K AUGUST 1964

50C

galaxy
k

c. THE WATCHERS
o' IN THE GLADE
by
RICHARD WILSON
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA
by WYMAN GUIN

1964

WILLY

LEY

CORDWAINER

SMITH

RICHARD

WILSON rnfM--
 ALL STORIES NEW

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 POLITICS - 21st CENTURY STYLE
rpntering our quadrennial busi-
*—' ness of electing an American
president with the usual mixture
of anticipation and dread, our
thoughts are beginning to turn
to politics. So, as you will observe
beginning of page 165 of this
issue, are the thoughts of science-
fiction writers. And of course, the
kind of politics Wyman Guin is
thinking about are rather remote
in space and time from our own
they are, in fact, that long
. . .
view of events that science fiction
gives us better than any other
form of reading ever committed
to paper and print; because
Guin’s politicians are not merely
other than Democrats and Re-
publicans. They are other than
human!
But all too human in their ap-
proach to the serious problem of
governing their world.
A personal note might be in
order here. As a natural conse-
quence of having registered in
one of America’s two political
parties in an area where the oth-
4
er party had long held a monopo-
ly of election victories, I’ve spent
most of myNovembers for the
past few years either running for
an office or helping some other
candidates run for an office.
As a result of this rather ex-
pensively obtained education. I
would like to suggest a fact of
political life that doesn’t seem to
be widely known. That is In an :
election, hardly anyone votes for
THERE are some things that cannot organization) an age-old brotherhood
a candidate; what they actually be generally told — things you ought to
of learning, have preserved this secret
go to the polls to do is to vote know. Great truths are dangerous to wisdom in their archives for centO'
some — but factors for personal power ries. They now invite you to share the
against his opponent. There are and accomplishment in the hands of practical helpfulness of their teaching
many reasons for this, but what those who understand them. Behind Write today for a free copy of me
seems to me to be the significant the tales of the miracles and mysteries book, "The Mastery of Life.” Within
of the ancients, lie centuries of their its pages may lie a new life of oppor^
one is that American political secret probing into nature’s laws — tunity for you. Address: Scribe
H.C.H,
parties don’t really embody dif- their amazing discoveries of the hid-
den processes of man’s mind, and the SEND THIS COUPON
fering political philosophies; it is
i
mastery of life’s problems. Once shroud- ! Scribe H.C.H,
a matter of personality that ed in mystery to avoid their destruc- , The ROSICRUOANS (AMORO
I San Jose, California
brings the vote out. And of tion by mass fear and ignorance, these
Please send me the /ree book. The Mastery
facts remain a useful heritage for the [
a/ Gye, which explains howl may learn to
course, we are always quicker to thousands of men and women who
I
use my faculties and powers of mind.
pri- I
vately use them homes toMy.
express dislike than we are fond- in their
! Name^ —
ness .... THIS FREE BOOK ! Address
But if the parties are totally The Rosicrucians (not a religions
different .well, read
. . Wyman
Guin’s story and see. Rosicrucians (AMORO SAN JOSE, CAUEORNIA. Di
—FREDERIK POHL
5
 THE
DEAD LADY OF
CLOWN TOWN
BY CORDWAiNER SMITH

lllusarated by MORROW

She was bom and bred to heal

—
my IH in an age which had
forgot the habit of sickness]

I his name, because of the terror

and inspiration which his mother,
—
Y
L<»d
ou already know the end
the immense drama of the
Jestocost, seventh of his
the Lady Goroke, obtained from
the famous real-life drama of the
dog-girl D’joan. It is even less

Bne, and how the cat-girl C’mell likely tliat you know the other

kutiated the vast conspiracy. But story —

the one behind D’joan.
you do not know the beginning, This story is sometimes mention-
kow the first Lord Jestocost got ed as the matter of the “name-

6
 witch,” which absurd, be- haut III, the profession of “lay
1ms is it was to repair sick ones. Furth- he was bored. He was so cloM
cause she really had a name. The therapist, female, intuitive capa-
ermore, the tender, loving care to the end of his term that h«
ame was “Klaine,” an ancient city for correction of human
of a hospital might give them was already counting the days
and forbidden one. physiology with local resources.”
ideas. Such as the idea that they to his own release. Meanwhile
Elaine was a mistake. Her On some of the early ships they were people. This would have he was rearranging two popular
her life, her career were all used to call these people witch-
birth, been bad, from the prevailing songs. One was The Big Bamboo,
mistakes. The ruby was wrong. women, because they worked un- point of view. Therefore the hu- a primitive piece which tried to
How could that have happened? accountable cures. For pioneer
man hospitals remained almost evoke the original magic of man.
parties, these lay therapists were
empty while an underperson who The other was about a girl,

G o back to An-fang, the Peace

Square at An-fang, the Be-
ginning Place at An-fang, where
invaluable; in settled post-Ries-
mannian they became
societies,
an awful nuisance. Sickness dis-
sneezed four times or who vomit-
ed once was taken away, never
to be ill again. The empty beds
Elaine, Elaine whom
asked to refrain from giving pain
to her loving swain. Neither of
the song

11 things start. Bright it was. Red appeared with good conditions, kept on with the robot patients, the songs was important; but be-
square, dead square, clear square, accidents dwindled down to noth- who went through endless repe- tween them they influenced his-
ing, medical work became insti-
under a yellow sun. titions of the human patterns of tory, first a little bit and then
This was Earth Original, Man- tutional.
injury or disease.) This left no very much.
home itself, where Earthport Who wants a witch, even a work for witches, bred and train- The musician had plenty of
way up through hur- good witch, when a thousand-bed
thrusts its ed. time to practice. He had not had
are higher hospital waiting with its staff
is
ricane clouds that Yet the ruby had trembled; to meet a real emergency in aU
eager for clinical experience . . .

than the mountains. the program had indeed made a his seven years. From time to
An-fang was near a the
city, and only seven out of its thou- mistake; the birth-number for a time the machine made reports
only living city with a pre-atomic
sand beds filled with real people? ‘lay therapist, general, female, to him, but the musician just
name. The lovely meaningless (The remaining beds were filled
immediate use” had been order- told the machine to correct its
with lifelike robots on which the
name was Meeya Meefla, where ed for Fomalhaut III. own errors, and it infallibly did
the lines of ancient roadways, staffcould practice, lest they lose
so.
untouched by a wheel for thou-
sands of years, forever paralleled
the warm, bright, clear beaches
their morale. They could, of
course, have worked on under-
people —animals in the shape of
M uch
was
later,
all
when the
done down
last historic detail, there
story
to
was an
its
On day that the accident^
the
of Elaine happened, he was try-
ing to perfect his finger work on
of the Old South East. human beings, who did the heavy investigation into the origins of the guitar, a very old instrument
The headquarters of the People and the weary work which re- Elaine. When the laser had trem- believed to date from the pre-
Programmer was at An-fang, and mained as the caput mortuum of
there the mistake happened: a really perfected economy — bled, both the original order and
the correction were fed simul-
space period. He was playing
The Big Bamboo for the hun-
A ruby trembled. Two tourma- but it was against the law for taneously into the machine. The dredth time.
line nets failed to rectify the laser animals, even when they were
machine recognized the contra- The machine announced its
beam. A diamond noted the error. underpeople, to go to a human
diction and promptly referred mistake with an initial musical
Both the error and the correc- hospital. When underpeople got
both papers to the human super- chime. The
supervisor had long
tion went into the general com- sick, the Instrumentality took
visor, an actual man who had
puter. care of them — in slaughter-
been working on the job for seven
since forgotten all the instruc-
tions which he had so worri-
Theerror assigned, on the gen- houses. It was easier to breed years. somely memorized seven long
eral account of births for Fomal- new underpeople for the job than He was studying music, and years ago. The alert did not
GALAXY
8 THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 9
really and truly matter, because
the machine invariably corrected
its own mistakes whether the su-
was on duty or not.
pervisor
The machine, not having its
chime answered, moved into a
second-stage alarm. From a loud-
speaker set in the wall of the
room, it shrieked in a high, clear
human voice, the voice of some
employee who had died thou-
sands of years earlier:
“Alert, alert! Emergency. Cor-
rection needed. Correction need-
ed!”
The answer was one which the
machine had never heard before,
old though it was. The musician’s
fingers ran madly, gladly over
the guitar strings and he sang
clearly, wildly back to the ma-
chine a message strange beyond
any machine’s belief:
Beat, beat the Big Bamboo!
Beat, beat, beat the Big Bamboo fop
me . . . !
Hastily the machine set
memory banks and computers
work, looking for the code refer-
ence to “bamboo,” trying to make
that word fit the present context.
There was no reference at all.
The machine pestered the man
some more.
“Instructions unclear. Instruc-
tions unclear. Please correct.”
“Shut up,” said the man.
“Cannot comply,” stated the
machine. “Please state and re-
10
peat, please state and repeat,
please state and repeat.”
“Do shut up,” said the man,
but he knew the machine would
not obey this. Without thinking,
he turned to his other tune and
sang the first two lines twice
over:
Elaine. Elaine,
go cure the pain!
Elaine, Elaine,
go cure the pain!
Repetition had been inserted as
a safeguard into the machine, on
the assumption that no real man
would repeat an error. The name
“Elaine” was not correct number
code, but the fourfold emphasis
seemed to confirm the need for
a “lay therapist, female.” The
machine itself noted that a genu-
ine man had corrected the situa-
tion card presented as a matter
of emergency.
“Accepted,” said the machine.
This word, too late, jolted the
its supervisor away from his music.
to “Accepted what?” he asked.
There was no answering voice.
There was no sound at all except
for the whisper of slightly-moist-
ened warm air through the ven-
tilators.
The supervisor looked out the
window. He could see a little of
the blood-black red color of the
Peace Square of An-fang; beyond
lay the ocean, endlessly beau-
tiful and endlessly tedious.
GALAXY
The supervisor sighed hopeful-
ly. He was young. “Guess
doesn’t matter,” he thought, pick-
ing up his guitar.
(Thirty-seven years later, he
found out that it did matter. The
Lady Goroke herself, one of the
chiefs of the Instrumentality, sent
a subchief of the Instrumentality
to find out who had caused D’-
joan. When the man found
the witch Elaine, was the source
of the trouble she sent him on to
find out how Elaine had gotten
into a well-ordered universe. The
supervisor was found. He was
still a musician. He remembered
nothing of the story. He was hyp-
notized. He still remembered
nothing. The sub-chief invoked
an emergency and Police Drug
Four (“clear memory”) was ad-
ministered to the musician.
immediately remembered the
whole silly scene, but insisted
that did not matter. The case
it
was referred to Lady Goroke,
who instructed the authorities
that the musician be told the
whole horrible, beautiful story of
D’joan at Fomalhaut — the very
story which you are now being
told — and he wept. He was not
punished otherwise, but the Lady
Goroke commanded that those
memories be left in his mind fct
so long as he might live.)
The man picked up his guitar,
but the machine went on about
itswork.
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
It selected a fertilized human
it embryo, tagged it with the freak-
ish name“Elaine,” irradiated the
genetic code with strong apti-
tudes for witchcraft and then
marked the person’s card for
training in medicine, transporta-
tion by sailship to Fomalhaut III
and release for service on the
planet.
that Elaine was bom without being
needed, without being wanted,
without having a skill which
could help or hurt any existing
human being. She went into life
doomed and useless.
not remarkable that she
It is
was misbegotten. Errors do hap-
pen. Remarkable was the fact
that she managed to survive
without being altered, corrected
or killed by the safety devices
He which mankind has installed in
society for its own protection.
Unwanted, unused, she wand-
ered through the tedious months
and useless years of her own
existence. She was well fed, rich-
ly clothed, variously housed. She
had machines and robots to serve
her, underpeople to obey her,
people to protect her against one
another or against herself, should
the need arise. But she could
never find work; without work,
she had no time for love; without
work or love, she had no hope
at all.
If she had only stumbled int«
the right experts or the right au-
11

they would hove alter-
thorities,
ed or re-trained her_. This would
have made her into an accept-
able woman; but she did not find
the police, nor did they find her.
She was helpless to correct her
own programming, utterly help-
had been imposed on her
less. It
at way back at An-
An-fang,
fang, where all things begin.
The ruby had trembled, the
tourmaline failed, the diamond
passed unsupported. Thus, a wo-
man was bom doomed,
II
M uch later,
made songs about the
when
strange case of the dog-girl D’-
people
joan, the minstrels and singers
had tried to imagine what Elaine
and they had made up
felt like,
The Song of Elaine for her. It is
not authentic, but it shows how
own
Elaine looked at her
before the strange case of D’joan
began to flow from Elaine’s own
actions:
other women hate me.
Men never touch me.
I am too much me.
I’ll he a witch!
Mama never towelled me.
Daddy never growled me
Little kiddles grate me
I’ll be a bitch!
People never named me
Dogs never shamed me
Oh. I am a such me!
I’ll be a witch.
I’llmeike them shun me.
They’ll never run me.
Could they even stun met
I’ll be a witch.
12
Let them aU attac* ma.
They can only rack mo.
—
Me I can hack me.
I’U be a witch.
Other women hate me.
Men never touch me.
I am too much me.
be a witch.
I’ll
The song overstates the case.
Women did not hate Elaine; they
did not look at her. Men did not
shun Elaine; they did not notice
her either. There were no places
on Fomalhaut III where she
could have met human children,
for the nurseries were far under-
ground because of chancy radia-
tion and fierce weather. The song
pretends that Elaine began with
the thought that she was not
human, but underpeople, and had
herself been born a dog. This
did not happen at the beginning
of the case, but only at the very
end, when the story of D’joan
was already being carried be-
tween the stars and developing
with the new twists of folk-
life all
lore and legend. She never went
mad.
(“Madness” is a rare condition,
consisting of a human mind which
does not engage its environment
correctly. Elaine approached it
before she met D’joan. Elaine
was not the only case, but she
was a rare and genuine one. Her
life, thrust back from aU attempts
at growth, had turned back on
itself and her mind had spiraled
inward to the only safety she
could really know,
Madness is always better than "1^ laine walked through the
X, and X to each patient is in- ^ city, secretly mad, looking
dividual, personal, secret and ov-
for sick people whom she could
erwhelmingly important. Elaine help. She had been stamped, im-
had gone normally mad; her im- printed, designed, born, bred and
printed and destined career was trained for this task. Ther§ was
the wrong one. “Lay therapists, no task.
female” were coded to work de- She was an woman.
intelligent
cisively, autonomously, on their Bright brains serve madness as
own authority and with great ra- well as they serve sanity name- —
pidity. These working conditions ly, very well indeed. It never
were needed on new planets. occurred to her to give up her
They were not coded to consult mission.
other people; most places, there The people of Fomalhaut
would be
III,
no one to consult. like people of Manhome
the
Elaine did what was set for her Earth are almost uniform-
itself,
at An-fang, all the way down to ly handsome; it is only in the
the individual chemical condi-
tions of her spinal fluid. She was
herself the wrong and she never
knew Madness was much
far-out, half-unreachable worlds
that the human stock, strained by
the sheer effort to survive, be-
it. comes ugly, weary or varied. She
kinder than the realization that did not look much different from
she was not herself, should not the other intelligent, handsome
have lived, and amounted at the people who flocked the streets.
most to a mistake committed be- Her was black, and she was
hair
tween a trembling ruby and a
tall. Her arms and
legs were long,
young, careless man with a gui-
the trunk of her body short. She
tar.) wore her hair brushed straight
She found D’joan and the back from a high, narrow, square
worlds reeled. forehead. Her eyes were an odd
Their meeting occurred at a
deep blue. Her mouth might have
place nicknamed “the edge of been pretty, but it never smiled,
the world,” where the undercity so that no one could really tell
met daylight. This was itself un- whether it was beautiful or not
usual; but Fomalhaut III was
She stood erect and proud: but
an unusual and uncomfortable
so did everyone else. Her mouth
planet, where wild weather and was strange in its very lack of
men’s caprice drove architects communicativeness and her eyes
to furious design and grotesque swept back and forth, back and
execution.
forth like ancient radar, looking
psychosis.
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
GALAXY 13
lor the sick, the n^edy, and
stricken, whom she had a passion
to serve.
How could she be unhappy?
She had never had time to be
hapoy- It was easy for her to
think that happiness was some-
thing which disappeared at the
end of childhood. Now and then,
here and there, perhaps when a
fountain
when
murmured in sunlight
or leaves exploded in the
startlingFomalhautian spring,
she wondered that other people
— people as responsible as her-
self by the doom of age, grade,
sex, trainingand career number
— should be happy when she
alone seemed to have no time for
happiness. But she always dis-
missed the thought and walked
the ramps and streets until her
arches ached, looking for work
which did not yet exist.
Human flesh, older than his-
tory,
has
more dogged than
its own wisdom. The bodies
culture,
of people are marked with the
archaic ruses of survival, so that
on Fomalhaut III, Elaine herself
preserved the skills of ancestors
she never even thought about
those ancestors, who in the in-
credible and remote past,
mastered terrible Earth itself.
Elaine was mad. But there was
a part of her which suspected
that she was mad.
Perhaps this wisdom seized
her as she walked from Water-
14
rocky Road toward the bright
esplanades of the Shopping Bar.
She saw a forgotten door. The
robots could clean near it but,
because of the old, odd, archi-
tectural shape, they could not
sweep and polish right at the
bottom line of the door. A thin
hard line of old dust and caked
polish lay like a sealant at the
base of the doorline. It was ob-
vious that no one had gone
through for a long, long time.
The civilized rule was that pro-
hibited areas were marked both
telepathically and with symbols.
The most dangerous of all had
robot or underpeople guards. But
everything which was not pro-
hibited, was permitted. Thus
Elaine had no right to open the
door, but she had no obligation
not to do so. She opened it —
By sheer caprice.
Or so she thought.
This was a far cry from the
“I’ll be a witch” motif attribut-
ed to her in the later ballad. She
was not yet frantic, not yet des-
perate, she was not yet even
noble.
— That opening of a door chang-
ed her own world and changed
had lifeon thousands of planets for
generations to come, but the
opening was not itself strange. It
was the tired caprice of a thor-
oughly frustrated and mildly un-
happy woman. Nothing more. All
the other descriptions of it have
GALAXY
been improvements, embellish-
ments, falsifications.
She did get a shock when she
opened the door, but not for the
reasons attributed backwards to
her by balladists and historians.
he was shocked because the
S door opened on steps and the
steps led down to landscape and
sunlight —
truly an unexpected
sight on any world. She was look-
ing from the New City to the
Old City. The New City rose
on its shell out over the old city,
and when she looked “indoors”
she saw the sunset in the city
below. She gasped at the beauty
and the unexpectedness of it.
There, the open door with
another world beyond it. Here,
the
old
handsome,
familiar
quiet,
street,
where
useless,
own
her useless self had walked
a thousand times.
There —
something. Here, the
world she knew. She did not
know the words “fairyland” or
“magic place,” but if she had
known them, she would have
used them.
She glanced to the right, to
the left.
The passerby noticed neither
her nor the door. The sunset was
just beginning to show in the
upper city. In the lov/er city
was already blood-red with
streamers of gold like enormous
frozen flame. Elaine did not know
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
that she sniffed the air; she did
not know that she trembled on
the edge of tears; she did not
know that a tender smile, the
first smile in years, relaxed her
mouth and turned her tired tense
face into a passing loveliness.
She was too intent on looking
around.
People walked about their
business. Down the road, an
underpeople type —
female, pos-
sibly cat —
detoured far around
a true human who was walking at
a slower pace. Far away, a police
ornithopter flapped slowly
around one of the towers; unless
the robots used a telescope on
her or imless they had one of
— the rare hawk-undermen who
were sometimes used as police,
clean,
they could not see her.
She stepped through the door-
way and pulled the door itself
back into the closed position.
She did not know it, but there-
with unborn futures reeled out
of existence, rebellion flamed in-
to coming centuries, people and
underpeople died in strange
causes, mothers changed the
names of unborn Lords and star-
ships whispered back from places
which men had not even imagin-
ed before. Spaces which had
always been there, waiting for
it men’s notice, would come the
sooner — because of her, because
of the door, because of her next
few steps, what she would say;
1 «
aiid the child she would meet.
(The ballad-writers told the
whole story later on, but they
told it backwards, from their own
knowledge of D’joan and what
Elaine had done to set the worlds
The simple truth is
afire.
that a lonely woman
through a mysterious door. That
is aU. Everything else happened
later.)
Ill
“Ask her!” repeated the little “I’m a machine, but I used to
nina tiling. She pointed at a window be a person, long, long ago. A
\t the foot of the stairs,
flights of them there had which had the words TRAVEL- lady, in fact,and one of the In-
been, a child waited a girl, — ERS’ AID above it. Then the girl strumentality. But my time came
about five. The child had a bright ran. A flash of blue from her and they said to me, ‘Would you
the fact blue smock, wavy red-brown dress, a tv'inkle of white from mind if we made a machine print
went hair, and the daintiest hands
her running sandals, and she was of your whole personality? It
which Elaine had ever seen. gone. would be very helpful for the in-
Elaine’s heart went out to her.
Elaine stood quiet and puzzled formation booths.” So of course
The child looked up at her and in the forlorn and empty city. I said yes, and they made this

At the top of the steps she shrank away. Elaine knew the The window spoke to her, copy, and I died, and they shot
stood, door closed behind her, meaning of those handsome “You might as well come on over. my body into space with all the
the sunset gold of the unknown brown eyes, of that muscular sup- You will, you know.” usual honors, but here I was. It
city streaming out in front of her. plication of trust, that recoil It was the wise mature voice felt pretty odd inside this con-
She could see where the great from people. was not a child at
It
of an experienced woman a — traption, me looking at things
shell of the New City of Kalma all —just some animal in the voice with a bubble of laughter
underneath its phonic edge, with
and talking to people and giv-
arched out toward the sky; she shape of a person, a dog per- ing good advice and staying busy,
could see that the buildings here haps, which would later be taught a hint of sympathy and en- until they built the new city. So
were older, less harmonious than to speak, to work to perform use- thusiasm in its tone. The com- what do you say? Am I me or
the ones she had left. She did not ful services. mand was not merely a com- aren’t I?”
know the concept “picturesque,” The little girl rose, standing mand. It was, even at its begin- “I don’t know, ma’am.” Elaine
or she would have called it that. as though she were about to run. ning, a happy private joke be- stood back.
She knew no concept to describe Elaine had the feeling that the tween two wise women. The warm voice lost its humor
the scene which lay peacefully at littledog-girl had not decided Elaine was not surprised when and became commanding. “Give
her feet. whether to run toward her or a machine spoke to her. Record- me your hand, then, so I can
There was not a person in from her. She did not wish to get ings had been telling her things identify you and tell you what to
sight. involved with an underperson — all her life. She was not sure of do.”
Far in the distance, a fire- de- what woman would? but — this situation, however. “I think,” said Elaine, “that
tector throbbed back and forth neither did she wish to frighten “Is there somebody there?” I’ll just go back upstairs and go

on top of an old tower. Outside the After all, it was

little thing. she said. through the door into the upper
of that there was nothing but the small, very young. **Yes and no,” said the voice. city.”
yellow-gold city beneath her, and The two confronted each other “I’m ‘Travelers’ Aid’ and I help “And cheat me,” said the voice
a bird —
was it a bird, or a large for a moment, the little thing un- everybody who comes through in the window, “out of my first
storm-swept leaf? —
in the mid- certain, Elaine relaxed. Then the this way. You’re lost or you conversation with a real person
dle distance. little animal-girl spoke. wouldn’t be here. Put your hand in four years?” There was de-
Filled with fear, hope, expecta- “Ask her,” she said, and it in my window.” mand in the voice, but there was
tion and the surmisal of strange was a command. “What Imean is,” said Elaine, still the warmth and the humor;

appetites, she walked downward. Elaine was surprised. Since “are you a person or are you a there was loneliness too. The
With quiet, unknown purpose. when did animals command? machine?” lonelinessdecided Elaine. She
“Depends,” said the voice. stepped up to the window and
16 GALAXY
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 17
put her hand flat on the ledge.
“You’re Elaine,” cried the win-
dow. “You’re Elaine! The worlds
wait for you. You’re from An-
fang, where all things begin, the
Peace Square at An-fang, on old
T 'he window must have been
watching her in some way, be-
cause the voice of the lady
Pane Ashash became tender.
“Sit down my dear,” said the
voice from the window. “When I
Apparently the question was
repeated. “Did you know you
were coming?” said the voice
from the window.
“Of course not.” Elaine shrug-
ged. “There was just this door,
ed one, not till I’ve done some
of my lifework, and I haven’t
even found my lifework yet. I’m
not the kind of girl who would
go ask a Subchief for the dream-
ies, not when I’m not entitled to

Earth itself!”
"Yes,” said Elaine.
The voice bubbled over with
enthusiasm. “He is waiting for
you. Oh, he has waited for you a
long, long time. And tlie little girl
you met. That rras D’joan her-
self. The story has begun. ‘The
world’s great age begins a new.’
And I can die when it is
So sorry, my dear. I don’t
to confuse you. I am the lady
Pane Ashash. You’re Elaine.
Your number originally ended
783 and you shoudn’t even be on
this planet. All the important
people here end with the num-
bers 5 and 6. You’re a lay thera-
pist and you’re in the wrong
place, but your lover is already
was me, Iused to be much more and I didn’t have anything speci-
polite. I haven’t been me for a al to do, so I opened it. And
long, long time. I’m a machine, here was a whole new world in-
and still I feel like myself. Do side a house. It looked strange
sit down, and do forgive me.” and rather pretty, so I came
Elaine looked around. There down. Wouldn’t you have done
was the roadside marble bench the same thing?”
behind her. She sat on it obedi- “I don’t know,” said the voice
ently. The happiness which had candidly. “I’m really a machine.
over. been in her at the top of the I haven’t been me for a long,
mean steps bubbled forth anew. If this long time. Perhaps I would have,
wise old machine knew so much when I was alive. I don’t know
about her. perhaps it could tell that, but I know about things.
her what to do. What did the Maybe I can see the future, or
voice mean by “wrong planet”? perhaps the machine part of me
By “lover”? By “he is coming computes such good probabili-
for you now,” or was that what ties that it just seems like it.
the voice had actually said? know who you are and what is
“Take a breath, my dear,” said going to happen to you. You had
the voice of the lady Pane Ash- better brush your hair.”
the real thing. I may not be much
of a person, but I have some
self-respect.” Elaine got so mad
that she shifted her position on
the bench and sat with her face
turned away from the all-watch-
ing window.
The next words gave her goose-
flesh down her arms, they were
uttered with such real earnest-
ness, such driving sincerity.
“Elaine, Elaine, do you really
have no idea of who you are?”
Elaine pivoted back on the
bench so that she looked toward
the window. Her face was caught
I redly but the rays of the setting
sun. She could only gasp.
“I don’t know what you
mean . .
.”

on his way, and you’ve never
been in love yet, and it’s all too
exciting.”
Elaine looked quickly around
her. The old lower town was
turning more red and less gold
as the sunset progresssed. The
steps behind her seemed terribly
high as she looked back, the door
at the top very small. Perhaps
it had locked on her when she
closed it Maybe she wouldn’t
ever be able to leave the old low-
er city.
ash. She might have been dead
for hundreds or thousands of
years, but she still spoke with
the authority and kindness of a
great lady
Elaine breathed deep. She saw
a huge red cloud, like a pregnant
whale, getting ready to butt the
rim of the upper city, far above
her and far out over the sea. She
wondered if clouds could pos-
sibly have feelings.
The voice was speaking again.
What had it said?
“Whatever for?” said Elaine. The inexorable voice went on.
“He is coming,” said the happy “Think, Elaine, think. Does the
old voice of the lady Pane Ash- name ‘D’joan’ mean nothing to
ash. you?”
“Who is coming?” said Elaine, “I suppose it’s an underperson,
almost irritably. a dog. That’s what the D
is for,
“Do you have a mirror? I wish isn’t it?”
you would look at your hair. It “That was the little girl you
could be prettier, not that it isn’t met,” said the lady Pane Ash-
pretty right now. You want to ash, as though the statement
look your best. Your lover; that’s were something tremendous.
who is coming, of course.” “Yes,” said Elaine dutifully.
“I haven’t got a lover,” said She was a courteous woman, and
Elaine. “I haven’t been authoriz- never quarreled with strangers.

