Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
MAGAZINE
OCTOBER
K
1961 50 ?
(Ci .
ru a
Si PLANET
NAMED
V SHAYOL
BY
CORDWAINER
SMITH
Q ARCTURUS
0 TIMES
™ THREE
BY
JACK
O; SHARKEY
BEAT
CLUSTER
BY
FRITZ
LEIBER
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THE NEXT
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thousands of men and women who pri- i use my faculties and powers of mind. !
MAGAZINE
CONTENTS
NOVELLAS
A PLANT NAMED SHAYOL by Cordwainer Smith 8
ARCTURUS TIMES THREE by Jack Sharkey 122
NOVELETTES
THE ABOMINABLE EARTHMAN by Frederik Pohl 68
THE SPY IN THE ELEVATOR by Donald E. Westlake 178
SHORT STORIES
CRIME MACHINE by Robert Bloch 47
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY by George O. Smith 54
MATING CALL by Frank Herbert 107
THE BEAT CLUSTER by Fritz Leiber 158
SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
FOR YOUR INFORMATION by Willy Ley 92
The Man Made Land
FEATURES
HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? 5
FORECAST 172
GALAXY'S FIVE STAR SHELF by Floyd C. Gale 173
5
worker has just learned this week. was an idea, not a box. Maybe, af-
Only dead knowledge is en- ter all, we’re not so far from the
tombed in texts. For what is going idea. Data is now being made
6 GALAXY
—
Pasadena can get the latest spec- quence of events surrounding
troscopic data from France, Eng- each of these occasions may be
land, Australia and Capetown worth remembering: for New Or-
simply by pushing the combina- leans, because it occurred after
tion of buttons that translates as: the War of 1812, of which it was
“Galaxies, spectroscopic, internal a part, was actually over (the
Doppler shifts of.” Treaty of Ghent had been signed,
but the combatants didn’t know
A ND what about the other head about it); for the Emancipation
of the problem? What about Proclamation, because its timing
the task of merely acquiring a offers an interesting and useful
basis of embalmed knowledge glimpse into the thinking of one
i.e., “education?” of our greatest presidents (it
There’s no doubt, as we said, waited on the Union victory at
that knowledge is a desideratum. Antietam, because Lincoln, a mas-
But there are kinds and kinds of ter politician, held it up until a
knowledge. It isn’t going to help Northern victory would give it
a layman (won’t for that matter extra meaning.)
even help a mathematician par- Actually, a good answer to
ticularly!) to know that the six most school test questions would
millionth prime number is 104,- be: “I can look it up for you, if
395,289. Surely it is enough for you want me to.” Unfortunately,
him to know
a few simple rules: that’s not a passing answer!
that the distribution of primes is But perhaps it isn’t the answer
such that in the first hundred mil- that’s wrong; perhaps it’s the sys-
lion about one out of
integers tem of examining on details in-
twenty is a prime; or to know, if a stead of on understanding.
number like 104,395,281 comes What’s the answer to the prob-
up, that it is not a prime. (All he lem of education? Well, it’s not
has to know is the simple rule the business of a science-fiction
that if the sum of the digits in a magazine to say. We supply ques-
number is divisible by three, the tions,not answers. Hugo Gerns-
number itself is divisible by three, back says that that’s the hard
and thus by definition not a part of the creative process: It’s
prime.) easy to work out the answers,
By the same token, it isn’t par- once the questions are known.
ticularly important to memorize Well, let’s work on these for a
the date of the Battle of New Or- while!
leans or the signing of the Eman-
cipation Proclamation. The se- —THE EDITOR
7
A
PLANET
NAMiP
,
pitied him?
Illustrated by FINLAY
By CORDWAINER SMITH
HERE was a tremendous
difference between the
liner and the ferry in
Mercer’s treatment. On the liner,
the attendants made gibes when
they brought him his food.
“Scream good and loud,” said
one rat-faced steward, “and then
we’ll know it’s you when they
broadcast the sounds of punish-
ment on the Emperor’s birth-
day.”
The other, fat steward ran the
tip of his wet red tongue over
his thick purple-red lips one
time and said, “Stands to reason,
man. If you hurt all the time,
the whole lot of you would die.
Something pretty good must
happen, along with the what- —
chamacallit. Maybe you turn in-
10 GALAXY
”
12 GALAXY
A voice spoke, “You are ready head, down his spinal cord and
for some pain-killer.” into his nerves was so intense
It was a girl nurse. “Hold your that the pain got through only
head still,” she said, “and I will as a remote, unimportant signal.
giveyou half an amp of pleasure. She was standing very still in
Your skin won’t bother you the corner.
then.” “Thank you, nurse,” said he.
She slipped a soft cap on his She said nothing.
head. It looked like metal but He looked more closely,
it felt like silk. though it was hard to look
He had to dig his fingernails while enormous pleasure pulsed
into his palms to keep from through his body like a sym-
threshing about on the bed. phony written in nerve-messages.
“Scream if you want to,” she He focused his eyes on her and
said. “A lot of them do. It will saw that she too wore a soft
just be a minute or two before metallic cap.
the cap finds the right lobe in He pointed at it.
The fire did not vanish from He gave her what he thought
his skin. He still felt it; but was a friendly smile, but with
suddenly it did not matter. His the pain in his skin and the
mind was full of delicious pleas- pleasure bursting out of his
ure which throbbed outward head, he really had no idea of
from his head and seemed to what his actual expression might
pulse down through his nerves. be. “It’s against the law,” he
He had visited the pleasure said. “It’s terribly against the
palaces, but he had never felt law. But it is nice.”
anything like this before. “How do you think we stand
He wanted to thank the girl, it here?” said the nurse. “You
and he twisted around in the specimens come in here talking
bed to see her. He could feel his like ordinary people and then
whole body flash with pain as he you go down to Shayol. Terrible
did so, but the pain was far things happen to you on Shayol.
away. And the pulsating pleas- Then the surface station sends
ure which coursed out of his up parts of you, over and over
me has to have a little jolt now to weep at the thought that she
and then. It’s real, real dreamy had had the same kind of pleas-
and I don’t mind getting you ure which he still enjoyed. Not
ready to go down on Shayol.” for the world would he say any-
She staggered over to his bed. thing which could hurt her feel-
“Pull this cap off me, will you? ings. He was sure she wanted to
I haven’t got enough will power be told that she had not said
left to raise my hands.” anything about “downstairs” —
probably shop talk for the sur-
ll/TERCER saw his hand trem- face of Shayol —
so he assured
ble as he reached for the her warmly, “You said nothing.
cap. Nothing at all.”
His fingers touched the girl’s She came over to the bed,
soft hair through the cap. As he leaned, kissed him on the lips.
tried to get his thumb under The kiss was as far away as the
the edge of the cap, in order to pain; he felt nothing; the Ni-
pull off, he realized that this
it agara of throbbing pleasure
was the loveliest girl he had which poured through his head
ever touched. He felt that he leftno room for more sensation.
had always loved her, that he al- But he liked the friendliness of
ways would. He cap came off. it. A grim, sane corner of his
She stood erect, staggering a mind whispered to him that this
little before she found a chair to was probably the last time he
14 GALAXY
would ever kiss a woman, but it to take this cap off you. You
did not seem to matter. will then experience the pain
With skilled fingers she ad- again, but I think it will not be
justed cap on his head.
the so bad. You can have the cap
“There, now. You’re a sweet guy. several more times before you
I’m going to pretend-forget and leave here.”
leave the cap on you till the With a swift, firm gesture he
doctor comes.” snatched the cap off Mercer’s
With a bright smile she head.
squeezed his shoulder. Mercer promptly doubled up
She hastened out of the room. with the inrush of fire from his
The white of her skirt flashed skin.He started to scream and
prettily as she went out the then saw that Doctor Vomact
door. He saw that she had very was watching him calmly.
shapely legs indeed. Mercer gasped, “It is easier —
She was nice, but the cap . . .
now.”
ah, it was the cap that mattered! “I knew it would be,” said the
He closed his eyes and let the doctor. “I had to take the cap
cap go on stimulating the pleas- off to talk to you. You have a
ure centers of his brain. The few choices to make.”
pain in his skin was still there, “Yes, doctor,” gasped Mercer.
but it did not matter any more “You have committed a seri-
than did the chair standing in ous crime and you are going
the corner. The pain was just down to the surface of Shayol.”
something that happened to be “Yes,” said Mercer.
in the room. “Do you want to tell me your
crime?”
A FIRM on his arm
touch Mercer thought of the white
made him open his eyes. palace walls in perpetual sun-
The older, authoritative-look- light, and the soft mewing of the
ing man was standing beside the little things when he reached
bed, looking down at him with them. He tightened his arms,
a quizzical smile. legs, back and jaw. “No,” he
“She did it again,” said the said, “I don’t want to talk about
old man. it. It’s the crime without a name.
to indicate that the young nurse “Fine,” said the doctor, “that’s
had done nothing wrong. a healthy attitude. The crime is
“I’m Doctor Vomact,” said past. Your future is ahead. Now,
the older man, “and I am going I can destroy your mind before
16 GALAXY
gent and very conscientious. You to judge by the voices, you’d
specimens are turned loose on think they wanted to.”
the surface of Shayol. The drom- “Has anybody ever come back
ozoa are a special life-form from Shayol?”
there. When they settle in your “Not since it was put off lim-
body, B’dikkat —
that’s the at- its about four hundred years
tendant —
carves them out with ago.”
an anesthetic and sends them up “Can I talk to other people
here. We freeze the tissue cul- down there?”
tures,and they are compatible “Yes,” said the doctor.
with almost any kind of oxygen- “Who punishes me down
based life. Half the surgical re- there?”
pair you see in the whole “Nobody does, you fool,” cried
universe comes out of buds that Doctor Vomact. “It’s not punish-
we ship from here. Shayol is a ment. People don’t like it down
very healthy place, so far as on Shayol, and it’s better, I
survival is concerned. You won’t guess, to get convicts instead of
die.” volunteers. But there isn’t any-
“You mean,” said Mercer, body against you at all.”
“that I am getting perpetual “No jailers?” asked Mercer,
punishment.” with a whine in his voice.
“I didn’t say that,” said Doctor “No jailers, no rules, no pro-
Vomact. “Or if I did, I was hibitions. Just Shayol, and B’d-
wrong. You won’t die soon. I ikkat to take care of you. Do
don’t know how long you will you still want your mind and
live down there. Remember, no your eyes?”
matter how uncomfortable you “I’ll keep them,” said Mercer.
get, the samples which B’dikkat “I’ve gone this far and I might
sends up will help thousands of as well go the rest of the way.”
people in all the inhabited “Then let me put the cap on
worlds. Now take the cap.” you for your second dose,” said
“I’d rather talk,” said Mercer. Doctor Vomact.
“It may be my last chance.” The doctor adjusted the cap
The doctor looked at him just as lightly and delicately as
strangely. “If you can stand that had the nurse; he was quicker
pain, go ahead and talk.” about it. There was no sign of
“Can I commit suicide down his picking out another cap for
there?” himself.
“I don’t know,” said the doc- The inrush of pleasure was
tor. “It’s never happened. And like a wild intoxication. His
of hours that followed were like closed in, except for his face.
a long, weird dream. Doctor Vomact seemed to
Twice again the young nurse swim into room. “You are
the
sneaked into his bedroom with strong, Mercer,” the doctor
him when he was being given shouted, “you are very strong!
the cap and had a cap with him. Can you hear me?”
There were baths which calloused Mercer nodded.
his whole body. Under strong “We wish you well, Mercer.
local anesthetics, his teeth were No matter what happens, re-
taken out and stainless steel took member you are helping other
their place. There were irradia- people up here.”
18 GALAXY
“Can I take the cap with me?” Mercer.
“I hurt,” said
said Mercer. “Of course you do. You hurt
For an answer, Doctor Vo- all over. That’s a big drop,” said
mact removed the cap himself. B’dikkat.
Two men closed the lid of the “Can I have a cap, please,”
pod, leaving Mercer in total begged Mercer. It was not a
darkness. His mind started to question; it was a demand;
clear, and he panicked against Mercer felt that his private in-
his wrappings. ward eternity depended on it.
There was the roar of thunder B’dikkat laughed. “I haven’t
and the taste of blood. any caps down here. I might use
them myself. Or so they think.
next thing that Mercer I have other things, much better.
A knew, he was in a cool, cool No fear, fellow, I’ll fix you up.”
room, much chillier than the Mercer looked doubtful. If the
bedrooms and operating rooms cap had brought him happiness
of the satellite. Someone was on the ferry, it would take at
lifting him gently onto a table. least electrical stimulation of the
He opened his eyes. brain to undo whatever torments
An enormous face, four times the surface of Shayol had to
the size of any human face offer.
Mercer had ever seen, was look- B’dikkat’s laughter filled the
ing down at him. Huge brown room like a bursting pillow.
eyes, cowlike in their gentle in- “Have you ever heard of con-
offensiveness, moved back and damine?”
forth as the big face examined “No,” said Mercer.
Mercer’s wrappings. The face “It’s a narcotic so powerful
was that of a handsome man of that the pharmacopeias are not
middle years, clean-shaven, hair allowed to mention it.”
20 GALAXY
minutes would seem like ten see what the foot was connected
thousand years of happiness to to. “I see a big foot,” said he,
the inside of your mind.” B’dik- “but — ”
kat rolled his brown cow eyes “But what?” said B’dikkat,
expressively and smacked his like an enormous child hiding
rich red lips with a tongue of the denouement of a hugely pri-
enormous extent. vate joke. Large as he was, he
“What’s the use of it, then?” would have been dwarfed by
“You can take it,” said B’dik- any one of the toes on that tre-
kat. “You can take it after you mendous foot.
have been exposed to the “But it can’t be a real foot,”
dromozoa outside this cabin. said Mercer.
You get all the good effects and “It is,” said B’dikkat. “That’s
none of the bad. You want to Go-Captain Alvarez, the man
see something?” who found this planet. After six
What answer is there except hundred years he’s still in fine
yes,thought Mercer grimly; does shape. Of course, he’s mostly
he think I have an urgent invi- dromozootic by now, but I think
tation to a tea party? there is some human conscious-
“Look out the window,” said ness inside him. You know what
B’dikkat, “and tell me what you I do?”
see.” “What?” said Mercer.
The atmosphere was clear. “I give him six cubic centi-
The surface was like a desert, meters of super-condamine and
ginger-yellow with streaks of he snorts for me. Real happy
green where lichen and low little snorts. A stranger might
shrubs grew, obviously stunted think it was a volcano. That’s
and tormented by high, dry what super-condamine can do.
winds. The landscape was mo- And you’re going to get plenty
notonous. Two or three hundred of it. You’re a lucky, lucky man,
22 GALAXY
same that happened to every his thorax. He lay on his back,
body else. looking at the sun. At last he
Mercer stepped out. noticed that the sun was violet-
Nothing happened. The day white.
was cool. The wind moved It was no use even thinking of
gently against his toughened calling. He had no voice. Ten-
skin. drils ofdiscomfort twisted within
Mercer looked around appre- him. Since he could not stop
hensively. breathing, he concentrated on
The mountainous body of taking air in the way that hurt
Captain Alvarez occupied a good him least. Gasps were too much
part of the landscape to the work. Little tiny sips of air hurt
right.Mercer had no wish to get him least.
mixed up with that. He glanced The desert around him was
back at the cabin. B’dikkat was empty. He could not turn his
not looking out the window. head to look at the cabin. Is this
Mercer walked slowly, straight it? he thought. Is an eternity of
24 GALAXY
an inescapable conclusion: these the man with the spike through
lights, these things, these what- his head.
ever-they-were, were feeding him “Yes, you can,” said the wom-
and building him up. an, covered with hands.
Their intelligence, if they had Mercer found that his first
it,was not human, but their mo- pain had disappeared. “What’s
tives were clear. In between the happening to me?”
stabs of pain he felt them fill “You got a part,” said the
his stomach, put water in his man with the spike. “They’re al-
blood, draw water from his kid- ways putting parts on us. After
neys and bladder, massage his a while B’dikkat comes and cuts
heart, move his lungs for him. most of them off, except for the
Every single thing they did ones that ought to grow a little
was well meant and beneficent more. Like her,” he added, nod-
in intent. ding at the woman who lay with
And
every single action hurt. the boy-body growing from her
Abruptly, like the lifting of a neck.
cloud of insects, they were gone. “And that’s all?” said Mercer.
Mercer was aware of a noise “The stabs for the new parts
somewhere outside — a brain- and the stinging for the feeding.”
less, bawling cascade of ugly “No,” said the man. “Some-
noise. He started to look around. times they think we’re too cold
And the noise stopped. and they fill our insides with
It had been himself, scream- fire. Or they think we’re too hot
ing. Screaming the ugly screams and they freeze us, nerve by
of a psychotic, a terrified drunk, nerve.”
an animal driven out of under- The woman with the boy-
standing or reason. body called over, “And some-
When he stopped, he found he times they think we’re unhappy,
had his speaking voice again. so they try to force us to be
A man came to him, naked happy. 7 think that’s the worst
like the others. There was a of all.”
26 GALAXY
He knew what it would be. you dug up. Who’s better off, he
It was. It was a man, sleeping. or we?”
Extra arms grew down one side Mercer stared at her. “Is that
of his body in an orderly series. what you had me dig him up
The other side looked normal. for?”
Mercer turned back to the “Yes,” said the girl.
promised B’dikkat that I’d let she,“Dig in, dig in for the night.
them grow. He’s good. But that They may miss you.”
man, stranger. Look at that man Mercer started digging. He
28 GALAXY
an air bubble travel from the side them. She radiated warmth
pump up to the bottle. and good fellowship. Mercer
Then he moved back to the thought that she looked very
others, booming a word now distinguished and charming. He
and then, moving with improb- struggled out of his clothes. It
able grace and speed amid the was foolish and snobbish to wear
people. His needle flashed as he clothing when none of these nice
gave them hypodermics under people did.
pressure. The people dropped to The two women babbled and
sitting position or lay down on crooned at him.
the ground as though half-asleep. With one corner of his mind
he knew that they were saying
TTE knew Mercer. “Hello, fel- nothing, just expressing the eu-
low. Now
you can have phoria of a drug so powerful
the fun. would have killed
It that the known universe had
you in the Do you have
cabin. forbidden it. With most of his
anything for me?” mind he was happy. He won-
Mercer stammered, not know- dered how anyone could have
ing what B’dikkat meant, and the good luck to visit a planet
the two-nosed man answered for as nice as this. He tried to tell
him, “I think he has a nice baby the Lady Da, but the words
head, but it isn’t big enough for weren’t quite straight.
you to take yet.” A painful stab hit him in the
Mercer never noticed the abdomen. The drug went after
needle touch his arm. the pain and swallowed it. It
B’dikkat had turned to the was like the cap in the hospital,
next knot of people when the only a thousand times better.
super-condamine hit Mercer. The pain was gone, though it
He tried to run after B’dikkat, had been crippling the first time.
to hug the lead space suit, to tell He forced himself to be delib-
B’dikkat that he loved him. He erate. He rammed his mind into
stumbled and fell, but it did not focus and said to the two ladies
hurt. who lay pinkly nude beside him
The many-bodied girl lay near in the desert, “That was a good
him. Mercer spoke to her. bite. Maybe I will grow another
“Isn’t it wonderful? You’re head. That would make B’dikkat
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. happy!”
