- Hallinan was extracting
from Leslie Erwin some of the pain his wife's manifold infidelities caused him,
Martha Weede could tell Lys Erwin, "He's so gentie— why, he's almost like
a saint!"
And
while little Harold Dewitt poured out his fear that his silent 9-year-old son
Lonny was in some way subnormal, Leslie Erwin, with a jaunty grin, remarked to
Daisy Mon-crieff, "That man must be a psychiatrist. Lord, he knows how to
talk to a person. Inside of two minutes he had me telling him all my troubles.
I feel better for it, too."
Mrs.
MoncriefF nodded. "I know what you mean. This morning, when I went up to his place to invite him here, we talked a little while on his
porch."
"Well,"
Erwin said, "if he's a psychiatrist he'll find plenty of business here.
There isn't a person here riding around without a private monkey on his back.
Take Heyer, over there—he didn't get that ulcer from happiness. That
scatter-brain Martha Weede, too—married to a Columbia professor who can't
imagine what to talk to her about. And my wife Lys is a very confused person
too, of course."
"We
all have our problems," Mrs. Moncrieff sighed, "But I feel much better since I spoke
with Mr. Hallinan. Yes: much
better."
Mr.
Hallinan was now talking with Paul Jambell, the architect. Jambell, whose
pretty young wife was in Springfield Hospital slowly dying of cancer. Mrs.
Moncrieff could well imagine what Jambell and Mr. Hallinan were talking about.
Or
rather, what Jambell was talking about—for Mr. Hallinan, she realized, did
very little talking himself. But he was such a wonderful listener! She felt a pleasant glow, not
entirely due to the cocktails. It was good to have someone like Mr. Hallinan in
New Brewster, she thought. A man of his tact and dignity and warmth would be a
definite asset.
When Lys Erwin woke—alone, for a change—the
following morning, some of the past night's curious calmness had deserted her.
I have to talk to Mr. Hallinan, she thought.
She had resisted two implied and one overt
attempts at seduction the night before, had come home, had managed even to be
polite to her husband. And Leslie had been polite to her. It was most unusual.
"That Hallinan," he had said.
"He's quite a guy."
"You talked to him too?"
"Yeah. Told him a lot. Too much, maybe.
But I feel better for it."
"Odd,"
she said. "So do I. He's a strange one, isn't he? Wandering around that
party, soaking up everyone's aches. He must have had half the neuroses in New
Brewster unloaded on his back last night."
"Didn't
seem to depress him, though. More- he talked to people, more cheerful and
affable he got. And us, too. You look more relaxed than you've been in a month,
Lys."
"I feel more relaxed. As if all the roughness and ugliness in me was drawn
out."
And that was how it had felt the next
morning, too. Lys woke, blinked, looked at the empty bed across the room.
Leslie was long since gone, on his way to the city. She knew she had to talk to
Hallinan again. She hadn't got rid of it all. There was still some poison left
inside her, something cold and chunky that would melt before Mr. Hallinan's
warmth.
She
dressed, impatiently brewed some coffee, and left the house. Down Copperbeech
Road, past the Moncrieff house where Daisy and her stuffy husband Fred were
busily emptying the ashtrays of the night before, down to Melon Hill and up the
gentie slope to the split-level at the top.
Mr.
Hallinan came to the door in a blue checked dressing gown. He looked slightiy
seedy, almost overhung, Lys thought. His dark eyes had puffy lids and a light
stubble sprinkled his cheeks.
"Yes, Mrs.
Erwin?"
"Oh—good
morning, Mr. Hallinan. I—I came to see you. I hope I didn't disturb you—that
is—"
"Quite all right, Mrs.
Erwin." Instandy* she was at ease.
"But
I'm afraid I am really extremely tired after last night, and I fear I shouldn't
be very good company just now."
"But
you said you'd talk to me alone today. And—oh, there's so much more I want to
tell youl"
A
shadow of feeling—pain?
fear? Lys wondered—crossed
his face. "No," he said hastily. "No more—not just yet. Ill have
to rest today. Would you mind coming back—well, say Wednesday?"
"Certainly, Mr. Hallinan. I wouldn't
want to disturb you."
She
turned away and started down the hill, thinking: he had too much of our troubles last night.
He soaked them all up like a sponge, and today he's going to digest them—
Oh, what am I thinking?
She reached the foot of the hill, brushed a
couple of tears from her eyes, and walked home rapidly, feeling the October
chill whistling around her.
And so the partem of life in New Brewster
developed, For the six weeks before his death, Mr. Hallinan was a fixture at
any important community gathering, always dressed impeccably, always ready
with his cheerful smile, always uncannily able to draw forth whatever secret
hungers and terrors lurked in his neighbors' souls.