18 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 19

 seemed perfectly natural, but house on earth had said, “Anoth-
“Wait a minute,” said the lady evidence of recent or current ill- therewas dust on one side of it. er witch-child, and pretty too,
Pane Ashash, “I’m going to get ness, no signs of severe lesion* The robotsmiled, “I’m out of they’re not much trouble,” and
my body out. God knows when in the past, no impairment evi-
date. It’sbeen a long time since had let her life go by.
I wore it last, but it’ll make you dent of sight, gait, reach or eye-
I was me. But I thought, my At last Elaine could face the
feel more at easy terms with me. sight. (There was no way she
dear, that you would find this old face which was not really a face.
Forgive the clothes. They’re old could check on smell or taste body easier to talk to than the The charm, the humor, the ex-
stuff, but I think the body will right off, but this was the medi- window over there .” . . pressiveness were still there.
work all right. This is the begin-
ning of the story of D’joan, and
cal check-up she had had built in-
to her from birth on —
the check-
Elaine nodded mutely. “What —
what,” stammered
“You know this is not me?” Elaine, “do I do now?”
I want that hair of yours brushed list which she had run through
said the body, sharply. “Nothing,” said the long-dead
even if I have to brush it myself. with every adult person she had Elaine shook her head. She lady Pane Ashash, “except to
Just wait right there, girl, wait ever met. She had been designed didn’t know; she felt that she meet your destiny.”
right there. I’ll just take a min- as a “lay therapist, female” and
didn’t know anything at all. “You mean my lover?”
ute.” she was a good one, even when The lady Pane Ashash looked “So impatient!” laughed the
there was no one at all to treat.)
at her earnestly. “This isnot me. dead woman’s record in a very
I'^he clouds were turning from Truly, the body was a rich one.
It’s a robot body. You looked at human way. “Such a hurry.
dark red to liver-black. What It must have cost the landing
as though were a
it it real per- Lover first and destiny later. I
could Elaine do? She stayed on charges of forty or fifty planet- son. And I’m not me, either. It was like that myself when I was
the bench. She kicked her shoe falls. The human shape was per-
hurts sometimes. Did you know a girl.”
against the walk. She jumped a fectly rendered. The mouth mov-
a machine could hurt? I can. “But what do I do?” persisted
little when the
old-fashioned ed over genuine teeth; the words
were formed by throat, palate,
But —
I’m not me.” Elaine.
street lights the lower city
of “Who are you?” said Elaine The now complete
night was
went on with sharp geometrical tongue, teeth and lips, and not to the pretty old woman. above them. The street lights
suddenness: they did not have just by a microphone mounted
“Before I died, I was the lady glared on the empty and un-
the subtle shading of the newer in the head. The body was real- Pane Ashash. Just as I told you. swept streets. A few doorways,
lights in the other city upstairs, ly a museum piece. It was prob- Now I am a machine, and a part not one of them less than a full
where day phased into the bright ably a copy of the lady Pane of your destiny. We will help street-crossing away, were il-
clear night with no sudden shift Ashash herself in time of life. each other to change the destiny luminated with rectangles of light
in color. When the face smiled, the ef- of worlds,perhaps even to bring —
or shadow light if they were
The door beside the little win- fect was indescribably winning.
mankind back to humanity.” far from the street lights, so that
dow creaked open. Ancient plas- The lady wore the costume of a Elaine stared at her in be-
— their own interior lights shone
tic crumbled to the walk. byegone age a stately frontal wilderment. This was no com- brightly,shadow if they were so
Elaine was astonished. dress of heavy blue material, em-
mon robot. It seemed like a real close under the big lights that
Elaine knew she must have broidered with a square pattern person and spoke with such they cut off the glare from over-
been unconsciously expecting a of gold at hem, waist and bodice. warm authority. And this thing, head.
monster, but this was a charm- She had a matching cloak of whatever it was, this thing seem- “Go through this door,” said
ing women of about her own dark, faded gold, embroidered in ed to know so much about her. the old nice woman.
height, wearing weird, old-fash- blue with the same pattern of Nobody else had ever cared. But she pointed at the un-
ioned clothes. The strange wo- squares. Her hair was upswept The nurse-mothers at the Child- distinguished white of an unin-
man had glossy black hair, no and set with jeweled combs. It
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 21
20 GALAXY
terrupted wall. There was no door
t all in that place.
<tT>ut there’s no door there,”
said Elaine.
“If there were a door,” said
the lady Pane Ashash, “you
wouldn’t need me to tell you to
go through it. And you do need
me.”
“Why?” said Elaine.
“Because I’ve waited for you
hundreds of years, that’s why.”
“That’s no answer!” snapped
Elaine.
“It is so an answer,” smiled
the woman, and her lack
hostility was not robot-like at
It was the kindliness and com-
posure of a mature human being.
She looked up into Elaine’s eyes
and spoke emphatically and
softly. “I know because I do
know. Not because I’m a dead
person —
that doesn’t matter any
more —
but because I am now
a very old machine. You will go
into the Brown and Yellow Cor-
ridor and you will think of your
lover, and you will do your work,
and men will hunt you. But you
will come out happily in the end.
Do you understand this?”
“No,” said Elaine, “no, I
don’t.” But she reached out her
hand to the sweet old woman.
The lady took her hand. The
tx>uch was warm and very
human.
“You don’t have to understand
3a
it. Just do it. And I know you friendly crooked smile, half muscles of her legs made her
will. So since you are going, go.” proud and half apologetic. She walk forward, but they did.
Elaine tried to smile at her, took Elaine with firm fingertips There are many pictures of
but she was troubled, more con- holding Elaine’s left elbow. They that scene.
sciously worried than ever before walked a few steps down toward The lady Pane Ashash, only a
in her life. Something real was the wall. few moments in her past, seemed
happening to her, to her own in- “Here, now,” said the lady very remote. And the city of
dividual self, at a very long last. Pane Ashash, and pushed. Raima itself, the new city, ten
“How will I get through the Elaine flinched as she was storiesabove her, almost seemed
door?” thrust toward the wall. Before as though it had never existed at
“I’ll open it,” smiled the lady, she knew it, she was through. an. This, this was real.
releasing Elaine’s hand, “and Smells hit her like a roar of bat- She stared at the underpeople.
you’ll know your lover when he tle. The air was hot. The light And this time, for the first time
sings you the poem.” was dim. It looked like a picture in her life, they stared right back
“Which poem?” said Elaine, of the Pain Planet, hidden some- at her. She had never seen any-
stalling for time and frightened where in space. Poets later tried thing like this before.
of by a door which did not even to describe Elaine at the door They did not frighten her; they
all. exist. with a verse which begin. surprised her. The fright, Elaine
“It starts, ‘I knew you and felt,was to come later. Soon, per-
loved you, and won you, in Rai- There were brown ones and blue ones haps, but not here, not now.
And white ones and whiter.
ma .’
. You’ll know it. Go on
. In the hidden and forbidden
Downtown of Qown Town.
in. It’ll be bothersome at first, There were horrid ones and horrider IV
In the brown and yellow corridor.
but when you meet the Hunter,
it will seem different.”
all Oomething which looked like a
“Have you ever been in there, The truth was much simpler. middle-aged woman walked
yourself?” Trained witch, born witch that
she was, she perceived the truth
right up to her and snapped at
“Of course not,” said the dear her.
immediately. All these people, “Are you death?”
old lady. “I’m a machine. That
all she could see, at least, were
whole place is thoughtproof. No- Elaine stared. “Death? What
body can see, hear, think or talk sick. They needed help. They do you mean? I’m Elaine.”
needed herself. “Be damned to that!” said the
in or out of it. It’s a shelter left
over from the ancient wars, when But the joke was on her, for woman-thing. “Are you death?”
she could not help a single one of
the slightest sign of a thought Elaine did not know the word
would have brought destruction them. Not one of them was a real “damned” but she was pretty sure
on the whole place. That’s why person. They were just animals, that “death,” even to these
the lord Englok built it, long be- things in the shape of man. Un- meant simply “termina-
things,
fore my time. But you can go in. derpeople. Dirt.
tion of life.”
And you will. Here’s the door.” And she was conditioned to the “Of course not,” said Elaine.
The old robot lady waited no bone never to help them. “I’m just a person. A witch wo-
longer. She gave Elaine a strange She did not know why the man, ordinary people would call
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 23
me. We don’t have anything to do The man she spoke to steppea
“Kill? You mean, terminate was pretty sure that the head
with you underpeople. Nothing forward. Elaine thought, in an-
life? You cannot. It is against the would come off somewhere dur-i
at all.” Elaine could see that the other time, in some other place,
law. Even the Instrumentality ing that process. She looked ai
woman-thing had an enormous that underperson might pass for
does not have the right to do that him with interest. Animal-typg
coiffure of soft brown sloppy hair, an attractive human being. His
without trial. You can’t. You’re fear had been conditioned out of
a sweat-reddened face and crook- face was illuminated by intelli-
just underpeople.” her, but she had, she found, an
ed teeth which showed when she gence and alertness. He looked di-
“But we will die,” said Char- extreme distaste for the termin-i
grinned. rectly at Elaine as though he had
ley-is-my-darling, flashing his ation of life under random cir-
“They all say that. They never never seen her before, which in-
quick intelligent smile, “if you go cumstances. Perhaps her “witch"
know that they’re death. How do deed he had not, but he contin-
back out of that door. The police
ued looking with so sharp, so training would help. She tried to
you think we die, if you people
will read about the Brown and pretend that he was in fact a
don’t send contaminated robots strange a stare that she became
Yellow Corridor in your mind man. The diagnosis “hyperten-
in with diseases? all die offWe uneasy. His voice, when he spoke,
and they will flush us out with
was sion : chronic aggression, now
when you do that, and then some brisk, high, clear, friendly;
poison or they will spray disease frustrated, leading to overstim-
more underpeople find this place was the
set in this tragic place, it
in here so that we and our chil- ulation and neurosis: poor nutri-
again later on and make a shelter caricature of a voice, as though
dren will die.” tional record: hormone disorder
of it and live in it for a few gen- the animal had been program-
Elaine stared at him. probable” leapt into her mind.
erations until the death machines, med for speech from the habits
of a human, persuader by profes-
The passionate anger did not She tried to speak in a new
things like you, come sweeping
disturb his smile or his persuas- voice.
through the city and kill us off sion, whom one saw in the story-
again. This is Clown Town, the boxes telling people messages
ive tones, but the muscles of his “I am smaller than you,” she
eye-sockets and forehead showed said, “and you can ‘kill’ me just
underpeople place. Haven’t you which were neither good nor im-
the terrible strain. The result was as well later as now. We
might as
heard of it?” portant, but merely clever. The
an expression which Elaine had well get acquainted. I’m Elaine,
Elaine tried to walk past the handsomeness was itself deform-
never seen before, a sort of self- assigned here from Manhome
woman-thing, but she found her ity. Elaine wondered if he had
control reaching out beyond the Earth.”
arm grabbed. This couldn’t have come from goat stock.
lim.its of insanity.
happened before, not in the his- “Welcome, young lady,” said
tory of the world —
an underper- Charley - is - my - darling. “Now He stared back at her. he effect was spectacular.
that you are here, how are you
She was not really afraid of Charley-is-my-darling step-
son seizing a real person!
him. Underpeople could not twist ped back. Mabel’s mouth
“Let go!” she yelled. going to get out? If we turned
the heads of real persons; it was dropped open. The others gaped
The woman-thing her arm let her head around, Mabel,” said he
contrary to all regulations. at her. One or two, more quick-
go and faced toward the others. to the underwoman who had first
Her voice had changed. It was greeted Elaine, “turned it around
A thought struck her. Perhaps witted than the rest, began whis-
regulations did not apply in a pering to their neighbors.
no longer shrill and excited, but eight or ten times, it would come
off. Then we could live a few
place like this, where illegal an- At last Charley-is-my-darling
low and puzzled instead. “I can’t
imals waited perpetually for sud- spoke to her. “Welcome, my lady.
tell. Maybe it is a real person. weeks or months longer before
our lords and creators found us den deatii. The being which Can I call you my lady? I guess
Isn’t that a joke? Lost, in here
and put us all to death. What do faced her was strong enough to not. Welcome, Elaine. We are
with us. Or maybe she is death.
I can’t tell. What do you think, you say, young lady? Should we turn her head around ten times your people. We will do what-
you?” clockwise or counter-clockwise. ever you say. Of course you got
Charley-is-my-darling?” kill
From her anatomy lessons, she in. The lady Pane Ashash sent
24 GALAXY
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 25
Va She hasyears
been
that
telling us for
somebody
h hundred
would come from Earth, a real
person with an animal name, not
a number, and that we should
have a child named D’joan ready
to take up the threads of destiny.
Please, please sit down. Will you
have a drink of water? Wehave
We
are all
no clean vessel here.
underpeople here and we have
used everything in the place, so
that it is contaminated for a real
person.” A thought struck him.
“Baby-baby, do you have a new
cup in the kiln?” Apparently he
saw someone nod, because he
went right on talking. “Get it out
then, for our guest, with tongs.
New tongs. Do not touch it. Fill
It with water from the top of the
little waterfall. That way our
guest can have an uncontamin-
ated drink. Aclean drink.” He
beamed with a hospitality which
was as ridiculous as it was gen-
uine.
Elaine did not have the heart
to say she did not want a drink
of water.
She waited. They waited.
By now, her eyes had become
accustomed to the darkness. She
could see that the main corridor
was painted a yellow, faded and
stained, and a contrasting light
brown. She wondered what pos-
sible human mind could have se-
lected so ugly a combination.
Cross-corridors seemed to open
26
into it; at any rate, she saw il-
luminated archways further down
and people walking out of them
briskly. No one can walk briskly
and naturally out of a shallow al-
cove, so shewas pretty sure that
the archways led to something.
The underpeople, too, she
could see. They looked very
much like people. Here and there,
individuals reverted to the an-
imal type —
a horse-man whose
muzzle had regrown to its ances-
tral size, a rat-woman with nor-
mal human features except for
nylon-like white whiskers, twelve
or fourteen on each side of her
face, reaching twenty centimeters
to either side. One looked very
much like a person indeed —a
beautifulyoung woman seated
on a bench some eight or ten
meters down the corridor, and
paying no attention to the crowd,
to Mabel, to Charley-is-my-dar-
ling or to herself.
“Who is that?” said Elaine,
pointing with a nod at the beau-
tiful young woman.
Mabel, relieved from the ten-
sion wh’ch had seized her when
she had asked if Elaine were
“death,” babbled "with a sociabil-
ity which was outre in this en-
vironment. “That’s Crawlie.”
“What does she do?” asked
Elaine.
“She has her pride,” said
Mabel, her grotesque red face
now jolly and eager, her slack
GALAXY
'
mouth spraying
spoke.
spittle as she underpeople don’t get much
chance to study real history. But
“But doesn’t she do any- we use this corridor. Somebody
thing?” said Elaine. with a morbid sense of humor
Charley-is - my - darling inter- named this place Clown Town.
vened. “Nobody has to do any- We live along for ten or twenty
thing here, lady Elaine ” — or a hundred years, and then
”
“It’s illegal to call me ‘lady,’ people or robots find us and kill
said Elaine. us all. That’s why Mabel was up-
“I’m sorry, human being set. She thought you were death
Elaine. Nobody has to do any- for this time. But you’re not.
tfiing at all here. The whole You’re Elaine. That’s wonder-
bunch of us are completely il- ful, wonderful.” His sly, too-
legal. This corridor is a thought- clever face beamed with trans-
shelter, so that no thoughts can parent sincerity. It must have
escape or enter it. Wait a bit! been quite a shock to him to be
Watch the ceiling Now!”
. . . honest.
A red glow moved across the
ceiling and was gone. tC’^^ou were going to tell me
“The ceiling glows,” said Char- ^ what the undergirl is for,”
ley-is - my - darling, “whenever said Elaine.
anything thinks against it. The “That’s Crawlie,” said he. “She
whole tunnel registers ‘sewage doesn’tdo anything. None of us
tank: organic waste’ to the out- really have to. We’re all doomed
side, so that dim perceptions of anyhow. She’s a little more hon-
life which may
escape here are est than the rest of us. She has
not considered too unaccount- her pride. She scorns the rest of
able. People built it for their own us. She puts us in our place. She
use. a million years ago.” makes everybody feel inferior.
“They weren’t here on Fomal- We think she is a valuable mem-
haut III a million years ago,” ber of the group. We all have our
snapped Elaine. Why, she won- pride, which is hopeless anyway,
dered, did she snap at him? He but Crawlie has her pride all by
wasn’t a person, just a talking herself, without doing anything
animal who had missed being whatever about it. She sort of re-
dropped down the nearest incin- minds us. If we leave her alone,
erator. she leaves us alone.”
“I’m sorry, Elaine,” said Char- Elaine thought. You’re funny
ley-is-my-darling. “I should things, so much like people, but
have said, a long time ago. We so inexpert about it, as tiiough
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 27

you all had to “die” before
what
really learned it is
alive.Aloud, she could only say,
“I never met anybody like that.”
Crawlie must have sensed that
they were talking about her, be-
cause she looked at Elaine with
a short quick stare of blazing
hatred. Crawlie’s pretty face
locked itself into a glare of con-
centrated hostility and scorn;
then her eyes wandered and
Elaine felt that she, Elaine, no
longer existed in the thing’s mind,
except as a rebuke which had
been administered and forgotten.
She had never seen privacy as
impenetrable as Crawlie’s. And
yet the being, whatever she might
have been made from, was very
lovely in human terms.
A fierce old hag, covered with
mouse-gray fur, rushed
Elaine. The mouse-woman was
the Baby-baby who had been
sent on the errand. She held a
ceramic cup in a pair of long
tongs. Water was in it.
Elaine took the cup.
Sixty to seventy underpeople,
including the little girl in the blue
dress whom she had seen out-
side, watched her as she sipped.
The water was good. She drank
it all. There was a universal ex-
halation, as though everyone in
the corridor had waited for this
moment Elaine started to put
the cup down but the old mouse-
woman was too quick for her. She
28
you
be
took the cup from Elaine, stop-
ping her in med-gesture and us-
to
ing the tongs, so that the cup
would not be contaminated by
the touch of an underperson.
“That’s right. Baby-baby,”
said Charley-is-my-darling, “we
can talk. It is our custom not to
talk with a newcomer until we
have offered our hospitality. Let
me be frank. We may have to kill
you, if this whole business turns
out to be a mistake, but let me
assure you that if I do kill you,
I will do it nicely and without
the least bit of malice. Right?”
Elaine did not know what was
so right about it, and said so. She
visualized her head being twisted
off. Apart from the pain and the
degradation, it seemed so ter-
ribly messy —
to terminate life
up to in a sewer with things which did
not even have a right to exist.
He gave her no chance to ar-
gue, but went on explaining,
“Suppose things turn out just
right. Suppose that you are the
Esther-Elaine-or-Eleanor that we
have all been waiting for —
the
person who will do something to
D’joan and bring us all help and
deliverance —
give us life, in
short, real life —
then what do
we do?”
“I don’t know where you get
all these ideas about me. Why
am I Esther-Elaine-or-Eleanor?
What do I do to D’joan? Why
me?”
GALAXY
harley-is-my-darling stared at
C her as though he could not
believe her question. Mabel
frowned as though she could not
think of the right words to put
forth her opinions. Baby-baby,
who had glided back to the group
with swift mouselike suddenness,
looked around as though she ex-
pected someone from the rear to
speak. She was right. Crawlie
turned her face toward Elaine
and said, with infinite condescen-
sion:
“I did not knowthat real
people were ill-informed or
stupid. You seem to be both.
have all our information from the
lady Pane Ashash. Since she is
dead, she has no prejudices
against us underpeoole. Since
she has not had much of any-
thing to do, she has run through
billions and billions of probabil-
itiesfor us. All of us know what
most probabilities come to
sudden death by disease or gas,
or maybe being hauled off to the
slaughterhouses in big police
But the lady Pane
orinthopters.
Ashash found that perhaps a
person with a name like yours
would come, a human being with
an oldname and not a number
name, that that person would
meet the Hunter, that she and the
Hunter would teach the under-
child D’joan a message and that
the message would change the
worlds. We have kept one child
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
after another named D’joan,
waiting for a hundred years. Now
you show up. Maybe you are the
one. You don’t look very com-
petent to me. What are you good
for?”
“I’m a witch,” said Elaine.
Crawlie could not keep the sur-
from showing on her face.
prise
“A witch? Really?”
“Yes,” said Elaine, rather hum-
bly.
“I wouldn’t
be one,” said Craw-
lie. “I have my pride.” She
turned her face away and locked
her features in their expression
We of perennial hurt and disdain.
Charley-is - my - darling whis-
pered to the group nearby, not
caring whether Elaine heard his
words or not, “That’s wonderful,
wonderful. She is a v.-itch. A
human witch. Perhaps the great
day is here! Elaine,” said he hum-
bly, “will you please look at us.”
—
Elaine looked. When she
stopped to think about where she
was, it was incredible that the
empty old lower city of Kalma
should be just outside, just be-
yond the wall, and the busy new
city a mere thirty-five meters
higher. This corridor was a world
to itself. It felt like a world, with
the ugly yellows and browns, the
dim old lights, the stenches of
man and animal mixed under in-
tolerably bad ventilation. Baby-
baby, Crawlie, Mabel and Char-
ley-is-my-darling were part of
29
fhi s world. They were real; but hands. Right here. Right now. I
they were outside, outside, so far could give you another clean within an hour or two at the not even to you true humana

as Elaine herself was concerned. drink of water first. But that is longest. Would that matter to with your four hundred years oi
“Let me go,” she said. “I’ll all. There isn’t much choice for you, ma’am and Elaine?” to us animals with the slaughter-

you, human being Elaine. What “And,” added Charley-is-my- house around the corner. Death
come back some day.”
“they would disconnect is a when, not a what. It’s the
Charley - is - my - darling, who do you think would happen if darling,
spoke you went outside?” the lady Pane Ashash, so that same for all of us. Don’t be
was so plainly the leader,
as if in a trance: “You don’t un- “Nothing, I hope,” said Elaine. even the recording of that dear scared. Go straight ahead and
dead lady would be gone at last, you may find mercy and love.
derstand, Elaine. The only ‘go- “Nothing!” snorted Mabel, her
face regaining its original indig- and there would be no mercy at They’re much richer than death,
ing’you are going to go is death.
all left upon this world.” if you can only find them. Once
There is no other direction. We nation. “The police would come
can’t let the old you go out of flapping by in their ornithop- “What is ‘mercy’?” asked you do find them, death won’t
this door, not when the lady Pane ter —” Elaine. be very important.”
“And they’d pick your “It’s obvious you never heard “I still don’t know mercy,” said
Ashash has thrust you in to us. brains,”
of it,” said Crav/lie. Elaine, “but I thought I knew
Either you go forward to your said Baby-baby.
destiny, to our destiny too, either “And they’d know about us,” The old mouse-hag Baby- what love was, and I don’t ex-

you do and all works out

that, said a tall pale man who had not baby came close to Elaine. She pect to find my lover in a dirty
all right, so you love us, and
that spoken before. looked up at her and whispered old corridor full of underpeople.”
“And we,” said Crawlie from through yellow teeth. “Don’t let “I don’t mean that kind of
we love you,” he added dreamily,
“or else I kill you with my own her chair, “would all of us die them frighten you, girl. Death love,” laughed Baby-baby, brush-
doesn’t matter all that much. ing aside Mabel’s attempted in-
30 GALAXY
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 31