I’m so happy to be here.” The Lady Da forced the fore-
The woman covered with most of her bodies in an upright
growing hands came and sat be- position. Said she, “I’m strong,
boy.’ That’s out of a play. Did long anything takes. The pain
you ever see a play?” seems short and the pleasure
“You mean a game with seems long. I’m inclined to think
cards?” that they are about two Earth-
“No,” said the half-man, “a weeks each.”
sort of eye-machine with real Mercer did not know what an
people doing the figures.” “Earth-week” was, since he had
“I never saw that,” said Mer- not been a well-read man before
cer, “but I — his conviction, but he got noth-
“But you want to ask me ing more from the half-man at
when B’dikkat is going to come that time. The half-man received
back with the needle.” a dromozootic implant, turned
“Yes,” said Mercer,
a little red in the face, shouted sense-
ashamed of his obviousness. lessly at Mercer, “Take it out,
“Soon,” said the half-man. you fool! Take it out of me!”
“That’s why I think of plays. We When Mercer looked on help-
all know what is going to hap- lessly, the half-man twisted over
pen. We all know when it is on his side, his pink dusty back
going to happen. We all know turned to Mercer, and wept
what the dummies will do — ”
hoarsely and quietly to himself.
he gestured at the hummocks in
which the decorticated men were TI/I'ERCER himself could not
cradled —
“and we all know tell how long it was before
what the new people will ask. B’dikkat came back. It might
But we never know how long a have been several days. It might
scene is going to take.” have been several months.
“What’s a ‘scene’?” asked Mer- Once again B’dikkat moved
cer. “Is that the name for the among them like a father; once
needle?” again they clustered like chil-
The half-man laughed with dren. This time B’dikkat smiled
something close to real humor. pleasantly at the little head
“No, no, no. You’ve got the which had grown out of Mercer’s
lovelies on the brain. A scene is thigh — a sleeping child’s head,
just a part of a play. I mean we covered with light hair on top
know the order in which things and with dainty eyebrows over
happen, but we have no clocks the resting eyes. Mercer got the
and nobody cares enough to blissful needle.
count days or to make calendars When B’dikkat cut the head
and there’s not much climate from Mercer’s thigh, he felt the
here, so none of us know how knife grinding against the carti-
34 GALAXY
The secret little corner of his plain to the herd of men; those
mind, which stayed sane through who could talk declared it to be
happiness and pain, made him the breathing of Captain Alvarez.
wonder about B’dikkat. What There was night and day, but no
persuaded the cow-man to re- setting of crops, no change of sea-
main on Shayol? What kept him son, no generations of men. Time
happy without super-condamine? stood still for these people, and
Was B’dikkat a crazy slave to their load of pleasure was so
his own duty or was he a man commingled with the shocks and
who had hopes of going back to pains of the dromozoa that the
his own planet some day, sur- words of the Lady Da took on
rounded by a family of little very remote meaning.
cow-people resembling himself? “People never live forever.”
Mercer, despite his happiness, Her statement was a hope, not
wept a little at the strange fate a truth in which they could be-
of B’dikkat. His own fate he ac- lieve. They did not have the wit
cepted. to follow the stars in their
He remembered the last time courses, to exchange names with
he had eaten —
actual eggs each other, to harvest the experi-
from an actual pan. The dromo- ence of each for the wisdom of
zoa kept him alive, but he did all. There was no dream of escape
not know how they did it. for these people. Though they
He staggered back to the saw the old-style chemical
group. The Lady Da, naked in rockets lift up from the field be-
the dusty plain, waved a hospi- yond B’dikkat’s cabin, they did
table hand and showed that not make plans to hide among the
there was a place for him to sit frozen crop of transmuted flesh.
beside her. There were un- Far long ago, some other
claimed square miles of seating prisoner than one of these had
space around them, but he ap- tried to write a letter. His
hand-
preciated the kindliness of her writing was on a rock. Mercer
gesture none the less. read and so had a few of the
it,
36 GALAXY
Mercer looked around for the Four beautiful human children
gentleman with the ears. It was lay on the floor. The two smallest
himself. In that time his face was seemed to be twins, about two
almost wholly obscured with a years of age. There was a girl of
crop of fresh little ears, but he five and a boy of seven or so.
paid no attention to them, other All of them had slack eyelids.
than expecting that B’dikkat All of them had thin red lines
would cut them all off in due around their temples and their
course and that the dromozoa hair, shaved away, showed how
would give him something else. their brains had been removed.
The noise from the cabin rose B’dikkat, heedless of danger
to a higher, ear-splitting intensity. from dromozoa, stood beside the
Among the herd, many people Lady Da and Mercer, shouting.
stirred. “You’re real people. I’m just a
Some opened their eyes, looked cow. I do my duty. My duty does
around, murmured, “It’s a noise,” not include this. These are
and went back to the happy children.”
drowsing with super-condamine.
The cabin door opened. nPHE wise, surviving recess of
B’dikkat rushed out, without Mercer’s mind registered
his suit. They had never seen him shock and disbelief. It was hard
on the outside without his pro- to sustain the emotion, because
tective metal suit. the super-condamine washed at
He rushed up to them, looked his consciousness like a great tide,
wildly around, recognized the making everything seem lovely.
Lady Da and Mercer, picked The forefront of his mind, rich
them up, one under each arm, with the drug, told him, “Won’t
and raced with them back to the it be nice to have some children
cabin. He flung them into the with us!” But the undestroyed in-
double door. They landed with terior of his mind, keeping the
bone-splitting crashes, and found honor he knew before he came
it amusing to hit the ground so to Shayol, whispered, “This is a
hard. The floor tilted them into crime worse than any crime we
the room. Moments later, B’dik- have committed! And the Empire
kat followed. has done it.”
He roared at them, “You’re “What have you done?” said
people, or you were. You under- the Lady Da. “What can we
stand people; I only obey them. do?”
But this I will not obey. Look “I tried to call the satellite.
at that!” When they knew what I was
38 GALAXY
they came in he saw that they “Yes,” said B’dikkat, keeping
were not people; they were his eyes away from the four soft
Customs Robots, who could children and their collapsed eyes.
travel at velocitieswhich people The injection burned like no
could never match. One wore the fire ever had. It must have been
insigne of an inspector. capable of fighting the super-con-
“Where are the invaders?” damine, because B’dikkat put
“There are no — ” began them through the open window,
B’dikkat. so as to save time going through
The Lady Da, imperial in her the door. The dromozoa, sensing
posture though she was complete- that they needed repair, flashed
ly nude, said in a voice of com- upon them. This time the super-
plete clarity, “I am a former condamine had something else
Empress, the Lady Da. Do you fighting it.
40 GALAXY
edged the introduction with a the bank. Do you know the secret
royal nod. rules of this place?”
The two women looked at each The Lady Johanna talked to
other. someone behind her on another
“You will investigate,” said the world. Then she looked at B’dik-
Lady Da, “and when you have kat and commanded, “Just don’t
investigated, please put us all to name the drug or talk too much
death. You know about the about it. Tell me the rest.”
drug?”
“Don’t mention it,” said B’dik- UW/T: HAVE,” said B’dikkat
kat, “don’t even say the name in- ** very formally, “thirteen
to a communicator. It is a secret hundred and twenty-one people
of the Instrumentality!” here who can still be counted on
“I am the Instrumentality,” to supply parts when the dromo-
said the Lady Johanna. “Are you zoa implant them. There are
in pain? I did not think that any about seven hundred more, in-
of you were alive. I had heard of cluding Go-Captain Alvarez, who
the surgery banks on your off- have been so thoroughly ab-
limits planet, but thought that
I sorbed by the planet that it is no
robots tended parts of people and use trimming them. The Empire
sent up the new grafts by rocket. set up this place as a point of
Are there any people with you? uttermost punishment. But the
Who is in charge? Who did this Instrumentality gave secret or-
to the children?” ders for medicine —
” he ac-
“Time is what we all have,” give them that stuff first before
said the Lady Da. “Perhaps we the dromozoa have fortified their
cannot ever leave Shayol, because bodily processes.”
the dromozoa and the medicine. The Lady Johanna Gnade
The one could be dangerous. The filled the room with tinkling
other must never be permitted to laughter that was very close to
be known.” weeping. “Fools, poor fools, and
The Lady Johanna Gnade the more fool I! If super-con-
looked around the room. When damine works only after the
her glance reached him, B’dikkat dromozoa, what is the purpose of
fell to his knees and lifted his the secret?”
enormous hands in complete sup- B’dikkat rose to his feet, of-
plication. fended. He frowned, but he could
“What do you want?” said she. not get the words with which to
“These,” said B’dikkat, pointed defend himself.
to the mutilated children. “Order The Lady Da, ex-empress of a
a stop on children. Stop it now!” fallen empire, addressed the
He commanded her with the last other lady with ceremony and
cry,and she accepted his com- force: “Put them outside, so they
mand. “And lady —
” He stopped, will be touched. They will hurt.
as if shy. Have B’dikkat give them the
“Yes?Go on.” drug as soon as he thinks it safe.
I am unable to kill. It
“Lady, I beg your leave, my lady. .” .
42 GALAXY
44'V7’OU’VE all had enough,” take. The Instrumentality will
said the Lady Johanna. “A decide what to do with all of you.
storm ship with heavily armed I will survey your planet with
troops is on its way to your ferry robot soldiers. Will the robots be
satellite. They will seize the medi- safe, cowman?”
cal personnel and find out who B’dikkat did not like the
committed this crime against thoughtless name she called him,
children.” but he held no offense. “The
Mercer dared to speak. “Will robots will be all right, ma’am,
you punish the guilty doctor?” but the dromozoa will be excited
“You speak of punishment,” if they cannot feed them and
she cried. “You!” heal them. Send as few as you
was punished for do-
“It’s fair. I can. We do not know how the
ing wrong. Why shouldn’t he be?” dromozoa live or die.”
“Punish —
punish!” she said “As few as I can,” she mur-
to him. “We will cure that doctor. mured. She lifted her hand in
And we will cure you too, if we command to some technician un-
can.” imaginable distances away. The
Mercer began to weep. He odorless smoke rose about her
thought of the oceans of happi- and the image was gone.
ness which super-condamine had A shrill cheerful voice spoke
brought him, forgetting the hide- up. “I fixed your window,” said
ous pain and the deformities on the customs robot. B’dikkat
Shayol. Would there be no next thanked him absentmindedly. He
needle? He could not guess what helped Mercer and the Lady Da
life would be like off Shayol. Was into the doorway. When they had
there to be no more tender, gotten outside, they were prompt-
fatherly B’dikkat coming with his ly stung by the dromozoa. It did
knives? not matter.
He lifted his tear-stained face B’dikkat himself emerged, car-
to the Lady Johanna Gnade and rying the four children in his two
choked out the words, “Lady, we gigantic, tender hands. He lay
are all insane in this place. I do the slack bodies on the ground
not think we want to leave.” near the cabin. He watched as the
She turned her face away, bodies went into spasm with the
moved by enormous compassion. onset of the dromozoa. Mercer
Her next words were to B’dikkat. and the Lady Da saw that his
“You are wise and good, even if brown cow eyes were rimmed
you are not a human being. Give with red and that his huge cheeks
them all of the drug they can were dampened by tears.
GALAXY
amplification, was almost as loud pear, a robot seized him by a
as hers through the amplifier. He limb and pulled him out again.
shouted his protest, “Lady, “Item: cephalectomies will be
Lady!” performed on all persons with ir-
She looked down at him, his recoverable minds. Their bodies
enormous body reaching to ankle will be left here. Their heads will
height on her swirling gown, and be taken away and killed as
said in a very informal tone, pleasantly as we can manage,
“What do you want?” probably by an overdosage of
“Let me finish my work first,” super-condamine.”
he cried, so that all could hear. “The last big jolt,” murmured
“Let me finish taking care of Commander Suzdal, who stood
these people.” near Mercer. “That’s fair enough.”
The specimens who had minds “Item: the children have been
all listened attentively. The found to be the last heirs of the
brainless ones were trying to dig Empire. An over-zealous official
themselves back into the soft sent them here to prevent their
earth of Shayol, using their committing treason when they
powerful claws for the purpose. grew up. The doctor obeyed
Whenever one began to disap- orders without questioning them.
Both the official and the doctor
BACK NUMBERS • OUT OF PRINT
BOOKS have been cured and their mem-
Complete Sets for Sole ories of this have been erased, so
Amazing Quarterly: 1928-1934; 23
issues in all including the only *an- that they need have no shame
nual; condition good to very good: or grief for what they have done.”
$50.00
Amazing Monthly: April 1926 (Vol. “It’s unfair,” cried the half-
1 No. 1) to April 1934 complete;
very good to fine except 1st issue:
man. “They should be punished
$200.00 as we were!”
Science Wonder, Wonder, Thrilling
Wonder: June 1929 (Vol. 1 No. 1) The Lady Johanna Gnade
to March 1934 complete, very good looked down at him. “Punishment
*o fine: $85.00
Same, through to April 1941 $145.00
:
is ended. We
will give you any-
Quarterlies for same, 14 issues 1929-
thing you wish, but not the pain
1933, very good to fine: $25.00
Astounding: 292 issues, March 1934 of another. I shall continue.
through December 1958, condition
good: $250.00 “Item: since none of you wish
Galaxy: Complete from Vol. 1 No. 1 to resume the lives which you led
October 1950 through 1960: $50.00
All orders promptly shipped F.O.B. previously, we are moving you to
Brooklyn. Many other fine items.
Send your want list.
another planet nearby. It is simi-
J’YS CORNER lar to Shayol, but much more
Specialist in Stf
for a Quarter Century beautiful. There are no dromo-
6401 24Hi Avenue Brooklyn 4, zoa.”
Now York
enough that they laughed at their honor which humanity could pay
own impatience. their manhood.
“Soon,” said she reassuringly, B’dikkat, leaving everyone
“very soon.” else,jogged with his bottle across
“Very soon,” echoed B’dikkat, the plain to give the mountain-
reassuring his charges even man Alvarez an especially large
though he was no longer in con- gift of delight.
trol.
— CORDWAINER SMITH
46 GALAXY
Illustrated by BURNS
By ROBERT BLOCH
MACHINE 47
any thirteen-year-old— the world Al Capone, Al Capone,
called the Good Old Days. There A mighty man who
were all kinds of viddie shows walked alone —
about the golden pioneer era of Wherever daring deeds
seventy-five years ago, the mar- are known,
velous time when heroes like Men sing the praise of
Dion O’Bannion and Hymie Al Capone.
Weiss walked the Earth.
Stephen watched a show called Stephen liked the way the
Big Jim — about Big Jim Colo- machine guns came in on the
simo and his lovable friends. He end of the last line.
watched The Enforcer; that was But then he liked everything
the one about Frank Nitti. He about Al Capone; the way he got
was a man of action, like the his scar —
defending his sister
heroes of Johnny Torrio and Legs from the crooked prohibition
Diamond. The Legs Diamond agents; the way he disguised
show was very exciting, because himself as “Mr. Brown” when he
Legs was the one who always was fighting the wicked cops and
danced his way around the bul- the thieving politicians of Chi-
lets in a gang war. That was how cago. Stephen knew all about Al
he got his name. Capone, riding in from his hide-
Stephen learned a lot about out in Cicero to bring justice to
the people who had lived in the Chicago and save pretty girls
romantic past. He knew about from the evil Vice Squad men.
flashy gambling men like fancy Stephen joined the “Scarface
Arnold Rothstein, who was so Al Club” and ate enough cereal
suave, and wild rascals like Bugs to get himself the complete prize
Moran. There was a new show outfit —the artificial scar to
out called The Great Dillinger, wear, the bulletproof vest and
and that was pretty good. But the everything.
best of all was Stephen’s favorite He might have been a very
— Scarface Al. No wonder it was happy boy if he hadn’t found his
48 GALAXY
be bombarded by radiations versity labs where Stephen’s
which would eradicate recessive uncle and father both worked,
and undesirable traits in her ova, and no one ever mentioned that
thus leading to the reproduction it was also capable, by virtue of
CRIME MACHINE 49
The way he
thought, just wished. It was like a viddie dissolve, so
wished he had been around back Stephen wasn’t frightened. He
in the Good Old Days, the way he knew the next scene would come
was wishing now. He’d give any- up right after the commercial.
thing to see real live American Only this wasn’t viddie and there
History in the making, like that was no commercial. The next
morning of St. Valentine’s Day scene came up when the blurring
in the garage on Clark Street . . . stopped and he found himself
sitting in the same box, the
f T^HE MIRRORS revved faster mirrors still whirring and he
and suddenly they disap- heard the noise outside. Stephen
peared. Everything disappeared. blinked, tugged at the door of
50 GALAXY
very instant the firing started.
For thirty seconds Stephen stared
at the finks as they writhed and
fell. And during those thirty
seconds the finks became men.
Men who wriggled and flopped
after the bullets struck, until the
two swarthy hoods in uniform
stepped up and completed their
work with revolvers. There was
blood on the wall and floor, and
a terrible, acrid odor. The two
men noticed it, too, and com-
mented harshly in Italian. One of
them laughed and spat on the
floor.
Stephen wasn’t laughing and
he felt that unless he got out of
here right away he’d do more
than spit. He started to close the
door and it was then that the
executioners looked up and saw
him.
“What the hell — ” said the
short one, and raised his revolver.
His taller companion slapped it
out of his hand.
“Wait,” he said He stooped,
the compartment, opened it, and picked up the machine gun, and
saw the machine guns spit. faced Stephen in the doorway of
He knew where he was now. the compartment “Awright, kid,
He’d seen it a dozen times on how you get in here? Where you
viddie, imagined it a thousand come from?” He raised the muz-
more. The garage, at eleven zle of his weapon. “C’mon, talk!”
o’clock in the morning; the two Stephen talked. It was hard to,
CRIME MACHIN E 51
” ”
It was hard to explain, too, and take two real live gangsters back
he wasn’t sure he understood the into his own world, his own time.
situation Certainly the
himself. It was something he’d always
shorter assassin didn’t under- dreamed of. Only he had never
stand, because he nudged his dreamed they really looked and
companion and said, “He’s nuts! talked like this. And he had never
Hurry up and give it to him — dreamed the reality he glimpsed
we gotta get outa here!” over their shoulders; the torn,
The big man with the machine huddled, oozing reality on the
gun shook his head. “Shaddup garage floor. Now he knew all
and listen. Dincha hear? This there was to knQw about the
thing goes through time. It’s a Good Old Days.
time machine. Aincha never The big man raised his weapon.
heard?” “Hurry up! We ain’t got all day.
“Porko Dio! No such thing — Whaddya say?”