And
invariably Mr. Hallinan would be unapproachable the day after these gatherings,
would mildly but firmly turn away any callers. What he did, alone in the house
on Melon Hill, no one knew. As the days passed, it occured to all that no one
knew much of anything about Mr. Hallinan. He knew them all right, knew the one night of adultery twenty years before that still
racked Daisy Moncrieff, knew the acid pain that seared Dudley Heyer, the cold
envy glittering in Martha Weede, the frustration and loneliness of Lys Erwin,
her husband's shy anger at his own cuckoldry—he knew these things and many
more, but none of them knew more of him than his name.
Still,
he warmed their lives and took from them the burden of their griefs. If he
chose to keep his own life hidden, they said, that was his privilege.
He
took walks every day, through still-wooded New Brewster, and would wave and
smile to the children, who would wave and smile back. Occasionally he would
stop, chat with a sulking child, then move on, tall, erect,
walking with a jaunty stride.
He
was never known to set foot in either of New Brewster's two churches. Once Lora
Harker, a mainstay of the New
Brewster
Presbyterian Church, took him to task for this at a dull dinner party given by
the Weedes.
But
Mr. Hallinan smiled mildly and said, "Some of us feel the need. Others do
not."
And that ended the
discussion.
Toward
the end of November a few members of the community experienced an abrupt reversal
of their feelings about Mr. Hallinan—weary, perhaps, of his constant empathy
for their woes. The change in spirit was spearheaded by Dudley Heyer, Carl
Weede, and several of the other men.
"I'm getting not to trust that
guy," Heyer said. He knocked dottle vehemently from his pipe, "Always
hanging around soaking up gossip, pulling out dirt—and what the hell for? What
does he get out of it?"
"Maybe
he's practicing to be a saint," Carl Weede remarked quietly.
"Self-abnegation. The Buddhist Eightfold Path."
"The
women all swear by him," said Leslie Erwin. "Lys hasn't been the same
since he came here."
Til say she hasn't," said Aiken Muir wryly,
and all of the men, even Erwin, laughed, getting the sharp thrust.
"All
I know is I'm tired of having a father-confessor in our midst," Heyer
said. "I think he's got a motive back of all his goody-goody warmness.
When he's through pumping us he's going to write a book that'll put New
Brewster on the map but good."
"You
always suspect people of writing books," Muir said. "Oh, that mine enemy would write a book
. . .!"
"Well, whatever his motives I'm getting
annoyed. And that's why he hasn't been invited to the party we're giving on
Monday night." Heyer glared at Fred Moncrieff as if expecting some
dispute. "I've spoken to my wife about it, and she agrees. Just this once,
dear Mr. Hallinan stays home."
It
was strangely cold at the Heyers' party that Monday night. The usual people
were there, all but Mr. Hallinan. The party was not a success. Some, unaware
that Mr. Hallinan had not been invited, waited expectantiy for the chance to
talk to him, and managed to leave early when they discovered he was not to be
there.
"We
should have invited him," Ruth Heyer said after the last guest had left.
Heyer shook his head. "No. I'm glad we
didn't."
"But
that poor man, all alone on the hill while the bunch of us were here, cut off
from us. You don't think he'll get insulted, do you? I mean, and cut us from
now on?"
"I don't care,"
Heyer said, scowling.
His
attitude of mistrust toward Mr. Hallinan spread through the community. First
the Muirs, then the Harkers, failed to invite him to gatherings of theirs. He
still took his usual afternoon walks, and those who met him observed a slightly
strained expression on his face, though he still smiled gently and chatted
easily enough, and made no bitter comments.
And
on December 3, a Wednesday, Roy Heyer, age 10, and Philip Mbncrieff, age 9, set
upon Lonny Dewitt, age 9, just outside the New Brewster Public School, just
before Mr. Hallinan turned down the school lane on his stroll.
Lonny
was a strange, silent boy, the despair of his parents and the bane of his
classmates. He kept to himself, said little, nudged into comers and stayed
there. People clucked their tongues when they saw him in the street.
Roy
Heyer and Philip Moncrieff made up their minds they were going to make Lonny
Dewitt say something, or else.
It
was "or else.
They pummeled him and
kicked him for a few minutes; then, seeing Mr. Hallinan approaching, they ran,
leaving him weeping silendy on the flagstone steps outside the empty school.
Lonny looked up as the tall
man drew near.
"They've
been hitting you, haven't they? I see them running away now."
Lonny
continued to cry. He was minking, There's something funny about this man. But he wants to help me. He
wants to be kind to me.
"You're
Lonny Dewitt, I think. Why are you crying? Come, Lonny, stop crying! They
didn't hurt you that much."
They didn't, Lonny said silently. I like to cry.
Mr.
Hallinan was smiling cheerfully. "Tell me all about it. Something's
bothering you, isn't it? Something big, that makes you feel all lumpy and sad
inside. Tell me about it, Lonny, and maybe it'll go away." He took the
boy's small cold hands in his own, and squeezed them.