J

terruptioii with a wave
hand-paw. The old mouse face
was on fire with sheer expressive-
ness. Elaine could suddenly im-
agine what Baby-baby had
looked like to a mouse-under-
man when she was young and
sleek and gray. Enthusiasm
flushed the old features
youth as Baby-baby went on, “I
don’t mean love for a lover, girl.
I mean love for yourself. Love
for life.Love for all things liv-
ing. Love even for me. Your love
for me. Can you imagine that?”
swam through fatigue
E laine
but she tried to answer the
question. She looked in the dim
light at the wrinkled old mouse-
hag with her filthy clothes and
her little red eyes. The fleeting
image of the young
beautiful
mouse-woman had faded away;
there was only this cheap, use-
less old thing, with her inhuman
demands and her senseless plead-
ing. Peoole never loved under-
people. They used them, like
chairs or doorhandles. Since when
did a doorhandle demand the
Charter of Ancient Rights?
“No,” said Elaine calmly and
evenly, "I can’t imagine ever lov-
ing you.”
“I knew it,” said Crawlie from
her chair. There was triumph in
the voice.
Charley-is-my-darling shook
his head as if to clear his sight.
32
1
of her “Don’t you even know who con-
trolsFomalhaut III?” ponder the mystery of
who has shown
life and yellows, the strange shapes d
“The Instrumentality,” said kindnesses to un- the lawless and untended under-
Elaine. “But do we have to go on derpeople, as long as the kind- people, the stenches and the thick
talking? Let me go or kill me or nesses were lawful ones. And heavy air, Elaine felt as if she
something. This doesn’t make there is the Lady Arabella Un- were leaving all known worlds
sense. I was tired when I got here, derwood, whose justice no man behind.
and I’m a million years tireder can understand. Nor underpeople In fact, she was doing precise-
with now.” eitlier,” he added with a chuckle. ly that, but it did not occur to
Mabel said, “Take her along.” “Who is she? I mean, whfere her that her own suspicion might
“All right,” said Charley-is- did she get the funny name? It be true.
my-darling. “Is the Hunter doesn’t have a number in it. It’s
there?” as bad as your names. Or my V
The child D’joan spoke. She own,” said Elaine.
had stood at the back of the “She’s from Old North Aus- A the end of the corridor there
t
group. “He came in the other tralia, the stroon world, on loan was a round gate with a
way when she came in the front.” to the Instrumentality, and she door of gold or brass.
Elaine said to Charley-is-my
darling, “You lied to me. You
follows the laws she was bom to.
The Hunter can go through the
Charley-is-my-darling stopped.
“I can’t go further,” he said.
said there was only one way.” rooms and the slaughterhouses of “You and D’joan will have to go
“I did not lie,” said he. “There the Instrumentality, but could on. This is the forgotten ante-
is only one way for you or me or you? Could I?” chamber between the tunnel and
for the friends of the lady Pane “No,” said Elaine. the upper palace. The Hunter is
Ashash. The way you came. The “Then forward,” said Charley- there. Go on. You’re a person. It
other way is death.” is-my-darling, “to your death or is safe. Underpeople usually die
“What do you mean?” to great wonders. May I lead the in there. Go on.” He nudged her
“I mean,” he said, “that it way, Elaine?” elbow and pulled the sliding door
leads straight into the slaughter- Elaine nodded wordlessly. apart.
houses of the men you do not The mouse-hag Baby-baby “But the little girl,” said
know. The Lords of the Instru- patted Elaine’s sleeve, her eyes Elaine.
mentality who are here on Fom- alive with strange hope. As “She’s not a girl,” Charley-is-
alhaut III. There is the Lord Elaine passed Crawlie’s chair, my-darling. “She’s just a dog —
Femtiosex, who is just and with- the proud, beautiful girl looked as I’m not a man, just a goat
out pity. There is the Lord Lim- straight at her, expressionless, brightened and cut and trimmed
aono, who thinks that under- deadly and severe. The dog- girl to look like a man. If you come
people are a potential danger D’joan followed the little proces- back, Elaine, I will love you like
and should not have been started sion asif she had been invited. God or I will kill you. It de-
in the first place. There is the They walked down and down pends.”
Lady Goroke, who does not know and down. Actually, it could not “Depends on what?” asked
how to pray, but who tries to have been a full half-kilometer. Elaine. “And what is ‘God’?”
But with theendless browns and Charley-is-my-darling smiled
GALAXY
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 33
 ficult, since he stood four or five The child smiled and relaxed
the quick tricky smile which over-the-shoulder purses when steps above them. She managed for the first time since Elaine had
was wholly insincere and com- she went in the other end of to keep her voice even when she seen her. The dog-girl was really
pletely friendly, both at the same Clown Town. That was the usual said; strikingly beautiful when the ten-
time. It was probably the trade- dress on Fomalhaut III at that “You know, then?” sion went out of her. The war-
mark of his personality in or- time. She had done nothing at “What?” iness, the quietness, the potential
dinary times. “You’ll find out all to spoil her clothes, so she “All those thin.gs they said.” disquiet — these were dog quali-
about God somewhere else, if you must have looked the same when “Sure I know them,” he smil- ties. Now the child seemed
do. Not from us. And the de- she came out. And D’joan — ed. “Why not?” wholly human and mature far
pending something you’ll know
is well, everyone knows what “But,” stammered Elaine, beyond her years. Her white face
for yourself. You won’t have to D’joan looked like. “about you and me being lovers? had dark, dark brown eyes.
wait for me to tell you. Go along The Hunter met them. That too?” “I’ve seen you lots of times.
now. The whole thing will be “That too,” he smiled again. Hunter. And you’ve told me what
over in the next few minutes.’’ '^he Hunter met them, and “I’ve been hearing it half my would happen if I turned out to
“But D’joan?” persisted Elaine. new worlds began. life.Come on up, sit down and be the D’joan. How I would
“If it doesn’t work,’’ said Char- He was a shortish man, with have something to eat. We have spread the word and meet great
ley-is-my-darling, “we can al- black curly hair, black eyes that a lot of things to do tonight, if trials. How I might die and might
ways raise another D’joan and danced with laughter, broad history is to be fulfilled through not, but people and underpeople
wait for another you. The lady shoulders and long legs. He walk- us. What do you eat, little girl?” would remember my name for
Pane Ashash has promised us ed with a quick sure step. He said he kindly to D’joan. “Raw thousands of years. You’ve told
that. Go on in!’’ kept his hands quiet at his side, meat or people food?” me almost everything I know —
He pushed herroughly, so that but the hands did not look tough “I’m a finished girl,” said Except the things that I can’t
she stumbled through. Bright and calloused, as though they D’joan, “so I prefer chocolate talk to you about. You know
light dazzled her and the clean had been terminating lives, even cake with vanilla ice cream.” them too, but you won’t talk,
air tasted as good as fresh water the lives of animals. “That you shall have,” said will you?” said the little girl im-
on her first day out of the space- “Come up and down,” he
sit the Hunter. “Come, both of you, ploringly.
ship pxid. greeted them. “I’ve been wait- and sit down.” “I know you’ve been to
The little dog-girl had trotted ing for you both.” They had topped the steps. A Earth,” said the Hunter.
in beside her. Elaine stumbled upward and luxurious table, already set, was “Don’t say it! Please don’t say
The door, gold or brass, clang- forward. “Waiting?” she gasped. waiting for them. There were it!” pleaded the girl.
ed to behind them. “Nothing mysterious,” he said. three couches around it. Elaine “Earth! Manhome itself?”
Elaine and D’joan stood still, “T had the viewscreen on. The looked for the third person who cried Elaine. “How, by the stars,
side by side, looking forward and one into the tunnel. Its connec- would join them. Only as she sat did you get there?”
upward. tions are shielded, so the police down did she realize that he The Hunter intervened. “Don’t
There are many famous paint- could not have peeped it.” meant to invite the dog-child. press her, Elaine. It’s a big sec-
ing of that scene. Most of the Elaine stopped dead stiU. The He saw her surprise, but did ret, and she wants to keep it.
paintings show Elaine in rags with little dog-girl, one step behind not comment on it directly. You’ll find out more tonight than
the distorted, suffering face of a her, stopped too. She tried to Instead, he spoke to D’joan. mortal woman was ever told be-
witch. This is strictly unhistori- draw herself up to her full “You know me, girl, don’t fore.”
cal. She was wearing her every- he ght. She was about the same you?” “What does ‘mortal’ mean?”
day culottes, blouse and twin tallness that he was. It was dif- THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 35
34 GALAXY
asked Elaine, who disliked anti-
que words.
“It just means having a term-
ination of life.”
“That’s foolish,” said Elaine.
“Everything terminates. Look at
those poor messy people who
went on beyond the legal four
hundred years.” She looked
around. Rich black-and-red cur-
tains hung from ceiling to floor.
On one side of the room there
was a piece of furniture she had
never seen before. It was like a
table, but it had little broad flat
doors on the front, reaching from
side to side; it was richly orna-
mented with unfamiliar woods
and metals. Nevertheless, she
had more important things to
talk about than furniture.
he looked directly at the Hun-
S ter (no organic disease;
wounded in leftarm at an ear-
lier period; somewhat excessive
exposure to sunlight; might need
correction for near vision) and
demanded him:
of
“Am I captured by you, too?”
“Captured?”
“You’re a Hunter. You hunt
things. To kill them, I suppose.
That underman back there, the
goat who calls himself Charley-
is-my-darling — ”
“He never does!” cried the dog-
girl, D’joan, interrupting.
“Never does what” said
Elaine, cross at being interrupted.
36
“He never calls himself that. pen right away, as soon as I the child, slapped her gently on
Other people, underpeople I came up here with you.” the cheek, shouted again. D’joan
mean, call him that.His name is “How can anything happen,” continued to stare at the intricate
Balthasar, but nobody uses it.”
I
said little D’joan, “if you keep design.
“What does itmatter, little
j
talking all the time?” “Now,” said the Hunter, “you
girl?” said Elaine. “I’m talking The Hunter smiled. and I make love. The child is
about my life. Your friend said I
“That’s right,” he said. “We’ve absent in a world of happy
he would take my life from me if talked enough. Now we must be- dreams. That design is a man-
something did not happen.” come lovers.” dala, something left over from
Neither D’joan nor the Hunter Elaine jumped to her feet, “Not the unimaginable past. It locks
said anything. with me, you don’t. Not with her the human consciousness in
Elaine heard a frantic edge go here. Not when I haven’t found place. D’joan will not see us or
into her voice, “You heard it!” my work to do. I’m a witch. hear us. We cannot help her go
She turned to the Hunter, “You I’m supposed to do something, toward her destiny unless you
saw it on the view screen.” but I’ve never really found out and I make love first.”
The Hunter’s voice was sereni- what it was.” Elaine, her hand to her mouth,
ty and assurance: “We three “Look at this,” said the Hun- tried to inventory symptoms as
have things to do before this ter calmly, walking over to the a means of keeping her familiar
night is out. We won’t get them wall, and pointing with his fin- thoughts in balance. It did not
done if you are frightened or ger at an intricate circular de- work. A relaxation spread over
worried. I know the underpeo- sign. her, a happiness and quiet that
ple, but I know the Lords of the Elaine and D’joan both looked she had not once felt since her
Instrumentality as well —
all four at it. childhood.
of them, right here. The Lords The Hunter spoke again, his “Did you think,” said the Hun-
Limaono and Femtiosex and the voice urgent. “Do you see it, ter,“that I hunted with my body
Lady Goroke. And the Norstilian, D’joan? Do you really see it? and J.illed with my hands? Didn’t
too. They will protect you. Char- The ages turn, waiting for this anyone ever tell you that the
ley-is-my-darling might want to moment, little child. Do you see game comes to me rejoicing, that
take your life from you because it? Do you see yourself in it?” the animals die while they
he is worried, afraid that the Elaine looked at the little dog- scream with pleasure? I’m a tele-
tunnel of Englok, where you just girl.D’joan had almost stopped path, and I work under license.
were, will be discovered. I have breathing. She stared at the cur- And I have my license now from
ways of protecting him and your- ious symmetrical pattern as the dead lady Pane Ashash.”
self as well. Have confidence though it were a window into Elaine knew that they had
in me for a while. That’s not so enchanting worlds. come to the end of the talking.
hard, is it?” The Hunter roared, at the top Trembling, happy, frightened, she
“But,” protested Elaine, “the of his voice, “D’joan! Joan! fell into his arms and let him
man —or the goat —
or what- Joanie!” lead her over to the couch at
ever he was, Charley-is-my- The child made no response. the side of the black-and-gold
darling, he said it would all hap- The Hunter stepped over to room.
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
i
37
 ;

thousand years later, she
A was kissing his ear and mur-
muring loving words at him,
words that she did not even re-
alize she knew. She must, she
thought, have picked up more
from the story-boxes than she
ever realized.
“You’re my love,” she said,
“my only one, my darling. Never,
never leave me; never throw me
away. Oh, Hunter, I love you
so!”
“Wepart” he said, “before to-
morrow is gone, but shall meet
again. Do you realize that all this
has only been a little more than
an hour?”
Elaine blushed. “And I,” she
stammered, “I —
I’m hungry.”
“Natural enough,” said the
Hunter. “Pretty soon we can
waken the little girl
And then history will
gether.
happen, unless somebody walks
in and stops us.”
“But, darling,” said
“can’t we go on — at least for
no hint in him of
power.
He sang to her the song which
we know as I Love You and Lost
You.
1 knew you. and loved you,
and won you, In Kalma.
1 loved you, and won you,
and lost you, my darling!
The dark skies of Waterroclc
swept down against us.
Llghtnlng-lit only
by our own love, my lovely!
Our time was a short time,
a sharp hour of glory
We tasted delight
and we suffer denial.
The tale of us two
is a bittersweet story.
Short as a shot
but as long as death.
We met and we loved,
and vainly we plotted
To rescue beauty
from a smothering war.
Time had no time
the minutes, no mercy.
for us,
and eat to- We have Ipved and lost,
and the world goes on.
We have lost and have kissed,
and have parted, my darling!
Ail thatwe have,
Elaine, we must save in our hearts, iove.
The memory of beauty
and the beauty of memory
telepathic He had kept her right hand in
his left hand. Now he released
“And
her,
you, Elaine,” said he to
“have nothing to do but to
her suddenly. He stood up. love me and to stand very stiH.
“Let’s work first Eat later. Do you understand? You will se«
Someone is near us.” tremendous things, some of them
He walked briskly over to the frightening. But they won’t be
who was still seat-
little dog-girl, real. Just stand still.”
ed on the chair looking at the Elaine nodded wordlessly.
mandala with open, sleeping “In the name,” said the Hun-
eyes. He took her head firmly ter, “of the First Forgotten One,
and gently between his two hands in the name of the Second For-
and turned her eyes away from gotten One, in the name of the
the design. She struggled mo- Third Forgotten One. For the
— mentarily against his hands and
love of people, that will give
then seemed to wake up fully. them life. For the love that will
She smiled. “That was nice. give them a clean death and
I rested. How long was it five — true .” His words were
. .
clear
minutes?” but Elaine could not understand
“More than that,” said 'the them.
Hunter gently. “I want you to The day of days was here.
take Elaine’s hand.” She knew it.
A few hours ago, and Elaine She did not know how she
would have protested at the knew it, but she did.
grotesquerie of holding hands
The lady Pane Ashash crawled
with an underperson. This time, up through the solid floor, wear-
she said nothing, but obeyed: ing her friendly robot body. She
she looked with much love came near to Elaine and mur-
. . .
toward the Hunter. mured :

a while? A year? A month? A I’ve loved you and won you “You two don’t have to know “Have no fear, no fear.”
and lost you, in Kalma. much,” said the Hunter. “You,
day? Put the little girl back in Fear? thought Elaine. This is
the tunnel for a while.” D’joan, are going to get every- no time for fear. It is much too
“Not really,” said the Hunter, His fingers, moving in the air, thing that is in our minds and in interesting.
“but I’ll sing you the song that produced a soft organ-like music our memories. You will become
came my mind about you in the room. She had noticed us, both of us. Forevermore. You
into A s if to answer Elaine, a clear,
and me. I’ve been thinking bits music-beams before, but she had will meet your glorious fate.” strong, masculine voice spoke
of it for a long time, but now it never had one played for herself. The little girl shivered. “Is out of nowhere
has really happened. Listen.” By the time he was through this really the day?” This is the time for the daring
He held her two hands in his singing, she was sobbing. It was “It is,” said the Hunter. “Fu- sharing.
so wonderful, so
two hands, looked easily and all so true, ture ages will remember this When these words were spoken,
frankly into her eyes. There was heartbreaking. night.” was
it as if a bubble had been
38
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 39
pricked. Elaine felt her personali-
ty and D’joan mingling. With
ordinary telepathy, would have
it
been frightening. But this was
not communication. It was being.
She had become Joan. Sh^ felt
the clean little body in its tidy
clothes. She became aware of
the girl-shape again. It was oddly
pleasant and familiar, in terribly
faraway kinds of feeling, to re-
member that she had had that
shape once — the smooth, inno-
cent flat chest; the uncompli-
cated groin; the fingers which
stillfelt as though they were
separate and alive in extending
from the palm of the hand. But
the mind — that child’s mind!
It was like an enormous museum
illuminated by rich stained-glass
windows, cluttered with variega-
ted heaps of beauty and treasure,
scented by strange incense which
moved slowly in unpropelled air.
D’joan had a mind which reached
all the way back to the color
and glory of man’s antiquity.
D’joan had been a Lord of the
monkey-man
Instrumentality, a Elaine, looking
riding the ships of space, a friend
of the dear dead lady Pane Ash-
ash, and Pane Ashash herself.
No wonder the child was rich
and strange: she had been made
the heir of all the ages.
This is the time for the glar-
ing top of the truth at the wear-
ing sharing, said the nameless,
clear, loud voice in her mind.
40
This is the time for you and him. to her that she should take her
Elaine realized that she was
hands away from the hands
responding to hypnotic sugges- Hunter and the dog-child.
tions which the Lady Pane Ash- But then fire came . .
ash had put into the mind of the
little dog-girl — suggestions
VI
which were triggered into full po-
tency the moment that the three ire came up from the floor,
of them came into telepathic con-
tact.
F burning about them intangi-
bly. Elaine felt nothing
For a fraction of a second, she she could sense the touch of the
perceived notliing but astonish- little girl’s hand.
ment within herself. She saw Flames around the dames,
nothing but herself — every de-
games, said an idiot voice from
tail, every secrecy, every thought
nowhere.
and feeling and contour of flesh. Fire around the pyre, sire, said
She was curiously aware of how another.
her breasts hung from her chest, Hot is what we got, tot, said
the tension of her belly-muscles third.
holding her female backbone Suddenly Elaine remembered
straightand erect — Earth, but it was not the Earth
Female backbone? she knew. She was herself
Why had she thought that she D’joan, and not D’joan. She was
had a female backbone? a tall, strong monkey-man,
And then she knew. distinguishable from a true
She was following the Hun- human being. She/he had tre-
ter’s mind as his awareness rush- mendous alertness
in
ed through her body, drank it up, heart as he/she walked across
enjoyed it, loved it all over again, the Peace Square at An-fang,
this time from the inside out. the Old Square at An-fang, where
She knew somehow that the all things begin. She/he noticed
little dog-girl watched every- a discrepency. Some of the build-
thing quietly, wordlessly, drink- ings were not there.
ing in from them both the full The real Elaine thought to her-
nuance of being truly human. self, “So that’s what they did
Even with the delirium, she with the child —
printed her with
sensed embarrassment. It might the memories of other underpeo-
be a dream, but it was still too ple. Other ones, who dared things
much. She began to close her and went places.”
mind and the thought had come The fire stopped.
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
Elaine saw the black-and-gold
of room clean and untroubled for a
moment before the green white-
. topped ocean rushed in. The
water poured over the three of
them without getting them wet
in the least. The greenness wash-
ed around them without pressure,
without suffocation.
. . . but Elaine was the Hunter. Enor-
mous dragons floated in the sky
above Fomalhaut III. She felt
herself wandering across a hill,
singing with love and yearning.
She had the Hunter’s own mind,
his own memory. The dragon
sensed him, and flew down. The
a enormous reptilian wings were
more beautiful than a sunset,
more delicate than orchids. Their
beat in the air was as gentle as
the breath of a baby. She was
not only Hunter but dragon too;
in- she felt the minds meeting and
the dragon d5ring in bliss, in joy.
Somehow the water was gone.
So too were D’joan and the Hun-
her/his
ter. She was not in the room.
She was taut, tired, worried
down a nameless
street for hop>eless destinations.
She had to do things which could
never be done. The wrong me,
the wrong time, the wrong place
— and I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m
alone, her mind screamed. The
room was back again so too were
;
the hands of tiie Hunter and the
little girl.
Mist began rising —
41
 Another I'ream? thought The surprise came from the lit- brass door, Elaine heard the voice and-yellow corridor. Most of the
Aren't we done? tle dog girl. of the Lady Arabella say to the underpeople were awaiting them.
Elaine.
But there was another voice I am
youT sister Joan, she said, Hunter Dozens stared at them. The
somewhere, a voice which grat- and no animal to you. “What are you doing here all heavy animal -human smells (rf
|

ed like the rasp of a saw cutting The lady Arabella seemed to by yourself? The room smells the old tunnel rolled against
through bone, like the grind of a have trouble hearing. (Elaine 1
funny. Have you had animals them like
thick, slow waves.

broken machine still working at herself could not tell whether I

here? Have you killed some- Elaine the beginning of a
felt

ruinous top speed. It was an evil she was hearing spoken words or thing?” headache at her temples, but she
voice, a terror-filling voice. taking the message with her “Yes, ma’am,” said the Hun- was much too alert to care.

Perhaps this really was the mind.) ter as D’joan and Elaine step- For a moment, D’joan and
“death” which the tunnel under- I am Joan and I love you. ped through the door. Elaine confronted the underpeo-
people had mistaken her for. The lady Arabella shook her- “What?” cried the Lady Ara- ple.
’

The Hunter’s hand released self as though water had splash- bella.

hers.She let go of D’joan. ed on her. “Of course you’re Hunter must have raised his TV/Tost of you have seen paint-
There was a strange woman in Joan. You love me. And I love voice to a point of penetrating ings or theatricals based
the room. She wore the baldric you.” .
emphasis because he wanted the upon this scene. The most famous
of authority and the leotards of People and underpeople meet other two to hear him, too: of all is, beyond doubt, the fan-
on the terms of love. “I have killed, ma’am,” he tastic “one-line drawing” of San
a traveler.
Elaine stared at her. “Love. Love, of course. You’re 1
said, “as always — with love. Shigonanda — the board of the
a good little girl. And so right.” This time it was a system.” background almost uniformly
tt''^ou’ll be punished,” said You will forget me, said Joan, They slipped through the door gray, with a hint of brown and
* the terrible voice, which until we meet and love again. while the Lady Arabella’s pro- yellow on the left, a hint of black
now was coming out of the wo- “Yes, darling. Good-by for testing voice,heavy with authori- and red on the right, and in the
^

now.” ty and inquiry, was still sweeping center the strange white line, al-
man. i

“Wh — wh — what?” stam- At last D’joan did use words. |

against the Hunter.
Joan led. Her body was the
most a smear of
somehow
paint, which
mered Elaine. She spoke to the Hunter and suggests the bewildered
“You’re conditioning an under- Elaine, saying, “It is finished. I body of a pretty child, but her girlElaine and the doom-blessed
know who Iam and what I must personality was the full awaken- child Joan.
person without authority. I don’t ,

do. Elaine had better come with ing of all the underpeople who Charley-is-my-darling was, of
know who you are, but the Hun-
me. We you soon. Hun-
will see had been imprinted on her. Elaine course, the first to find his voice.
ter should know better. The ani-
mal will have to die, of course,” ter — if we live.” could not understand it, because (Elaine did not notice him as a
said the woman, looking at little Elaine looked at the Lady Joan was still the little dog-girl, goat-man any more. He seemed
Arabella who stood stock still, but Joan was now also Elaine, an earnest, friendly man of mid-
D’joan.
staring like a blind women. The also Hunter. There was no doubt dle age, fighting poor health and
Hunter muttered, half in greet-
Hunter nodded at Elaine with about their movement; the child, an uncertain life with great cour-
ing to the stranger, half in ex-
his wise, kind, rueful smile. no longer an undergirl, led the age. She now found his smile per-
planation to Elaine, as though he
did not know what else to say: The little girl led Elaine down, way and Elaine, human or not, suasive and charming. Why,
down, down to the door which led followed. thought Elaine, didn’t I see him
“Lady Arabella Underwood.”
Elaine could not bow to her, back to the tunnel of Englok. The door closed behind them. that way before? Have I chang-
though she wanted to. Just as they went through the They were back in the brown- ed?)