“No such thing now.” The big Stephen knew he himself didn’t
man nodded. “But maybe they have all day, or even another
invent it later on. That’s where minute. Fortunately, thanks to
this kid comes from. How else the viddies, he knew what to say
you figure he got here if not like and how to say it. His hand
that?” squeezed the trigger inside his
“So?” coat pocket. First the small man
“So you wanna get outa here, went down and then the big man.
right?” As the big man fell there was
“Sure, to St. Louis. That’s a short, staccato burst from the
where A1 said we’d get the pay- machine gun. Several bullets
off — punctured the shell of the com-
“You know what kinda payoff partment. But by this time
we end up with.” The big man Stephen had slammed the door
made a nasty noise in his throat. of the subjectivity reactor and
“But suppose we really get out. hurled himself to the floor in
Suppose we go back with the quivering panic, wishing with all
kid here.” his being that he was back where
Hetook a step forward. “Aw- he belonged . . .
52 GALAXY
unscathed. To all intents and THE BEST IN PAPERBOUND
appearances, Stephen was un- SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS
changed by his experience.
Your favorite authors and their
The thing of it was that from greatest stories! Satisfaction guaran-
then on he never watched Scar-
5— or money back within ten days.
teed
6—
face A1 any more.
“He’s growing up,” his mother
12— TAKE YOUR PICK
said proudly. 13—
14—
“What did I tell you?” his 15—THE WORLD BELOW, S. Fowler Wright
16— THE ALIEN, Raymond F. Jones
17—
9— FOUR-SIDED TRIANGLE, W. F. Temple
father said. “I knew he’d get over 18—
19—HOUSE OF MANY WORLDS, Sam Merwin
it. All it takes is time.” 20— SEEDS OF LIFE, John Taine
21— PEBBLE IN THE SKY, Isaac Asimov
When he said, “All it takes is 24— THREE GO BACK, Leslie Mitchell
J.
25—
time,” he suddenly remembered 26— THE WARRIORS OF DAY, James Blish
27— WELL OF THE WORLDS, Lewis Padgett
Stephen’s visit to the old storage CITY AT WORLD’S END, Edmond Hamilton
31— JACK OF EAGLES, James Blish
32— BLACK GALAXY, Murray Leinster
building.That night he made a
34—THE HUMANOIDS, Jack Williamson
trip there himself to confirm his 23 MURDER IN SPACE, David V. Reed
36—
suspicions.
37— LEST DARKNESS FALL, L. S. de Camp
38—THE LAST SPACESHIP, Murray Leinster
39—
And there, as he expected, he 40—CHESSBOARD PLANET, Lewis Padgett
found the subjectivity reactor — 41—TARNISHED UTOPIA, Malcolm Jameson
30— DOUBLE JEOPARDY, Fletcher Pratt
42—
43— SHAMBLEAU, C. L. Moore
44—
and the telltale impressions left 45— ADDRESS: CENTAURI, F. L. Wallace
33— MISSION OF GRAVITY, Hal Clement
46—
by the machine-gun bullets. TWICE IN TIME, Manly Wade Wellman
35— FOREVER MACHINE, Clifton & Riley
Funny thing, they didn’t pen- ODD JOHN, W. Olaf Stapledon
THE DEVIATES, Raymond F. Jones
etrate with half the force of the TROUBLED STAR, George 0. Smith
PAGAN PASSION, Garrett & Harris
old Colt .45s. Stephen’s father VIRGIN PLANET, Poul Anderson
stopped until he found the holes FLESH, Philip Jose Farmer
SEX WAR, Sam Merwin
near the bottom of the machine. A WOMAN A DAY, Philip J. Farmer
THE MATING CRY, A. E. Van Vogt
Stephen’s father remembered the THE MALE RESPONSE, Brian W. Aldiss
SIN IN SPACE, Cyril M. Judd
day those shots had been fired.
Sometime he’d have to tell I
when he was a boy, when the Send me the following GALAXY NOVELS:
machine had first been invented. J
— ROBERT BLOCH I
CRIME MACHINE 53
AUL Wallach came
P
into
my office.He looked dis-
traught. By some trick of
selection,Paul Wallach, the direc-
tor of Project Tunnel, was one of
The creature from Venus didn't the two men in the place who did
became
•”
I started and then
stopped short as the implication
clear. “She’s — she’s —
— ?”
IT IN
not
“Holly made it to Venus all
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” said Paul Wallach
in a flat tone, “that Holly Carter
stopped breathing shortly after
54 GALAXY
she cracked the airlock. And her life,she opened the airlock and
heart stopped beating a minute discovered otherwise.”
or so later.” “So?”
“Holly — dead?” “So now all we have to do is
“Not yet, Tom,” he said. “If we to devise some way of explaining
can get her back in the next fif- to a Venusian the difference be-
teen or twenty minutes, modern tween left and right. I thought
medicine can bring her back.” you might help.”
“But there’ll be brain damage!” “But I’m just a computer pro-
“Oh, there may be some tempo- grammer.”
rary impairment. Nothing that re- “That’s the point. We all fig-
training can’t restore. The big ured that you have developed a
problem is to bring her back.” form of communication to that
“We should have built two tun- machine of yours. The rest of the
nel cars.” crew, as you know, have a bit of
“We should have done all sorts difficulty in communicating
of things. But when the terminal among themselves in their own
rocket landed on Venus, every- jargon, let alone getting through
body in the place was too anxious to normal civilians. When it
to try it out. Lord knows, I tried comes to a Venusian, they’re
to proceed at a less headlong pace. licked.”
But issuing orders to you people I said, “I’ll try.”
is a waste of time and paper.”
looked at him. “Doc,” I asked,
I T>ROJECT Tunnel is the hard-
giving him the honorary title out ware phase of a program
of habit, “Venus is umpty-million started a number of years ago
miles from here. We haven’t when somebody took a joke seri-
another tunnel car, and no rocket ously.
could make it in time to do any In a discussion of how the
good. So how can we hope to tunnel diode works, one of the
rescue Holly?” scientists pointed out that if an
“That’s the point,” said Wal- electron could be brought to ab-
lach. “Venus, it appears, is in- solute rest, its position according
habited.” to Heisenberg Uncertainty would
“Oh?” be completely ambiguous. Hence
“That’s what got Holly caught it had as high a possibility of be-
inthe first place. She landed, then ing found on Venus as it had
saw this creature approaching. of being found on Earth or any-
Believing that no life could exist where else. Now, the tunnel diode
in an atmosphere dangerous to makes use of this effect by a
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY 55
voltage bias across the diode startling appearance. Teresa was
junction. Between narrow limits, only fourteen. But she’d discov-
the voltage bias is correct to upset ered that her psi-power could get
the ambiguity of Mr. Heisenberg, her anything she really wanted.
making the electron nominally Being human, therefore, she did
found on one side of the junction not want much. So forgive me for
more likely to be found on the passing her by.
other. But now I had to notice her. As
Nobody could deny the oper- I came in, she looked up and said,
ability of the tunnel diode. Proj- “Harla wants to know why can’t
ect Tunnel was a serious attempt he just try.”
to employ the tunnel effect in
gross matter.
The terminal rocket mentioned
by Paul Wallach carried the
W ALLACH
as loud as
went white. “Tell
that Venusian thing ‘NO!’
you can.”
equipment needed to establish Teresa concentrated, then
the voltage bias between Venus asked, “But why?”
and the Earth. Once established, “Does this Harla understand
Project Tunnel was in a state that the Heisenberg Effect?”
caused it to maroon the most She said after a moment, “Har-
wonderful girl in the world. la says he has heard of it as a
Since the latter statement is theory. But he is not quite pre-
my own personal opinion, my pared to believe that it does in-
pace from the office to the lab- deed exist as anything but an
oratory was almost a dead run. abstract physical concept.”
The laboratory was a mad- “Tell Harla that Doctor Car-
house. People stood in little knots, ter’s awkward position is a direct
arguing. Those who weren’t talk- reduce the
result of our ability to
ing were shaking their heads in tunnel effect to operate on gross
violent negation. matter.”
The only one who appeared un- “He realizes that. But now he
upset was Teresa Dwight, our wants to know why you didn’t fire
psi-girl. And here I must confess one of the lower animals as a
an error. When I said that Paul test.”
Wallach and I were the only ones “Tell him that using animals
without a string of professorial for laboratory experiments is only
degrees, I missed Teresa Dwight. possible in a police state where
I must be forgiven. Teresa had a the anti-vivisection league can be
completely bland personality, exiled to Siberia. Mink coats and
zero drive, and a completely un- all. And let his Venusian mind
56 GALAXY
make what can of that. Now, Frank Crandall snorted. “May-
Teresa — it
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY 57
”
58 GALAXY
astronomy he has but a rudimen- is etched in acid, the north pole
tary idea. He is gratified to learn shows selective etching!”
from you that there is a ‘sun’ that I shook my head. “Lou,” I said,
provides the heat and light. This “we don’t know whether Venus
has been a theory based upon has a magnetic field, whether it
common sense; something had to isaligned to agree with the Earth’s
do it. But the light comes and — nor even whether the Venusi-
goes so slowly that it is difficult ans have discovered the magnetic
to determine which direction the compass.”
sun rises from. The existence of “Oh, that isn’t the reference
other celestial bodies than Venus point,” said Lou Graham. “I’m
is also based on logic. If, they quite aware of the ambiguity. The
claim, they exist, and their planet magnetic field does have a vector,
exists, then there probably are but the arrow that goes on the
other planets with people who end is strictly from human agree-
cannot see them, either.” ment.”
“Quoth Pliny the Elder,” mum- “So how do you tell which is
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY 59
bar, dropsbelow the bar on the fore the culture has advanced
comes toward us on the
far side, enough to recognize zinc as an
under above the bar on
side, rises element. Does Harla know zinc?”
the toward us, and so on
side “He may,” said Teresa very
around and around until we’ve haltingly. “What happens if Harla
got our electromagnet wound. gets the wrong metal?”
Now if the ‘start’ is positive and “Not very much,” said Lou.
the ‘end’ is negative, the north “Any of the light, fairly plentiful
pole will be at the left. It will metals that are easily extracted
show the selective etching in from the ore will suffice. Say tin,
acid.” magnesium, sodium, cadmium, so
looked at him. “Lou,” I said
I on.”
slowly, “if you can define positive “Harla says go on.”
and negative in un-ambiguous “Now we make an electrolyte.
terms as well as you wound that Preferably an alkaline salt.”
electromagnet, we can get Holly “Be careful,” I said. “Or you’ll
home. Can you?” be asking Harla to identify stuff
Lou turned to Teresa Dwight. from a litmus paper.”
“Has this Harla fellow followed “No,” said Lou. He faced
me so far?” Teresa and said, “An alkaline
She nodded. substance burns the flesh badly.”
“Can you speak for him?” “So do acids,” I objected.
“You talk, I hear, he reads me. “Alkaline substances are found
I read him and I can speak.” in nature,” he reminded me.
“Acids aren’t often natural. The
66/"\KAY, then,” said Lou Gra- point is that an acid will work.
ham. “Now we build a Le Even salt water will work. But an
Clanche cell. Ask Harla does he alkaline salt works better. At any
recognize carbon. A black or light- rate, tell Harla that the stuff, like
absorbing element. Carbon is ex- zinc, was known to civilized
tremely common, it is the basis of peoples many centuries before
life chemistry. It is element num- chemistry became a science.
ber six in the periodic chart. Does Acids, on the other hand, are
Harla know carbon?” fairly recent.”
“Harla knows carbon.” “Harla understands.”
“Now we add zinc. Zinc is a “Now,” said Lou Graham tri-
light metal easily extracted from umphantly, “we make our bat-
the ore. It is fairly abundant, and tery by immersing the carbon and
it is used by early civilizations for the zinc in the electrolyte. The
making brass or bronze long be- carbon is the positive electrode
60 GALAXY
and should be connected to the contain himself no longer, he said,
start of our electromagnet, “Out with it, Tom.”
whereas the end of the winding “Maybe,” I muttered. “Surely
must go to the zinc. This will there must be something phy-
place the north pole to the left sical.”
hand.” “How so?”
“Harla understands,” said “The tunnel car must be full
Teresa. “So far, Harla can per- of I said. “Screws?”
it,”
“surely there must be some com- pression. I felt that this was going
mon reference there, even grant- to be the nearest that I would
ing that perception isn’t eye- ever get to understanding the
sight. So how does perception sense of perception.
work?” “Can’t he get a clear view?”
“Tom, if you were blind from “He has not the right.”
birth, I could tell you that I have “Right!” I exploded. “Why
—
eyesight that permits me to see Wallach held up his hand to
the details of things that you can stop me. “Don’t make Teresa
determine only by feeling them. fumble for words, Tom. Harla has
This you might understand basi- not the right to invade the person
cally. But you could never be of Holly Carter. Therefore he can
made to understand the true def- not get a clearer perception of her
inition of the word ‘picture’ nor insides.”
grasp the mental impression that “Hell!” I roared. “Give Harla
is generated by eyesight.” the right.”
“Well,” I persisted, “can he pen- “No one has authority.”
etrate flesh?” “Authority be dammed!” I bel-
“Flesh?” lowed angrily. “That girl’s life is
62 GALAXY
a matter of fact. It would ease Carter through the eyes of love,
things if Holly were married to which rendered her perfect. If she
one of us, but even so it wouldn’t had bridgework, I hadn’t found it
be entirely clear. It has to do with out. Her features were regular
the invasion of privacy.” and her hair fell loose without a
“Privacy? In this case the very part.Her complexion was flaw-
idea is ridiculous.” less... at least the complexion
“Maybe so,” said Paul Wallach. that could be examined whilst
“But I don’t make the rules. Holly sunned herself on a deck
They’re natural laws. As immu- chair beside the swimming pool.
table as the laws of gravity or the I shook my head. Then I faced
refraction of light. And Tom, an unhappy fact. It hurt, because
even if I were making the laws I I wanted my goddess to be per-
might not change things. Not even fect,and if she were made of
to save Holly Carter’s life. Be- weak, mortal flesh, I did not want
cause, Tom, if telepathy and to find it out by asking the man
perception were as free and un- who knew her better than I did.
bounded as some of their early Still, I wanted her alive. So I
proponents claimed, life would turned to Frank Crandall.
be a sheer, naked hell on earth.” “Do you?” I asked.
“But what has privacy to do “Do I what?”
with it? This Harla isn’t at all “Know of any scars or birth-
humanoid. A cat can look at a marks?”
king — ”
“Such as?”
“Sure, Tom. But how long “Oh, hell,” I snapped. “Such as
would the cat be permitted to an appendix scar that might be
read the king’s mind?” used to tell left from right.”
I grunted. “Has this Harla any “Look, Tom, I’m not her phy-
mental block about examining the sician, you know. I can only give
outside?” you the old answer: ‘Not until
He looked at me thoughtfully. they wear briefer swim suits.’ ”
“You’re thinking about a scar or My heart bounced lightly.
some sort of blemish?” That Holly was still in mortal
“Yes. Birthmark, maybe. No danger was not enough to stop
one is perfect.” my elation at hearing Frank
“You know of any?” Crandall admit that he was not
I thought. Holly’s lover, nor even on much
It was not hard for me to con- better terms than I. It might have
jure up a picture of Holly Carter. been better to face the knowledge
Unfortunately, I looked at Holly that Holly was all woman and all
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY 63
human even though the informa- fining A in terms of A. So I’m
tion had to come from someone licked.”
who knew her well enough to get Frank Crandall shook his head.
her home. “There’s probably an absolute to
Then I came back to earth. I that thing somewhere, but I’m
had my perfect goddess — in sure none of us know it. We
deadly peril — instead of a hu- haven’t time to find it. In fact, I
man woman who really did not think the cause is lost. Maybe
belong to any man. we’d better spend our time figur-
ing out a plausible explanation.”
TT HADN’T seen Saul Graben, “Explanation?” blurted Wal-
leave, but he must have been lach.
gone because now he opened the “Let’s face it,” said Crandall.
door and came back. He was “Holly Carter’s life is slipping
carrying a heavy rim gyroscope away. No one has yet come close
that was spinning in a set of to finding a common reference to
frictionless gymbals. He looked describe right from left to this
most confused. Harla creature.”
He said, “I’ve spent what seems “So what’s your point?”
like an hour. You can’t tell me “Death is for the dying,”
that this gizmo is inseparable Crandall said in a monotone. “Let
from the selfish, insular intellect them have their hour in peace and
of terrestrial so-called homo dignity. Life is for the living, and
sapiens.” for the living there is no peace.
Heturned the base and we all We who remain must make the
watched the gymbal rings rotate best of it. So now in about five
to keep the gyro wheel in the minutes Holly will be at peace.
same plane. “It should be cosmic,” The rest of us have got to answer
he said. “But every time I start, for her.”
I find myself biting myself on the “How do you mean?”
back of the neck. Look. If you “How do you propose to ex-
make the axle horizontal in front plain this unfortunate incident?”
of you and rotate the gyro with asked Crandall. “Someone will
the top edge going away from want to know what happened to
you, you can define a common re- the remains of Holly Carter. I can
ference. But motion beyond that see hell breaking loose. And I can
cannot be explained. If the axle see the whole lot of us getting
is depressed on the right side, the laughed right off the Earth be-
gyro will turn so the far edge cause we couldn’t tell right from
looks to the right. But that’s de- left. And I can see us all clob-
64 GALAXY
bered for letting the affair take could have been a lot closer if
place.” you’d tried. She always said you
“You seem to be more worried had the alert, pixie-type mind
about your professional reputa- that was pure relaxation instead
tion than about Holly Carter’s of a dead let-down after a period
life!” of deep concentration. But you
“I have a future,” he said. were always scuttling off some-
“Holly doesn’t seem to. Hell,” he where. Well, go ahead and try,
groaned, “we can’t even gamble Tom. And good luck!”
on it.” I took a deep breath.
“Gamble?” “Teresa?” I asked.
“How successful do you think “Yes, Mr. Lincoln?”
you’d be in getting this Venusian “Tell Harla to concentrate on
to risk his life by closing his eyes the buttons.”
and making a fifty-fifty stab in the “He is.”
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY 65
”
quickly. “This is our frame of ref- then returned empty just as the
erence. Press the warmer doctor was bending over Holly.
but — of the
explosive woosh! and the tunnel or never finds out that I had to
car was there on its pad. In it was sound sure of myself, and that I
a nightmare horror holding a limp had to play on his emotions sim-
Holly Carter across its snakelike ply to get him to take the
tentacles. A free tentacle opened fifty-fifty chance on his — hers —
the door. our lives.
“Take her while I hold my And I get to sleep only after
breath,” said Harla, still talking I’veconvinced myself that it was
through Teresa. “I’ll return the more than chance that some-
. . .
tunnel car empty. I can, now that how our feelings and emotions
I know that warmth is where the guided Harla where logic and def-
hearth is.” inition fail.