"Don't want to
talk," Lonny said.
"But I'm a friend. I
want to help you."
Lonny
peered close and saw suddenly that the tall man told the truth. He wanted to
help Lonny. More than that: he had to
help Lonny. Desperately. He was pleading. "Tell me what's troubling
you," Mr. Hallinan said again.
OK, Lonny thought. I'll tell you.
And he lifted the floodgates. Nine years of
repression and torment came rolling out in one roaring burst.
I'm
alone and they hate me because I do things in my head and they never understood
and they think I'm queer and they hate me I see them looking funny at me and
they think funny things about me because I want to talk to them with my mind
and then can only hear words and I hate them hate them hate hate hate—
Lonny
stopped suddenly. He had let it all out, and now he felt better, cleansed of
the poison he'd been carrying in him for years. But Mr. Hallinan looked funny.
He was pale and white-faced, and he was staggering.
In
alarm, Lonny extended his mind to the tall man. And got:
Too
much. Much too much. Should never have gone near the boy. But the older ones
wouldn't let me.
Irony:
the compulsive^ empath overloaded and burned out by a compulsive sender who'd
been bottled up.
. . . like grabbing a
high-voltage wire . . .
. .
. he was a sender, I was a receiver, but he was too strong ...
And four last bitter words: ƒ . . . was . . . a . . . leech. . . . "Please, Mr. Hallinan," Lonny said
out loud. "Don't get sick. I want to tell you some more. Please Mr.
Hallinan." Silence.
Lonny picked up a final lingering
wordlessness, and knew he had found and lost the first one like himself. Mr.
Hallinan's eyes closed and he fell forward on his face in the street. Lonny
realized that it was over, that he and the people of New Brewster would never
talk to Mr. Hallinan again. But just to make sure he bent and took Mr.
Hallinan's limp wrist.
He
let go quickly. The wrist was like a lump of ice. Cold— burningly cold. Lonnie stared at the dead man for a moment or two.
-
"Why, it's dear Mr. Hallinan,'' a female voice said. "Is he-"
And
feeling the loneliness return, Lonny began to cry sofdy again.
Here's
a quick checklist of recent releases of ACE SCIENCE-FICTION BOOKS
350
D-530 THE DAY THEY H-BOMBED LOS ANGELES
by
Robert M. Williams D-531 THE OUTLAWS OF MARS by Otis Adelbert Kline D-534
DAYBREAK 2250 A.D. by Andre Norton D-535 THE SHADOW GIRL by Ray Cummings D-538
THE THOUSAND YEAR PLAN by Isaac Asimov D-541 SCAVENGERS IN SPACE by Alan E. Nourse D-542
THE LAST PLANET by
Andre Norton D-544 SPACE STATION No. 1 by Frank B. Long
400
F-123 COLLISION COURSE by Robert Silverberg
and THE NEMESIS FROM TERRA by Leigh Brackett F-127
WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM by Keith Laumer
and SEVEN FROM THE STARS
by Marion Z. Bradley F-129 THE AUTOMATED GOLIATH by William F. Temple
and THE THREE SUNS OF AMARA
by
William F. Temple F-131 THE BEST FROM FANTASY & SCIENCE
FICTION:
Sixth
Series
F-135 THE LONG TOMORROW by Leigh Brackett
F-139
THE MAKESHIFT ROCKET by Poul Anderson and UN-MAN by Poul Anderson
If
you are missing any of these, they can be obtained directly from the publisher
by sending the indicated sum, plus 5(Zl handling
fee, to Ace Books, Inc. (Sales Dept.), 23 West
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ACE
SCIENCE-FICTION CLASSICS now include the following distinguished novels:
D-283
CITY by Clifford D. Simak
A
masterpiece of future history, described by Anthony Boucher as "a
high-water mark in science-fiction writing."
D-309
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAll by H. G. Wells
This
novel of a vivisectionist's secret island is an unforgettable work of macabre
imagination.
D-324
BRIGANDS OF THE MOON by Ray Cummings
A
thrilling novel of the clash of two planets for the ore of the
Moon—space-adventure of the most exciting kind.
D-388
WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES by H. G. Wells
A
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D-397
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
by Jules Verne
The
first 20th Century translation of the book from which the movie was made—a
unique experience.
D-473
" THE GREATEST ADVENTURE by John Taine
An
exciting novel of a lost land overrun with the monsters of an evolution gone
wild!
D-504 MASTER OF THE WORLD by
Jules Verne
This
book includes "Robur the Conqueror."
350
Ask
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W. 47th St., New York 36, N.Y.
THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
Third Series
Sixteen stories including such authors as
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D-422 350
THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
Fourth Series
Sixteen stories featuring
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D-455 350
THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
Fifth Series
A Who's Who of imaginative
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F-105 400
THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION
Sixth Series
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F-131 400
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