47 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 43

 Charley - ’s - my - darling had now I am Joan, not D’joan, and “Don’t talk to me, dear peo-
I bring you a weapon. You
are
spoken before Elaine found her ple,” said little Joan. “Get used
wits. “He did it. Are you women. You are men. You are
to me first. I bring you life-with.
D’joan?” people. You can use the weapon.” It’s more than
love. Love’s a
“Am I D'jcan?” said the child, ‘What weapon?” The voice hard, sad, word, a cold
dirty
the crowd of deformed, was Crawlie’s,from about the
asking word, an old word. It says too
weird people in the tunnel. “Do third row of spectators. much and it promises too little.
you think I am D’joan?” “Life and life-with,” said the I bring you something much big-
“No! No! You are the lady child Joan. ger than love. If you’re alive,
who was promised — you are the “Don’t be a fool,” said Craw- you’re alive. If you’re alive-with,
bridge-to-man,” cried a tall yel- lie. “What’s the weapon? Don’t then you know the other life is
low-haired old woman, whom give us words. We’ve had words there too —
both of you, any of
Elaine could not remember see- and death ever since the world you, all of you. Don’t do any-
undefpeople began. That’s
ing before. The woman flung her- of thing. Don’t grab, don’t clench,
self to her knees in front of the what people give us — good
don’t possess. Just be. That’s the
child, and tried to get D’joan’s words, fine principles and cold weapon. There’s not a flame or a
hand. The child held her hands murder,, year after year, genera- gun or a poison that can stop it.”
away, quietly, but firmly, so the tion after generation. Don’t tell “I want to believe you,” said
woman buried her face in the me I’m a person — I’m not. I’m
Mable, “but I don’t know how
child’s skirt and wept. a bi.son and I know it. An animal to.”
“I am Joan,” said the child, ,
fixed up to look like a person. “Don’t believe me,” said little
“and I am dog no more. You are Give me a something to kill with.
Joan. “Just wait and let things
people now, people, and if you Let me die fighting.” happen. Let me through, good
die with me, you will die Joan looked incongruous
Little people. I have to sleep for a
men. Isn’t that better than in her young body and Short sta- while. Elaine wiU watch me while
ithas ever been before? And you, wearing the little blue
ture, still I sleep and when I get up, I will
Ruthia,” said she to the woman smock in which Elaine had first tell you why you are underpeople
at her feet, “stand up and stop seen She commanded the
her. no longer.”
crying. Be glad. These are the rpom. She lifted her hand and the Joan started to move for-
days that I shall be with you. I buzz of low voices, which had ward
know your children were all taken started while Crawlie was yell- A wild ululating screech split
away and killed, Ruthie, and I ing, dropped off to silence again. the corridor.
am sorry. I cannot bring them “Crawlie,” she said, in a voice
But you woman- that carried all the way down the
back. I give T^veryone looked around to see
hood. I have even made a per- hall, “peace be with you in the where it came from.
son out of Elaine.” everlasting now.” It was almost like the shriek
“Who are you?” said Charley- Crawlie scowled. She did have of a fighting bird, but the
sound
xs-my-darling. “Who are you?” the grace to look puzzled at came from among them.
“I’m the little girl you put out Joan’s message to her, but she Elaine saw it first.
to live or died an hour ago. But did not speak. Crawlie had a knife and just
GALAXY
44 THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
 Elaine. “Better have a look at “That’s not true, Crawlie.”
as the cry ended, she flung her- pen. She held it to her eye and
Crawlie,” said he. “Maybe Or- “You’re a dog and now you’re
selfon Joan. looked through the flesh, up and
down the wound. The peritoneum son killed her with that slap. He’s a person. You’re born a traitor.
Child and woman fell on the
was punctured, the liver cut, the a bear, you know.” Dogs have always sided with
floor, their dresses a tangle. The
up twice with the upper folds of the large intestine
“So I saw,” said Elaine, drily. people. You hated me even be-
large hand rose
perforated in two places. What did the man think that fore you went into that room and
knife, and the second time it v/ere
When she saw this, she knew thing looked like, a humming- changed into something else.
came up red.
From the hot shocking burn in what to do. She brushed the by- bird? Now you are going to kill us all.”
standers aside and got to work. She walked over to the body “We may die, Crawlie, but I
her side, Elaine knew that she
First she glued up the cuts from of Crawlie. As soon as she won’t do it.”
must have taken' one of
herself
the inside out, starting with the touched the shoulders, she knew “Well, you hate me, anyhow.
the She could not tell
stabs.
damage Each touch
to the liver. that she was in for trouble. The You’ve always hated me.”
whether Joan was still living.
of the organic adhesive was pre- outer appearances were human, “You may not believe it,” said
The undermen pulled Crawlie
ceded by a tiny spray of re-cod- but the musculature beneath was Joan, “but I’ve always loved you.
off the child.
Crawlie was white with rage, ing powder, designed to reinforce not. She suspected that the lab- You were the prettiest woman in
the capacity of the injured organ oratories had left Crawlie ter- our whole corridor.”
“Words, words, words. She’ll kill
to restore itself. The probing, ribly strong, keeping the buffalo
us all with her words.”
squeezing, took eleven strength and obstinacy for some ^rawlie laughed. The sound
A large, fat man with the pressing,
minutes. Before it was finished, remote industrial reason of their '^'gave Elaine gooseflesh. “Sup-
muzzle of a bear on the front of
Joan had awakened, and was own. She took out a brainlink, a pose I believed it. How could I
an otherwise human-looking head
murmuring close-range telepathic hookup live if I thought that people lov-
and body, stepped around the
He “Am dying?” which worked only briefly and ed me? If I believed you, I would
man who held Crawlie. gave I

her one tremendous slap. She “Not at all,” said Elaine, “un- slightly, to see if the mind still have to tear myself to pieces, to
dropped to the floor unconscious. less these human medicines functioned. As she reached for break my brains on the wall, to
The knife, stained with blood, poison your dog blood.” Crawlie’s head to attach the it, do — ” The laughter changed
to
“Who did it?” unconscious girl sprang suddenly sobs, but Crawlie managed to
fell on the old worn carpet.
(Elaine automatically
thought “Crawlie.” to life, jumped to her feet and resume talking: “You things are
restorative for her later; check “Why?” said the child. “Why? said: so stupid that you don’t even
Is she hurt too? Where is she?” “No, you don’t! you don’t peep know that you’re monsters.
neck vertebrae; no problem of
“Not as hurt as she is going to me, you dirty human!” You’re not people. You never
bleeding.)
be,” said the goat-man, Charley- “Crawlie, stand still.” will be people. I’m one of you
For the first time in her life,
is-my-darling. “If she lives, we’ll “Don’t boss me, you monster!” myself. I’m honest enough to ad-
Elaine functioned as a wholly ef-
fix her up and try her and put “Crawlie, that’s a bad thing to mit what am. We’re we’re
ficient witch. She helped the I dirt,

clothing from her to death.” say.” It was eerie to hear such a nothing, we’re things that are
people pull the
little Joan. The tiny body, with “No, you won’t,” said Joan. commanding voice coming from less than machines. We hide in
the heavy purple-dark blood “You’re going to love her. You the throat and mouth of a small the earth like dirt and when
must.” child. Small she might have been, people kill us they do not weep.
pumping out from just below the
rib-cage, looked hurt and fragile. The goat-man looked bewild- but Joan commanded the scene. At least we were hiding. Now
Elaine reached in her left hand- ered. “I don’t care what I say. You you come along, you and your
bag. She had a surgical radar He turned in his perplexity to all hate me.” tame human woman —
” Crawlie

46 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 47

glared briefly at Elaine — “and might be stronger than stedL nobody is going to hurt Joan am this little. Make me bigger.**’
you try to change even that. I’ll Crawlie started to move toward vdiile Iam here. Do you hear me, “But —” protested Elaine
killyou again if I can, you dirt, Joan, and the snake-woman people? Nobody. Try it, and you again.
you slut, you dog! What are you hissed. die. I think I could kill almost “If you don’t know, ask the
doing with that child’s body? We It was the snake hiss of Old all of you before I died, even if lady.”
don’t even know who you are Earth. you all attacked me at once. Do “What lady?”
now. Can you tell us?” For a second, every animal- you hear me, people? Leave Joan The S-woman had paused, lis-

The bear-man had moved up
close to Crawlie, unnoticed by
her, and was ready to slap her
down again if she moved
little Joan.
Joan looked straight at him
and with a mere movement of her
eyes she commanded him not to
strike.
“I’m she said, “I’m
tired,”
tired, Crawlie. I’m a thousand
years old when I am not even
five. And I am Elaine now, and
I am Hunter too, and I am the
Lady Pane Ashash, and I know
a great many more things that
thought I would ever know. I
have work to do, Crawlie, be-
cause I love you, and I think I
will die soon. But please, good
people, first let me
person in the corridor stopped
breathing. They all stared at the
snake-woman. She hissed again,
against looking straight at Crawlie. The
sound was an abomination in
that narrow space. Elaine saw
that Joan tightened up like a
little dog, Charley-is-my-darling
looked as though he was ready to
leap twenty meters in one jump,
and Elaine herself felt an im-
pulse to strike, to kill, to destroy.
The hiss was a challenge to them
all.
The snake-woman looked
I around calmly, fully aware of
the attention she had obtained.
“Don’t worry, dear people.
See, I’m using Joan’s name for
aU of us. I’m not going to hurt
rest.” Crawlie, not unless she hurts
alone. That goes for you, too, tening to the conversation. She
you soft human woman. I am not cut in.
afraid of you either. You there,” “The Lady Pane Ashash, of
said she to the bear-man, “pick course.The dead one. Do you
littleJoan up and carry her to a think that a living Lady of the
quiet bed. She must rest. She Instrumentality would do any-
must be quiet for a while. You be thing but kill us all?”
quiet too, all you people, or you
will meet me. Me.” Her black A s the snake-woman and Or-
eyes roved across their faces. The son carried Joan away,
snake-woman moved forward Charley-is-my-darling came up
and they parted in front of her, to Elaine and said, “Do you want
as though she were the only solid to go?”
being in a throng of ghosts. “Where?”
Her eyes rested a moment on “To the Lady Pane Ashash, of
Elaine. Elaine met the gaze, but course.”
itwas an uncomfortable thing to “Me?” said Elaine. “Now?”
do. The black eyes with neither said Elaine, even more emphat-
eyebrow nor lashes seemed full ically. “Of course not,” said
of intelligence and devoid of Elaine, pronouncing each word as
emotion. Orson, the bear-man, though it were a law. “What do

The bear-man was on Crawlie’s Joan. But if she hurts Joan, if followed obediently behind. He you think I am? A few hours
right. On her left, there had anybody hurts Joan, they will carried little Joan. ago I did not even know that you
moved up a snake-woman. The have me to deal with. You have As the child passed Elaine she existed. I wasn’t sure about the
face was pretty and human, ex- a good idea who I am. S- We tried to stay awake. She mur- word ‘death.’ I just assumed that
cept for the thin forked tongue people have great strength, high mured, “Make me bigger. Please everything terminated at four
which ran in and out of the intelligence and no fear at all. make me bigger. Right away.” hundred years, the way it should.
mouth like a dying flame. She You know we cannot breed. “I don’t know how , . .” said It’sbeen hours of danger, and
had good shoulders and hips but People have to make us one by Elaine. everybody has been threatening
no breasts at all. She wore empty one, out of ordinary snakes. Do The child struggled to full everybody else for all that time.
golden brassiere cups which not cross me, dear people. I awakening. “I’ll have work to do. I’m tired and I’m sleepy and I’m
swung against her chest. Her want to learn about this new Work . . . and maybe my deatii dirty, and I’ve got to take care
hands looked as though they love which Joan is bringing, and to die. It will all be wasted if I of myself, and besides ” —
48 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 49
 She stopped suddenly and bit
her lip. She had started to say,
and besides, my body is all worn
out with that dream-like love-
making which the Hunter and I
had together. That was not the
business of Charley-is-my-dar-
ling:he was goat enough as he
was. His mind was goatish and
would not see the dignity of it all.
The goat-man said, very gent-
ly, “You are making history,
Elaine, and when you make his-
tory you cannot always take care
of all the little things too. Are you
happier and more important than
you ever were before? Yes?
Aren’t you a different you from
the person who met Balthasar
just a few hours ago?”
Elaine was taken aback by the
seriousness. She nodded.
“Stay hungry and tired. Stay
dirty. Just a little longer. Time
must not be wasted. You can talk
to the Lady Pane Ashash. Find
out what we must do about little
Joan. When you come back with
further instructions, I will take
care of you myself. This tunnel
is not as bad a town as it looks.
We will have everything you
could need, in the Room of Eng-
lok. Englok himself built it, long
ago. Work just a little longer, and
then you can eat and rest. We
have everything here. T am the
citizen of no mean city.’ But
you must help Joan. You
Joan, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, I do,” she said. “Not yet,” smiled the goat- in. They will follow. They will
“Then help us just a little bit man, with his quick crooked in- kill all ofyou, even Joan. Where
more.” telligent smile. “I may not be is the Hunter? Shouldn’t I sleep
With death? she thought. With educated, but I am pretty smart.” first?” She felt her lips go thick
murder? With violation of law? He reached toward the inner with fatigue: she had not rested
But —
but it was all for Joan. gate, glanced back at Elaine ap- or eaten since she took that
It was thus that Elaine went praisingly, and then shoved a chance on the strange little door
to the camouflaged door, went man-sized robot through the between Waterrocky Road and
out under the open sky again, door. the Shopping Bar.
saw the great Saucer of Upper “There it goes, a sweeper about “You’re safe, Elaine, you’re
Kalma reaching out over the Old your size. No memory bank. A safe,” said Charley-is-my-dar-
Lower City. She talked to the worn-out brain. Just simple mot- ling, his slysmile very warm and
voice of the Lady Pane Ashash, ivations. If they come down to his smooth voice carrying the
and obtained certain instructions, see what they thought they saw, ring of sincere conviction. For
together with other messages. they will see this instead. We himself, he did not believe a word
Later, she was able to repeat keep a bunch of these at the of it. He thought they were all in
them, but she was too tired to door. We don’t go out much, but danger, but there was no point
make out their real sense. when we do, handy to have
it’s in terrifying Elaine. Elaine was
She staggered back to the these to cover up with.” the only real person on their side,
place in the wall where she He took by the arm.
her except for the Hunter, who was
thought the door to be, leaned “While you eat, you can tell me. a strange one, almost like an an-
against it, and nothing happened. Can we make her bigger . .
.?” imal himself, and for the Lady
“Further down, Elaine, further “Who?” Pane Ashash, who was very be-
down. Hurry! When I used to be “Joan, of course. Our Joan. nign, but who was, after all, a
me, I too got tired,” came the That’s what you went to find out dead person. He was frightened
strong whisper of the Lady Pane for us.” himself, but he was afraid of fear.
Ashash, “but do hurry!” Elaine had to inventory her Perhaps they were all doomed.
Elaine stepped away from the own mind to see what the Lady In a way, he was right.
wall, looking at it. Pane Ashash had said on that
A beam of light struck her. subject. In a moment she re- VII
The Instrumentality had found membered.
her. “You need a pod. And a jelly ^
I
'ae Lady Arabella Underwood
bath. And narcotics, because it had called the Lady Goroke.
Ohe rushed wildly at the wall. will hurt. Four hours.” “Something has tampered with
^ The door gaped briefly. The “Wonderful,” said Charley-is- my mind.”
strong welcome hand of Charley- my-darling, leading her deeper The Lady Goroke felt very
is my-darling helped her in. and deeper into the tunnel. shocked. She threw back the in-
first “The light! The light!” cried “But what’s the use of it,” said quiry. Put a probe on it.
love Elaine. “I’ve killed us all. They Elaine, “if I’ve ruined us all? The “I did. Nothing.”
saw me.” Instrumentality saw me coming ^
Nothing?
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLO.VVN TOWN 51
 More shock for the Lady Gor- “Police fever, one degree. One The third time this happened, have the advantage. They can
oke, Sound the alert, then. degree only. Till rescinded. the robot in the ornithopter put show the machine with all sorts
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no. It was a Clear?” a disabling slug through it, flew of improvements —
flashing
friendly, nice tampering.” The “Clear, my lady. The entire down and picked it up with the myster-
lights, bits of lightnight,
Lady Arabella Underwood, be- planet?” claws of his machine. ious rays. Actually,
it looked
ing an Old North Australian, was “Yes,” she said. He saw it in close view. like bathtub full of boiling
a
rather formal she always thought
: “Do you wish to give a rea- “Birdbrain. Old model. Bird- brown jelly, completely covering
full words at her friends, even in son?” his voice was respectful brain. Good they don’t use those Joan.
telepathic contact. She never sent and routine. any more. The thing could have Elaine, meanwhile, ate hun-
mere raw ideas. “Must I?” hurt AMan. Now, I’m printed grily in the palatial room of Eng-
But that’s utterly unlawful. “Of course not, my lady.” from a mouse, a real mouse with lok himself. The food was very,
You’re part of the Instrumental- “None given, then. Close.” lots and lots of brains.” very old, and she had doubts, as
ity. It’s a crime! thought the He saluted and his image fad- He flew toward the central a witch, about its nutritional val-
Lady Goroke. ed from the wall. junkyard with the worn-out ue, but it stilled her hunger. The
She got a giggle for reply. She raised her mind to the sweeper. The sweeper, crippled denizens of Clown Town had de-
You laugh she inquired.
. . .? level of a light clear call. Instru- but still conscious, was trying to clared this room “off limits” to
“I a new Lord
just thought mentality Only —
Instrumental- pick dust off the iron claws which themselves, reasons which
for
might be here. From the Instru- ity Only. I have raised the Police held it. Charley-is-my-darling could not
mentality. Having a look at me.” fev- level 1° by command. Rea- Below them, the Old City make plain. He stood in the
The Lady Goroke was very son, personal disquiet. You know twisted out of sight with its odd doorway and told her what to do
proper and easily shocked. We my voice. You know me. Goroke. geometrical lights. The new city, to find food, to activate the bed
wouldn’t do that! Far across the city —
a police bathed in its soft perpetual glow, out of the floor, to open the bath-
The Lady Arabella thought to ornithopter flapped slowly down shone out against the night of room. Everything was very old-
herself but did not transmit, the street. Fomalhaut III. Beyond them, fashioned and nothing responded
“Not to you, my dear. You’re a The police robot was photog- the everlasting ocean boiled in its to a simple thought or to a mere
blooming prude.” To the other raphing a sweeper, the most elab- private storms. slap.
she transmitted, “Forget it orately malfunctioning sweeper A curious thing happened.
then.” he had ever seen. /^n the actual stage the actors Elaine had washed her hands,
Puzzled and worried, the Lady The sweeper raced down the cannot do much with the had eaten and was preparing for
Goroke thought: Well, all right. road at unlawful speeds, ap- scene of the interlude, where her bath. She had taken most of
Break? proaching three hundred kilom- Joan was cooked in a single night her clothes off, thinking only
“Right-ho. Break.” eters an hour, stopped with a from the size of a child five years that Charley-is-my-darling was
The Lady Goroke frowned to sizzle of plastic on stone, and be- old to the tallness of a miss fif- an animal, not a man, so that it
herself. Sheslapped her wall. gan picking dust-motes off the teen or sixteen. The biological did not matter.
Planet Central, she thought at it. pavement. machine did work well, though Suddenly she knew it did mat-
A mere man sat at a desk. When
the ornithopter reached at the risk of her life. It made ter.
“I am the lady Goroke,” she it,the sweeper took off again, her into a vital, robust
young per- He might be an imderperson
said. rounded two or three corners at son, without changing her mind but he was a man to her. Blush-
“Of course, my lady,” he re- tremendous speed and then set- at all. This is hard for any ac- ing deeply all the way down to
plied. tled down to its idiot job. tress to portray. The storyboxes her neck, she ran into the bath-
52 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 53
IlDoinand called back to him: she have known it? The brown- ’"couldn’t come in here with all ing too. Now we are all going to
“Go away. I will bathe and and-yellow corridor, with its the thought shielding?” do something, even though we
Wake me when you
ttien sleep. gloomy old yellow lights, was just The Lady Pane Ashash lifted may be terminated for it. “May
have to. not before.” as dim and stench-ridden as ever. a wire which trailed back from be” thought she: “shall be” is
“Yes, Elaine.” The people all seemed to have her robot body, “I rigged this up the word. But it is worth it if
“And — and —
”
changed. so that I could use the body. Joan can change the worlds, even
“Yes?” Baby-baby was no longer a Precautions are no use any more. a little bit, even for other
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank mouse-hag, but a woman of con- It’s the other side which will need people.
you very much. Do you know, I siderable force and much tender- the precautions now. A revolution Joan spoke up. Her voice had
never said ‘thank you’ to an un- ness. Crawlie was as dangerous is a way of changing systems and grown with her body, but it was
derperson before.” as a human enemy, staring at people. This is one. You go first, the same dear voice which the
“That’s all right,” said Char- Elaine, her beautiful face gone Elaine. This way.” little dog-girl had had sixteen
ley-is-my-darling with a smile. bland with hidden hate. Charley- “To die? Is that what you hours (they seem sixteen years,
“Most real people don’t. Sleep is-my-darling was gay, friendly mean?” thought Elaine) ago, when Elaine
well, my dear Elaine. When you and persuasive. She thought she The lady Pane Ashash first met her at the door to the
awaken, be ready for great things. could read expressions on the laughed warmly. “You know me tunnel of Englok.
We shall take a star out of the faces of Orson and the S’woman, by now. You know my friends Joan said, “Love is not some-
skies and shall sets thousands of odd though their features were. here. You know what your own thing special, reserved for men
worlds on fire .”
. . After she had gotten through life has been down to now, a alone.
“What’s that?” she said, put- some singularly polite greetings, useless witch in a world which “Love is not proud. Love has
ting her head around the comer she demanded, “What’s happen- did not want you. We may die, no real name. Love is for life
of the bathroom. ing now?” but what we do before we
it’s itself, and we have life.

“Just a figure of speech,” he A new spoke up

smiled. “Just meaning that you
won’t have much time. Rest well.
Don’t forget to put your clothes
in the ladysmaid machine. The
voice a — die that counts. This is Joan go- “We cannot win by fighting.
voice she knew and did not know. ing to meet her destiny. You lead People outnumber us, outgun us,
Elaine glanced over at a niche as far as the Upper City. Then outrun us, outfight us. But people
in the wall. Joan will lead. And then we shall did not create us. Whatever made
The Lady Pane Ashash! And see. people, made us too. You all

ones in Clown Town are all worn who was that with her? “You mean, all these people know that, but will we say the
out. But since we haven’t used Even as she asked herself the are going too?” Joan looked at name?”
this room, yours ought to work.” question, Elaine knew the an- the ranks of the underpeople, who There was a murmur of no and
“Which is it?” she said. swer. It was Joan, grown, only were beginning to form into two never from the crowd.
“The red lid with the gold half a head less tall than the queues down the corridor. The “You have waited for me. I
handle. Just lift it.” On that dom- Lady Pane Ashash or herself. It queues bulged wherever moth- have waited too. It is time to die,
estic note he left her to rest, was a new Joan, powerful, happy, ers led their children by the hand perhaps, but we will die the way
while he went off and plotted the and quiet; but it was all the dear or carried small ones in their people did in the beginning, be-
destiny of a hundred billion lives. old D’joan too.
little arms. Here and there the line fore things became easy and
“Welcome,” said the lady Pane was punctuated by a giant under- cruel for them. They live in a

T hey
ing
told her it was mid-morn-
when she came out
How
of
Ashash, “to our revolution.”
“What’s a revolution?” asked
^aine. “And thought you
person.
They have been nothing,
thought Elaine, and I was noth-
stupor and they die in a dream.
It is not a good dream and if they
awaken, they will know that we
tiie room of Englok. could I

54 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 55


are people too. Are you with
me?” They murmured yes. “Do
you love me?” Again they mur-
mured agreement. “Shall we go
out and meet the day?” They
shouted their acclaim.
Joan turned to the Lady Pane
Ashash. “Is everything as you
wished and ordered?”
“Yes,” said the dear dead wom-
an in the robot body. “Joan
first, to lead you. Elaine preced-
ing her, to drive away robots or
ordinary underpeople. When you
meet real people, you will love
them. That is all. You will love
them. If they kill you, you will
love them. Joan will show you
how. Pay no further attention to
me. Ready?”
Joan lifted her right hand and
said words to herself. The people
bowed their heads before her,
faces and muzzles and snouts of
all sizes and colors. A baby of
some kind mewed in a tiny fal-
setto to the rear.
Just before she turned to lead
the procession, Joan turned back
to the people and said, “Crawlie,
where are you?”
“Here, in the middle,” said a
clear, calm voice far back.
“Do you love me now, Craw-
lie?”
“No, D’joan. I like you less
than when you were a little dog.
But these are my people too, as
well as yours. I am brave. I can
walk. I won’t make trouble.”
56
“Crawlie,” said Joan, “will you
love people if we meet them?”
A 11 faces turned toward
beautiful bison-girl. Elaine
could just see her, way down the
murky corridor. Elaine could see
that the girl’s face had turned
utter, dead white with emotion.
Whether rage or fear, she could
not tell.
At last Crav/lie spoke, “No, I
won’t love people. And I won’t
love you. 1 have my pride.”
Softly, softly, like death itself
at a quiet bedside, Joan spoke.
“You can stay behind, Crawlie.
You can stay here. It isn’t much
of a chance, but it's a chance.”
Crawlie looked at her, “Bad
luck to you, dog-woman, and bad
luck to the rotten human being
up there beside you.”
Elaine stood on tiptoe to see
what would happen. Crawlie’s
face suddenly disappeared, drop-
ping downward.
The snake woman elbowed her
way to the front, stood close to
Joan where the others could see
her, and sang out in a voice as
clear as metal itself:
“Sing ‘poor, poor, Crawlie,’
dear people. Sing ‘I love Craw-
lie,’ dear people. She is dead. I
just killed her so that we would
all be love. I love you
full of
too,” said theS’woman, on whose
reptilian featuresno sign of love
or hate could be seen.
GALAXY
Joan spoke up, apparently
prompted by the lady Pane Ash-
ash. “We do love Crawlie, dear
people. Think of her and then
the
letus move forward.”
Charley-is - my - darling gave
Elaine a little shove. “Here, you
lead.”
In a dream, in a bewilderment,
Elaine led.
warm, happy, brave
She felt
when she passed the
close to
strange Joan, so tall and yet so
familiar. Joan gave her a full
smile and whispered, “Tell me
I’m doing well, human woman.
I’m a dog and dogs have lived a
million years for the praise of
man.”
“You’re right, you’re
Joan,
completely right! I’m with you.
Shall I go now?” responded
Elaine.
Joan nodded, her eyes brim-
ming with tears.
Elaine led.
Joan and the Lady Pane Ash-
ash followed, dog and dead wom-
an championing the procession.
The rest of the underpeople
followed them in turn, in a
double line.
When they made the secret
door open, daylight flooded the
corridor. Elaine could almost feel
the stale odor-ridden air pouring
out with them. When she glanced
back into the tunnel for the last
time, she saw the body of Craw-
lie lying all alone on the floor.
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
Elaine herself turned to the
and began going up them.
steps
No one had yet noticed the
procession.
Elaine could hear the wire of
the Lady Pane Ashash dragging
on the stone and metal of the
steps as they climbed.
When she reached the top door,
Elaine had a moment of indecis-
ion and panic. “This is my life,
my life,” she thought. “I have no
'What have I done? Oh,
other.
Hunter, Hunter, where are you?
Have you betrayed me?”
Said Joan softly behind her,
“Go on! Go on. This is a war of
love. Keep going.”
Elaine opened the door to the
upper street. The roadway was
full of people. Three police or-
nithopters flapped slowly over-
head. This was an unusual num-
ber. Elaine stopped again.
“Keep walking,” said Joan,
“and warn the robots off.”
Elaine advanced and the revo-
lution began.
VIII
'^he revolution lasted six min-
utes and covered one him-
dred and twelve meters.
The police flew over as soon
as the underpeople began pour-
ing out of the doorway.
The first one glided in like a
big bird, his voice asking, “Iden-
tify! Who are you?”
57
 Elaine said, ‘‘Gro away. That is goat-man’s voice. He stood •nake woman had him draped His eye-lenses were like dark-
a command.” mouth slack and body relaxed over her arm like an empty over- blue marbles floating in milk.
“Identify yourself,” thesaid with sheer, utter and accepted coat and was looking for some- They seemed swimmy and poor-
bird-like machine, banking steep- surprise. body else to love. ly-focused as he looked her over.
ly with the lens-eyed robot peer- Somewhere to the rear a per- Behind Elaine a low voice said, He did not reply but stepped
ing at Elaine out of its middle. son screamed. “He’s coming soon.” around her, faster than her own
“Go away,” said Elaine. “I am A police omithopter came flap- “Who?” said Elaine to the body could intercept him. He
a true human and I command.” ping back. Elaine could not tell Lady Pane Ashash, knowing per- made for the dear, dead Lady
The first police omithopter if it was one of the three she had fectly well whom she meant, but Pane Ashash.
apparently called tn the others sent away, or a new one altogeth- i
not wanting to admit it, and busy Elaine, bewildered, realized
by radio. Together they flapped er. She waited for it to get close | with watching the circling orni- that the Lady’s robot body seem-
theirway down the corridor be- enough to hail, so that she could thopter at the same time. ed more human than ever. The
tween the big buildings. tell it to go away. For the first “The Hunter, of course,” said robot-sergeant confronted her.
A lot of people had stopped. time, she wondered about the the robot with dear dead
the This is the scene which we all
Most of their faces were blank, actual physical character of dan- lady’s voice. “He’ll come
for you. remember, the first authentic pic-
a few showing
animation or ger. Could the police machine | You’ll be all I’m at the
right. ture tape of the entire incident:
amusement or horror at the sight put a slug through her? Or shoot | end of my wire. Look away, my The gold and black sergeant,
of so many underpeople all flame at her? Or lift her scream- dear. They are about to kill me his milky eyes staring at the
crowded in one place. ing, carrying her away with its again and I am afraid that the Lady Pane Ashash.
Joan’s voice sang out, in the iron claws to some place where sight would distress you.” The Lady herself, in the pleas-
clearest possible enunciation of she would be pretty and clean j
Fourteen robots, foot models, ant old robot body, lifting a com-
the Old Common Tongue: and never herself again? “Oh, marched with military decision manding hand.
“Dear people, we are people. Hunter, Hunter, where are you into the crowd. The true humans Elaine, distraught, half-turning
We love you. We love you.” now? Have you forgotten me? I
took heart from this and some of as though she would grab the
The underpeople began to Have you betrayed me?” i them began to slip away into robot by his right arm. Her head
chant lov«, love, love in a weird The underpeople were still doorways. Most of the real peo- is moving so rapidly that her
plainsong full of sharps and half- surging forward and mingling ple were still so surprised that black hair swings as she turns.
tones. The true humans shrank with with the real people, clutch- i
they stood around with the un- Charley-is-my-darling shout-
back. Joan herself set the ex- ing them by their hands or their j
derpeople pawing at them, bab- ing, “I love, love, love!” at a
ample by embracing a young garments and repeating in the ] bling the accents of love over and small handsome man with mouse-
woman of about her own height queer medley of voices: over again, the animal origin of colored hair. The man is gulp-
Charley-is-my-darling took a hu- “I love you. Oh, please, I love their voices showing plainly. ing and saying nothing.
man man by the shoulders and you! We are people. We are your The robot sergeant took no All this we know.
shouted at him: sisters and brothers ...” note of this. He approached the Then comes the unbelievable,
“I love you, my dear fellow! The snake-woman wasn’t mak- Lady Pane Ashash only to find which we now believe, the event
Believe me, I do love you. It’s ing much progress. She had seized Elaine standing in his way. for which the stars and skylanes
wonderful meeting you.” The hu- a human man with her more- “I command you,” she said, were unprepared.
man man was startled by the than-iron hand. Elaine hadn’t with all the passion of a working Mutiny.
contact and even more startled seen her saying anything, but the witch, “I command you to leave Robot mutiny.
by the glowing warmth of the man had fainted dead away. The this place.” Disobedience in t^en daylight.