Harla dropped the unconscious For right and left do not exist
girl in my arms and snapped until terrestrial man defines them.
back into the car. It disappeared, — GEORGE O. SMITH
66 GALAXY
KEEPAWAYf RADIO ACTIVE
THE
ARTHMAH
By FREDERIK POHL Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
NE
O
with a
the
tall,
night
Day came
when
in,
I was C.Q.
at the 549th, the Officer of
swearing,
dark-skinned private
wandering sullenly along behind
interest at all.
ing rations to the civilians.” That “Sit down,” snapped Lt. Lauch-
was Lt. Lauchheimer, who was a heimer, “
— you. Whatever the
pale young man with enormous hell you said your name was.”
He looked at the prison-
integrity. “He’s Private Postal, sir,” I said
er as he wanted to kick him. I
if reluctantly. “Pinkman W. Postal.”
could understand that. The prisoner looked at me for
The prisoner looked back at the first time. The orderly room
him calmly, without very much was full and bustling, so it wasn’t
68 GALAXY
surprising he hadn’t noticed me. when we were bombed-in togeth-
“Oh. Hello, Harry.” er for twelve hours and had a
I dialed the M.P. barracks with- chance to talk things over. After
out answering him, but it was that we were pretty close. He
already too late. When I handed asked me to come along when he
the phone to Lt. Lauchheimer he volunteered for the Worcester
glared at me. I said, “We took booby-trapping mission that al-
basic together, Lieutenant. We, most worked, which I did, so in a
uh — We weren’t very close bud- way you might say that Pinky
dies.” Postal was responsible for my get-
“Sergeant, I didn’t ask you.” ting the Congressional Medal of
I listened while he was talking Honor.
on the phone, although I was sup- I’m glad I got it. There were
posed to be checking casualty re- fifteen awarded that day, includ-
ports resulting from the morning’s ing mine and Lauchheimer’s.
assault on the Sirian bubble. It They lined us up alphabetically,
seemed that Pinky had been and my name begins with a “W”.
given a truckload of supplies for So, although my Medal looks like
evacuees and told to deliver it all the others, it’s pretty special.
to a relief center in Bound Brook. It was the last one issued. After
They’d picked him up in New that the Sirians englobed Wash-
Brunswick with the supplies gone ington.
and a pocketful of cash. It was
about what I would have ex- VK/'HEN Pinky Postal got his
pected. *’ bright notion of selling GI
The M.P. jeep was there in less canned milk in New Brunswick
than five minutes, and Lt. Lauch- he was twenty-three years old. He
heimer escorted Pinky out with- had been drafted at nineteen, out
out another word to me. But he of Cincinnati.
didn’t forget. Two weeks later, He hated it —
hated both. He
when we were packing up for the hated being drafted; and he hated
move to Staten Island, he was in Cincinnati. He had never done a
charge of my section and he put day’s work. He liked to drive
me on every rough detail he could around down in Kentucky and
think of. I guess I didn’t blame try to pick up girls, but he was
him. I would have done the same. a poor man’s son. The girls were
He didn’t know me very well, but not usually impreseed by his
he knew I knew Pinky Postal. wobbly old Ford. In basic train-
Lauchheimer didn’t get off my ing his unmade bed cost the
back until the Boston Retreat, whole platoon a weekend pass at
bad time to keep him in as long remember it very well; I was one
as they wanted him; and he was of them.
still trying to make it up when So was Pinky but, heavens
the Sirians blew their bubble knows how, he managed to get
around Wilmington. sent north. He was supposed to
Pinky couldn’t have cared less. be driving a truck again in the
They weren’t shooting at him, evacuation of Philadelphia. The
were they? So what difference place he was evacuating was Bryn
did it make to Pinky? What was Mawr, and probably he mistook
70 GALAXY
the girls’ panic for another kind me back. Now leave me alone,
of excitement. They screamed to will you?”
the colonel. Pinky wound up in a “. Well, what’s
. . it like? Do
punishment battalion once more, they feed you?”
and there he met the missionary “Sure.”
from inside the bubble, an exile “Work you hard?”
from Eden. The little man said dreamily,
“There’s a stud farm down in
IT to me straight, Delaware. Fifteen hundred wom-
Rocco. What’s it like in en, they say. Only a couple dozen
the bubble?” men. For breeding, see?”
“Go to hell.” “Breeding? You mean —
“Come on, Rocco! Look, you “They’re growing slaves, I
don’t like working in the boiler guess. Well, I was working on a
room, do you? Maybe I know how farm and they closed that up. I
we can cut out of here.” got friendly with the overseer and
“Shut up, Postal. The ser- he put me in for the breeding
geant’s looking at us.” farm. Plenty of food. Nothing else
Vindictively Pinky turned the to do. I —
steam valve a moment before “I’m warnin’ you two! For the
Rocco was ready for it. The high- last time."
temperature jet barely missed But then, after the last smelly,
boiling his fingers. flea-ridden bale had come out of
“What the hell did you do that the sterilizer, Pinky had a chance
for? Get off my back, Postal!” for one more word with the mis-
“Come on. What’s it like?” sionary. Why couldn’t he go back?
“Shut up, you two! Drag tail!" “Postal, I don’t want to talk
Pinky sulked. The job of de- about it. They threw me out. I
lousing refugee clothing took two was passed the overseers,
all set,
men, one to lift the hundred- right up to one of the bugs. He —
pound bundles in and out of the He said I was too little. They
steam boiler, one to turn the don’t want anybody under six
valve. Pinky was twice the size feet tall.”
of the little ex-prisoner of the Sir- Back in the barracks, Pinky
ians, but it was Pinky who sat at slipped out of his dirty GI shoes
ease with one gloved hand on the and painstakingly marked his
valve. height off on the wall. The tape
“Don’t you want to get out of measure showed that nothing had
here?” changed. He was exactly six feet,
“Look, Postal. They won’t take one and a quarter inches tall.
The bubbles were like a wall, don’t know what happened to the
except more flexible and beauti- fiftymen who got through. The
fully controlled. The rule was: only thing I’m pretty sure of is
What the Sirians wanted to pass that they didn’t much worry the
could pass; everything else could bugs.
not. Some people did come back.
Time passed; the other ships The Sirians threw them out, like
landed; there were more bubbles. Pinky’s missionary, Rocco. Prob-
Then the bubbles grew bubbles. ably the Sirians had chosen types
They clustered in groups, expand- who would have little of impor-
ing. Sometimes the new bubbles tance to tell, except how much
were big, sometimes small. Some- they liked living under the Siri-
times a couple of months would ans. That’s what they told, every
go by without much expansion, one of them.
sometimes half a dozen little buds They were a problem to the
would pop up in a week. Army. Most of them were soldiers,
No metallic object could get as it happened. The Army didn’t
through them at all after the first much like the idea of sending
week. Evidently the Sirians had them back to their units, whose
decided that was their simplest morale was already hanging low,
defense. so they put the missionaries in
We tried non-metallic attacks, special battalions, along with the
72 GALAXY
goof-offs and low-grade criminals, that Pinky would seek. He was
like Pinky Postal. not a bookish man, but he was
Pinky heard the message of the immensely erudite on prurience.
missionaries loud and clear. He He knew very well what a breed-
didn’t like the punishment battal- ing farm was like. There were the
ion at all. dozens of helpless, tamable does;
He got his chance when he was and there was the big stud stal-
handing out tetanus shots for a lion, himself. What would be
and a jeep skidded
line of children closer to the heart of any red-
in the slush, side-swiping the blooded boy? He made his way
medics’ personnel carrier. The there, finally, very much elated.
kids scattered like screaming There were fifteen others in the
geese. By the time the medic shipment, all tall, heavy, muscu-
corporal got his detail rounded lar men, all extremely cheerful.
up again he had only five men They rode in the back of an old
instead of six. Ford pickup truck, in warm sun-
Pinky was in the back of a shine. They didn’t mind that it
74 GALAXY
paralyzed life. Nothing else. It did not answer, unless the extra,
would not set off a match or stir unnecessary twist of the blood-
a cobweb, but it would kill. sampling needle was an answer.
Pinky did not know this, but There were a lot like the doctor
he knew what he had already in the bubbles —
policemen, doc-
known, that the Sirians were tors, a few elected officials of
deadly. Shaken, he waited for the towns, who saw only one duty and
physical examination. that was to continue at their jobs.
The overseer was not kind to They worked for the bugs, but
Pinky because of the gift of ci- not as Billings did.
gars. He knew that kindness was Twenty minutes later the doc-
not involved; it was a simple tor had completed his blood tests.
bribe. But as he shared Pinky’s “Do I pass?” Pinky demanded
code he repaid the bribe. He did eagerly. “You know, do I get to
not volunteer information, but he breed?”
answered questions. Would all of The doctor looked at him
them be kept for breeding stock? thoughtfully.
“God, no. Six jobs want to be Abruptly he laughed. He
filled,the rest of you go back.” erased a little mark on the paper
Was there any special trick to and substituted another. “I think
passing the examination? The you do,” he said.
overseer jerked his thumb at a Pinky didn’t understand the
door labeled: Dr. Lessard. “Up to doctor’s laughter for several
the doc.” And was it what
really hours.
they and fun?
said, inside, all girls Then the five of the lot who
The overseer laughed and walked had been selected were led into
away. There had only been two a long, narrow, white room with
cigars. a bank of refrigerators against
The doctor had overheard part one wall and a remarkable quan-
of the conversation. He was hu- tity of test-tubes, flasks, glass tub-
man, a dark little man with a ing and other chemical-looking
dark little mustache. “I give you instruments on benches against
one piece of advice,” he said the other. The five potent studs
grimly, “stay away from Billings. stared at each other, until a sour-
What? Billings —him; the man faced human male, wearing a lab-
you were talking to. He’s been oratory smock, came reluctantly
working for the bugs since they in to start them on their duties.
landed in Australia.” There was a storm of questions;
Pinky said, “But aren’t you the man said, “Oh, shut up, all of
working for them?” The doctor you. I hate this job.”
76
gm Ifc
up, and the bubble would burst. by no means the joyous sport that
We did. It did. traveled atWe had inspired troubadors and axe-
night and never saw a Sirian. At killings for thousands of years.
night the bubble was a wet-look- After all, we use artificial insemi-
ing, faintly luminous lavender nation on our domestic animals,
shroud. Lauchheimer had a porta- why should the Sirians be less
ble electronic gizmo which trian- efficient?
gulated the center for us. We I knew enough, in fact, to have
found the center, located the ship, tried to avoid the breeding farm,
fused the bomb, had an hour to for more reasons than one. Des-
get away, did and saw, in the
. . . tiny makes games of our inten-
first rays of the morning sun, a tions; I was selected out of a
great mushrooming cloud that thousand casual laborers in the
rose into a blue, bubble-free sky. work camp near Bethesda, and
Paratroopers captured four live trucked to the farm overnight.
Sirians; eight others were found Pinky was thin, pale, trembling.
dead from the blast. He recognized me at once. “Help
That was what gave Lauch- me, Harry! I got to get out of
heimer and me our Congressional this place.”
Medals. I looked around the place. It
The hostages didn’t stay with had been the Bethesda Naval
us very long. They were brought Hospital at one time, with
to Washington too, for study. Ten changes made by the bugs. It was
minutes after we got our Medals now one enormous lying-in home,
— flicker, whine there was a— with beds for eighteen hundred
sudden surge of color and a dis- women, dormitories for thousands
tant sound; the sun outside the more in the grounds around, and
White House window went pur- a special small detention home
ple and we were all caught. for we fortunate donors. “You got
Some months after that I found what you wanted, didn’t you?” I
myself sharing a kennel with said.
Pinky Postal. Pinky had lost forty pounds,
and there was no more flesh on
Ill his arms than on a spider crab’s,
but he surprised me. Without a
T HAD NOT expected to see him word he jumped at my throat.
there, though I suppose I I beat him off with difficulty.
could have guessed it. I knew “All right! It was a joke.”
more than he, though. I knew that He slumped in a heap, whining,
the Sirians’ idea of breeding was “Oh, Harry! I been here fourteen
78 GALAXY
'
months and one of the bug boys against the bugs —I was pretty
tells me I have a hundred and sure that I was the only survivor.
twenty-three kids already, and
more on the way, and And, I — nPHE only hope of accomplish-
swear, the closest I’ve been to a ing anything against the Siri-
woman is looking at them out the ans lay in the possibility of de-
window. You know what? stroying their central high com-
They’ve got some of my — mand which was not a Sirian, or
They’ve got samples, you know, at any rate not an organic Sirian,
in the deep freeze. They could but a machine. A computer. It did
kill me tomorrow and I’d go not rue them, but it detailed their
right on having kids for maybe plans.
twenty years. Harry! I didn’t There was a chance, said the
know it would be like this at all.” general who swore us in, that if
I left him and looked out the we destroyed the computer they
window. There was an exercise would be confused and weakened,
yard, a mess hall, a community then we might get at them with
shower — and a wall. Donors conventional arms.
were not allowed outside of it. I followed Pinky’s example
I said, “You ought to feel hon- and made friends with the man
ored. There are only ten of these in the green brassard, Billings. I
stud farms in the world.” had no cigars. “I want to help
“And they’rethe same
all — you,” told him.
I
insemination?”
all this artificial “My oath.” He sat down with
“All exactly the same, Pinky. contempt and lit a cigarette with
I’m sorry.” That was a lie, of loathing. “You chaps get queerer
course — about being sorry; why every day.”
would anyone waste compassion I wheedled, “You never know,
on Pinky Postal? But I was com- Billings. They might put you on
mitted to telling lies. I could not stud any day.”
trust him with the truth. “Too true.” But it had shaken
“Maybe it will work out all him. “And what can you do to
right,” I said vaguely, reassuring stop them?”
not him but myself. I built a dream castle for him.
It had to. Something had to. “I have something they want, Bill-
Of the twenty-five of us who were ings. I can tell you about some-
abruptly sworn in as intelligence thing the bugs will want to know.”
officers when the bubble closed in Scornfully:- “Hell! There isn’t
over Washington —
the last real anything they want to know.
hope of any organized effort They’ve a shootin’ big machine
80 GALAXY
erly, of course. But the trouble it did have a resemblance to a
was the Sirians had their own medieval castle, at least from a
ideas. Billings brought us down great enough distance in the air.
to the big barn where the only There were things like towers and
Sirian for miles around sometimes things like battlements. Closer up
stopped by to check performance the resemblance was gone. The
at the stud farm and, after waiting lobed wall that surrounded it was
for some hours, the Sirian ap- not for defense, as in a castle; it
peared. Billings, trembling, tried was the Sirian equivalent of a
to explain what it was I had said. garage, where their ground and
The Sirian grasped the idea very air vehicleswere kept. The towers
quickly; my promise was kept; were viewless, except at the very
the Sirian took the bait. He said top, where sweeping silvery nee-
something into a small spherical dles performed a function like
contraption he wore dangling radar’s.
from one middle leg and in a Pinky and the Aussie came to
moment there was a Sirian plane, itwith suspicion and delight. Any-
and Pinky and Billings were thing was better than the stud
herded into it. farm.
Just them. Not me. Or almost anything. But un-
For me it was back to the stud deniably this was queer. They
farm. Pinky had been my ticket were sent to a hexagonal green-
to the headquarters and the ticket on-green room, small, bedless.
had just been punched. Billings spat on the floor when he
saw it. But even that satisfaction
r pHE main Sirian headquarters was denied him. The floor shim-
on North America was in mered, the saliva collected in
Maryland, on the site of what had quicksilvery beads and trembled
once been the Bowie race track. toward an almost invisible slit,
Off to the south lay the horse where it vanished. Pinky said,
barns. Where the grandstand and “You don’t like the accommoda-
track itself had been, now trace- tions?”
lessly slagged over, stood the “It ain’t Darling Point,” said
Sirian construction that they had Billings.“You know what I wish?
flung up around their ship. I wish that pal of yours was here.
The building looked like a I’ve a notion of something I want
castle, worked like a palace. A to say to him.”
palace is more than a home; it is But Billings had only been a
workshop and office, an adminis- strawboss at the stud farm, Pinky
trative center; so was this. But had actually been one of the
82 GALAXY
map. The chart was of North match for a single bug, who could
America, but as the human con- effortlessly destroy them one
vention of portraying bodies of after another at will. There was
water as featureless plains was littleprospect of effective sabo-
not followed by the Sirians, Pinky tage in the areas available to the
could make of it nothing but a captives. Most rooms were fea-
scramble of topography, as mean- tureless dormitories, halls, exer-
ingless to him as the chart of the cise areas, yards. The workshops
back side of the Moon. and armories were closed to
If Pinky had had the wit to humans. The few chambers which
understand what he saw even he had any strategic importance —
might have been shocked. The principally the computer room —
circles of Sirian bubbles were were never left untended.
etched in fire. They had grown — Pinky restlessly prowled the
how they had grown! All the headquarters and the abandoned
Eastern seaboard was a string of human buildings surrounding it.
84 GALAXY
the malarial Amazon basin and was Waldo. He was alive. As he
the hot savannahs of the Congo. was only a newborn, his shock
So we crept about under their was painful but not deadly.
feet and stung them when we We roped him and dragged
could. We became ingenious in him out onto the side of the hill.
setting snares. With the high- In the light of a quarter million
octane gasoline from an aban- burning gallons of gasoline,
doned storage tank we washed pinned on his back with ten legs
one of their landing strips one waving, he did not seem danger-
night, and set it ablaze just as ous, only comic. “Kill him,” said
one of their gull-winged flyers Gaffney, rubbing his leg.
came in. The intention was to in- “No.” I had a better idea.
cinerate them all, and then for us “They’ll never miss him. Why
to vanish tracelessly; but the Siri- don’t we keep him? He can be —
an pilot saw danger at the last We can use him for —
moment and almost soared free. “What?” demanded Gaffney.
The flames caught him, and the “No, kill him!” But I had my way
ship pinwheeled into the side of a finally. We had no plan for a
hill. And that was very fortunate captive Sirian, because it had
for us, because that was how we never occurred to us we might
captured Waldo. catch one. But surely something
would turn up!