58 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 59


T he words are hard
the tape, but
we can still
The recording
make them out.
device on the police ornithopter
had gotten a square fix on the
face of the Lady Pane Ashash.
Lip-readers can see the words
plainly; non-lip-readers can hear
the words the third or fourth
time the tape is run tl. rough the
eyebox.
Said the Lady, “Overridden.”
Said the sergeant, “No, you’re
a robot.”
“See for yourself.
brain. am a robot.
I I
woman. You cannot disobey peo-
ple. I am people. I love you.
Furthermore, you are people.
You think. We love each other.
Try. Try to attack.”
“I —I cannot,” said the robot
sergeant, his milky eyes seeming
to spin with excitement. “You
love me? You mean I’m alive? I
exist?”
“With love, you do,” said the
Lady Pane Ashash. “Look at
her,” said theLady, pointing to
Joan, “because she has brought
you love.”
The robot looked and disobey-
ed the law. His squad looked
with him.
He turned back to the Lady
and bowed to her: “Then you
know what we must do, if we
cannot obey you and cannot dis-
obey the others.”
“Do it,” she said sadly, “but
60
Fourteen robots, the black-
are doing. You
to hear
on know what you
are
human
not escaping two
really
commands. You are mak-
and-gold sergeant a.nd his thir-
teen silver-blue foot soldiers, sud-
denly spurted white fire in the
ing a choice. You. That makes Kalma. They detonated
street of
you men.” suicide buttons, th.c-rmlte
their
The sergeant turned to his
caps in their own heads. They
squad of man-sized robots: “You
had done something with no !iu-
hear that? She says we are men.
rnan command at all, on an or-
I believe her. Do you believe
der from another robot, the body
her?”
of the Lady Pane Ashash, and
“We do,” they cried almost
she in turn had no human au-
unanimously.
thority, but merely the word of
This is where the picture-tape
the little dog-girl Joan, who had
ends, but we can imagine how
been made an adult in a single
Read my the scene was concluded. Elaine
night.
am also a had stopped short, just behind
Fourteen white flames made
the sergeant-robot. The other
people and underpeople turn
robots had come up behind her.
their eyes aside. Into the light
Charley-is-my-darling had stop-
there dropped a special police
ped talking. Joan was in the act
Out of it came the
ornithopter.
of lifting her hands in blessing,
two Ladies, Arabella Underwood
her warm brown dog eyes gone
and Goroke. They lifted their
wide with pity and understand-
forearms to shield their eyes
ing.
from the blazing dying robots.
People wrote down the things
They did not see the Hunter,
that we cannot see.
who had moved mysteriously in-
Apparently the robot-sergeant
to an open window above the
said, “Our love, dear people, and
street and who watched the scene
good-by. Wedisobey and die.”
by putting his hands over his
He waved his hand to Joan. It is
eyes and peeking through the
not certain whether he did or did
slits between his fingers. While
not say, “Good-by, our lady and
the people still stood blinded,
our liberator.” Maybe some
they felt the fierce telepathic
poet made up the second saying:
shock of the mind of the Lady
the first one, we are sure about.
Goroke taking command of the
And we are sure about the next
situation. That was her right, as
word, the one which historians
a Chief of the Instrumentality.
and poets all agree on. He turn-
men and Some of the people, but not all
ed to his said,
of them, felt the outre counter-
“Destruct.”
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 61
abock of Joan’s mind reaching pxestroy them Pane Ashash. He touched it with him, openly and in public; “A
all, said the Lady
his staff, and the staff turned trial, then.”
out to meet the Lady Goroke. Goroke.
cherry-red with heat. The robot- In his anger he nodded at her.
“I command,” thought the “Why?” thought the Lady Ara-
Lady Goroke, her mind kept bella Underwood. body, its head suddenly drained, He would not think or speak to
fell to the ground in a heap of her in the presence of all the
open to all beings. Malfunction, replied Goroke.
icy crystals. other people.
“Indeed you do, but I love, I “But they’re not machines!”
love you,” thought Joan. Then they’re animals un- — Elaine walked between the A soldier brought Elaine and
The first-order forces met. derpeople. Destroy! Destroy! frigid rubbish and the red-hot Hunter before him.
She had seen Hunter “Sir and master, these are peo-
They engaged. Then came the answer which staff.
She missed seeing the soldier ple, not underpeople. But they
The revolution was over. Noth- has created our own time. It
ing had really happened, but came from the Lady Arabella who came up to Jor darted to have dog-thoughts, cat-thoughts,
Joan had forced people Underwood, and all Kalma heard bind her and then fell back weep- goat-thoughts and robot-ideas in
to meet
her. This was notliing like the ing, babbling, “She loves me! She their heads. Do you wish to
it;

poem about people and under-
people getting all mixed up. The
mixup came much later, even af-
ter the time of C’mell. The poem
is pretty, but is it dead wrong, as
you can see for yourself
You should ask me.
Me. me, me,
Because I know — The Lady Pane Ashash said
I used to live
On the Eastern Shore.
Men aren’t men.
And women aren’t women,
And people aren’t people any more.
Perhaps they are people. They loves me!” look?”
mu.st have a trial. The Lord Femtiosex, who com- “Why look?” said the Lord
The manded the inflying soldiers, Femtiosex, who was as blonde as
Joan dropped to
dog-girl
her knees. “I have succeeded, 1 bound Joan with cord despite her the ancient pictures of Baldur,
have succeeded, I have suc- talking. and oftentimes that arrogant as
ceeded! You can kill me, dear Grimly he answered her: “Of well. “The Lord Limaono is ar-
people, but I love, love, love course you love me. You’re a riving. That’s all of us. We can
you!” good dog. You’ll die soon, doggy, have the here and now.”
trial
Elaine felt cords bite into her
but till then, you’ll obey.”
quietly to Elaine, “I thought I “I’m obeying,” said Joan, “but wrists; she heard the Hunter
I’m a dog and a person. Open murmur comforting words to her,
would be dead by now. Really
dead, at last. But I am not. I your mind, man, and you’ll feel words which she did not quite
understand.
hpve seen the worlds turn, Elaine, it.”

and you have seen them turn Apparently he did open his “They will not kill us,” he
There is no Eastern Shore on mind and felt the ocean of love murmured, “though we will wish
with me.”
Fomalhaut III anyhow; the peo- him. It shocked they had, before this day is out.
The underpeople had fallen riptiding into
ple/underpeople crisis came much Everything is happening as she
quiet as they heard the high- him. His arm swung up and back,
later than this. The revolution
volume telepathic exchange be- the edge of the hand striking at said it would, and —
had failed, but history had reach- Joan’s neck for the ancient kill. “Who is that she?” interrupted
tween the two great Ladies.
ed its new turning-point, the “No, you don’t,” thought the Elaine.
The real soldiers dropped out
quarrel of the two Ladies. They Lady Arabella Underwood. “That “She? The lady, of course. The
of the sky, their ornithopters
left their' minds
open out of sheer
whistling as they hawked down child is going to get a proper dear dead Lady Pane Ashash,
surprise. Suicidal robots and who has worked wonders after
to the ground. They ran up to trial.”
world-loving dogs were unheard-
the underpeople and began bind- He looked at her and glared, her own death, merely with the
was bad enough to have il-
of. It
Chief doesn’t strike Chief, my print of her personality on the
ing them with cord.
legalunderpeople on the prowl,
One Lady. Let go my arm. machine. “Who do you think told
but these new things ah — I
at the robot
soldier took a single look
body of the Lady Thought the Lady Arabella at me what to do? Why did we wait
62 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 63
for you to condition Joan to see something which would ease '
shows in her smile: it is con- The words of the trial, they too
greatness? Why did the people the boredom of perfection and fident. have survived. Many of them
way down in Clown Town keep time. They all had numbers or And the judges! have became famous, aU across
on raising one D’joan after an- number- codes instead of names. The artist has them, too. The the worlds.
Lord Femtiosex, calm again, his Joan said, during inquiry, “But
other, hoping that hope and a They were handsome, well, dully
narrow sharp lips expressing per- it is the duty of life to find more
great wonder would occur?” happy. They even looked a great
petual rage against a universe than life, and to exchange itself
“You knew?” said Elaine. “You deal alike, similar in their hand-
which has grown too small for for that higher goodness.”
knew before
. . .it happened?” someness, their health and their
“Of course,” said the Hunter, underlying boredom. All of them him. The Lord Limaono, wise, Joan commented, upon sen-
“not exactly, but more or less. had a total of four hundred years twice-rebom, sluggardly, but tence. “My body is your proper-
She had had hundreds of years to live. None of them knew real alert as asnake behind the sleepy ty, but my love is not. My love

after death inside that computer. war, even though the extreme eyes and the slow smile. The is my own, and I shall love you
Lady Arabella Underwood, the fiercely while you kill me.”
She had time for billions of readiness of the soldiers showed
thoughts. She saw how it would vain practice of hundreds of tallest true-human present, with When the soldiers had killed

be if it had to be, and I
“Shut up, you people!” roared
the Lord Femtiosex. “You are
making the animals restless with
your babble. Shut up, or I will
— years. The people were beautiful,
but they felt themselves useless,
and they were quietly desperate
without knowing it themselves.
This is all clear from the paint-
her Norstrilian pride and the ar- Charley-is-my-darling and were
rogance of great wealth, along trying to hack off the head of the
with the capricious tenderness of S’woman until one of them
great wealth, showing in the way thought to freeze her into crys-
that she sat, judging her fellow- tals, Joan said:

stun you!” ing, and from the wonderful way judges instead of the prisoners. “Should we be strange to you,
Elaine fell silent. that San Shigonanda has of form- The Lady Goroke, bewildered at we animals of earth that you
The Lord Femtiosex glanced ing them in informal ranks and last, frowning at a play of for- have brought to the stars? We
around at her, ashamed at hav- tune which she does not under- shared the same sun, the same
letting the calm blue light of day
stand. The artist has it all. oceans, the same sky. We are all
ing made his anger naked before shine down on their handsome,
another person. He added quiet- hopeless features. And you have the real view- from Manhome. How do you
tapes, too, if you want to go to a know that we would not have
ly: With the underpeople, the ar-
‘museum. The reality is not as caught up with you if we had all
“The trial is about to begin. tistperforms real wonders.
dramatic as the famous painting, stayed at home together? My
The one that the tall Lady or- Joan herself is bathed in light.
but it has value of its own. The people were dogs. They loved
dered.” Her light brown hair and her
doggy brown eyes express soft- voice of Joan, dead these many you before you made a woman-
centuries, is still strangely mov- shaped thing out of my mother.
IX ness and tenderness. He even
ing. It the voice of a dog-
is Should I not love you still? The
conveys the idea that her new
carved-into-man, but it is also miracle is not that you have
X/'ou all know about the trial, body is terribly new and strong,
so there is no need to linger that she is virginal and ready to the voice of a great lady. The made people out of us. The mir-
image of the Lady Pane Ashash acle is that it took us so long to
over it. There is another picture die, that she is a mere girl and
must have taught her that, along understand it. We are people
of San Shigonanda, the one from yet completely fearless. The pos-
with what she had learned from now, and so are you. You will be
his conventional period, which ture of love shows in her legs:
Elaipe and Hunter in the ante- sorry for what you are going to
shows it very plainly. she stands lightly. Love shows in
chamber above the Brown and do to me, but remember that I
The street had filled full of her hands: they are turned out-
Yellow Corridor of Englok. shall love your sorrow, too, be-
real people, crowding together to ward toward the judges. Love
64 GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 69
cause great and good things will
come out of it.”
The Lord Limaono slyly ask-
ed, “What is a ‘miracle’?”
And her words were, “There is
knowledge from Earth which
you have not yet found again.
There is the name of the Name-
less one. There are secrets hidden
in time from you. Only the dead
and the unborn can know them
right now: I am both.”
^^he scene is familiar,
we will never understand
We know what the lords Fem-
tiosexand Limaono thought they
were doing. They were maintain-
ing established order and they
were putting it on tape. The
minds of men can live together
only if the basic ideas are com-
municated. Nobody has, even
now, found out a way to record-
ing telepathy directly into an in-
strument. We
get pieces and
snatches and wild jumbles, but
we never get a satisfactory record
of what one of the great ones
was trasmitting to another. The
two male chiefs were trying to
put on record all those things
about the episode which would
teach careless people not to play
with the lives of the underpeo-
ple. They were even trying to
make underpeople understand
the rules and designs by virtue
of which they had been trans-
formed from animals into the
66
highest servants of man. This
would have been hard to do, giv-
en the bewildering events of the
last few hours, even from one
Chief of the Instrumentality to
another; for the general public,
it was almost impossible. The
outpouring from the Brown and
Yellow Corridor was wholly un-
expected, even though the Lady
Goroke had surprised D’joan;
the mutiny of the robot police
posed problems which would
and yet have to be discussed halfway
it. across the galaxy. Furthermore,
the dog-girl was making points
which had some verbal validity.
If they were left in the form of
mere words without proper con-
text, they might affect heedless
or impressionable minds. A bad
idea can spread like a mutated
germ. If it is at all interesting,
it can leap from one mind to an-
other halfway across the universe
before it has a stop put to it.
Look at the ruinous fads and
foolish fashions which have
nuisanced mankind even in the
ages of the highest orderliness.
We today know that variety,
flexibility,danger and the sea-
soning of a little hate can make
love and life bloom as they never
bloomed before; we know
it is
better to live with the complica-
tions of thirteen thousand old
languages resurrected from the
dead ancient past than it is to
live with the cold blind-alley
GALAXY
perfection of the Old Common
Tongue. We know a lot of things
which the Lords Femtiosex and
Limaono did not, and before we
consider them stupid or cruel, we
must remember that centuries
passed before mankind finally
came to grips with the problem
of the underpeople and decided
what “life” was within the limits
of the human community.
Finally, we have the testimony
of the two Lords themselves.
They both lived
very ad-
to
vanced ages, and toward the end
of their lives they were worried
and annoyed to find that the
episode of D’joan overshadowed
all the bad things which had not
happened during their long
careers — bad things which
labored to forestall for the pro-
tection of the planet Fomalhaut
III — and they were distressed
to see themselves portrayed as
casual, cruel men when in fact
they were nothing of the sort. If
they had seen that the story of
Joan on Fomalhaut III would
get to be what it is today one
of the great romances of man-
kind, along with the story of
C’mell or the romance of the
lady who sailed The Soul they — worlders anyhow. The Norstri-
would not only have been dis-
appointed, but they would have
been justifiably angry at the
fickleness of mankind as
Their roles are clear, because
they made them clear. The Lord
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
Femtiosex accepts the responrf-
bility for the notion of fire; the
Lord Limaono agrees that he
concurred in the decision. Both
of them, many years later, re-
viewed the tapes of the scene and
agreed that something which the
Lady Arabella Underwood had
said or thought —
Something had made them do
it.
But even with the tapes to re-
freshand clarify their memories,
they could not say what.
We have even put computers
on the job of cataloguing every
word and every inflection of the
whole trial, but they have not
pinpointed the critical point ei-
ther.
had And the Lady Arabella — no-
body ever questioned her. They
didn’t dare. She went back to her
own planet of Old North Aus-
tralia surrounded by the im-
,
mense treasure of the santaclara
drug, and no planet is going to
pay at the rate of two thousand
million credits a day for the
— privilege of sending an investiga-
tor to talk to a lot of obstinate,
simple, wealthy Norstrilian peas-
ants who will not talk to off-
lians charge that sum for the ad-
mission of any guest not selected
by theirown initiative so we will
well. their own invitation; so we will
never know what the lady Ara-
bella Underwood said or did af-
67
ter she went home. The Norstri-
lians said they did not wish to
discuss the matter, and if we do
not wish to go back to living a
mere seventy years we had better
not anger the only planet which
produces stroon.
And the Lady Goroko — she,
poor thing, went mad.
People did not know it till
later, but there was no word to
be gotten out of her. She per-
formed the odd actions which we
now know to be a part of the
dynasty of Lords Jestocost, who
forced themselves by diligence
and merit upon the Instrumen-
tality for two hundred and more
years. But on the case of Joan
she had nothing to say.
The trial is therefore a scene
about which we know everything
— and nothing.
We think that we know the
physical facts of the life of D’joan
who became Joan. We know
about the Lady Pane Ashash who
whispered endlessly to the under-
people about a justice yet to
come. We know the whole life
of the unfortunate Elaine and of
her involvement with the case.
We know that there were in
those centuries, when underpeo-
ple first developed, many war-
rens in which illegal underpeople
used their near-human wits, their
animal cunning and their gift of
speech to survive even when
mankind had declared them sur-
68
plus. The Brown and Yellow
Corridor was not by any means
the only one of its kind. We even
know what happened to the Hun-
ter.
For the other underpeople
Charley-is-my-darling, Baby-
baby, Mabel, the S’woman, Or-
son and all the others —
we have
the tapes of the trial itself. They
were not tried by anybody. They
were put to death by the soldiers
on the spot, as soon as it was
plain that their testimony would
not be needed. As witnesses, they
could live a few minutes or an
hour; as animals, they were al-
ready outside the regulations.
we know all about that
A h,
now, and yet know nothing.
Dying is simple, though we tend
to hide it away. The how of dy-
ing is a minor scientific matter;
the when of dying is a problem
to each of us, whether he lives
the old-fashioned 400-year-life
planets or on the radical new
ones where the freedoms of dis-
ease and accident have been re-
introduced; the why of it is still
as shocking to us as it was to
pre-atomic man, who used to
cover farmland with the boxed
bodies of his dead. These under-
people died as no animals had
ever died before. Jo5dully.
One mother held her children
up for the soldier to kill them
alL
GALAXY
She must have been of rat
origin, because she had septup-
lets in closely matching form.
The tape shows us the picture
of the soldier getting ready.
— The rat-woman greets
with a smile and holds up her
seven babies. Little blondes they
are, wearing pink or blue bon-
nets, all of them with glowing
cheeks and bright little blue eyes.
“Put them on the ground,”
said the soldier. “I’m going to
kill you and them too.” On the
tape, we can hear the nervous
peremptory edge of his voice. He
added one word, as though he
had already begun to think that
he had to justify himself to these
underpeople. “Orders,” he added.
“It doesn’t matter if I hold
them, soldier. I’m their mother.
They’ll feel better if they die
easily with their mother near. I
love you, soldier. I love all peo-
ple. You are my brother, even
on
though my blood is rat blood and
yours is human. Go ahead and
kill them soldier. I can’t even
hurt you. Can’t you imderstand
it? I love you, soldier. We share a
common speech, common hopes,
common fears, and a common
death. That what Joan has
is
taught us all. Death is not bad,
soldier. It just comes badly,
sometimes, but you will remem-
ber me after you have killed me
and my babies. You will remem-
ber that I love you now — as though his heat-remover
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
The soldier, we see on the
tape, can stand it no longer. He
clubs his weapon, knocks the
woman down; the babies scatter
on the groimd. We
see his booted
him heel rise up and crush down
against their heads. We hear the
wet popping sound of the little
heads breaking, the sharp cut-off
of the baby wails as they die. We
get one last view of the rat-
woman herself. She had stood up
again by the time the seventh
baby She offers her
is killed.
hand to the soldier to shake. Her
face is dirty and bruised, a trickle
of blood running down her left
cheek. Even now, we know she
is a rat, an underperson, a modi-
fied animal, a nothing. And yet
we, even we across the centuries,
feel that she had somehow be-
come more of a person than we
—
are that she dies human and
fulfilled. We
know that she has
triumphed over death: we have
not.
We see the soldier looking
straight at her with eerie horror,
as though her simple love, were
some unfathomable device from
an alien source.
We hear her next words on the
tape:
“Soldier, I love all of you —
His weapon could have killed
her in a fraction of a second, if
he had used it properly. But he
didn’t. He clubbed and
it hit her,
had
69
 ”

meet in the excitement of battle. man. There is no death. Not for dier could not use pellets or heat-
been a wooden club and himself
All the underpeople died that love. Ho, ho, ho, poor fellow, reducers on him without hurting
a wild man instead of part of the
guard of Kalma. way. Most of them died smiling, don’t be afraid of me. Shoot! an actual human being. He ran
elite
You’re the unlucky one. You’re and jumped and dodc,ad,
We know what happens then. saying the word “love” or the fight-
name “Joan.” going to live. And remember. ing passively but desperately for
She falls under his blows. She
points. Points straight at Joan, The bear-man Orson had been And remember. And remember. his life.

wrapped in fire and smoke.
The rat-woman screams one
last time, screams into the lens
of the robot camera as though
she were talking not to the sol-
dier but to all mankind:
“You can’t kill her.
kill love. I love you,
love you. You can’t
Remember — that manner, they could stop
His last blow catches her
the face.
She falls back on the pave-
ment. He thrusts his foot, as we
can see by the tape, directly on
her throat. He leaps forward in
an odd bringing his full
little jig,
weight down on her fragile neck.
He swings while stamping down-
ward, and we then see his face,
full on in the camera.
It is the face of a weeping
child, bewildered by hurt and
shocked by the prospect of more
hurt to come.
He had started to do his duty,
and duty had gone wrong,
wrong.
poor man. He must have been
one of the first men in the
new worlds who tried to use
weapons against love. Love is a
sour and powerful ingredient to
kept to the very end.
He died very oddly. He
laughing.
The his
soldier lifted
thrower and aimed straight at
it
forehead. The pellets
Orson’s
You can’t were 22 millimeters in diameter
soldier, and had a muzzle velocity of
kill that. only 125 meters per second. In
recalcitrant robots or evil under-
in
people, without any risk of pene-
trating buildings and hurting the
true people who might be inside,
out of sight.
Orson looks, on the tape the
robots made, as though he knows
perfectly well what the weapon
is. (He probably did. Underpeo-
ple used to live with the danger
of a violent death hanging over
them from birth until removal.)
He shows no fear of it. in the
pictures we have; he begins to
laugh. His laughter is warm, gen-
erous, relaxed —
like the friendly
laughter of a happy foster-father
all
who has found a guilty and em-
barrassed child, knowing full well
that the child expects punish-
ment but will not get it.
“Shoot, man. You can’t kill
me, man. I’m in your mind. I
love you. Joan taxxght us. Listen
I’ve made you human, fellow.”
died The soldier croaks, “What did
you say?”
pellet- “I’m saving you, man. I’m
turning you into a real human
being. With the power of Joan.
The power of love. Poor guy! go
ahead and shoot me if it makes
you uncomfortable to wait. You’ll
do it anyhow.”
This time we do not see the
soldier’s face, but the tightness of
his back and neck betray his own
internal stress.
We see the big broad bear face
blossom forth in an immense
splash of red as the soft heavy
pellet plow into it.
Then the camera turns
something else.
A little boy, probably a fox,
but very finished in his human
shape.
He was bigger than a baby,
but not big enough, like the
larger underchildren, to have un-
derstood the deathless import-
ance of Joan’s teaching.
He was the only one of the
group who behaved like an or-
dinary underperson. He broke
and ran.
He was clever: He ran among
the spectators, so that the sol-
At last one of the spectators —
a tall man with a silver hat —
tripped him up. The fox-boy fell
to the pavement, skinning his
palms and knees.
Just as he
looked up to see who might be
coming at him, a bullet caught
him neatly in the head. He fell
a little way forward, dead.
People die. We know how they
die. We
have seen them die shy
and quiet in the Dying Houses.
We have seen others go into the
400-year-rooms, which have no
door-knobs and no cameras on
the inside. We have seen pic-
tures of many dying in natural
disasters, where the robot crews
to took picture-tap^3 for the record
and the investigation later on.
Death is not uncommon, and it
is very unpleasant.
But
this time, death itself was
different. All the fear of death —
except for the one little fox-boy,
too young to understand and too
old to wait for death in his moth-
er’s arms —
had gone out of the
underpeople. They met death
willingly, with love and calm-
ness in their bodies, their voices,
theirdemeanor. It did not mat-
ter whether they lived long
enough to know what happened

GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN

70 71
to Joan herself: they had perfect his ri^t hand in the traditional I ticularframe of scenes, one can tracelike state and shared the
confidence in her, anyway. sign for "beg to interrupt,” an '
see some of the spectators going judgment.
This indeed was the new wea- odd twist of the elevated hand away. It was time for lunch and
pon, love and the good death. which the actors have found it they had become hungry: they oan began to sing in a soft,

Crawlie, with her pride, had very difficult to copy when they
whole story of
had no idea that they were going J protesting, dog-like wail, us-
missed it all.
tried to put the to miss the greatest atrocity in ing the off-key plainsong which
The investigators later found Joan and Elaine into a single about which a thousand
history, the underpeople had sung just
the body of Crawlie in the cor- drama. (In fact, he had no more I
and more grand operas would be before their hour of decision
ridor. It was possible to recon- idea that future ages would be written. when they left the Brown and
studying his casual appearance
}

struct who she had been and Femtiosex then moved to the Yellow Corridor. Her words were
what had happened to her. The than did the others. The whole j

.^climax.“More knowledge, not nothing special, repetitions of the

episode was characterized by
I

computer in which the bodiless '

less,is the answer to this prob- “people, dear people, I love you”
image of the Lady Pane Ashash haste and precipitateness, in the lem. I have heard about some- which she had been communica-
light of what we now know.) The
survived for a few days after the thing which is not as bad as the ting ever since she came to the
trial was, of course, found and
Lord Limaono says: Planet Shayol, but which can do surface of Kalma. But the way
disassembled. Nobody thought at “Interruption refused. We are
just as well for an exhibit on a she did it has defied imitation
the time to get her opinions and making a decision.”
civilized world. You there,” said across the centuries. There are
last words. A lot of historians
The Chief of Birds spoke up
he to Fisi, the Chief of Birds, thousands of lyrics and melodies
have gnashed their teeth over anyhow. “bring oil and a spray. Immedi- which call themselves, one' way
that. “My words are for your decis- ately.” and another, The Song of Joan,
The details are therefore clear. ion, my Lords and my Ladies.”
Joan looked at him with com- but none of them come near to
The archives even preserve the “Say it, then,” commanded the passion and longing, but she said the heart-wrenching pathos of
long interrogation and responses Lady Goroke, “but be brief.” nothing. She suspected what he the original tapes. The singing,
concerning Elaine, when she was “Shut down the viewers. De-
was going to do. As a girl, as a like her own personality, was
processed and made clear after stroy that animal. Brainwash the
dog, she hated it; as a revolution- unia.ue.
the trial. But we do not know spectators. Get amnesia your-
ary,she welcomed it as the con- The appeal was deep. Even the
selves, for this one hour. This
how the idea of “fire” came in. summation of her mission. real people tried to listen, shift-
Somewhere, beyond sight of whole scene is dangerous. I am
The Lord Femtiosex lifted his ing their eyes from the four im-
word must
the tape-scanner, the nothing but a supervisor of omi-
right hand. He curled the ring mobile Chiefs of the Instrumen-
have been passed between the thopters, keeping perfect order,
— finger and the little finger, put- tality to the brown-eyed singing
four Chiefs of the Instrumental- but I
ting his thumb over them. That girl. Some of them just could not
ity who were conducting the
“We have heard enough,” said
left the first two fingers extend- stand it. In true human fashion,
trial. There is the protest of the
the Lord Femtiosex. “You man-
ed straighf out. At' that time, they forgot why they were there
Head of Birds (Robot), or police age your birds and we’U run the
the sign from one Chief to an- and went absent-mindly home to
chief of Kalma, a Subchief worlds. How do you dare to
other, meaning, “private chan- lunch.
named Fisi. think ‘like a Chief’? We have re-
nels, telepathic, immediate.” It Suddenly Joan stopped.
The records show his appear- sponsibihties which you can’t
even guess Stand back.” has since been adopted by under- Her voice ringing clearly across
ance. He
comes in at the right at.
people as their emblem for poli- the crowd, she cried out:
side of the scene, bows respect- Fisi, the pictures, stands
in
back, his face sullen. In that par-
tical unity. “The end is near, dear people.
fully to the four Chiefs and lifts
The four Chiefs went into a The end is near.”
GALAXY
72 THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 73
 Eyes all shifted
Lords and the two Ladies of the
Instrumentality. The Lady Ara-
bella Underwood looked- grim af-
ter the telepathic conference.
Lady Goroke was haggard with
wordless grief. The two Lords
looked severe and resolved.
It was the Lord Femtiosex who
spoke.
“We have tried you, animal.
Your offense is great.
lived illegally.For that the pen-
alty is death. You have interfer-
ed with robots in some manner
which we do not understand. For
that brand-new crime, the penal-
ty should be more than death;
and I have recommended a pim-
ishment which was applied on a
planet of the Violet Star.
have also said many unlawful
and improper things, detracting
from the happiness and security
of mankind. For that the penalty
is reeducation, but since you
have two death sentences al-
ready, this does not matter. Do
you have anything to say before
I pronounce sentence?”
“If you light a fire today, my
lord, it will never be put out in
the hearts of men. You can de-
stroy me. You can reject my
love. You cannot destroy the
goodness in yourselves, no mat-
ter how much goodness may an-
ger you — crowd.
“Shut up!” he roared. “I asked
a speech. You will
for a plea, not
74
L
to the two die by fire, here and now. What beside her, cramp sharply. He hend the senselessness of human
do you say to that?” seemed to strain intensely. For cruelty.
“I love you, dear people.” she felt the way she had
herself, The result was con-
directly
Femtiosex nodded to the men feltwhen she was defrozen and trary to what the Lord Femtio-
The of the Chief of Birds, who had taken out of the adiabatic pod sex had planned.
dragged a barrel and a spray int o in which she had made the trip The crowd of people stirred
the street in front of Joan. from earth —
sick to her stomach, forward, not with curiosity but
“Tie her to that post,” he com- confused in her mind, emotions because of compassion. They
manded. “Spray her. Light her. rocking back and forth inside had avoided the broad areas of
Are the tape-makers in focus? her. the street on which the dead un-
We want this to be recorded and Hunter whispered to her, “I derpeople lay as they had been
You have known. If the underpeople try tried to reach her mind so that killed, some pooled in their own
this again, they will
see that she would die easy. Somebody blood, same broken by the hands
mankind controls the worlds.” He else got there first. I . . don’t of robots, some reduced to piles
looked at Joan and his eyes know who it is.” of frozen crystal. They walked
seemed to go out of focus. In an Elaine stared. over the dead to watch the
unaccustomed voice he said, “I The was being brought.
fire dying, but their watching was not
am not a bad man, little dog- Suddenly it touched the oil and the witless boredom of people
girl, but you are a bad animal Joan flamed up like a human who never see a spectacle; it was
and we must make an example of torch. the movement of living things,
You you. Do you understand that?” instinctive and deep, toward the
“Femtiosex,” she cried, leav- X sight of another living thing in a
ing out his title, “I am very position of danger and ruin.
sorry for you. I love you too.” rphe burning of D’joan at Fom- Even the guard who had held
With these words of hers, his alhaut took very little time, Elaine and Hunter by gripping
face became clouded and angry but the ages will not forget it. Hunter’s arm —
even he moved
again. He brought his right hand Femtiosex had taken the cruel- forward a few unthinking steps.
down in a chopping gesture. est step of all. Elaine found herself in the first
Fisi copied the gesture and the By telepathic invasion he had row of the spectators, the acrid,
men operating the barrel and suppressed her human mind, so unfamiliar smell of burning oil
spray began to squirt a hissing that only the primitive canine re- making her nose twitch, the
stream of oil on Joan. Two guards mained. howls of the dying dog-girl tear-
had already chained her to the Joan did not stand still like a ing through her eardrums into
lamp post, using an improvised martyred queen. her brain. Joan was turning and
chain of handcuffs to make sure She struggled against the twisting in the fire now, trying
that she stood upright and re- flames which
licked her and to avoid the flames which wrap-
mained in plain, sight of the climbed She howled and
her. ped her tighter than clothing.
dog in pain, like
shrieked like a The odor of something sickening
‘Tire,” said Femtiosex. an animal whose brain good — and strange reached the crowd.
Elaine felt the Hunter’s body, though it is —
caimot compre- Few of them had ever smelled
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 75 ,
the stink of burning meat before.
Joan gasped.
In the ensuing seconds of sil-
ence, Elaine heard something
she had never expected to hear
before — the
weeping of grown
human beings. Men and women
stood there sobbing and not
knowing why they sobbed.
Femtiosex loomed over the
crowd, obsessed by the failure erf
his demonstration. He did not
know that the Hunter, with a
thousand kills behind him, was
committing the legal outrage of
peeping the mind of a Chief of
the Instrumentality.
The Hunter whispered to
Elaine, “In a minute I’ll try it.
She deserves something better
than that . “If
Elaine did not ask what. She
too was weeping.
The whole crowd became aware
that a soldier was calling. It took
them several seconds to look
away from the burning, dying
Joan.
The was an ordinary
soldier
one. Perhaps he was the one who
had been unable to tie Joan with
bonds a few minutes ago, when
the Lords decreed that she be
taken into custody.
He was shouting now, shouting
frantically and wildly, shaking
his fist at the Lord Femtiosex.
“You’re a liar, you’re a cow-
ard, you’re a fool, and I chal-
lenge you—”
76
The Lord Femtiosex became
aware of the man and of what
he was yelling. He came out of
his deep concentration and said,
mildly for so wild a time:
“What do you mean?”
“This is a crazy show. There
is no girl here. No fire. Nothing.
You are hallucinating the whole
lot of us for some horrible reason
of your own, and I’m challeng-
ing you for it, you animal, you
fool, you coward.”
n normal times even a Lord
I had to accept a challenge or
adjust the matter with clear talk,
This was no normal time.
The Lord Femtiosex said, “All
this is real. I deceive no one.”
it’sJoan, I’m with
real,
you!” shrieked the young sold-
ier. He jumped in front of the jet
of oil before the other soldiers
could turn it off and then he
leapt into the fire beside Joan.
Her hair had burned away but
her features were still clear. She
had stopped the doglike whining
shriek. Femtiosex had been in-
terrupted. She gave the soldier,
who had begun to burn as he
stood voluntarily beside her, the
smiles. Then she frowned, the
gentlest and most feminine of
smiles. Then she frowned, as
though there were something
which she should remember to
do, despite the pain and terror
which surrounded her.
GALAXY
“Now!” whispered the Hunter.
He began to hunt the Lord Fem-
tiosex as sharply as he had ever
sought thealien, native minds of
Fomalhaut III.
The crowd could not tell what
had happened to the Lord Fem-
tiosex. Had he turned coward?
Had he gone mad? (Actually, the
Hunter, by using every gram of
the power of his mind, had mo-
mentarily taken Femtiosex court-
ing in the skies; he and Femtio-
sex were both male bird-like
beasts, singing wildly for the
beautiful female who lay hidden
in the landscape far, far below.)
Joan was free, and she knew
she was free.
She sent out her message. It
knocked both Hunter and Fem-
tiosex out of thinking; it
Elaine;- it made even
Chief of Birds, breathe quietly.
She called so loudly that within
the hour messages were pouring
in from the other cities to Kalma,
asking what had happened. She
thought a single message, not
words. But in words it came to
this:
“Loved ones, you kill
is my
fate. I bring love, and love
must die to live on. Love asks
nothing, does nothing. Love
thinks nothing. Love is knowing
yourself and knowing all other
people and things. Know — and
rejoice. I die for all of
dear ones —”
THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN
She opened her eyes for a last
time, opened her mouth, sucked
in the raw flame and slumped
forward. The soldier, who had
kept his nerve while his clothing
and body burned, ran out of the
fire, afire himself, toward his
squad. A shot stopped him and
he pitched flat forward.
The weeping of the people was
audible throughout the streets.
Underpeople, tame and licensed
ones, stood shamelessly among
them and wept too.
The Lord Femtiosex turned
wearily back to his colleagues.
The face of Lady Goroke was
a sculptxired, frozen caricature of
sorrow.
He turned to the Lady Arabel-
la Underwood. “I seem to have
flooded done something wrong, my lady.
Fisi,the Take over, please.”
The Lady Arabella stood up.
She called to Fisi, “Put out that
fire.”
She looked out over the crowd.
Her hard, honest Norstrilian fea-
tures were unreadable. Elaine,
watching her, shivered at the
thought of a whole planet full of
me. This people as tough, obstinate and
clever as these.
“It’s over,” said the Lady Ara-
bella. “People,go away. Robots,
clean up. Underpeople, to your
jobs.”
She looked at Elaine and the
you now, Himter. “I know who you are
and I suspect what you have
77

been doing. Soldiers, take them
away.”
The body of Joan was fire-
blackened. The face did not look
particularly human any more;
the last burst of fire had caught
her in the nose and eyes. Her
young, girlish breasts showed
with heart-wrenching immodesty
that she had been young and
female once. Now she was dead,
just dead.
The soldierswould have
shoveled her into a box if she had
been an imderperson. Instead,
they paid her the honors of war
that they would have given to
one of their own comrades or to
an important civilian in time of
disaster. They unslung a litter,
put the blackened body on
little
it and covered the body with
their own flag. No one had told
them to do so.
\ s their own soldier led
up the road toward the
Waterrock, where the houses and
offices of the military were lo-
cated, Elaine saw that he too
had been crying.
She started to ask him what
he thought of it, but Hunter
stopped her with a shake of the
head. He later told her that the
soldier might be punished for
talking with them.
When they got to the office,
they found the lady Goroke al-
ready there.
78
I
The Lady Goroke already and why. And he, or his son, or better. Joan did say, “It’s the
his son will bring justice back in- mission of life always to look for
there ... It became a nightmare
the world and solve the puzzle something better than itself, and
in the weeks that followed. She to
had gotten over her grief and of the underpeople. What do you then to try to trade life itself for
think of that? On second thought, meaning.”
was conducting an inquiry into
don’t think. It’s none of your At last, the Lady Goroke called
the case of Elaine and D’joan.
The Lady Goroke already business, and I am going to do it them in and said, “Good-by, you
an5nvay.” two. It’s foolish, saying good-by,
there . . . She was waiting when
Her image, or perhaps
They stared at her sympathet- when an hour from now you will
they slept.
ically, but they were too wound remember neither me nor Joan.
herself, sat in on all the endless
interrogations. She was particul- up in the problems of their own You’ve finished your work here.
arly interested in the chance
survival to extend her much I’ve set up a lovely job for you.
sympathy or advice. The body of You won’t have to live in a city.
meeting of the dead lady Pane
Ashash, the misplaced witch Joan had been pulverized and You will be weather-watchers,
non-adjusted blown into the air, because the roaming the hills and watching
Elaine, and the
man, the Hunter. Lady Goroke was afraid that the for all the little changes which
underpeople would make a good- the machines can’t interpret fast
The Lady Goroke already
She asked them every- vlace out of it; she felt that way enough. You will have whole life-
there . . .
herself, and she knew that if she times of marching and picknick-
thing, but she told them noth-
herself were tempted, the under- ing and camping together. I’ve
ing.
people would be even more told the technicians to be very
Except for once.
tempted. careful, because you two are very
Once she burst out, violently
Elaine never knew what hap- much in love with each other.
personal after endless hours of
formal, official work, “Your
pened to the bodies of all the When they re-route your synap-
other people who had turned ses, I want that love to be there
minds will be cleansed when we
themselves, under Joan’s leader- with you.”
them get through, so it wouldn’t matter
ship, from animals into mankind, They each knelt and kissed her
how much else you know. Do
and who had followed the wild, hand. They never wittingly saw
you know that this has hurt me
— me! —
all the way to the
foolish march out of the Tunnel
of Englok into the Upper City of
her again. In later years they
sometimes saw a fashionable
depths of .everything I believe
Kalma. Was it really wild? Was ornithopter soaring gently ovei'
in?”
it reallyfoolish? If they had theircamp, with an elegant wom-
They shook their heads.
stayed where they were, they an peering out of the side of it;
“I’m going to have a child,
might have had a few days or they had no memories to know
and I’m going back to Manhome
months or years of life, but soon- that it was the Lady Goroke, re-
to have it. And I’m going to do
er or later the robots would have covered from madness, watching
the genetic coding myself. I’m go-
found them and they would have over them.
ing to call him Jestocost. That’s
been exterminated like the ver-
one of the Ancient Tongues, the
Paroskii one, for ‘cruelty,’ to re-
mind him where he comes from.
min which they were. Perhaps
the death they had chosen was T heir
life.
new life was their final
GALAXY THE DEAD LADY OF CLOWN TOWN 79
 Of Joan and the Brown and smiled his big, shy, elephant
Yellow Corridor, nothing re- smile,put the fruit down and pre-
mained. pared to lumber off.
They were both very sympa- “Wait a minute,” cried Elaine,
thetic toward animals, but they “why are you giving us this?
might have been this way even Why us?”
if they had never shared in the “For the sake of Joan,” said
wild political gamble of the dear the elephant man.
dead Lady Pane Ashash. “Who’s Joan?” said the Hun-
One time a strange thing hap- ter.

pened. An underman from an The elephant man looked S5rm-

elephant was working in a small pathetically at them. “That’s all

valley, creating an exquisite rock right. You don’t remember her,
garden for some important of-
ficial of the Instrumentality who
but I do.”
“But what did Joan do?” said
for
might garden
later glimpse the Elaine.
once or twice a year. Elaine was
busy watching the weather, and
“She loved you. She loved us
all,” said the elephant man. He
your
the Hunter had forgotten that he turned quickly, so as to say no
had ever hunted, so that neither more. With incredible deftness

of them tried to peep the under- for soheavy a person, he climbed

man’s mind. He was a huge fel- speedily into the fierce lovely
low, right at the maximum per- rocks above them and was gone.
missable size — five times the “I wish we had known her,”
BY WILLY LEY
gross stature of a man. He had said Elaine. “She sounds very
smiled at them friendily in the nice.”
past. A
One evening he brought them In that year there was bom
CENTURY OF
fruit.Such fruit! Rare off -world the man who was to be the first
items which a year of requests Lord Jestocost. FOSSIL MAN
would not have obtained for or-
dinary people like them. He — CORDWAINER SMITH ( I
'his,” I said to a visitor,
ritMirrHiiiiifiiiiirMiimHniimiimtMnmiiiimiinimiiitiimMimtiinmiMiiimmnmmmHimiiimiiHHmtti| handing him a fossilized
trilobite from the Silurian per-
I Now in the new monthly IF:
iod, “is due to three accidents.”
“Accidents?” he repeated, won-
FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD dering whether I mean what I
= Greof new serial by Robert A. Heintein said.

Don't miss it!

“Accidents! Three of them.
I
fiiiniiMiiiiiHiiiuiitiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiuiiiuiiuiittmiiiiiiinutitiMiiiiiniimuiiiuiiiuuiiiinmiuuiiiimmiiimiiiiiiiiuiiiiiuiiiuHiiiHJiiiimimiiifmmitiimiiimimiiiii
The first accident was that this

80 GALAXY 81
trilobite died under circumstan-
ces which made it possible for it
to become a fossil. The second
accident was that the fossil was
found. And the third was that it
was foimd by somebody who
recognized it for what it was.”
The whole discussion had
started with the chance remark
that we don’t know yet whether
the human race originated in
Asia or in Africa. The fossil finds,
I had said, are inconclusive so
far, mainly because there are so
few of them. Of course, it would
have been appropriate if I could
have handed my visitor a fossil
human skull to illustrate
point. I couldn’t do that because
there are so few of them, and
for that reason they are where
they belong, in museums and in
university collections. Only about
a century ago no museum any-
where had a human fossil. As a
matter of fact no director of a
museum would have expected to
see one.
And that brings me
story.
paleontology, the science of fos-
^ sils and extinct life
is one of the sciences that were
found essentially by one man.
He was Georges Leopold, Baron
Cuvier, a French naturalist, born
at Montb^liard in 1769; and the
work which became the foxmda-
tion of the new science
82
Recherches sar les ossemens
siles, or in English, Researches
on Fossil Bones. It appeared in
Cu-
1824, only eight years before
vier’s death. Cuvier had done
wonders with the scant material
he had at his disposal and it
was only natural that he noticed
that among his fossils
fishesand amphibians, reptiles
and mammals, crustaceans and
worms, but that fossils of humans
were conspicuous by their ab-
sence. Man, Cuvier reasoned,
must have been a late arrival on
earth. The Bible, he pointed
also said that Man had been
my created last. Hence Man had not
been present when the other crea-
tures became fossils and for that
reason it was actually useless to
look for human fossils. As Cuvier
put it: Thomme fossil
pas — “fossil man does not ex-
ist.”
Just one year after Cuvier’s
death a Belgian paleontologist
by the name of Schmerling fin-
to my ished a voluminous work with
the title. Account of the fossil
bones found in caves in the Prov-
ince of Lieie. In it he pointed
forms, out that he had found human re-
mains in the same layers as
bones of cave bears, mammoths
and so forth, so that it seemed
logical to assume that they had
lived during the same period.
If anybody who read Schmer-
was his ling’s work remembered that the
tos-
DEPTH IN FEET BELOW
there,
out,
No. 1 The cliff of the
Baron von Schlotheim had re-
ported the same situation from
a place near Gera in Central Ger-
many some time earlier (in 1820)
n' exists he probably had the same ex-
planation for both cases. Early
settlershad buried their dead in
the debris covering cave floors
and the human bones had there-
by in death acquired companions
they had never known when
alive.
For more than three decades
nothing happened to disturb
these assximptions. If people did
not insist on building stone
houses there might have been an-
other three or four decades of
peace and quiet. But people
build,and one of the things they
need for building is limestone.
There was one source of lime-
GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORAAAUON
Neanderthal Valley before became
It a limestone
quarry.
stone which was not only big but
easily accessible. Near the small
city of Mettmann in western Ger-
many a river, the Dussel, had
cut
itselfa deep and narrow can-
yon into soft limestone. The gorge
even had a name. Three centur-
— ies earlier a man by the name of
Toachim Neumann had fallen in
love with the romantic beauty of
the gorge and had visited it again
and again. Since he became fa-
mous as the author of Christian
hymns which he wrote under the
name of Joachim Neander, the
canyon was named in his honor
after his death. It was named
Neander Valley, or in German,
Neanderthal.
Tt was in 1856 that the limestone
cliffs that formed the walls
83
 canyon became a quarry.
of the
knew that there
Local people
were several natural caves in the
face of the cliff. They had even
been given separate names. Two
neighboring caves were called,
nobody knows why, the Churches
of Feldhof.
The workmen began their task
and
by cleaning out the caves,
just dumped the loose debris
down the cliff to the bottom of
the valley, some 70 feet below.
While cleaning out the smaller
of the two “churches” they found
bones and felt obligated to re-
port the fact to the owner of the
quarry.
The owner suspected that this
might be important. Since the
cave had been all cleaned out by
the time he arrived, he ordered
that the dumped material be
carefully searched.
Then he handed all the recov-
ered bones to the locally famous
Johann Carl Fuhlrott, a high
school teacher, with the remark
that these seemed to be bones of
the cave bear of which he had
heard so much. Fuhlrott saw im-
mediately that the remains were
human consisting of the two up-
per arm bones fragments of other
arm bones both femurs a frag-
ment of the pelvis and the top of
the skull —the latter was one of
the bones that had been dumped.
Fuhlrott looked at the heavy
bony ridges over the eye sockets.
84
He noted that the whole skull
was shallow with a receding fore-
head. He considered the femurs
to be unusually heavy and—
concluded that he looked at the
remains of a more primitive type
man.
of
In a lecture he delivered soon
afterwards (it was printed with
some delay in 1859), he said so.
But while Fuhlrott could con-
sider himself a naturalist he knew
that his knowledge of anatomy
was restricted. But he also knew
that Professor Schaaffhausen of
the University of Bonn an ex-
pert in human anatomy was in-
terested in new discoveries.
He sent the bones to Schaaff-
hausen, who examined and meas-
ured them with utmost care and
published a report in 1858, stat-
ing that he agreed with Fuhlrott;
this was an individual with
strangely primitive characteris-
tics. Being a careful man,
Schaaffhausen did not attempt to
determine its age, saying that he
hoped that further discoveries
would provide definite clues.
For a while Fuhlroot and
Schaaffhausen stood alone. A Dr.
PrunerBey in Paris said that
these were probably just the re-
mains of an old Celt who had
died during a tribal migration.
Professor Andreas Wagner in
Gottingen considered it more
likely that they were the bones
of a Dutch sailor, while others
GALAXY
guessed that it might be a Cos-
sack who had taken part in the
final campaign against Napoleon.
Enter now Dr. Rudolf Virchow,
professor of pathology, having
been appointed director of the
Pathological Institute in Berlin
during the same year workers
began cleaning out the caves of
the Neanderthal.
Since what I have to report
No. 2. Skull of a Neanderthal man
about Virchow will sound as if he (old male) from La Chapello'
had not been too bright, I must auX'Saints, France. In the original
say first that he was justly fa- skull from the Neander Valley
only the portions above the line
mous as a medical researcher. He A — A were preserved.
reformed the sanitation system To Virchow the remains from
of Berlin, and he (somewhat un- the Neanderthal were just one
usually) was also very active
more case of what he had been
politically. For years he was the
observing for years. He did not
leader of the Progressive Party
guess at nationality or tribe. All
of Prussia and was even elected
he could say that this man had
a member of the Reichstag on
been sick all his life. One could
the Liberal Party slate. But he
see the marks of his fonner suf-
had limitations. He had carefully fering clearly.
investigated the tubercles in hu-
To begin with, this individual
man lungs and written an excel-
happened to be born with an un-
lent description in a highly liter-
usually long skull and greatly
ary style. But when it was sug-
reduced sinus cavities. In his
gested to him that these tuber-
early childhood he had suffered
cles might be caused by a micro-
severely from rachitis. But some-
organism he had nothing but how he got over it and grew to
sarcasm for the little country manhood, probably to be a war-
doctor who advanced this non- rior since some minor thickenings
sensical idea. (The little country might be due to battle injuries.
doctor later became a famous However, the main features of
bacteriologist. His name was the skull which had misled Fuhl-
Robert Koch, and in Sweden rott (only a high school teacher,
they awarded him a Nobel Prize
after all) and Schaaffhausen (a
for medicine.)
fine anatomist but not a path-
FOR YOUR INFORMATION 85