T¥7ALDO was a small, dark- So we swung him in a ham-
green creature the size of a mock and lashed him tight, and
puppy, newly hatched and not we got out of there minutes before
very dangerous. the Sirian rescue parties were
He was our first living Sirian circling the sea of flame.
captive. We dared take time to It was months before we had
poke about in the wreck of the any idea of what to do with him.
plane, knowing that there would As I had insisted on kidnapping
be investigation, and we found him, he was given me to raise.
that only two of its crew were This was not pleasant. He was a
adult Sirians; the others were painful pet, and difficult to
eggs or hatchlings. The crash had handle.
killed them handsomely. All but I mention only the difficulty of
one. John Gaffney found the one; feeding him. Infant Sirians were
rummaging through the dark he nurtured on a sort of nectar,
suddenly screamed: “The little probably once secreted by Sirian
louse! He bit me!” But it wasn’t adults but now, in their dwellings,
a bite, it was a neural shock. It synthesized in quantity. Wehad
86 GALAXY
was carried on in an observatory while. Waldo, beside me, rested
near the top. “And look here,” one talon gently in my hand —
said Gaffney in excitement, “see he was very well behaved and
this line? The inner part of the quite trustworthy except, as I
headquarters is almost independ- said, just as he was drifting off
ent of the rest. Double walls, to sleep. He loomed over us (be-
limited access, construction heav- ing now more than nine feet tall),
ier, stronger inside. What does staring at the scribbled map with
that suggest?” I opened my polite curiosity.
mouth. “A ship!” he cried, not I turned and stared at him ab-
tion. They had but one computer; girl. Did they carry anything
it had landed with the first touch- special? But she would have said
down on Australia, but had been so, and I think not. I think prob-
moved to the United States. If ably their own neural shock ema-
we could destroy that ship. . . . nations screened off the radiations
“But that’s the part that wor- from the booby traps, and that’s
ries me,” admitted Gaffney, down- the case — if
minute I thought you were the The tarpaulin flung free. There
boss. Mr. Postal.” was a high-pitched Sirian chirp,
and three great insect bodies
V bounded up from the floor, where
they had been huddled. Gravely,
TT'ARTH had now been con- drunkenly, Pinky realized that he
quered in all of its important was about to die. He had caught
parts. We knew that the great them at something, heaven knew
colonizing fleet that would follow what. And they would surely
the first wave had long been orbit- smite him low.
ing the sun, reducing its velocity, As he was drunk, he merely
knocking off miles-per-second to stood there, weaving slightly,
match speed with the Earth and breathing calm alcoholic defiance
to land. at the Sirian who bent dangerous-
What we did not know was ly toward him.
how tedious life had become for — But he did not die.
the conquerors. He did not die, and the next
Pinky Postal, however, had morning, through the pounding
them right under his eye. He saw haze of his hangover, he wondered
how little there was for them to why. There were blanks in his
do. These were soldiers, not in- recollection. But he remembered
tellectuals, notartists, not even standing there, and he remem-
home-builders; their work was to bered that the killing bolt from
fight, and they were fought out. the Sirian had never come.
They had won. He puzzled over it for a whole
Two days before Billings was day.
Pinky caught a glimpse of
killed, Then, that evening, a Sirian
what might be. He found five came toward him and bent low.
quarts of champagne and got Pinky was not drunk this time,
quite drunk. In his intoxication he and he was terrified. He tried to
blundered where he knew he run, fell, squirmed and lay flat on
should not go —
into Sirian quar- his back while the great flat June-
ters —and it was only the provi- bug face swooped down at him.
88 GALAXY
Again the bolt did not strike. ans furtively huddled under an
The face hung there, for airtight sheet, exuding COo and
seconds and then for minutes. intoxicating one another. It was
And by and by Pinky saw that a fearful vice. It was also a dan-
the Sirian was twitching. It gerous one. It could not be prac-
twitched and stirred. Then it de- ticed openly. And when done in
finitely staggered. It stumbled, secret there was always the risk
caught itself, almost fell athwart that the drunks would pass out
him, caught itself again. The faint and ultimately die of hyperintoxi-
cricket-chirp sounded, ragged and cation.
. and
. . drunken.
. . . They were not merely drupks,
Drunken! they were alcoholics, a racial
And Pinky, sleepless that night, characteristic; for once they had
staring at the black ceiling of his tasted the happy-gas exuded by
green-on-green cubicle, realized gross mammalian chemistry they
that he had found what he were addicts. Pinky collected his
wanted. first addict by chance, but he was
90 GALAXY
I paid him little attention. I was But how are we to explain to
wondering where the Sirians history that the Sirian conquest
were. We didn’t then know that of humanity was defeated not by
they were dead drunk, or al-
all our strength but by our vices?
most all; we thought they might
come ravening down among us A ND when it comes to that,
J-*-
with murderous shocks blazing what can I say to the Presi-
left and right. Pinky danced be- dent?
fore us, almost weeping; but when He is sunburned and
very
we deployed left and right, as we healthy looking from his summer
had rehearsed it so many times, on the Orinoco. He is a titan at
he bolted away and, crash, a steel the tasks of reconstruction. Life is
the last only to sober one Sirian I wishcould stop it, but I
I
just enough to pull the master don’t know how. I don’t mind,
switches that blasted their ship really, that mine should not be
loose from its shell, sending it the last Congressional Medal of
screaming up, out and away, Siri- Honor after all.
ans, computer, Pinky and all. But I resent it most keenly that
Fifteen of our raiding party the next should go in absentia to
died in its rocket-flames. It was Pinky Postal!
a cheap price, of course. — FREDERIK POIIL
information
BY WILLY LEY
THE HOME-MADE LAND
W
ing
HEN
proudly
I, in January 1935,
92 GALAXY
many years later near Phoenix, largest Dutch city, Rotterdam, is
in its natural state. Only three area where a canoe was far more
classical sources are known to me, useful than a horse —
and which,
Tacitus (in his Germania ), Pom- consequently, did not interest the
ponius Mela (in his De Choro- Romans. They liked firm ground
graphia ) and, of course, Cajus and were partial to paved high-
Plinius Secundus (Pliny the ways.
Elder) in his “Natural History”. Since two Dutch words will
Pomponius Mela has just one crop up all the time in what is to
sentence for the current Holland: follow they might as well be ex-
“Then it (meaning the Rhine) is plained in advance. The word Zee
no longer a river but an enormous (pronounced Zay) refers to a
lake covering a large area, called body of salt water, while the word
Fie vo.” (. “sed ingens lacus, ubi
. Meer (pronounced like “mare”)
campos implevit, Flevo dicitur," means a body of fresh water.
if you want the original wording.) This is somewhat confusing, be-
The most accurate, as usual, is cause two German words which
Pliny. He states that the Rhine look almost the same and sound
in that area has three arms, the same happen to have almost
named Helium (the western- the opposite meanings. A German
most), Rhenus (the center arm) See is a fresh-water lake, if used
and Flevum (the arm that goes with the masculine article, and a
to the north.) “In the north the body of salt water if used with
Rhine widens into the lake. In the the feminine article. And the Ger-
west it empties into the Meuse.” man word Meer means the ocean.
One of the commentators of Pliny One sometimes feels that a good
added that in 12 B.C. the Roman synonym for “language” would be
general Drusus Germanicus (also “chaos.”
known as Drusus Senior) “con- At any event, the Dutch
94 GALAXY
The Kingdom of The Netherlands prior to the Zuider Zee plan.
wrested land both from the salty through many generations, the
Zee and from freshwater Meet by overall balance did not look so
building dikes, filling in and drain- good. A Dutch government pam-
ing. But, in spite of hard work phlet states that between 1200
96 GALAXY
ply a long I) which had an open of experts which could judge the
connection to the Zuider Zee. The feasibility of the various plans.
other was the H
aarlemmermeer. Thus an evaluation group, the
To get rid of the menace, the Zuiderzeevereeniging, was estab-
sum 8,355,000 guilders was
of lished.
earmarked in 1837. Work began To see what they would get if
three years later and lasted a they did inpolder the Zuider Zee
dozen years. The Dutch govern- extensive drilling was carried out.
ment somewhat ruefully stated (One source says 2188 test drill-
that had cost 13,789,377 guild-
it ingswere made.) It became clear
ers. But it had been a success, that about three-fourths of the
even though another 20 years of area of the Zuider Zee could be
work were needed to change the made into valuable land.
newly won land into fruitful soil. Especially three men were the
The Dutch name for reclaimed driving spirits: van Diggelen, Dr.
land is “polder”. Reclaiming land Cornelis Lely and the head of
is therefore called by a term which the evaluation group, Dr. Buma.
can be Anglicized as “inpolder- A complete plan was finished in
ing.” While the IJ polder and the 1892. But it took time. The turn-
Haarlemmermeer polder were ing point was probably the speech
still and en-
wet, three scientists made by Queen Wilhelmina of
gineers, van Diggelen, Kloppen- The Netherlands on the occasion
burg and Faddegon, published a of the opening of parliament in
similar scheme for the Zuider Zee. September, 1913. The speech con-
An enormous dike was to close tained the sentences: “I consider
the mouth of the big bay, the the time has come to undertake
trapped water was slowly to be the enclosure and reclamation of
pumped out and the two rivers the Zuider Zee. The result will be
emptying themselves into the improved water control conditions
Zuider Zee, the IJssel and the in the adjacent provinces, exten-
Amstel, were to be diverted to go and a permanent
sion of territory
into the North Sea directly. increase in the opportunities of
The cost estimate was 92 mil- employment.”
lion guilders. If times had been normal, the
Queen’s words would probably
A S MORE and more projects have caused quick action. But
were published or submitted times were not normal. The First
to the government in the form World War was brewing.
of memoranda, the government The act of parliament which
felt that there should be a body decided to attack the Zuider Zee
98 GALAXY
newly won land to be accessible would then have an area of nearly
by water. 250,000 acres. It had to be fairly
In short: instead of just drying large to receive the waters of the
up the whole bottom of the bay, IJssel and other smaller rivers,
100 GALAXY
barges and 88 tugs. The closing (and by the beginnings of the
of the dam was timed like an big dam), this polderhad been
attack. At such and such a time finished in 1932. The experience
the current would be near a gained on the test polder enabled
standstill, then were so and so the Dutch experts to make the
many hours for plugging the dam. land arable within only two years
When the tide returned it had to of its being dry.
find a solid obstacle. On this polder —as well as on
The dam was finished on May the ones finished later — the
28, 1932. system was to divide it into plots
of roughly 50 acres. Each one of
A T THAT time the polder to these plots had a paved road in
the south of the island of front and a large canal in the
Wieringer, the Wieringermeer back, making it accessible both by
polder, was ready to receive its land and by water. Just in case
first crop. Since the area was the main dam might give way, a
somewhat protected by the island most unlikely thing, a terp (arti-
y^orth
Ce
102 GALAXY
ficial hill) was built in the center ing to worry about many other
of the polder. It is high enough things. But two major catastro-
to be several feet above the high- phes happened.
est recorded flood level of the The first was the German oc-
North Sea, and large enough to cupation of the Netherlands dur-
,
protect everything on the polder ing the Second World War which,
than can move and climb it. naturally, brought everything to
(Somebody calculated that the a near standstill, though the Ger-
;
where else the quality varies from east of Danzig) and they wanted
i
while the poorest sections are Zee for several reasons. To begin
;
When the Dutch started on But near the end of the war the
this enormous project in 1927 Germans wrecked dikes deliber-
<
least hoped, that they could re- especially in the area of the Prov-
«
claim their Zuider Zee area in ince of Zeeland. But the dikes
i
104 GALAXY
shavensche Gat, is to be dammed; secondary aim of producing a
this dam should be completed in large fresh water reservoir. The
1970. The next dam, and inci- interconnected bodies of water
dentally the longest one in the behind the Delta Plan dams are
Delta Plan, will go across the already referred to collectively as
outlet called the Easter Schelde. the Zeeuwse Meet, the Zeeland
(It is called that not with the lake.
religious holiday in mind but in The fact is that The Nether-
contrast to the Wester Schelde.) lands, which are always plagued
It will seal it off by 1978. by too much sea water and are
The southernmost of the out- seasonally plagued by too much
lets,the Wester Schelde, must be river water too, do need more
left open; there is heavy traffic fresh water in midsummer. The
up and down the Wester Schelde Zeeuwse Meer will be the irriga-
to Antwerp, which is not a Dutch tion reservoir for these periods.
city. Here the dike along the
southern shore of Walcheren and fT'HERE are two secondary
South Beveland will have to be ^ dams, from Duiveland to
raised and strengthened. The Overflakkee and from there to
same is true to the north of Zee- the mainland. Later on they will
land. The deep channel between carry highways, but their primary
Rotterdam and the sea, the so- purpose is to influence the cur-
called Rotterdamsche Waterweg, rents in such a way that the main
also cannot be interfered with, so dams will be easier to build.
that a protecting dike at or near Another part of the Delta Plan
the southern shore of the Water- is a most interesting construction
weg is indicated. to the east of Rotterdam. There
One of the reasons why the is a river coming in from the east
Cross section through the big dam across the mouth of the (former) Zuider Zee.
payers, partly because the Delta that oft-used date comes around.
Plan should be hurried with all — WILLY LEY
106 GALAXY
By FRANK HERBERT
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
Mating Call
It's a new thrill, no doubt.
But do you think it'll ever ’
F you
get caught we’ll
to throw you to the
have
replace old-fashioned sex?
dis.
I wolves,” said Dr. Flad-
“You understand,of course.”
Laoconia Wilkinson, senior
field agent of the Social Anthro-
pological Service, nodded her
narrow head. “Of course,” she
barked. She rustled the travel and
order papers in her lap.
“It was very difficult to get
High Council approval for this
expedition after the . ah. . . . .
—
.
”
them through “We cannot be too careful,”
“You will note the prohibition said Dr. Fladdis. “With the mem-
in Section D of the High Council’s ory of Monligol still fresh in all
mandate,” said Dr. Fladdis. “‘The minds.” He shuddered. “We must
Field Agent may not enclose, re- return to the spirit of the SocAnth
strain or otherwise restrict the motto: ‘For the Greater Good of
freedom of any Rukuchp na- the Universe.’ We’ve been
’ ”
tive warned.”
“How bad is their birthrate “I don’t see how music can be
situation?” asked Laoconia. anything but a secondary stimu-
“We have only the word of the lant,” said Laoconia. “However, I
Rukuchp special spokesman. shall keep an open mind.”
108 GALAXY
—
1 AOCONIA Wilkinson looked “Somehow, I just can’t help
Gafka a him,” said Marie.
up
from her notes, said: calling
“Marie, was that a noise outside?” She shrugged. “I know it’s non-
She pushed a strand of gray hair sense. Still when Gafka
. . .
110 GALAXY
“They should have told us,” turn before it got fully dark.”
said Laoconia. Laoconia scowled, pushed a-
“They couldn’t,” said Marie. side her notes. Always calling it
112 GALAXY
conia. “You may ask any ques- Then: “Now, I must know what
tion you wish.” you meant by your question.”
“You are too old for breed- . . . Gafka’s vision cap rocked left,
pered Marie. “And I think they can do about it now. We’re here
extend back under the trees. I and that’s that. I’m signing off
wish I knew which one was now.” She flipped the switch.
Gafka. I should’ve watched when “Was that Dr. Baxter?” asked
he left us.” Marie.
MATING CALL 1 15
“Yes. Helen’s monitoring us “They’re sure to do something
herself, though I don’t see what soon,” whispered Marie.
she can do. Medical people are As though her words were the
very peculiar sometimes. Has the signal,an almost inaudible vibra-
situation changed with the na- tion began to throb in the clear-
tives?” ing. Glaze leaves started their
“They haven’t moved that I sympathetic tinkle-chiming. The
can see.” vibration grew, became an organ
“Why couldn’t Gafka have rumble with abrupt piping oblig-
given us a preliminary briefing?” atto that danced along its edges.
asked Laoconia. “I detest this A cello insertion pulled a melody
flying blind.” from the sound, swung it over the
“I think it still embarrasses clearing while the glazeforest
him to talk about breeding,” said chimed louder and louder.
Marie. “How exquisite,” breathed
“Everything’s too quiet,” hissed Marie. She forced her attention
Laoconia. “I don’t like it.” onto the instruments in front of
116 GALAXY
her. Everything was functioning. to close her eyes; she wanted to
The melody broke to a single submit entirely to the ecstasy of
clear high note of harmonic bril- sound.
liance — a sound that
flute Around them, the Rukuchp
shifted to a second phase with natives remained stationary, a
expanded orchestration. The mu- rhythmic expansion and contrac-
sic picked up element after ele- tion of bellows muscles their only
ment while low-register tympani movement.
built a stately rhythm into it, and And the rapture of music in-
zither tinkles laid a counter-point tensified.
on the rhythm.
“Pay attention to your instru- Tl/fARIE moved her head from
ments,” hissed Laoconia. side to side, mouth open.
Marie nodded, swallowing. The The sound was an infinity of
music was like a song heard be- angel choirs — every sublimity
fore, but never before played of music ever conceived —now
with this perfection. She wanted concentrated into one exquisite
pered Marie. Her suspicion was whispered into the cheek micro-
taking on more definite shape . . . phone. “You see the same thing
music, controlled sound, ecstasy we do. There’s been no move-
of controlled sound . . . Thoughts ment against us. Let me call you
tumbled over each other in her back later. I want to observe
mind. this.”
118 GALAXY
A Rukuchp figure came up be- the faint glimmer-haze lidding of
side Marie. Gafka’s vision cap “make —
“Gafka?” said Marie. better young. Strong more.”
“Gafka,” intoned the figure. “Gafka,” said Marie, “is the
The voice sounded sleepy. song all you do? I mean, there
Laoconia leaned across the in- isn’t anything else?”
you teach, make right you.” “You’re tone deaf,” said Marie.
“What is all this nonsense?” “It’s obviously a stimulant of
asked Laoconia. “Gafka, where some sort!” snapped Laoconia. “I
are your people all going?” don’t understand now why they
“Going,” sighed Gafka. won’t let us. .”.
120 GALAXY
mixed up their musical relation- fertile drones. This may have its
ships. They were fascinated by vogue, but it surely can’t last.”
the new musical forms. They ex- “Perhaps,” said Laoconia. “But
perimented for new sensations I keep thinking of all those re-
. .and their birthrate fell off.
. broadcasts of our recordings. I
Naturally.” wonder if these Rukuchp crea-
“Then you came along,” said tures ever had two sexes?” She
Laoconia, “and taught them how turned toward Gafka. “Gafka, do
to master the new music.” you know if. .
.”
—
Earth-population. This is the
--Sb
^ rf o, that Planet's
Zoologist.
“why” of the Space .. „c a result of a government-
- -
men on board had been mere y
£
some photo-
lines 0 f so il and air,
accomplished without
the
incident. . ocean
that occa sioned the discovery of
It was the second Mars landing koalas ^
e wee
quilties. These furry beasts, somewhere tangles of fur, were
bright orang ®
appearance save for overall th ew me mbers as,
the „ s
meSSa
rSi!"
all
"
the
remains
-y s
*
S
a
r
®
d b k to Eart h along with
rCrt. There were no subsequent
mentioned
common knowledge t<oday c
~ ^
:
ARCTURUS
TIMES
THREE
IEUTENANT Jerry Nor- would feel resentment at the
L the
sniffing
stood at the edge of
criss
wide green clearing,
contentedly of the not-
unpleasant air of Arcturus Beta.
zoologist’s standoffish position,
and take out his feelings with a
remark like, “Would you pass the
sugar, if you don’t think it would
Three hundred yards behind him, sprain your wrist, sir?” Such inci-
crewmen and officers alike la- dents, if reported back to Earth,
bored to unload the equipment inevitably resulted in the break-
necessary for setting up camp for ing of the pilot, and his imme-
night on the planet.
this, their first diate removal from command. It
No one had asked him to lend was seldom the zoologist himself
his strong back to the proceed- who made the report. Any crew
ings. Space Zoologists were never member who overheard such
required to do anything which statements would make the re-
might sap, even slightly, any of port as soon as possible, no mat-
their physical energies. Moreover, ter what feelings of loyalty they
they were under oath not to take might otherwise have for the pilot
any orders to the contrary. or person who had spoken.
Now and then, a hot-shot pilot From the moment of landing,
124 GALAXY
couch and the helmet Jerry Nor- man in Contact was no longer a
criss would use. man. He was the creature whose
Jerry lay back with the ease mind he inhabited, save for a
of long habit and adjusted the miniscule remnant of personal
helmet-strap beneath his chin, as identity.His job was to Learn the
Peters read to him mechanically. creature from the inside out. As
The data came from the trans- his mind, off in the alien body,
lated resume of the roborocket Learned, the information was
that had gathered data on Arc- relayed via the Contact helmet
turus Beta for the six months to an electronic brain on the
prior to the landing of the space- ship, to be later translated into
ship. code-cards for the roborockets.
“. . . three uncatalogued species,” Man’s expansion throughout
his voice droned on. “An under- the universe was progressing
ground life-pulse in the swamp- faster than his mind could memo-
lands near the equator; the rize or categorize.
creature could not be spotted The roborockets obviated his
from the air ... A basically feline need to learn. For every known
creature, also near the equator, kind of alien-species problem,
but in a desert region, metabolism there was a solution. The scan-
unknown And pulses of intel-
. . . nerbeams of the rocket would
ligent life, and of some unfamiliar sense each life-form over which
lower animal life, on the northern they passed, in the rocket’s six-
seas All other life-forms on
. . . month orbit about the planet. If
the planet conform to previously all speciesconformed to already
discovered patterns, and can be known types, then a signal would
dealt with in the prescribed man- fly by ultrawave across the void
ners.” to Earth, declaring the planet fit
126 GALAXY
areas and made a final check of degrees sight was comfortably
all the wiring, tubes and power- normal.
sources.” Jerry looked over his surround-
Jerry sighed contentedly and ings and noted one slightly annoy-
shut his eyes. ing side-effect of his hexafocal
“Whenever you’re ready, then, outlook. As a human will see —
Captain,” he whispered, and as when looking at the tip of a
relaxed his body in preparation pencil pointed at the face two—
for his first Contact. His mind images at the far end of any ob-
and imagination toyed a moment ject looked upon, so Jerry, while
with brief fancies about his forth- able to zero in anywhere he chose,
coming existences in swamp, could see six ghost-images cor-
desert and sea, then he pushed responding in their angle of per-
the thoughts away and let his spective to the positions of his
mind go empty. six eyes. Had he a pencil-tip to
Faintly, he heard Peters call- stare at, it would have appeared,
ing an order to the technician beyond the tip, to be vaguely like
within the spaceship — a badminton bird seen head on,
Then silent lightning flashed with images of the pencil-body
across his consciousness. comprising the “feathers.”
A few moments of glancing
II about soon took care of the
primary irritation of this unfamil-
TTE OPENED his eyes. Six iar sensation, and Jerry began to
eyes. In two rows of three study his surroundings carefully.
eyes each. He was inside a circular cavity
He did not, however, see six ofsome sort, facing toward bright-
images. The widespread belief in ness at the opening ahead of him.
the multitudinous images seen by The walls of the cavity were dark,
the faceted eyes of a housefly sandy-smooth and slightly moist,
had been debunked the first time so he reasoned he was in some
a helmeted biochemist had in- sort of burrow in the soil. Beyond
truded upon that insect’s puny the opening, there was light and
brain. As with human eyes, the warmth and a hint of greenery
images were fused into a whole which his host’s eyes could not
when they reached the mind. bring into sharp focus.
Save for the disconcerting sensa- “I wish I knew my size,” he
tion of possessing a horizontal thought. “Am I some small insect
and vertical peripheral vision of awaiting a victim, or a rabbit-
approximately three hundred souled mammal hiding from a
isms. Okay, insect-size is out.” his body, but had no great tactile
capacity for his surroundings.
ERRY extended the pad before “Well,” Jerry thought, “that lets
J him and cautiously leaned his out feeling my body to determine
weight on it, then removed it shape or function.”
back beneath his torso and As it sometimes did when he
studied the earth where it had was enhosted, his mind went back
rested. There was a concavity to old Peters, his instructor, who
there, corresponding to the pad. had taught “Project C” to the
It was not especially deep. eager young zoologists. Project
“Well, that lets out elephant- Contact had been mostly devoted
size,” hereasoned, “and most to giving the student an open
oversize forms. I must be some- mind on metabolism and adapta-
128 GALAXY
bility to environment. A Learner saying became a cliche to the
had to be able to reason out — student body, but they had the
and quickly —
the metabolism of sense not to disregard it. A cliche
his host. It was little use know- is, after all, only a truth which
130 GALAXY
abdominal region of his host, just ages came prancing with almost
behind the thoracic section, there laughable ill-balance into view.
lay a wet, red concavity, in the Jerry, intent on observing this
midst of gaping jaws. Jerry him- creature — very like a landbound
self was enhosted in a “tongue” jellyfish walking clumsily upon
of some still larger creature its dangling arms —
relaxed his
within that soft earthen burrow! vigil as regards control of the
And some remaining fragment of host.
his host’s awareness told him Before he realized it, his jaws
that the creature of whom he were flung wide, and that self-
was the tongue was itself the determined tongue was leaping
tongue of yet another creature. for its prey. The horny jaws/ arms
He was a segment of some clamped into the viscous body of
gigantic segmented worm-crea- the passing creature, and the slit-
ture whose origin lay who-knows- mouth extended upper and lower
how-far beneath the earth. lips like pseudopods to cover the
Carefully, stilling a mental writhing, squealing victim. Then
feeling akin to mal de mer, he re- a huge lump appeared in the
protruded his tongue and looked tongue, just behind its “head.”
more carefully at it. Sure enough, Jerry waited with a distinct lack
just behind the “head” of the thing of relish for the still squirming
were two stubby growths, not yet “meal” to make its alimentary
mature. In time, Jerry realized, way back into his own esophag-
those growths would develop into ous.
a pair of double-elbowed front However, it did not. Just short
“arms” with semi-tactile tesse- of his lips, it halted. And after a
lated pads at the base, and the few moments, it ceased to strug-
curving jaws/arms would drop gle.
off or be resorbed, while that Annoyed,but uncertain just
“tongue” extended a “tongue” of why he was, Jerry attempted to
its own. re-mouth his tongue. It did not
“And then what happens to my come back. His jaws lay open
segment?” he wondered. “Do I wide, and his tongue remained
simply lie here forever with jaws where it had shot forward to grasp
agape?” the tentacled creature.
As he pondered this, there Something clicked in Jerry’s
came a movement in the greenery mind, and he once more tried
just beyond the burrow orifice. “seeing” out of the tongue’s six
A squiggly thing with an ill-as- eyes. He found that he still could,
sorted tangle of under-append- but dimly.
132 GALAXY
The second lump was quickly Swiftly, ignoring the wriggling
absorbed as he watched, and he protests of the segment before his
found he could no longer make own, he encircled it tightly with
contact at all with the six eyes those two-jointed “arms” and held
of the tongue-tip. His own six it tight and painfully taut. It was
134 GALAXY
the shiny, wiggling arms. Even as Jerry felt as if he’d rammed
he watched, it had completed its his hand into an open wood fire.
had been only lightly tactile be- across his consciousness. White,
fore, it became supersensitive silent lightning.
now, as the creature’s digestive Pain ceased.
juices began to erode it into its The time of Contact had
component chemicals. passed.
136 GALAXY
streaming eyes, and hacking less there was a looking-glass
cough. lying about — it was the only way
“The desert air must be nearly at hand.
all sulphur gases,” he realized. Jerry tilted his head until his
That would explain the hue of eyes fell upon his shadow on the
the sky, and the not-unpleasant brown rock beneath him. By tilt-
silvery haziness of the atmos- ing it from one side to the other,
phere. and joining the various silhouettes
“And I, if I don’t keel over in in his mind by a simple applica-
a few more moments, must be a tion of basic gestalt, he knew what
sulphur-breathing creature.” his head looked like.
Sunlight, from nearly directly Very like a lion’s, except that
overhead, was warm and comfort- it seemed to have no external
able upon his head, back and ear. A single slender silhouette
hindquarters. An unusually flex- that fell from the forehead re-
ible feeling in the caudal region gion, stiletto-pointed, must be a
of his spine told him that he had sort of horn, unless it deciduated
a tail, even before he swung his periodically, like a deer’s antlers.
huge head about for a glance at
it. The body, as bronzed as the P^URTHER speculation on his
rock on which it stood, was some- appearance was interrupted
thing like a lion’s, although the by the appearance of another
taloned feet, from heel to the first creature, trotting like a terrier
leg-joint,were horny and rough between the fuming sulphur-pits,
in appearance. They were not un- coming his way.
like those of a barnyard fowl, if It could be a twin to what he
considerably thicker and decid- now knew he looked like, but it
edly more lethal. seemed just a bit smaller, some-
That, save for a hard-to-see how. And it was carrying some-
fringe of darker fur that ran up thing carefully in its teeth.
his neck toward where he felt his “Should I run, fight or just ig-
ears to be, was all of his body nore it?” Jerry wondered. “It
that he could view. doesn’t seem menacing. But
“I wonder,” he mused, “what neither does a Pekinese till you
my head looks like?” try to pet it.”
A brief turning of the problem He allowed his mind to re-
in his mind gave him the solution treat a fractional bit from con-
to it. It wasn’t the best possible trol of his host, and watched its
way of getting an idea of his latest reactions to the newcomer. Jerry
cranial conformations, but — un- felt a surge of emotion, a sort
knew that this approaching crea- removed the talons from its prey,
ture was his cub. “That’s a help,” and took a backward step.
he thought, relieved, and resumed Apparently, as the sire, Jerry
control of the animal. was to get first bite.
The cub halted a short distance “Now don’t go all picayune,”
away, and gently set its burden he cautioned his digestive tract.
upon the rock,placing a fore- “Come on, Jerry boy. You eat
footful of talons upon the thing oysters while they’re alive. You
before letting go with its jaws. should be able to eat a squirrel
Under the talons, the thing when it’s dead. Besides, if you
moved. Jerry saw that it was a like the smell of this lion-crea-
sort of squirrel, except that it ture’s atmosphere, you’ll probably
had well-developed forepaws, like the taste of its food. Eat
the pads of which hinted that it hearty.”
undoubtedly ran quadripedally With that, Jerry lowered his
instead of climbing trees. Then head and let his sharp teeth snap
the memory of the sort of terrain off a haunch of the squirrel-thing.
he was in re-crossed his mind, He went to ohew it, then realized
and Jerry felt foolish. that —
unlike his prior Contact’s
Naturally it didn’t climb trees over-equipage —
he had no
in a region that was devoid of tongue. This was strictly a bolt-
any vegetation whatsoever. your-food host. So he tossed his
Jerry noticed that the cub head back, and managed, with a
seemed to be waiting for some- spasmodic effort of his thick
thing. He wished he could speak. muscular throat, to get the morsel
He had the goofy feeling that he into his stomach.
was supposed to say, like a man The cub stepped forward then,
confronted by a bottle of Chateau bit off a chunk for itself and got
Neuf in the hopeful hands of a it down with less apparent effort.
wine steward, “That’ll do nicely, “Well, he’s had more practice
thank you.” at tongueless eating,” Jerry con-
A nod was almost universally soled himself. Then, noting that
a sign of acquiescence, so he tried the cub was standing patiently
that instead. The cub seemed awaiting something, he swayed
pleased, and immediately, by his head from side to side, try-
lowering that forehead-horn be- ing to convey, “No thanks, it’s
138 GALAXY
watching him, waiting for some- nearest thing to Social Security.
thing, a sort of puzzled anxiety “Remember, you idiot,” Jerry
in its gaze. Jerry reasoned that snapped at himself, “this is a
if he simply backed off, the cub species. It is no beast rational
would take that as a gesture of mind you are dealing with, but
refusal to eat any more, so he an animal mind. That means
took a few steps away from the that the cub’s apparent protocol
squirrel-thing. is instinctive, and not a matter
of etiquette. And an instinct has
A ND the cub, an almost human a reason behind it, doesn’t it?
look of bafflement on its face, Only man can skip over protocol.
gurgled a whine from its throat. You have to do something be-
It began to bounce about on its fore the cub feels that it can
legs like a housebroken dog that do it — and whatever it is
very urgently wants out. you’re not doing, it’s driving the
Jerry thought hard. The fran- cub to distraction. You’d better
tic desire of the cub for him to go for a second helping of
do something was more than squirrel, and fast, or you’re
mere pettishness on its part. going to have your kid in a
There was real panic in its eyes, mental institution!”
now. Jerry felt the first thrill of Not exactly relishing complet-
danger. What was he doing back
ing the meal, Jerry stepped
wrong? Or what wasn’t he doing on the
to the furry little corpse
right? rock,and only as he came near
Mere after-you-Pop protocol enough to bite into it was he
could not explain the glint of suddenly aware of another odor
fright in his cub’s eyes. Or could mingling with that of the sul-
it? phur fumes. Unbelieving, he
Jerry tried to remain calm and stared at the spreading pool of
think reasonably. The sire-and- putrescence that ringed the re-
cub relationship was throwing mains of his cub’s prey. He
him. Most animals —in the stared, silent and amazed, as
narrow group that remained flesh and bone crumbled and
linked by relationship and af- dissolved thereon the ground,
fection even after the cubs until there was nothing there but
matured —ran along opposite the noissome liquid and a few
lines. The parent went out and tiny teeth.
got food for the kids, and not “Incredible!” thought Jerry.
vice-versa. On this planet, ap- “To decompose so damned fast!
parently, having a cub was the But it certainly explains why
140 GALAXY
mings. And also something about is in the hands of a nincompoop
cubs. like me . . .
142 GALAXY
ligence. Yet he couldn’t inhabit short (or cropped) white down.
an intelligent mind! Jerry could detect on the heads
Jerry opened his eyes and no sign of ears or nose, but in
took in the scene before him. the midst of the furry expanse
His vista was oddly diverted into of face, tiny green-glinting beads
vertical panels, and then, as his of jet were eyes, and a thin,
mind settled into full control, he wide blue-gray slit further down
knew that the panels were was the mouth.
spaces between bars. The hands, he noted with in-
The thought crossed his mind terest,were furred even within
that bars must be vertical every- the palms. Or so he thought until
where in the universe. Horizon- one of the creatures, idly flexing
tal ones would hold a prisoner a hand, showed Jerry that the
as well, but the origin of bars fingers bent on double joints in
lay in primitive stockades, either direction. There were no
stakes plunged into the ground nails as such, but each digit on
about a prisoner. Primordial those deceptively soft-looking
tribal habits were not easily hands terminated in a tapering
broken, even after attainment of cone of some hard black mate-
civilization. rial,as shiny as the eyes in those
Through the bars he saw — coconut-frosted faces.
well —
men. They were at least Jerry once more had cause to
and walked upright, and
bipedal, regret the impossibility of Con-
had two upper limbs with facile tact within a mind of an intel-
digits at the ends, all in keeping ligent creature. Intelligence
with the nearly universal rule of equated with impenetrability, so
bilateral identity. far as Contact went. You could
Beyond that, the resemblance learn of an intelligent race only
to man ceased. so much as their words and
The creatures he saw were gestures and behavior cared to
clothed in satiny uniforms, yet let you know.
something about the material Jerry knew he was in a sea-
told him it would hold up under region, but whether over it, on
heavy stress. Wherever their it, or under it —No. The room,
actual bodies showed —
head so far as he could see, was
and hands, mostly, though a windowless. It could mean that
man of apparently lesser rank the vehicle was carrying its own
was bared to the waist, working atmosphere, in order to keep the
on a machine set against one whether the outside
riders alive,
wall —they were covered with surface of the ship were within
144 GALAXY
scaly as a pangolin’s. “Maybe the other cage. The intensity of
I’m a pet,” he hoped. “But there’s the yearning gave no clue
something about the atmosphere if the urge were man-for-woman,
146 GALAXY
verse over must while engaged lying back to expose the organs
in surgery, started snipping and within.
plucking and sawing and clamp- Jerry, well-versed in all the
ing with lackadaisical facility metabolisms available to the
upon the two bodies strapped to scientists of Earth, was com-
the table. One medic concen- pletely baffled by this one. None
trated upon the man, the other of the internal organs was
upon the animal, while the an- fastened to anything.
esthetist merely held the cone The abdominal hollow of the
lightly upon the patient’s face, creature was with a clear
filled
and glanced now and then at lemon-colored liquid. The organs
dials upon the machine proper, just floated within the liquid.
as if for reassurance, or possibly They were, Jerry noticed with
to show that they were efficient amazement, not even juxtaposed
and well-trained. with any sort of permanence.
They did not trouble to an- Even as the medic reached for
esthetize the animal. them, they bobbed and moved
As they shifted about in their about each other in the yellow
work, Jerry got a better look at fluid, as impermanent of locale
the patient. All along his chest as apples in a rainbarrel.
and belly, the white fur was Then Jerry had it.
a".
r k
His fellow-creature, hissing in fur-faces were colloidal, the rac-
agony, was already a glittering, coon/ pangolins were crystalloid.
almost formless thing under the Whatever fluid lay within the
grisly tools of the medic stand- bellies of the animals, it was a
ing over it. super-saturate, needing but the
It was, Jerry realized, being right chemical additive before
laid belly-open with no more coming out of its liquid state to
regard than is given a lobster’s form the right crystals.
tail-muscle by the gourmet with In each jar, almost instantly
his tiny three-pronged fork. after shaking, bright crystals had
Jerry could only watch and begun to form within the liquid.
wonder and wait to see the use Within but a few moments, the
to which the animal would be jars were being uncapped and
put. He had not long to wait. the medics, with neat little tongs,
were lifting the crystals from
/~VNCE laid open, the animal’s the solutions and placing them
internal fluid, a pale gray within the abdominal cavity of
solution, was sucked out into a their anesthetized patient. The
bulb-headed tube, much as a flap was fastened down into
housewife gets the turkey-drip- place with a gadget that seemed
pings from under the bird for to work on the principle of a
basting.The fluid was dribbled soldering iron. As it slid along
into a row of transparent jars the angled edges of the incision
with calibrated sides, some get- the sides met and fused, leaving
ting more, some getting less. only a tiny ridge to attest to
Then a drop of liquid a — the fact of the operation.
brown liquid for this one, a red One of the medics nodded to
for that one,and so on — was the bare-to-the-waist creature
added to each. While Jerry still standing by. The man
gazed at the scene, fighting the shoved over a wheeled cart,
headache that began to grow slipped the patient onto it and
with the brightness of the lights wheeled him out of the room
over the operating table, the med- through an archway barely
ic captured each jar and gave it within Jerry’s field of vision.
a sharp, practiced shake. Jerry’s main concern, however,
And then the whole picture was for the fate of the crystalloid
was clear to Jerry. creature, lying so still upon the
he
“Crystal-clear,” said, with table. One of the medics undid
bitterhumor. the straps across the body, lifted
For that was the answer. The it by a hind leg and shoved it
150 GALAXY
room shouting something. The once. “They’re using sonic rays
surgeons shouted back and then on each other. A good dose of
the man raced out again. heavy infravibration could ruin a
Another jolt made the room collodial creature! The loss of
tremble, but this time it felt the fur through subsonic friction
different, as though the room is only a side-effect. The main
were built to take that sort of damage is the breakdown of
stress. Jerry recognized that his those colloid organs when the
ship was in the process of firing beam focuses on a man.”
back, with whatever strange That would explain the way
weapons these fur-faces em- the other ship had simply sun-
ployed. Even as he reasoned this dered. Artificially induced metal-
out, one of the enemy vessels fatigue, by the application of
on the screen shuddered, split controlled vibration.
into almost-matching halves and “Damn,” thought Jerry, “this is
152 GALAXY
door for him. Jerry snapped and him swiftly up the face of the
clacked his teeth upon them in stacked cages. There were
vain, as he was carried toward twenty-four of them, all right,
the strap-sided concavity beside against the wall. He perched pre-
a new fur-scorched patient on cariously on the top, in the cage-
the operating table. roof-to-ceiling space that was too
“Use your head!” he screamed small for another layer of the
at himself.“These fur-faces aren’t same.
expecting an intelligent attack As the fur-face medic fiddled
from a lab-animal! The other around with the wrist of the
crystalloid creatures have the man Jerry had bitten (it was
paltry instinctive self-preserva- the raccoon/pangolin medic, of
tion mechanism to bite at the course), the anesthetist dragged
objects gripping them, those im- a small stool over to the base
pervious black fingertips. But of the stacked cages and began
you know better, right?” climbing up after him.