No. 3 Plihecanfbropus erecfus.
1 from Trinil
had been produced by
ologist)
arthiitis deformans and old age.
The outer layers of the skull had
been reduced as a result of old
age and new layers had formed
on the inside with ossification of
enclosing the brain.
the skin
What was left of the arms
showed signs of severe arthritis.
Schaaffhausen; and
So said
all this was not advanced as a
possibility, or even a probability.
It was preceded by the sentence:
“We can conclude with absolute
certainty —”
One of the men who supported
Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen was
Professor William King in Eng-
land, also an anatomist. After
stating the reasons for his posi-
tion, he then proceeded to give
the bones the still famous
Homo neanderthalensis.
But most scientists
luctant to go along. After all,
Virchow Virchow! How
was
could they, who were not even
medical men, dispute the findings
of a pathologist? There was only
one such find and it was certain-
ly possible, if unusual, that the
86
one specimen had belonged to a
sickly individual.
had been foimd earlier in France cepted — maybe somebody
— in a place named Le Moustier
In the meantime — in 1864 and had been provisionally lab-
would find a
many
still
scientists
But
older form.
were willing to go
at least definite proof that Man elled the Moust6rian Culture. along with the suggestion Homo
and extinct mammals had been We now know that it is typical diluvianus. The geological period
contemporaneous had been for the Neanderthalers. But we preceding the present period was
found. also know that Lartet’s mam- then generally called Diluvium,
Jacques Boucher de Cr6ve- moth drawings belongs
Skull No. to a later so that the name was suggestive
coeur de Perthes had for some time, the
Magdalenien, which of the time. (Now the geological
years asserted that the stone arti- was not “Neanderthal”.
present is called the “holocene”
facts he had found had been Other finds followed. Then and the preceding period, for
weapons used by primitive man some began to feel that
scientists which “Ice Age” is another syn-
to hunt mammoths. But while name
the given by professor onym, goes under the name of
these shaped stones, which might King was too specific. One of the
“pleistocene.”)
easily have been spearpoints, did suggestions made was Homo
As for the still older form it
exist, who could say what had
primigenius (or Homo primo-
been hunted with them? —if
genitus') but by then everybody
already had a name. Professor
Ernst Haeckel, reasoning that at
they had been hunting weapons was careful. Since the name one time a form halfway between
at all. (And one could always means
“first”man it was not ac- ape and man must have existed,
point out that Boucher de Per-
thes had written tragedies for
the stage, novels for amusement
and diplomatic notes for decep-
tion. In short, that he had en-
gaged in unscientific activities.)
But the new proof, found by
Edouard Lartet in a cave of the
Vez6re Valley in southern France,
was a piece of mammoth tusk,
with the outline of a mammoth
name scratched into it.
were re- nphe final proof came from Bel-
gium, from a cave at Spy
in the vicinity of Namur. It con-
sisted of two (incomplete) skel-
etons of this t5T3e of man, along
with bones of extinct animals
and stone implements. The par-
ticular kind of stone implements
GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORMATION 87

had coined the term Pithecan-
thropus or “apeman” for this hy-
pothetical being. (In his work
General Morphology, first pub-
lished in 1866.) And a Dutch
physician, Eugene Dubois by
name, had joined the Dutch Col-
onial Services for the purpose of
being sent to the tropics, where
he was going to look for the com-
mon ancestor of both present-
day man and of Neanderthal
man.
He was sent to Java. There he
learned that fossils had been dis-
covered in the banks of the Ben-
gawan river near a place called
Trinil. When the river was at its
lowest point in 1890 he began to
dig.
His first success, as far
human remains were concerned,
was a single tooth, but Dubois
said to himself that that tooth
could have belonged to a now
extinct species of ape. However,
in 1894 he could shout success.
He had found the roof of a skull
first and later and some distance
— about 30 feet —
away a left
femur.
As long as he had the skull
fragment only he had thought
that it belonged to a large now
extinct gibbon. But the very
human looking femur made it
clear that he had found what
Haeckel had only deduced,
namely Pithecanthropus erectus,
the “upright apeman”.
88
Profiles of the tops
Fig. 5.
three early forms of humans.
V irchow was asked about his
opinion. Virchow pointed
out that the femur showed a
pathological change a bone
spur which indicated that the
owner had suffered from a deep-
seated abscess which evidently
had healed, indicating nursing by
others of its kind. Hence the
femur was human.
The skull, on the other hand,
as belonged to a large extinct gib-
bon. The two bones had noth-
ing to do with each other; after
all they had been found some
distance apart. Later on Virchow
changed his opinion. The layer
was probably too old to contain
human remains, and if there had
been a gibbon-like creature of
this size it might have walked
upright because it was too heavy
to live in the treetops like the
gibbons of our time. By that time
Virchow was in his seventies and
respect had somewhat waned.
Others went ahead with their in-
vestigation. They were determ-
ined to find out whether this
was, or had been, an apeman or
not. They did not deny that an
apeman might have existed. if it kept going, could do it in
“Brain capacity” became the just one generation.
new battle cry. The sequence seemed
clear:
Living humans pygmies some unknown ancestor
first,
excluded, but otherwise without then
Pithecanthropus, then
regard as to skin color, nationali- Neanderthal man, then
modem
SOCKET
ty, religion or credit rating — man.
have an average brain capacity of If you believed in this sequ-
of the skulls of
about 1500 cubic centimeters. ence in Europe in 1900 you were
The Neanderthal types from under faint suspicion of being a
Germany, Belgium, France and
elsewhere in Europe averaged
socialist, unless you had a
D. to indicate that you knew
Ph.
1200 cubic centimeters or a little
— more. A large gorilla, largest of
what you were talking about. By
1914 you could believe in this
the apes, fell a little short of 700 sequence without arousing politi-
cubic centimeter. cal suspicious, through a
doctor-
How about Pithecanthropus? ate was still helpful.
Since the skull roof was incom-
plete there was a little leeway in
computing the former content,
but the disagreement was minor.
It ranged from 900 to 935 cubic
centimeters. Nicely in the mid-
dle, between goriUa on the one
side and Homo neanderthalensis
on the other.
The unsolved problem that re-
mained was one of distance. The
valley of the Bengawan was very
far from the valley of the Vezere
or even from Croatia where more
Neanderthal men had been
found. However, if you discount-
ed the arms of the Sunda Sea
between Java and the Asian
mainland (and who could say
whether they had existed then?),
Fig. 6. A. Lower jaw of a Neanderthal
there were no insurmountable ob- man from Krapma in Croatia.
stacles between Java and Franca. Be Lower jaw of a m^n from an
early
Even a slowly wandering tribe, historical burial site
near Tulin in Austria.
GALAXY FOR YOUR INFOR^UTION
89

Now we know much more, but
aren’t so sure any more.
the one hand we have
On
more reason to think that Pithe-
canthropus was ancestral to
Neanderthal man. On the other
hand there is a great deal of
i
I doubt whether Neanderthal man
is ancestral to us.
I
T et me take the latter prob-
lem first, only because I
if
I
sometimes encountered a sur-
prised reaction when I say so.
I
How could Neanderthal man
! not be ancestral, since he was
around a long time earlier? I
think that a comparison with
dog-breeding will illustrate the
E>oint. The animal which was to
become the domesticated dog
was probably a small jackal-like
form. Slowly it was bred larger
into forms somewhat resembling
today’s greyhound, though smal-
ler. Then (this is just an example,
not dog-breeding history) let us
say that breeders produced the
English bulldog, a dog of speci-
alized shape. Much later other
I
breeders went after another shape
of dog, say a poodle.
I
I
But they would start with the
! original stock, not with the speci-
alized bulldog.
Neanderthal man would cor-
respond to the bulldog of this ex-
ample, an early and specialized
offshoot. Some skulls have been
found that look like Neander-
90
:
thal man, but with less pro- that theory, the Neanderthal (B) Homo erectus, with a
nounced special features. Some type originated in eastern Asia brain capacity of 775 to 1200
researchers have assumed that and performed a westward mi- cc;
they are hybrid forms. But it is gration to Europe rather late in (C) Homosapiens, with a
just as possible that they are an their history. But no decision on brain capacity of over 1200 cc.
older and not yet so specialized whether thistheory or rival This sorting scheme puts
form of Neanderthalers. theories are correct can be made Pithecanthropus into the Homo
The history of the discoveries at the moment. erectus group, but puts the late
of human fossils since Dubois European neanderthalers (a s
unearthed Pithecanthropus Cince the question of who is well as the neanderthaler from
would make a very long article ~ ancestral to whom cannot yet Rhodesia) into the Homo sapi-
by but at this point we
itself, be decided, researchers have sort- ens group. To repeat, this is
need only the most pronounced ed all human fossils into three essentially a method of sorting,
highlights. In 1929 Dr. Davidson groups, once more using brain and does not necessarily indicate
Black discovered skulls near volume as the criterion. They actual relationships. To clear
Peking which were subsequently distinguish that question up we need many
labelled Sinanthropus pekinensts, (A) the australopithecines, more of the “triple accidents.”
with a brain capacity higher with a brain capacity .of 450 to
than that of Pithecanthropus but 700 cc; — WILLY LEY
still less than Neanderthal.
More specimens of Pithecant-
thropus were added from San-
giran (Java) by Dr. G. H. R. von
Koenigswald. A very large Nean-
derthal man turned up in Rhode-
sia, Africa. And southern Africa
FORECAST
added a whole series of small
forerunners of Man which are A couple of years ago Gordon R. Dickson wrote a novel called The
collectively called the australo- Genetic General —
its title as a serial was Dorsal! —
which added a good
bit to his already very high stature as one of science-fiction's best-liked and
pithecines. (The word has noth-
most prolific authors. Ever since we've been after him to tell us more of
ing do with the Australian
to
continent, it merely means
his strange and wonderful words of the future — the Dorsal and the
Friendlies, the parts of humanity that have given themselves to the stars
“southern monkeys”.) and ore now coming together again in a brilliant synthesis of divergent
One theory has it that our heredities . . and the man has finally come through for us. The title is
,
own ancestors originated in Soldier, Ask Not; it's a short novel; it's complete in the next issue of Galaxy.
Africa and migrated northward
to Europe to turn into early
Inthe saime issue —
The Children of Night (scheduled for this issue,
but squeezed out to make room for Wyman Guin's timely and delightful
Europeans. Those who
stayed on a new Philip
return), K. Dick story, Willy Ley's fine column . . . and much
Africa were the ancestors of the more. See you then!
Africans of today. According to
GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORAAATION 91
 JUNGLE
SUBSTITUTE
BY BRIAN W. ALDiSS

Illustrated by GAUGHAN

This was the world fhct

machines had made. Could
men hope fa win it back?

I stopped falling and the sun rose

eastern sky glittered
over the city and the sun
came up.
Robin Hedging wasn’t one
the superstitious kind who
thought you would die within
twenty-four hours of seeing the
morning sun through glass. Nev-
ertheless, he lowered the. window
of the bus to stare out at it. This
was always a good moment for
him, when the rain ration had
before you got to work.
The city stood high on piers
above the plain. The plain as yet;
would be dark. That was what,
of gave Robin the thrill: the
thought of that grirh black land
where no humans went, where
terrors dwelt. Covertly, he cir-'
cled himself.
His father looked up from be-
side him, catching the gesture.
“What’s the matter, son?

92
You thinking something
shouldn’t do?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You worrying about seeing
the sun through glass? You don’t
have to. You’re wearing your
spectacles —
that makes two lots
of glass. The superstition
you only die if you see the sun
through one bit of glass.”
“That means I’m going to die,
Father. I opened the window
and saw it through my spectacles
alone.” Robin spoke with as
much of a sneer as he could mus-
ter, but a pang tore at his heart.
He had not thought enough. But
he’d seen the sun through one
thickness of glass before and not
died .Only maybe then there’d
. .
been some extenuating circum-
stances Maybe he’d seen a ro-
. . .
bot before seven . .
His father’s pouchy face shook.
“You’re a careless young fool,
Robin. You’ll cost me my job
yet.”
“You know what happens to
people who voice their greatest
fear?”
That was a remark to provide
a row in any company, but a
man sitting behind the Hedgings
leaned forward and tapped Rob-
in on the shoulder.
“Don’t mind me butting in,
young H, but I could hear what
you and your dad were saying. I
don’t think you’ve got anything
to worry about. The saying is
94
you that you mustn’t see the sun
through a pane of glass. Now you
wouldn’t count your specs as a
pane of glass would you,
you’re okay.”
Old Sam Hedging dug his son
hard in the ribs, and with a
says downward droop to his mouth
indicated he was to say as little
as possible. He then turned to
look at the intruder.
Ovine was a sad baggy man
with a square face on which the
patina of old eczema papules was
partly concealed below a strag-
gling moustache. His one-piece
suit was new, and of course
sharp blue. Both Hedgings dread-
ed his presence, on the bus
or in the Distributive Point, but
were afraid to say so.
“What are spectacles if they
aren’t panes of glass?” Sam
asked.
“I’m only trjdng to help the
boy.”
“Well, I’m asking you, O, what
are spectacles if they aren’t
panes of glass?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Ovine turned his face away, and
then, struck by a sudden
thought, said, “But in that case
they are two panes of glass, so
your son’s all right.”
“I’m the best judge of that
Robin tried not to listen to the
argument. He liked the journey
to work, but these older men al-
ways spoilt it with their tiny ar-
GALAXY
guments. This third deck of the
bus was full of men, mostly in
working one - pieces, haggling
so over little things. Well, you took
your choice: you haggled over
little things, or you kept quiet.
There did not seem to be any
other alternatives.
rr^hey were passing over
Dunshinnan Bridge now.
Robin braced himself. As the
great lighted palace of the bus
trundled forward at its statutory
twenty miles an hotir, he looked
down into the canyon. Yes, night
was still down there, impervious
to the lights on the bridge, night
and the ancestral earth. He
thought he saw something white
crawl down there —
but it would
have been a sheet of paper if it
was anything.
Though the population was
held steady now, the government
had deemed it necessary to ex-
pand the city. That had been
over four — or was it
centuries ago, but Robin had
urbography during his
studied
year at school. He still
some of the details.
The new Dimshinnan,
sector,
had been built up on piles to
— join the rest of the city. But an
error had’ been made. Always
there were errors, in govern-
ment, in engineering, in life.
understood that. The cybos and
robos were no more effective at
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE
dealing with error than were hu-
mans. Dunshinnan had been con-
structed with its base a meter
lower than the main city and
with a gulf of a hundred and
thirty meters separating the two
sections. It was a large error;
but bridges were built to span
the gulf, no harm was done —
and every morning Robin got
his stomach-wrenching view of
midnight.
The first stop over the bridge
was where the Hedgings and
Ovine and one or two others —
the pallid Farven, the choleric
Claysbank —
got off. They
climbed down onto the walk, old
Sam Hedgings and Ovine still
joined in grumbling talk. It was
not far to the edge of the Dun-
shinnan, but high walls prevent-
ed one looking over. At first, be-
fore the walls had been erected,
people had thrown themselves
over the railings into the drop.
There was still a mystique about
five? — it. Particularly on Kennedy and
Vareller Days, dedicated parties
would scale the walls and sacri-
recalled fice themselves over the drop.
You heard about it in whispers.
Robin checked himself at Dis-
tributive Point D
2’s door. Far-
ven laid a hand on his arm.
“You’re dreaming again,
young H,” he said, smiling with
One a nervy twitch. “F’s go before
H’s under a threshold, or they
used to when I was a boy.”
95
 Robin apologized and stepped As always, the answer was neg. hands, stacking the cans with its The whole city was humming
back. The little group went in ative. auxiliary hands so that they with activity. It was the same
in alphabetical order, those who stood separately on the conveyor sort of activity,did Robin but
knew their alphabet helping the ^^he Hedgings climbed into belt behind it and were carried know it, that characterized
others. This was an important their gallery; already the one by one into the distance. a chicken’s rushing around
juncture, the beginning of work, first deliveries of goods were ar- In response to the an- when its head is cut off. The me-
when obviously one had to be riving. Claysbank waddled nouncement, Sam shifted a bead chanical business of city
careful. Demons were most ac- round, switching on the auxil- along a thin wire. Supervisor life ground on, mindlessly.
tive in the early morning. iary robos. The first one he ac- would be keeping exact de- No conscious government was
The lights came on in D 2. Su- tivated rolled behind him, clat- the entry; Sam’s was just
tails of left. Men capable of governing
pervisor stood there awaiting tering to itself as it checked the a rough double-check. died or were killed or shot them-
the men. He was the only cybo output of its fellows, recharging “Grocery consignment Two. selves or escaped centuries ago.
who remained switched on dur- them from its own power sup- DP D2. Five hundred twenty- The machinery of government
ing the night, a large and immo- plies if necessary. As more and eight twenty-ounce cans mary- ground on with no human hand
bilebulk of a machine. His sides more machines came alive, the cake pudding, two hundred nine to steer it. In the steel palm of
and the containers on his sides hall filled with noise and light ten-ounce cans marycake pud- the city, life crawled thought-
had become plastered with no- For Robin, it was a cheering ding.” lessly, and obeyed the laws
of a
tices, waybills, delivery slips and noise. This was life. No ill- “Milk consignment. DP D2. metal jungle. A million witless
chalked figures. It was consid- omens; everything working with Two hundred nine-ounce con- robos kept the system going, and
ered unlucky to remove these as much efficiency as could be tainers Grade A milk. Six hun- each year became a little more
until Renovation Day. humanly expected. He fol- dred sixty-two eighteen-ounce entangled with the system.
“Come in, humans. Equality lowed his father into their little containers Grade A milk. Three From his vantage point,
and happiness in your day’s hut up on the catwalk. Already hundred ninety-three twenty- Sam saw the newscart trundle in.
w-w-work.” they had a light on their switch- eight-ounce containers Grade A It was a red vehicle with auto
Supervisor had developed board. It was a sign of plenty. milk.” tracks on either side, and very
a slight stammer with his w*s. The spirits were harmless. Laconically Sam moved two noticeable among the subdued
Farven, the mech, was unable to Old Hedging acknowledged more beads across the wire. colors of the other vehicles.
remedy it; when the robomech the signal, settling himself down Business was warming up. More “I’m going down onto the
arrived on his bi-monthly in- into their battered chair as he robotrucks were arriving with floor, Robin. Do you think you
spection of the point, he would did so. more of the day’s supplies for can manage?”
repair it. “Grocery consignment One. Dvmshinnan Second District. “Of course. Father. Luck!”
Robin followed his father up DP D2. One thousand two hun- They called their orders method- “And you, boy.”
to Supervisor. They asked the dred sixty-five nine-ounce cans ically as they entered. The auto- They both circled them-
traditional question, “ Is there marrow soup.” matic cop jockeyed them into selves with inpointing forefin-
any special w-w-work you re- Down on the floor, they could place, his hand-sized fliers lead- gers, and Sam moved along the
quire of us today?” It was reck- see the robotruck that had an- ing them to allotted bays, where catwalk and down to the floor.
oned judicious to imitate the nounced had drawn in
itself. It they were unloaded. The big hall Moving carefully so as not to
speech of Supervisor, thus gath- to the first bay, where one of the was humming and stutter- touch any of the robos with —
ering for oneself some of his point’s loaders hauled off its ing with the activity of robots good reason, for it was consid-
power. freight with padded metal and humans. ered a sign of forthcoming in-

96 GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 97

Jury if you touched one
while ftey were at work he
reached the red vehicle just as it
was announcing its con-
signment.
“Newspost consignment. DP
D2. Four hundred seventy copies
City. hundred eighty-
Three
three copies City and Star.
Three hundred fifty-two copies
Tidings. Seventy copies Dun-
shinnan Light.”
Dexterously, Sam picked cop-
ies of three of the four newsdi-
gests off the racks before they
were tossed onto the conveyor.
Claysbank arrived and began to
do the same thing. Smiling, Sam
signalled a thumbs-up sign at his
son, watching through the cabin
window.
Someone in DP D2 went short
of their morning news every
morning. No system is perfect.
The men in the point were care-
ful to see that it was a
house that missed out each time.
II
utting the tablets
P pocket, Hedging
old
strolled to the far end of the
bay. Always, if the day had be-
gun well, he liked this little ex-
ercise, liked to see that every-
thing was going smoothly, liked
to smell the sweet oil and warm
metal and the occasional tang of
bad food, where something had
98
of them fallen off the conveyor belt
— eluded the sweep of the cybo-
cleaner. You couldn’t have a bet-
ter job than in the distributive
point — except in Government,
of course. But that was not for
the likes of the Hedgings. He
felthappy that he had inherited
this job, and comfortable to
think that he would hand it
down to Robin.
His reverie faded. Ovine was
watching him. Not watching him
openly, but standing behind a
a stanchion and spjdng, for all
the world like a banshee in a
cartoon. Hepretended to look
the other way when he saw Sam’s
eye on him.
Ovine’s job was one of the
rare kind that machines did less
efficiently than a man
age ability.
He was a floor retriever. Of
the material that fell to the
different floor, not all was rubbish to be
swept into the metal maws of the
cleaners; much of it was
ly good food and such like,
which had tumbled off the con-
in his veyor and could still be used.
For some reason probably
— the
—
a design flaw
ers found difficulty in
guishing such articles from gen-
uine trash. But Ovine could, so
Ovine had a genuinely function-
al job, and was therefore regard-
ed by supers like the Hedgings
and Farvan with suspicion and
and
contempt, and the fear tiiat went the other side of the ware. Sam
with suspicion and contempt A took over from his son, gave him
retriever’s job, boasting no par- the copy of the Light and settled
ticular pitch of its own, was non- to look through the other news-
inheritable. Ovine had arrived digests.
to take up the job only last Robin turned the pages of the
month. He was not a good acqui- He hked to watch
tablet slowly.
sition. the pictures struggle slowly into
“You looking for something?” life and color. Somehow their
Sam asked him. efforts to perform efficiently al-
“No, Mr. Hedging,” Ovine ways woke a chord of sympathy
said. in him. Their meaning interest-
ed him less. These stories, fact
Tt was a deadly insult. Only and fiction mixed, and told all
if they had been eating to- in picture form, had never
gether would it have been propi- meant much to him. He dropped
tious forOvine to have used any- the tablet, exchanged signs with
thing but Sam’s initial when ad- his father and went in his turn
dressing him. To have one’s for a stroll about the point.
name spoken out loud like this His thoughts were chiefly on
of aver- was asking for trouble. Gina Lombard, their new lodger.
Angrily, Sam lumbered for- So beautiful, that girl, so shy
ward. Ovine backed away in and yet so lively, with arms so
alarm, but before he could get ripe and soft! It would be good
away, Sam broke one of his tab- to get back and see her He
. . .
lets between them. The printed caught Ovine looking at him.
perfect- circuits lay on the floor in a scat- “Are you wanting to speak to
ter of glass. The misfortime had me?”, he asked.
been handed back to its instiga- —
“No er, no, young H. I was
tor. merely thinking how busy we
clean-
Although Ovine had been de- are today,” Ovine said, fingering
feated, Sam was unsettled by the his moustache. “I am not quite
distin- incident.He strolled round the used to the routine yet, being
floor, grumbling to the other new here.”
men, with whom Ovine was just “Where did you work before?”
an unpleasant newcomer. Sooth- “I was on structure mainte-
ed by the S3rmpathy he gained, nance.”
Sam retmned to the little cabin Robin had no desire to talk.
up in the roof. He moved away, and went along
GALAXY The beads were piling up on the other side. Farvenpopped
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 99
 hundred such Services below busy feeding movements of the
out of a companionway and laid most. The steps wound down for four hundred such avenues, some arms and mouths there was a
a hand on his arm; Robin was a long way; there were also ele- longer, some shorter than this. symbol of some colossal and un-
none too fond of the way Far- vators, but only robos used them. The city proper, of course, was ending greed bigger than a hu-
ven clutched arms, but he greet- He emerged into what was a bigger proposition altogether. man greed.
ed the old man civilly enough. known as the Services. The Ser- From the roof appeared the The Services maintenance
“You don’t want to talk to that vices had one' overriding attrac- conveyor belt that had been trucks came round less frequent-
O too much, young H,” Farven tion for him. They were on the loaded in the distributive point ly than they should do (in fact
said, putting his pale nose up to- ground, the real ground, Robin had just left. It worked to some heretics whispered that the
wards Robin’s eyes, as if to peck the Earth, the territory he the lower level in steps, feeding city was slowly running to a
at them. “He’s got the evil eye. glimpsed when crossing Dun- its contents onto another and standstill). The arms and jaws
He upset your father not ten shinnan Bridge. It lay beyond synchronized belt that ran at eye developed minor eccentricities.
minutes ago. And see that mous- the concrete walls. level all along the Services. Cy- Some snatched too soon, some al-
tache on his face —
isn’t that a The Services formed a com- bocheckers fussed at this trouble most too late; many squeaked or
sign of Neg?” plex series of sub-roads, entirely point. Quick btlrsts of code whined as they did their task —
“You are being old-fash- enclosed, entirely lit by selumce. flashed up to Supervisor, squat- and at this time of day they were
ioned,” Robin protested. Robin was careful not to get in ting impeturbably somewhere kept busy. No. 634 had greedy
“Am I? Am I now? We shall the way of the purely automatic above. arms that snatched 632 ’s gro-
see. But remember this: tomor- traffic that moved by. Its reac- Chugging further, the slinker ceries as well as its own. No. 987
row night is Wellpurgers’ Night tionswere not always as fast as moved beneath the houses. Here regularly broke its fruit juice
. . , O may get his name burnt if they should be, which was why Robin felt less comfortable, al- jars. These foibles were known
he isn’t too careful.” everything was geared down to though the gloom they had en- to the robos, and allowed for
travel at no more than twenty tered held itsown kind of fear- where possible.
miles an hour. At twenty miles
R obin sucked in his breath.
Something cold tingled down an hour, human and robo reac-
maximum
ful pleasure. This was a region
of stretching hands, lit only by
T he clatter of falling goods
his back. He hated these old tions work at efficien- the EL of the bulkhead above. and the buzz of alarmed cy-
men with their relish of the rites; cy together. . As the eye-level belt rumbled bos came to Robin. He called to
A slinker with a large D2 down the ten-mile stretch, little the slinker to stop, jumped out
they seemed to see it less as a
grim necessity than as a pleas- painted on its side moved up photoelectric eyes winked secret and looked back down the som-
ure. and offered itself. Robin jumped signals to the bulkhead above. ber subway.
“He’s new. We
must try to into the small cab, grateful to be A load for House 549 signalled “City sprites, the main supply
make allowances,” he said, and out of the rancid wind that blew itself to House 549. As it rode belt has stopped!” he exclaimed.
moved off before Farven could down here. They chugged down beneath the house, autoarms The eye-level belt was still on
answer. The old man became the straight road that was D2. came down, scooping hands lift- the move. The belt coming down
garrulous and addressed you like That straight road ran for an ed the load, bore it up and into from above had lurched to a
a public meeting if he was upset. uncurving ten and a half miles. chute mouths that gaped open in halt. He heard men’s voices
Dodging an empty truck rat- Above it was the double row of the bulkhead. Circling himself, shouting, his father’s among
tling towards the exit, Robin dwellings, one thousand two Robin watched the process. He them.
climbed down the nearby com- hundred and sixty-five of them, had watched it for years. It nev- A figure appeared, running
panionway. This was the section that made the D2 Avenue. In er ceased to hold him. In the down the steps of the stopped
of the point that fascinated him Dunshinnan there were four
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 101

100
GALAXY
conveyor belt. It was Ovine. He One of the cybos had stepped when two robos hit each other,”

slipped among rolling cans, into the path of the running Sam said in a fearful imdertone.
threw up his hands and fell on- men, its arms spread. Claysbank “Some human has put them at
hit it across the shoulder. It lost cross purposes. Who’d do that
to the moving belt knees first.
He buckled and stayed there. its balance and fell. Something but Ovine? That’s why we de-
it sizzled and flashed. termined to have his blood. Oth-
Clattering feet sounded down inside

the companionway. The red- Robin stood before Ovine. He erwise the spirits might have had

faced Claysbank appeared, bran- had no weapon, but he could not ours.”

dishing a stick. Farven and Sam
Hedging were not far behind
him. Above their voices echoed
the voice of Supervisor, calling
for order.
Although he knew they were
let the man be killed without go-
ing to his rescue. Gasping, Ovine
picked himself up, half-hearted-
ly attempting to explain as he
stood behind Robin. Robin was
not listening. For the attackers
“So we should have had him,”
agreed Farven from the seat in
front,“but for that sign of the
circle. What’s it mean? The
powers of metal must be on
Ovine’s side.”