And with that thought, Jerry “Oh, hell,” thought Jerry, cow-
tilted hishead just a bit further ering weakly against the wall. “If
forward, and let his orange fangs I had a piece of chalk or a char-
crackle through the thin chitin- coal stick I could write some-
ous green “flesh” beneath the stiff thing. Or draw a picture, maybe,
white fur on the alien’s wrist . . on the ceiling. Then they’d know
I was intelligent, and They’d —
'V7’ELLOW dispersion-medium probably use me anyhow. The
A spurted with a satisfactory middle of a battle is no time
gush from the scalloped gap in for writing learned scientific
the alien’s forearm. papers about new zoological
”
Jerry landed nimbly on his ‘finds.’
hind feet on the metal floor as Those black fingertips were
the shrieking medic dashed to coming for him, too carefully for
a confrere for whatever first aid a repeat wrist-crunching perform-
is given when a colloidal crea- ance. If he were taken this time
ture’s liquid contents are spilling the bearer would handle with
out. care.
While a minor part of his Jerry skittered and scrabbled
mind wondered idly if they’d for the corner near the wall,
employ a tourniquet or just a hoping to engage the anesthetist
cork, the rest of his mind con- in a game of you-climb-up-at-
centrated on directing those fore- fhis-point-and-I-run-back-to-fhaf-
paw-and-foot phalanges to carry point. But the fur-face had too
154 GALAXY
jective hour before the silent sure suckers for bayonets or bul-
flash of white lightning lifted lets. I don’t think, with sonic-
him out of his third, and last, shields, we’ll have much trouble
Contact on Arcturus Beta. with them.”
Peters, in the process of pour-
VII ing Jerry’s coffee, shrugged.
“Well, we’re not here to make
Ci ALL right, sir?” asked Pe- trouble, either. The roborocket
ters, removing the bulky reported that the aliens live
helmet with care. either at sea or at least always
Jerry sat up and nodded, in coastal regions. They shouldn’t
blinking his eyes as he adjusted object to our starting a settle-
to his body once more. He was ment this far inland.”
hard-pressed not to start testing “And,” said Jerry, suddenly, as
his own joints and lungs and he took the coffee and sipped at
limbs for knowledge, and had to the hot brown liquid, “I suppose
forcibly remind himself that this those worm-creatures and the
frail shell was his “normal” body. horned lions are to be elimin-
Now to await the technician’s ated?”
analysis of the data. The technician dropped his
Jerry, waving off Peters’ hand, eyes. “We can’t have new colon-
outstretched in automatic offer ists getting pulled into those bur-
of assistance, sat up wearily on rows, or impaled on those horns,
the edge of the couch. After a sir.” He handed the report, trans-
deep breath he got to his feet. lated by the machine into read-
Within the ship, the data-analy- able English, to Peters. The pilot
zer clattered busily. scanned the sheets, and nodded.
“Some hot coffee, sir?” asked “Seems easy enough,” he said
Peters, helpfully. agreeably. “Those jellyfish-things,
Jerry was annoyed at the ef- and the flying apes are similar
fort it cost him just to talk. to species encountered before.
“That will go nicely, Captain,” They’ll respond to simple gun-
he managed. fire. Removal of the worm-things
156 GALAXY
the wooded area, he stopped, next, and to what dangers he
then lay on his back in the cool might — in his new bodies —
grass and watched the night sky, be subjected.
his thoughts rueful ones and his Neither he nor any of his fel-
inner amusement ironic. low zoologists had any real ap-
People always were puzzled prehensions about death in an
about how a Space Zoologist alien body. Fear of death, yes.
could stand being a creature That was normal enough, and
other than a human being. And inescapable in any creature. But
Space Zoologists always were he had no fear of perishing as a
puzzled about how a human be- crawling thing, or multilegged
ing could stand being part of thing, or soaring winged thing.
that conquering race called man. To Jerry Norcriss indeed, —
The twinkling stars distracted to any Space Zoologist to die —
Jerry. Lying there watching like a man was a dubious honor
them, he wondered to which of at best.
their planets he would be sent — JACK SHARKEY
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pick from: The World That Couldn't Be (9 novelettes by Matheson,
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Name Address
BY FRITZ LEIBER
THEmm m
V I
ram
W HEN
arrived, Fats
the eviction order
Jordan was
hanging in the center of
the Big Glass Balloon, hugging his
guitar to his massive black belly
above his purple shorts.
The Big Igloo, as the large liv-
ing-Globe was more often called,
was not really made of glass. It
was sealingsilk, a cheap flexible
material almost as transparent as
fused silica and ten thousand
158 GALAXY
times tougher — quite tough Fats Jordan and the other
enough to hold a breathable pres- “floaters” of the Beat Cluster. A
sure of air in the hard vacuum of huge sun-quilt was untidily
space. spread (staying approximately
Beyond the spherical wall where it was put, like all objects
loomed the other and somewhat in freefall) against most of the in-
smaller balloons of the Beat Clus- side pf the Big Igloo away from
ter, connected to each other and the satellite. The sun-quilt was a
to the Big Igloo by three-foot- patchwork of colors and materials
diameter cylindrical tunnels of on the inward side, but silvered
triple-strength tinted sealingsilk. on the outward side, as turned-
In them floated or swam about an over edges and corners showed.
assemblage of persons of both Similar “Hollywood Blankets”
sexes in informal dress and un- protected the other igloos from
dress and engaged in activities the undesirable heating effects of
suitable to freefall: sleeping, sun- too much sunlight and, of course,
bathing, algae tending (“rocking” blocked off the sun’s disk from
spongy cradles of water, fertilizer view.
and the green scummy “guk”), Fats, acting as Big Daddy of
yeast culture (a rather similar the Space Beats, received the
business), reading, studying, argu- eviction order with thoughtful
ing, stargazing, meditation, space- sadness.
squash (played inside the globu- “So we all of us gotta go down
lar court of a stripped balloon), there?”
dancing, artistic creation in nu-
merous media and the production TTE jerked a thumb at the
of sweet sound (few musical in- Earth, which looked about as
struments except the piano de- big as a basketball held at arms-
pend in any way on gravity). length, poised midway between
Attached to the Beat Cluster the different silvers of the sun-
by two somewhat larger sealing- quilt margin and the satellite.
silk tunnels and blocking off a Dirty old Terra was in half phase:
good eighth of the inky, star- wavery blues and browns toward
speckled sky, was the vast trim the sun, black away from it ex-
aluminum bulk of Research Satel- cept for the tiny nebulous glows
lite One, dazzling now in the un- of a few big cities.
tempered sunlight. “That is correct,” the proctor
It was mostly this sunlight re- of the new Resident Civilian Ad-
flected by the parent satellite, ministrator replied through thin
however, that now illuminated lips. The new proctor was a lean
thought he saw the film crawl. after freefall yoga,” Guru Ishping-
Furthermore, at the moment ham opined, shifting from pad-
Fats Jordan was upside-down to masana to a position that put his
the proctor, which added to the knees behind his ears in a fashion
1
latter’s sense of the unfitness of that made the proctor look away.
things. Really, he thought, these The tall, though presently much
beat types were the curse of space. folded and intertwined, Briton
The sooner they were out of it was as thin as Fats Jordan was
the better. stout. (In space the number of
“Man,” Fats said mournfully, thins and fats tends to increase
“I never thought they were going sharply, as neither overweight nor
to enforce those old orders.” under-musculature carries the
160 GALAXY
penalties it does on the surface of freefall. Luscious curves become
a planet.) truly remarkable.)
“And mobiles will be trivial “Yes!” Knave Grayson agreed
after space stabiles,” Erica Janes savagely. He’d seemed lost in
threw under her shoulder. The brooding since his first remarks.
husky sculptress had just put the Now as if he’d abruptly reached
finishing touches to one of her conclusions, he whipped out his
three-dimensional free montages knife and drove it through the
—an arrangement of gold, blue taut sealingsilk at his elbow.
—
and red balls and was snapping The proctor knew he shouldn’t
a stereophoto of it. “What really have winced so convulsively.
hurts,” she added, “is that our There was only the briefest whis-
kids will have to try to compre- tle of escaping air before the edge-
hend Newton’s Three Laws of tension in the sealingsilk closed
Motion in an environment limit- the hole with an audible snap.
ed by a gravity field. Elementary
physics should never be taught TZ"NAVE smiled wickedly at the
anywhere except in freefall.” ^“-proctor. “Just testing,” he ex-
“No more space diving, no more plained. “I knew a roustabout who
water sculpture, no more vacuum lost a foot stepping through seal-
chemistry,” chanted the Brain, ingsilk. Edge-tension cut it off
fourteen-year-old fugitive from a clean at the ankle. The foot’s still
brilliant but much broken home orbiting around the satellite, in a
down below. brown boot with needle-sharp
“No more space pong, no more hobnails. This is one spot where
space pool,” chimed in the a boy’s got to remember not to
Brainess, his sister. (Space pool, put his finger in the dike.”
and likewise billiards, is played At that moment Fats Jordan,
on the inner surface of a stripped who’d seemed lost in brooding
balloon. The balls, when properly too, struck a chilling but authori-
cued, follow it by reason of their tative chord on his guitar.
slight centrifugal force.)
“Ah well, we all knew this bub- “Gonna be a pang
blewould someday burst,” Gussy “Leavin’ space,” (he sang)
Friml summed up, pinwheeling “Gonna be a pang!”
lazily in her black leotards.
(There is something particularly The proctor couldn’t help winc-
beautiful about girls in space, ing again. “That’s all very well,”
where gravity doesn’t tug at their he said sharply, “and I’m glad
curves. Even fat folk don’t sag in you’re taking this realistically.
162 GALAXY
1%/IEANWHILE a space-diver “Baby, I clean forgot,” Fats
had approached the Big Ig- said. He sighed and shrugged.
loo from the direction of the satel- “Guess I gotta tell our downside
lite, entered the folds of a limp fans the inglorious news. Remem-
blister, zipped it shut behind him ber all my special instructions,
and unzipped the slit leading in- chillun. Share ’em out among
side. The blister filled with a dull you.” He grabbed Gussy Friml’s
pop and the diver pushed inside black ankle as it swung past him
through the lips. With a sharp and shoved off on it, coasting
effort he zipped them shut be- toward the blue tunnel at about
hind him, then threw back his one fifth the velocity with which
helmet. Gussy receded from him in the
“Condition Red!” he cried. “The opposite direction.
new Administrator’s planning to “Hey, Fats,” Gussy called to
ship us all groundside! I got it him as she bounced gently off the
straight from the Police Chief. sun-quilt, “you got any general
The new A’s taking those old de- message for us?”
portation orders seriously and “Yeah,” Fats replied, still ro-
he’s holding the — tating as he coasted and smiling
“We know all about that, Trace as he rotated. “Make more guk,
Davis,” Fats interrupted him. chillun.Yeah,” he repeated as he
“The new A’s proctor’s been disappeared into the blue tunnel,
here.” “take off the growth checks an’
“Well, what
are you going to make mo’ guk.”
do about the other demanded.
it?”
Fats serenely in-
“Nothin’,” CEVEN seconds later he was
formed the flushed and shock- ^ floating beside the spherical
headed diver. “We’re comply in’. mike of the Beat Cluster’s short-
You, Trace —
” he pointed a finger wave station. The bright instru-
— “get out of that suit. We’re ments and heads of the Small
auctionin’ it off ’long with all the Jazz Ensemble were all clustered
rest of our unworldly goods. The in, sounding a last chord, while
164 GALAXY
right now, orbiting with ^
few <
pounds of oxygen and"'aT couple
of gobs of guk (and a few cock-
roaches, sure, and maybe even a
few mice, though we keep a cat)
inside a cluster of smelly old bal-
loons.
“That’s a laugh in itself: the
antique vehicle that first took
man off the ground also being the
first to give him cheap living
quarters outside the atmosphere.
Primitive balloons floated free in
the grip of the wind; we fall free
in the clutch of gravity. A bal-
loon’s a symbol, you know, folks.
A symbol of dreams and hopes
and easily-punctured illusions. Be-
cause a balloon’s a kind of bubble.
But bubbles can be tough.”
Led by Jordy’s drums, the band
worked into the Blue Ox theme
r '***- from the Paul Bunyan Suite.
~J i “Tough the same way the hem-
lock tents and sod huts of the
American settlers were tough. We
got out into space, a lot of us did,
the same way the Irish and Finns
got west. They built the long rail-
roads. Webuilt the big satellites.”
Here the band shifted to the
Axe theme;
“I was a welder myself. I came
into space with a bunch of other
galoots to help stitch together Re-
search Satellite One. I didn’t like
the barracks they put us in, so I.
made myself a little private home ;
in my
bubble and I came to grips staying aloft. But don’t get me
with a few half-ultimates and I wrong. We’re none of us work-
got to like it real well in space. crazy. Actually we’re the laziest
Same thing happened to a few of cats in the cosmos: the ones who
the other galoots. You know, folks, couldn’t bear the thought of carry-
a guy who’s wacky enough to ing their own weight around
wrestle sheet aluminum in vac- every day of their lives! We most-
uum in a spider suit may very ly only toil when we have to have
well be wacky enough to get to money for extras or when there’s
really like stars and weightless- a job that’s just got to be done.
ness and all the rest of it. We’re the dreamers and funsters,
“When the construction job was the singers and studiers. We
done and the big research outfits leave the ‘to the stars by hard
moved in, we balloon men stayed ways’ business to our friends the
on. It took some wangling but we space marines. When we use the
managed. We weren’t costing the ‘ad astra per aspera’ motto (was
Government much. And it was it your high school’s too?) we
mighty convenient for them to change the last word to asparagus
have us around for odd jobs. — maybe partly to honor the
green guk we grow to get us oxy-
I ^HAT was the nucleus of our gen (so we won’t be chiseling too
squatter cluster. The space much gas from the Government)
roustabouts and roughnecks came and to commemorate the food-
The artists and oddballs, who
first. yeasts and the other stuff we
have a different kind of toughness, grow from our garbage.
followed. They got wind of what “What sort of life do we have
our life was like and they bought, up here? How can we stand it
bummed or conned their way up cooped up in a lot of stinking
here. Some space research
got balloons? Man, we’re free out
jobs and shifted over to us at the here, really free for the first time.
ends of their stints. Others came We’re floating, literally. Gravity
up on awards trips and managed can’t bow our backs or break our
to get lost from their parties and arches or tame our ideas. You
accidentally find us. They brought know, it’s only out here that stu-
their tapes and instruments with pid people like us can really
them, their sketchbooks and typ- think. The weightlessness gets our
ers;some even smuggled up their thoughts and we can sort them.
168 GALAXY
with research? Aren’t we good slightly more confidential mes-
enough for you?” sages for Fats.
“Yes,” put in Rumpleman of Allison of Convair said, “I
Convair, “and while you’re doing wouldn’t tell you, except I think
that would you kindly throw you’ve guessed, that I’ve been
some light on this directive we using the Beat Cluster as a pilot
just received from the new A study in the psychology of an-
that the Cluster’s off-bounds to us archic human societies in freefall.
and that all dating between re- If you cut yourself off from us,
search personnel and Cluster I’m in a hole.”
girls must stop? Did you put the “It’s mighty friendly of you
corona showed, pale hair stream- Trace Davis said loudly, “Listen
ing across the star-fields. The to that! Listen to a man who’d
Earth had gone into its dark solve the groundside housing
phase, except for the faint un- problem by cutting off the water
balanced halo of sunlight bent by to the slums.”
the atmosphere and for the faint But Fats frowned atTrace and
dot-dot-dot of glows that were said quietly only, “If Mr. Proctor
the Los Angeles-Chicago-New shut down on our air, he’d only
York line. Soft yellow lights be doing the satellite a disservice.
sprang up here and there in the Right now our algae are produc-
Cluster as it prepared for its ing a shade more oxy than we
short night. The transparent bal- burn.We’ve upped the guk pro-
loons seemed to vanish, leaving you don’t believe me,
duction. If
a band of people camped among Mr. Proctor, you can ask the
the stars. atmosphere boys to check.”
The proctor said, “We know “Even if you do have enough
you’ve been getting some unof- oxygen,” the proctor retorted,
170 GALAXY
“you need our forced ventilation The proctor grabbed at his
to keep your air moving. Lacking nylon line. “I’m going to report
gravity convection, you’d suffo- your attitude to the new Admin-
cate in your own exhaled breath.” istrator as hostile,” he sputtered.
“We got our fans ready, battery “You’ll hear from us again short-
driven,” Fats told him. ly.”
“You’ve got no place to mount “Give him our greetings when
them, no rigid framework,” the you do,” Fats said. “We haven’t
proctor objected. had opportunity to offer them.
“They’ll mount on harnesses And there’s one other thing,” he
near each tunnel mouth,” Fats called after the proctor, “I notice
said imperturbably. “Without you hold your nose mighty rigid
gravity they’ll climb away from in here. It’s a waste of energy.
the tunnel mouths and ride the If you’d just steel yourself and
taut harness. Besides, we’re not take three deep breaths you’d
above hand labor if it’s necessary. never notice our stink again.”
We could use punkahs.”
“Air’s not the only problem,” r¥', HE proctor bumped into the
the proctor interjected. “We can tunnel side in his haste to
cut off your food. You’ve been be gone. Nobody laughed, which
living on handouts.” doubled the embarrassment. If
“Right now,” Fats said softly, they’d have laughed he could
“we’re living half on yeasts grown have cursed. Now he had to bot-
from our own personal garbage. tle up his indignation until he
Living well, as you can see by a could discharge it in his report
look at me. And if necessary we to the new Administrator.
can do as much better than half But even this outlet was denied
as we have to. We’re farmers, him.
man.” “Don’t tell me a word,” the
“We can seal off the Cluster,” new Administrator snapped at his
the proctor snapped back, “and proctor as the latter zipped into
set you adrift. The orders allow the aluminum office. “The depor-
it.” tation is canceled. I’ll tell you
Fats replied, “Why not? It about it, but if you tell anybody
would make a very interesting else I’ll down- jump you. In the
day-to-day drama for the ground- lasttwenty minutes I’ve had mes-
side public and for the food sages direct from the Space Mar-
—
chemists seeing just how long shal and the President We must
we can maintain a flourishing not disturb the Beat Cluster be-
ecology.” cause of public opinion and
FORECAST
The big news for December is Poul Anderson, beginning a major
science-fiction novel that we're proud to present, uncut, as a two-part serial:
The Day After Doomsday. It's Anderson's latest, and not far from being
his best ever — which, as every science-fiction reader well knows, is very
good indeed.
But there's more. Three fine novelettes, including Algis Budrys with
Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night and Margaret St. Clair with a classification-
defying exercise in wit and whimsy. An Old Fashioned Bird Christmas. Plus
Willy Ley plus the usual lineup of shorts
. . . plus (we hope; if the type
. . .
172 GALAXY
s-~k SHELF
V7TJRI GAGARIN proved yet about America’s seven astronauts,
is no substi-
again that there the men who hold the key to our
knowhow, hence
tute for scientific chances. They are so remarkably
this column devoted entirely to able that the results of the tests
Junior Education: awed the medical and technical
testers. “Some of them actually
kept up with (the tests) and they
THE ASTRONAUTS by Martin
aren’t designed to be kept up
Caidin. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. with!”
The limited payloads of our
rockets have necessitated the
SPACE VOLUNTEERS by Ter-
Mercury Project approach to our
first spaceflight. Despite safe-
ence Kay. Harper & Brothers.
SHELF 173
Einstein theorized about data the most exciting piece of real-
observed by others. estate in the western hemisphere.
Our seven astronauts will go It is also the life story of many
into space armed with equipment rockets — accident-prone Van-
and knowledge garnered by hun- guard, reliable Jupiter, Thor, At-
dreds of “space volunteers” like las, Titan, Polaris. The Life and
174 GALAXY
possible. Of prime importance CAREERS AND OPPORTUNI-
was a shrewd decision to switch TIES IN SCIENCE by Philip
in midstream from the liquid fuel Pollack. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
Army Jupiter missile to the solid
The stupendous strides of tech-
fuel Polaris.
nology have made necessary this
The authors present a segment
revision of a 1945 career guide.
of missile history that should
Industries and products undreamt
serve as inspiration to all good
of 15 years ago have opened up
damn-the-red-taper-ers.
job opportunities equally new.
Pollack’s fine book details oppor-
THE FASCINATING WORLD tunities each field offers, some
OF ASTRONOMY by R. S. background fill-in, necessary
Richardson. McGraw Hill Book training and remunerative aver-
Co., Inc. ages. One message comes in loud
* SHELF 175
Why? Because man had to get over intact the Etruscan system
over the fever of discovery of the of government, army organiza-
vast new world of micro-organ- tion, civil engineering. The found-
isms before he could begin to ask er of the Tarquinian dynasty of
for answers to: Why and how do Roman kings was Etruscan.
the chemical compounds called However, the infamous “Rape
Life react and reproduce? of Lucrece” touched off the de-
The book is a fine combination struction, in repugnance, by the
of provocative subject and intel- Romans of every available Etrus-
ligent presentation. can relic.
Franzero’s minutely detailed
176 GALAXY
his adventures in stratosphere THE WILD ROCKET by Peggy
and abyss. His son, Jacques, pilot Hoffman. Westminster Press.
on the deep dives undertaken by
the bathyscaphs FNRS-2 and
An indisputably fit subject for
a science-fiction juvenile is the
Trieste, is much more demonstra-
planning, building and firing of a
tive in his account, particularly of
home-made, six-foot, solid-propel-
touchdown in the deepest hole on
lant rocket by an untutored back-
earth, 35,800 feet down in Chal-
woods boy. These basic facts are
lenger Deep. Adventure lies in
mere background however, for
Inner as well as Outer Space.
Mrs. Hoffman’s warm, tender
story of the guts and sheer deter-
EDISON EXPERIMENTS YOU mination of the orphaned, love-
CAN DO. Harper & Bros. less youth and the understanding
he encounters.
Methodical Tom Edison made
Rating (12-15): **** 1/2
notes on every experiment he
ever conducted. During his life--
time, he filled 3400 notebooks of
DANNY DUNN ON THE
200 pages each!
OCEAN FLOOR by Jay Williams
In this fascinating book pre-
ami Raymond Ahrashkin. Whit-
pared by the Edison Foundation, tlesey House.
the reader can follow the footsteps Danny’s adventures are always
of the great man, in some cases based on a solid science founda-
from actual facsimiles of the tion, once the authors’ usually
original notes, and using simple wild main premise is digested.
materials. Currently Danny, in cooking a
plastic mixture of Professor Bull-
SHELF 177
He was dangerously insane.
He threatened to destroy
everything that was noble and
decent — including my date
with my girl!
By DONALD E. WESTLAKE
Illustrated by WEST
tie spy
81 Til
W HEN the elevator didn’t
come, that just made
the day perfect. A
broken egg yolk, a stuck zipper,
a feedback in the aircon exhaust,
the window sticking at full trans-
parency — well, I won’t go
through the whole sorry list. Suf-
178 GALAXY
when Linda said ten o’clock, she throw it away, broken yolk or
meant ten o’clock. no; it was my breakfast allotment
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t and I was hungry — and while
mean that Linda’s a perfectionist hurriedly jury-rigging drapery
or a harridan or anything like across that gaspingly transparent
that. Far from it. But she does window — one hundred and fifty-
have a fixation on that one sub- three stories straight down to slag
ject of punctuality. The result of — I kept going over and over my
her job, of course. She was an ore- prepared proposal speeches, try-
sled dispatcher. Ore-sleds, being ing to select the most effective
robots, were invariably punctual. one.
If an ore-sled didn’t return on I had a Whimsical Approach:
time, no one waited for it. They “Honey, I see there’s a nice little
simply knew that it had been Non-P apartment available up on
captured by some other Project one seventy-three.” And I had a
and had blown itself up. Romantic Approach: “Darling, I
Well, of course, after working can’t live without you at the mo-
as an ore-sled dispatcher for three ment. Temporarily, I’m madly in
years, Linda quite naturally was a love with you. I want to share
bit obsessed. I remember one my life with you for a while. Will
time, shortly after we’d started you be provisionally mine?” I
dating, when I arrived at her even had a Straightforward Ap-
place five minutes late and found proach: “Linda, I’m going to be
her having hysterics. She thought needing a wife for at least a year
I’d been killed. She couldn’t or two, and I can’t think of any-
visualize anything less than that one I would rather spend that
keeping me from arriving at the time with than you.”
designated moment. When I told Actually, though I wouldn’t
her what actually had happened even have admitted this to Linda,
— I’d broken a shoe lace she — much less to anyone else, I loved
refused to speak to me for four her in more than a Non-P way.
days. But even if we both had been
And then the elevator didn’t genetically desirable (neither of
come. us were) I knew that Linda rel-
ished her freedom and independ-
¥ TNTIL then, I’d managed ence too much to ever contract
^ somehow to keep the day’s for any kind of marriage other
minor my
disasters from ruining than Non-P — Non-Permanent,
mood. Even while eating that hor- No Progeny.
rible egg — I couldn’t very well So I rehearsed my various ap-
180 GALAXY
behind me, grabbed the phone too, but she stopped. I saw her
book and looked up the number looking at me. She hadn’t done
of the Transit Staff. I dialed, pre- that before, she’d merely gazed
pared to register a complaint so blankly at her screen and par-
loud they’d be able to hear me in roted her responses.
sub-basement three. But now she was actually look-
I got some more letters that ing at me.
spelled: BUSY. I took advantage of the fact.
Calmly, rationally, I said to her,
TT TOOK three tries before I “I would like to tell you some-
•got through to a hurried-look- thing, Miss. Iwould like to tell
ing female receptionist. “My name you just what you people have
is Rice!” I bellowed. “Edmund done to me by disconnecting the
Rice! I live on the hundred and elevator. You have ruined my
fifty-third floor! I just rang for the
elevator and — life.”
you’ll understand why we had to could hardly help but take note
do it. I think it’s perfectly awful of her cleavage. She whispered,
that it had to ruin things for you “They’re afraid they’ll have to
this way. But the fact of the starve him
matter is —
” she leaned even “Oh, no!”
out.”
182 GALAXY
Until that moment, the state of known to the textbooks of course
siege in which we all lived had asWorld Wars One, Two, and
had no reality for me. The Proj- Three.
ect, after all, was self-sufficient The rise of the Projects, ac-
and completely enclosed. No one cording to Dr. Kilbillie, was the
ever left, no one ever entered. result of many many factors, but
Under our roof, we were a nation, two of the most important were
two hundred stories high. The the population explosion and the
ever-present threat of other proj- Treaty of Oslo. The population
ects had never been more for explosion, of course, meant that
me — or for most other people there was continuously more and
either, I suspected — than oc- more people but never any more
casional ore-sleds that didn’t re- space. So that housing, in the
turn, occasional spies shot down historically short time ofone cen-
as they tried to sneak into the tury, made a complete transfor-
building, occasional spies of our mation from horizontal expansion
own leaving the Project in tiny to vertical. Before 1900, the vast
radiation-proof cars, hoping to majority of human beings lived
get safely within another project in tiny huts of from one to five
and bring back news of any im- stories. By 2000, everybody lived
mediate threats and dangers that in Projects. From the very begin-
project might be planning for us. ning, small attempts were made
Most spies didn’t return; most to make these Projects more than
ore-sleds did. And within the dwelling places. By mid-century,
Project life was full, the knowl- Projects (also called apartments
edge of external dangers merely and co-ops) already included res-
lurking at the backs of our taurants, shopping centers, baby-
minds. After all, those external sitting services, dry cleaners and
dangers had been no more than a host of other adjuncts. By the
potential for decades, since what end of the century, the Projects
Dr. Kilbillie called the Ungentle- were completely self-sufficient,
manly Gentleman’s War. with food grown hydroponically
Dr. Kilbillie — Intermediate in the sub-basements, separate
Project History, when was I fif- floors set aside for schools and
teen years old — had private churches and factories, robot ore-
names for every major war of the sleds capable of seeking out raw
twentieth century. There was materials unavailable within the
the Ignoble Nobleman’s War, the Projects themselves and so on.
Racial Non-Racial War, and the And all because of, among other
Ungentlemanly Gentleman’s War, things, the population explosion.
184 GALAXY
I sagged against the wall, Could I descend two hundred
thinking dismal thoughts. Then I and eight steps for my true love?
noticed the door to the right of I could. If the door would open.
the elevator. Through that door It would, though reluctantly.
was the stairway. Who knew how many years it
I hadn’t paid any attention to had been since last this door had
it before. No one ever uses the been opened? It squeaked and
stairs except adventurous young wailed and groaned and finally
boys playing cops and robbers, opened half way. I stepped
running up and down from land- through to the musty, dusty land-
ing to landing. I myself hadn’t set ing, took a deep breath, and
foot on a flight of stairs since I started down. Eight steps and a
was twelve years old. landing, eight steps and a floor.
Actually, the whole idea of Eight steps and a landing, eight
stairs was We had
ridiculous. steps and a floor.
elevators, didn’t we? Usually, I On the landing between one
mean, when they didn’t contain fifty and one forty-nine, there was
spies. So what was the use of a smallish door. I paused, looking
stairs? curiously at it, and saw that at
Well, according to Dr. Kilbillie one time letters had been painted
(a walking library of unnecessary on it. The letters had long since
information), the Project had flaked away, but they left a
been built when there still had lighter residue of dust than that
been such things as municipal which covered the rest of the
governments (something to do door. And so the words could still
with cities, which were more or be read, if with difficulty.
less grouped Projects), and the I read them. They said:
local municipal government had
had on its books a fire ordinance, EMERGENCY ENTRANCE
anachronistic even then, which ELEVATOR SHAFT
required a complete set of stairs
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
in every building constructed in
the city. Ergo, the Project had
ONLY
stairs, thirty-two hundred of them.
KEEP LOCKED
And now, after all these years, I frowned, wondering imme-
the stairs might prove useful diately why this door wasn’t
after all. It was only thirteen being firmly guarded by at least
flights to Linda’s floor. At sixteen a platoon of Army men. Half a
steps a flight, that meant two hun- dozen possible answers flashed
dred and eight steps. through my mind. The more re-
186 GALAXY
cent maps might simply have He was rather short, perhaps
omitted this discarded and un- three inches shorter than me,
necessary door. It might be sealed with a bony high-cheekboned face
shut on the other side. The Army featuring deepset eyes and a thin-
might have caught be spy al- lipped mouth. He wore gray
ready. Somebody in authority slacks and shirt, with brown slip-
might simply have goofed. pers on his feet. He looked exactly
As I stood there, pondering like a spy .which is to say that
. .
188 GALAXY
about ore-sled dispatching from you’re ready to stay in them
Linda to be able to maintain the forever.”
fiction should he question me I looked around at my apart-
further about it. ment. “Rather a well-appointed
Actually, I was a gymnast in- cave,” I told him.
structor. The subjects I taught in- “But a cave nevertheless.” He
cluded wrestling, judo and karati leaned toward me, his eyes gleam-
— talents I would prefer to dis- ing with a fanatical flame. “Don’t
close to him in my own fashion, you ever wish to get Outside?”
when the time came. Incredible! I nearly poured
He was quiet for a moment. boiling water all over myself.
“What about radiation level on “Outside? Of course not!”
the ore-sleds?” “The same thing,” he grumbled,
I had no idea what he was “over and over again. Always the
talking about, and admitted as same stupidity. Listen, you! Do
much. you realize how long it took man
‘When they come back,” he to get out of the caves? The long
said. “How much radiation do slow painful creep of progress,
they pick up? Don’t you people for millenia, before he ever made
ever test them?” that first step from the cave?”
“Of course not,” I told him. I “I have no idea,” I told him.
was on secure ground now, with “I’ll tell you this,” he said bel-
Linda’s information to guide me. ligerently. “A lot longer than it
“All radiation is cleared from the took for him to turn around and
sleds and their cargo before go right back into the cave again.”
they’re brought into the build- He started pacing the floor, wav-
ing.” ing the gun around in an agitated
“I know that,” he said impa- fashion as he talked. “Is this the
“But don’t you ever check
tiently. natural life of man? It is not. Is
them before de-radiating them?” this even a desirable life for man?
“No. Why should we?” He spun back
It is definitely not.”
“To find out how far the radia- to face me, pointing the gun at
tion level outside has dropped.” me he pointed
again, but this time
“For what? Who cares about it as it were a finger, not
though
that?” a gun. “Listen, you,” he snapped.
He frowned bitterly. “The same “Man was progressing. For all his
answer,” he muttered, more to stupidities and excesses, he was
himself than to me. “The same growing up. His dreams were get-
answer every time. You people ting bigger and grander and better
have crawled into your, caves and all the time. He was planning to
happened! Just as he was about and hand guns, and that’s about
to make that first giant step,
Man got a hotfoot. That’s all it
it.”
“The defenses —
” I started.
was, just a little hotfoot. So what “The defenses,” he interrupted
did Man do? I’ll tell you what he me, “are non-existent. If you mean
did. He turned around and he ran the rocket launchers on the roof,
all the way back to the cave he they’re rusted through with age.
started from, his tail between his And what other defenses are
legs. That’s what he did!” there? None.”
To say that all of this was in- “If you say so,” I replied stiffly.
comprehensible would be an ex- The Army claimed that we had
treme understatement. I fulfilled adequate defense equipment. I
my obligation to this insane dia- chose to believe the Army over
logue by saying, “Here’s your an enemy spy.
coffee.” “Your people send out spies,
“Put it on the table,” he said, too, don’t they?” he demanded.
switching instantly from raving “Well, of course.”
maniac to watchful spy. “And what are they supposed
I put it on the table. He drank to spy on?”
deep, then carried the cup across “Well — ” It was such a point-
the room and sat down in my less question, itseemed silly to
He studied me nar-
favorite chair. even answer it. “They’re supposed
rowly, and suddenly said, “What to look for indications of an
190 GALAXY
”
192 GALAXY
would have been shot. So I’ve glare, turning my back to the
been working in a more devious window.
way. I snuck into the Project — “Come over here!” he shouted.
not a difficult thing for a man When I didn’t move, he snarled,
with no metal on his person, no “Get up and come over here, or
radiation shield cocooning him — I swear I’ll shoot!”
and for the last two months I’ve And he would have, it was
been wandering around the build- plain in his voice. I got to my feet,
ing, talking with people. I strike hesitant, and walked trembling
up a conversation. I try to plant to the window, squinting against
a few seeds of doubt about the the glare.
deadliness of Outside, and I hope “Look out there,” he ordered.
that at least a few of the people “Look!”
I talk to will begin to wonder, as I looked.
I once did.”
Two months! This spy, by his IV
own admission, had been in the
Project two months before being HPERROR. Horror. Dizziness
detected. I’d never heard of such and nausea.
a thing, and I hoped I’d never Far and away and far, nothing
hear of such a thing again. and nothing. Only the glare, and
“Things worked out pretty the high blue, and the far far
well,” he said, “until today. I said horizon, and the broken gray slag
something wrong — I’m still not stretching out, way down below.
sure what — and the man I was “Do you see?” he demanded.
talking to hollered for Army, “Look down there! We’re so high
shouted I was a spy.” He pounded up, it’s hard to see, but look for
the chair arm. “But I’m not a Do you see it? Do you see the
it.
spy! And it’s the truth, Outside is green?Do you know what that
safe!” He glared suddenly at the means? There are green things
window. “Why’ve you got that growing again Outside! Not much
drape up there?” yet. It’s only just started back,
“The window broke down,” I but it’s begun. The radiation is
explained. “It’s stuck at trans- down. Plants are growing again.”
parent.” The power of suggestion. And,
“Transparent? Fine!” He got of course, the heightened sensitivi-
up from the chair, strode across ty caused by the double threat
the room, and ripped the drape of a man beside me carrying a
down from the window. gun that yawning aching expanse
I cowered away from the sun- of nothing beyond the window.
194 GALAXY
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ATUST!
You can paint
an original picture
like this, using real
artists' oil paints...
the