not after him, Robin felt alarm. had stopped. Beyond the cybo “They’re against us right
they stood, staring at its length, enough,” Robin agreed. “We’ve
These sudden persecutions were a
common; whether or not he was and at the smoke curling from it thousand man-hours in overtime
to do now, to make up
their victim, they scared him. the value
III of that cybo. You
As his pursuers arrived in the shouldn’t have
Services, Ovine pulled himself
knocked him down.”
way home,
up. The belt had carried him
some way towards where Robin
A ll the
Hedging talked
old
of the in-
from
tion, Farven
to ignore this asser-
said merely, “It’s
Wellpurging Night tomorrow. If
stood.He got onto his knees, and cident. The smoke issuing
above him mouths opened and the metal body had formed the Ovine is fool enough to show
his
mechanical hands reached down sign of the circle. He had seen face tomorrow, we must
have his
it, and the others thought they
blood.” His nose was as sharp
for him. Robin shouted. as
In that moment he was no had too. It must mean some- a dagger.

longer a doubter. He believed to thing. He nodded his parting bene-

the hilt all the whispers he had
ever heard. He knew that the
city really belonged to a
Power —
and that the Higher
Whatever meant, it had
it diction curtly as he moved to
stopped their hunt for Ovine. Bit leave the bus.
Higher by bit, Robin pieced together The Hedgings were gloomily
what had happened. Ovine, when they stepped off at
silent

Power had heart as well as hands walking carelessly across the Avenue C378. They had some
of metal. floor, had got in the way of a way to walk down the pedes-
His scream acted as a warning robotruck. The truck had trian path to their home. The

to Ovine. The retriever looked swerved and bowled into anoth- city, large though it was, was vir-
Together, the
up in time. As the arms came er vehicle. tually without architecture. Ev-
down, he jumped. He landed al- two trucks had jammed into the erything had been spread out,
most at Robin’s feet. conveyor belt and stopped it. with several low buildings tak-
“Don’t let them get me I” “You know what it means ing the place of the large dty

102
GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 103
 Hps; though he spoke to Gina, the city he thought a fire burned.
Their wants for the day had he knew his mother was listen- He desperately needed the com-
blocks that had been the fashion ing, and feared that she would
a score of centuries ago,
back in come up through the Services fort of Gina’s bed, but had not
construe something evil from his the courage
hatch and lay in the delivery to leave his tiny
the days of improperly mechan- to tale. Was some prohi-
there not cabin.
baskets. Robin shuddered
ized groimd cities. The central- bition about retelling bad events?
ization that created the need for think of what would have hap-
In the night, he had a vile work
big buildings, as well as traffic
pened to Ovine if the metal \t in the Distribu-
dream. People he knew took on
problems, had also been done hands had caught him and tried tive Point next morning,
two-foot- a sudden menace and closed in he remained ill at ease. The
away with. Civic centers had to force him into that
square hatch. Death was every-
on him. They extended steel omens had set against him.
been dispersed. The Ser-
He saw how necessary it claws at him. He fell through He told nobody, but he had
vices supply routes solved the
where.
the ground. He fell through seen a cloud like a cross in the
need for conven- was to propitiate it.
old pressing space. But space had a floor. On
He lost some of his unease as sky, and his spectacles had mist-
ient shopping centers. Govern- the floor stood his parents. He
he talked to Gina. She was beau- ed when he drank his morning
itself took place in fully
ment
automated hutments. There was tiful with her trim
black hair fell towards them. They opened beverage —a sure presenti-
that came almost to a peak
above their mouths. The inside of their ment that there were things hid-
no core to the city, only a logic mouths was pocked and rough- den from him, awaiting their
and a finite number of streets. her eyes; and her conversation,
guarded by formal- ened by eczema. As he fell, their time. Walking moodily about
home
The front wall of their
of col-
though
had an unusual qual- tongues — the floor, behind one of the un-
was adorned with a motif ity,
He woke. In the dark, an abys-
about that interested Rob- packing bays, he came across
ored geometrical designs, func- ity' it
felt she was mal rumble came. The rubbish Ovine’s vest.
in. Instinctively he
tional as well as decorative, for
“unsafe”, without knowing
quite hatch was emptying auto- Its sharp blue rendered it in-
the motif served as an addition-
what he meant by that. He He shied at
felt matically into the Services, stantly identifiable.
al means of identifying the
where would be collected in and looked about to see if
nothing but pleasure when
his it it,
house beside the number. It was morning. Throughout the
father moodily retired to
the sit- the anyone was watching.
said that no two houses in the and Dunshinnan, thou-
ting room and turned on
the iUi- city, John Ovine had not arrived
entire city bore the same
pat-
sands, millions, of hatches that morning. The men had
tern. Otherwise they
were all scop. .

Robin and Gina were

.

sitting would be vomiting their muck cursed and demanded his address
alike.
bench down into the cavernous depths. of Supervisor. Supervisor had
together on the kitchen
The fact became part sent them stonily back to work.
when Mrs. Hedging arrived. She
of his
on the
T hey genuflected
threshold, waited until no- had won herself some reputation
as a hag, and spent much
of ev-
nightmare. He could hardly
struggle out of it.
The mood in the place was bad.
Even up in the cosy little hut on
body wearing a black suiting Stranded at last on the muddy the catwalk, which had been
ery day going among her
neigh-
was in sight, and went in. Robin shore of wakefulness, Robin handed down through four gen-
bours, counselling them. As
her
was glad to see that Gina Lom- wiped his brow and gulped for erations of Hedgings, ten-
popularity spread further afield,
•

bard was in. Since breath. He climbed from his sion reigned in every creak of
L, you are back her days became longer.
“Hello, bunk and peered out of the win- Sam’s swivel chair.
special
promptly.” They were not yet the morrow was to be a
supper dow. Robin plunged in his hand in-
familiar enough to call each day, she opened the
without a word. All was utterly quiet, utterly to the breast pocket of Ovine’s
other by their first initial.
Robin felt his account of what
dark — but somewhere across garment. He brought out a note-
“I was arranging your gro-
ceries. I hope you don’t mind.
happened at the DP die on his JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 105
GALAXY
104
book. He retired to
room to investigate
the sign of the circle over it.
The notebook bore stamped
initials on its cover,
beneath it the words for which
the initials stood. Government
Investigation Bureau.
It fell from Robin’s hands.
Trembling, he picked it up
again and leafed through it.
The contents were obscure, be-
ing mainly in note form, or in
words that defied Robin’s simple
reading standards. But their in-
tent was clear enough, even to
him. Ovine had been watching
them for the government, and
was making a report on them.
He had found all the supers re-
dundant. Of the humans working
in the Distributive Point, only
the functional job Ovine was
temporarily holding the de-
spised job of floor
— had any purpose.
practical
The list of men who could be
dismissed included both Hedg-
ings and the pallid Farven.
“But —
but —
we’ve got rights
to the job!’’
He was standing in the metal
cubicle, whispering the words
aloud. The job was threatened.
There were rumors about what
happened to people who could
not find jobs, just as there was
glum tattle about what hap-
pened to the aged who were tak-
en into homes.
106
the men’s His father held documents of was a super. It was no term of him. But the clerks talking
it, making inheritance for the checking job, praise; it probably meant super- the seat behind him reminded
it was true. But the agreement fluous. him that captivity could not be
was with the family, had been Though Robin was not a per- eluded by a bus ride. They were,
GIB, and for over two centxuies. If the ceptive man, a vision came to talking about the Dark Thing
Distributive Point cancelled him. It came in the form of a that flew over the city on Well-
the arrangement, there would be question: how long ago did the purging Night. He might have
nothing they could do about it. present state of affairs crystal- been sitting with his workmates!
Who owned the DP? He didn’t lize? As they crawled over Dun-
know — the government pre- His education in the robo and shinnan Bridge, he looked down
sumably. But who was the gov- illiscop classeshad been of the and saw the earth far below. It
ernment? Who owned the Gov- most rudimentary during his was in shadow and no features
ernment Investigation Bureau? year at school. He had no con- were discemable. On sudden im-
Obviously, those same faceless cept of history, but after the pulse, Robin pulled Ovine’s
people ... or powers. question came the reflection: notebook out of his pocket, fling-
His dream came back to him. things can’t always have been ing it wide of the bus.
The ground was opening be- like this. Fluttering like a tiny live
neath him sure enough. He did not know what a large thing, it fell below the level of
mental step he had taken. the bridge. The parapet cut it
IV First, he needed someone to from view.
talk to. He thought of the youths Alighting at C378, he became
—
H e stuck
tive
it in the Distribu-
until midday. His fa-
and the other men only
I
he played football with once a
week; there was nobody there he
cared to confide in. He thought
suddenly cautious.
excitement
last perscMi
left
Some
him.
of his
he wanted to see was^
Th^
ther
retriever played on his nerves with their of Gina and her bright eyes. She his mother. It was unlikely, h^
remarks about hunting down would be someone who would be thought, that she would be at
Ovine and sacrificing him as a able to think —
perhaps more home, but she would be in the
warlock during the night’s clearly than he could. He did not neighborhood and particu-,
revels. He knew how
feeble these know where she worked, for larly active on a day like this.^
affairs often were when the eve- there were tabus about inquiring Interference from her would be
ning came, but the talk of blood into other people’s jobs, but intolerable.
did him no good. When the rest there might be an address he Few people were about. Hq
of them went down to the auto- could find in her room. He moved forward fast, not liking
bar, he slipped out. caught a bus home. to run. People did not run. The
Supervisor would not miss It was strange, moving round two women he passed kept their
h im or if he was missed would the town at this time of day; he eyes to themselves. He let him-
,
not sack him. He was —
no, he’d had a sudden breath of unac- self through the front door.
never realized it till now — customed freedom that carried “Mother! L!” he called in a
redundant, as the watching eyes him back to his early boyhood whisper, hearing his heart beat.
of Ovine had quickly seen. He before civilization closed in on Something moved in the kitch-
GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 107
 him a trap was in
en. Swivelling his head, eyes
Gina’s notebook
astare, he saw the evening’s meal finding
hatch into the bas- him the trap was aimed
tip out of the
Smiling limply to himself, and his father.
ket.
He took in the few
hardly
he moved upstairs to Gina’s cab-
The scanty notes in the notebook.
in. His nerves were bad.
house held a weird desolation; Mostly there were symbols
Gina, he could see at a glance,
even the lights and shadows that
operated on a more sophisticat-
lay about its floors felt unnatur-
ed level than Ovine, for all that
al at this unvisited time of day.
A stair creaked under his tread they worked for the same organ-
and a rictal jerk took the comer ization — though on one page,
under his initials, she had
of his mouth.
Cursing himself, making the scrawled, “Good intelligence po-
circle, he went at a run into tential, poor lad, but a savage,
Gina’s tiny cabin. just a savage.”
He was making little uncouth
t was better there. A faint sounds to himself, trying to take
I prurient interest strength- the shape of these new things.
ened him when he opened her His first impulse was to escape
tiny closet and saw her dress but there was nowhere to es-
cape to. So he had to go and con-
there. He touched its fabric.
“Gina!” he said, but there was front Gina.
no answer. A sound came that was not
Mouth jerking open, he
She had so few possessions. In his.
her suitcase under the pink face turned. A terrible
just inside the doorway, a thing
towel he came on the leather
notebook with the initials GIB with an idiot metal face and
body of fur, tatty fur that ended
stamped on the cover.
When he had uttered a few in human feet.
He screamed hate and fear
broken noises, he opened it.
with all his lungs’
Written inside was her name, it
and the address of the Govern- he flung himself upon
the girl’s open suitcase held by
ment Investigation Bureau. He
had seen the same address in the handle. He struck the thing
with the comer of it.
Ovine’s notebook, without tak-
ing it in. The thing shrieked and fell
Now the whole business was back, striking its head on the
doorpost. Then it slid slowly to
on a different footing. Finding
The
Ovine’s notebook had shown the floor.
108
operation; dropped away as it went, reveal- a main trafficway. On the oppo-
told ing the wizened face of Robin’s site comer was a canteen. Robin
at him mother. Striking the mat, the entered it, gave his works num-
body twitched, kicked inef- ber and received a plateful of
fectually at the wall and was si- food in exchange for the pledge
lent of an hour’s overtime.
— Almost beyond horror, Robin This was a poor move to begin
sank to his knees, bmshing the with. The pledge would be sent
stupid mask under the bunk. back to his DP, who would then
This was a new Wellpurging cos- have a check on his whereabouts.
tume his mother had on. Once He thought, I need to get away
he called to her. Even when the to another city. But how did one
faintest exhalation of breath go about it? Was it possible?
came to his ears, he could not The meal was welcome. He ate
bring himself to touch her. Sud- it slowly, his eyes on the GIB
denly strength came back to his building. He he
realized
chilled muscle fiber. He up and was lonely and frightened. He
ran. had broken territorial tabus; he
had committed matricide; if the
V Dark Thing flew tonight, it
would have a call for him.
n the way to the GIB ad- People were beginning to leave
A dress, he argued with him- the building opposite. Robin
self. She’d had no right to come grew more undecided. At last he
sneaking up to him like that. rose to go, and at that moment
thing stood She should have taken that ter- he saw Gina in the street.
rifying mask off, apeing the She was walking towards the
puissance of robos. His guilt re- GIB. Hurriedly, Robin removed
mained, whatever he told him- his spectacles and mbbed them
self. on his shirt before taking anoth-
at Yet he felt no love or regret. er look. It was Gina. Her head
strength as His mother had always been was down, and she carried de-
it. He had aloof,wrapped in the mysteries pression in every line of her
of her hagdom. He might have sleek body. As she entered the
behaved foolishly, but he had modest door of the GIB, Robin
had the sense to take a small crossed the road after her.
steak knife from the kitchen as In the doorway, a cluster of
he left. He clutched it in his people leaving work got in his
pocket like a ju-ju. way. They saw him and made
metal mask The GIB stood on a comer of the quick gestures of covering
GALAXY JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 109
themselves. Having no idea what less wild,he removed his hand. “Robofficers rarely kill hu- thinking that he could trust
“You’re a matricide!” she said. mans unless they are sick or them more than he could trust
tabu he had offended against,
She had been back to her aged. Didn’t you observe that? himself.”
Robin could oidy conclude that
here in a different region of room —it must have been al- But no —
all you people have “And can’t he?”
town, and in a different busi- most immediately after Robin been carefully trained not to use “Never, Robin. Even the most
ness, people must have different had left —
and found Mrs. your powers of observation, not complex machine, the computer,
Hedging at the foot of the stairs, to believe in cause and effect. In- just a sort
tabus.He pushed past them and is of special fool.

went upstairs. dead. The hag had lived long stead, you’re indoctrinated into When men shaped themselves to
enough to drag herself a little tying your minds up with a tis-
The interior of the GIB was fit into a computerized world,
shabby and utilitarian, even by way for help. Shocked, Robin sat sue of superstitions! Robin, can’t they became fools them-
on Gina’s table and told her you see how man is lost in this selves,they sank back into this
the standards to which the
Hedgings were accustomed. A what had happened. As he fin- city, ruling himself by fear and sort urban savagery, this
of

robot stood at the top of the
stairs, but it seemed to be out of
commission. Doors with glass
panels stood open, the rooms be-
yond for the most part deserted.
When he came to a door that
ished, lights came automatically mob law and gobbledy-gook?” ghastly mixture of automation
on in the room. Shaking his head as if to avoid and ancestral skulls!”
Looking round in surprise, he her words, he grasped her wrist. Dazed, he groped for an an-
saw the tawdry little room for “You don’t say why you were swer. There was, must be an an-
the first time. It was recogniz- spying on us. You were working swer. He knew the necessity for
able as a room that had been in- with Ovine, weren’t you?” ancestral skulls. They in-

was closed, he threw it open.
It was a tiny cabin with one
window, giving a view across to
the canteen in which he had eat-
en. It was empty, but over by the
window was a closet, the door of
which was open. Faint sounds
gasping or weeping —came
from it. For a second, skin
crawled along Robin’s neck;
then he moved forward.
Gina turned and came into
his arms. He thrust a hand over
her mouth, though fetish objects
like lips and teeth touched his
habited for centuries; the atmo- “Let go of me! Listen, never sured one’s inheritance, and —
sphere reminded him so much of mind what was doing. Just be-
I From outside, a shriek came
the Hedging hut in DP2 that he lieve this —
I have more reason from the drab sky, growing loud-
felt a momentary nostalgia. to suspect you than you me. If er fast
Nodding to the line of ancestors’ you will trust me, I will get you
skulls on the shelf above the out of here.” t was almost night. It was
— door, he a^ed, “You hold this Where was out? I Wellpurging Night. The few
room by inheritance?” “You’re Government,” he
said. “You’re going to have me
clouds in the sky were dappled
“No. I’m temporary here with the last stains of sundown.
while the boss is on an investiga- dissected.” In the north, a thing with spread
tion elsewhere. Robin, why do “You savage! Can’t you see wings rose. It was black. It tra-
you tell me all this? You must there is no government as you veled unwaveringly, and slow-
see I’m yoxu- enemy.” understand the term? The peo- ly as if to survey every soul in
“Sometimes you’re closer ple left in this city are incapable the city. Two red eyes blinked
to your enemies than your of rational thought. Reasoning down. The Dark Thing was in

palm. friends.” man opted out of this city over flight.

She walked over and switched six centuries ago! He began to Robin sank to his knees. Of all
“I’m not going to hurt you, L.
the light off, so that the deep leave over a thousand years ago, the people in the city, he was
I just want to ask you questions.
blue outside the window turned when he first found a machine the one it was after. He had
Calm downl”
blankety gray. could do his thinking for him. transgressed the most. His heart

W hen
gling
she stopped strug-
and her eyes looked
“Robofficers’ll get
do something,” he said.
me unless

GALAXY
I He made a
ing his
big error then, think-
machines were
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE
efficient,
struggled to break free and rise
up to that shape of retribution.
Ill
no
 She was tugging his hair and Miss L, you must take me with
canteen burned; silhouetted by but nothing would have hap-
crying to him to get up, smack- you, out of the city. I want to get
them was a knot of men. Robin pened. The report would have
ing his face, twisting his ear, cry- away from here. Take me with
held the girl back. He recognized been filed in the entrails of
I’ll shoot you both and
ing. In pain, he hit back,
bur-
you or
swear it was my duty.”
some of the men. His father was some idiotic machine — and
grasped her round the legs,
there. next generation the work would
ied his face in her warm thigh. “Turn your torch off,” she or-
“I gave my
address away to have been done all over again,
She fell on top of him. dered. Her voice was calm. “You,
them by eating in the canteen,” just as it was last generation by
She was half-laughing. can’t come. Ovine. Resign your-
he whispered. “They aren’t look- Ovine’s father, and the genera-
“Get up, you great savage! self to the fact.”
ing this way. Can we get round tion before that by his grandfa-
Come on. I’ll take you out of In a humble voice he said, “I
the back?” ther. You see, the GIB itself is
here —
away from the city.” can’t bear this GIB job.Miss L.
They investigated a side alley redundant!”
He was sober at once. He rose I’m no good at it. It’s been in my
running between the GIB build- “But then—”
and helped her to her feet. family over four centuries, but
ing and the next. It led nowhere. “AU humans in the city are
“I want to get out of the city,” I’m just a failure. Wherever I go
As they worked their way back. redundant. They’ve got no
he said. It was all he had ever to investigate, they always dis-
Ovine emerged from the build- meaning and no purpose. The
wanted —
and it had taken him cover me. I’m an outcast. I’m al-
ing, still clutching his stomach, machines just find them little
till now to realize it. ways chased and beaten.
and staggered out into the road. jobs to keep ’em quiet.”
As the Dark Thing shrieked I can’t—”
A cry went up from the group of
overhead —
there were cries Robin’s blow caught him in
men as they recognized him. VI
from the streets to mark its pas- the midriff. He doubled up,
Ovine turned and ran down
sage; people would be dying out dropping the torch and slipping
the avenue towards the bonfire. XT^hen they got off the bus,
there —
they hurried into the to the floor.
With whoops and shrieks, the ’ ’ she led the way to a near-
gloom of the passage. A man Gina seized Robin’s arm and
others gave chase. Sam Hedging by door.
stood there with a gun. led him along the corridor. “My
and Claysbank were in the lead. “Is this a trap, Gina?”
He flashed a torch in their big brave savage!” she mur-
Taking advantage of the distrac- She opened the front door im-
eyes and they came to a shocked mured.
tion, Robin anci Gina hurried patiently, stepping aside to let
halt. “You were pretty calm,
onto the trafficway and jumped him in before her.
“I’ve been listening to every- weren’t you?”
aboard a tram. “You’d better come in
thing you said.” His voice was “Yes. I happened to know that
After a silence, he said, “You and see.”
lesssteady than his gim. “You that gun of his was an old family
are both guilty of crime talk. I heirloom, but he had no —
shots,
must have known Ovine well.”
“No. I told you, I was not per-
Annoyed
doubting
with himself
her, he walked
for
in.
saw you in the canteen, young or whatever the word is. No fuel
manent there. One day you’ll un- Heavy padded hands came up
H. I saw you through this win- for it. Gun fuel isn’t available
derstand the hopelessness of the and grasped his head.
dow when you put your light on. any more.”
network of this city’s life. The In the dark he fought with
I just what you are up to.”
know GIB was carrying out an investi- fear and fury. But the thing was
Robin recognized the sad and '^hey came out of the build-
gation to find how many men in of metal that held him, and had
ing. Distantly down the ave-
baggy face. DP2 are redundant. Ovine — more than one pair of hands. In
“Ovine!” he exclaimed.
“O to you, thanks., I still be-
nue a bonfire burned. Figures
danced round it and there was
had all gone well —would have no time he was hamstrung. They
made his report. You would all were in utter dark, and then a
lieve in the law, if you don’t some shouting. The lights of the
have been declared redimdant. light filled his eyes. The robo
112 GALAXY
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 113

was revealed in outline for a
brief second, as a writhing illu-
niination covered it. It
grip on Robin and fell.
its
sorry about
“I’m terribly
that,” Gina said, clinging to
guessed that
him. “I should have
they’d get after me as well as you
when your mother was discov-
I’ve been careless.
ered.
the mindless fools were ex-
pecting only me, they sent only
one robofficer for me. We’d bet-
ter before more come.”
move
did you do to him?”
“What
Robin asked as they stepped over
the metal hulk.
“A sort of gun that really
works. They don’t make them in
this city. But they do where I
come from.”
“Hag’s sake, Gina, where do
you come from?”
“Where we’re going
In the kitchen, she shut the
door and switched on the light,
grumbling because the windows
of the city did not have curtains.
Outside, with its blood-separ-
ating screech, the Dark Thing
sailed over again. It was close,
but Robin paid no attention.
Gina was opening up her refuse
well. Behind the disposal chute,
the regulation pattern had been
altered. The rotor that mashed
the refuse as it went down had
been removed. A metal ladder
hung into the depths. Inside the
door, a torch dangled. Gina took
114
and climbed through the
it
hatch onto the ladder.
relaxed ‘Tollow me, and be sure to
close the hatch behind you.
There’s a stout bolt on this side.”
“What are we going down in-
to the Services for?”
“Oh, hurry, Robin, hurry!”
Reluctantly, he climbed into
Since the well. As he did so, there
came a knocking at the front
door of the house, a knocking
that changed into a pounding.
As he slammed the hatch to, he
heard a door panel splinter. He
climbed hurriedly down into
the depths, preceded by the jigg-
ing circle of Gina’s torchlight.
had happened to the Services,
and realized that the concrete
fast!” beyond the ladder was new; they
to,
had bypassed the Services level
They could only be going to one
place.
“Steady now,” she cautioned.
He came down and stood be-
side her as she fumbled with a
lock.
“Wait a moment,” he said,
grasping her hand. She turned
to see his face shining with
sweat His chest heaved as he
forced the words out, “I know
where we are —
it’s the ground
can’t go out
outside, isn’t it? I
there. see you out, then
I’ll
go back upstairs to face —”
GALAXY
She broke in, “I can’t leave
you now. Get a grip of yourself
and come on.”
“No, you don’t understand! It
may be true, all you say about
our having been taught a lot of
superstition, but you don’t
just throw off a lifetime’s habit
in one go.”
“You do if you’re determined
enough. Listen, even today the
centuries when man was a crea-
ture living on the edge of end-
less forests and jungles is not far
enough behind him. We never
managed to throw off the super-
stitions of thosetimes before we
took to building our own jimgle-
substitutes, the cities. So as well
as being centers of civilization,
they’ve always been centers of
ignorance and fear as well. The
greatest cities in the world have
sheltered more savages than sa-
vants. This city has no savants!
It’s a stone and steel jungle, and
you’re a savage. Choose! Are you
going back into the trees or out
into the light with me?”
As he stood there, a series of
blows soimded from above their
heads. The robos were breaking
in the kitchen hatch.
Robin laughed hoarsely. “It
seems I’m on your side.”
Distantly over their heads, a
lightshowed. He knew then how
far they had climbed. They
I’ll would be on the ground now
. .
A searchlight flashed on from
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE
above; at the same time, Gina
had the lock open and they tum-
bled out into darkness.
f T^en vision returned to
~^
his eyes, Robin saw they
were indeed on the ground.
It was not as he had imagined
it. The dark made it a terrifying
world in two tones of black.
Massive pillars and strute and
cross girders bit a confusing pat-
tern out of the sky. They stum-
bled over uneven ground littered
with stone and the occasional
trench. A wind blew, hooking
bits of paper out of the shadow
and back, in a lunatic chase.
Robin thought of the white
things he had seen moving from
Dunshinnan Bridge. Instinctive-
ly he looked up. The black mon-
ster of the dty crouched over
them, huge and cruel and sense-
less as an ancient curse.
He tripped and fell.
“I’ve got a half - track parked
where it’s smoother,” Gina said.
“Don’t keep falling over.”
He had hurt his shin and]
was angry. Broken ground was a]
new experience.
“Why don’t you put your
damned torch, on?”
“Because there’s someone or
something ahead.”
They moved round a massive
leg of _ metal. Out in the open,
crouched on the rough ground,
was a machine, with two robos
115

near it. Gradually, the two hu-
mans distinguished between
shadow and substance. Rob-
in felt his legs shake.
“It’s the Dark Thing!” he
whispered. There it lay, its red
eyes closed.
“They’re waiting till it’s time
to do another circuit of the city.
And they’re in our way. Oh,
Robin, and I’ve got lost ... I
can’t remember where I parked
the half-track. Perhaps it was
the other side. All this darkness
— it’s so confusing!”
She began to weep. He held
her, confused and yet grati-
fied by her weakness. Her sobs
sounded horribly loud.
stared out at the Dark Thing
with a dry mouth, watching to
see if the robos had heard any-
thing. Then a stab of light from'
behind made him turn.
The pursuit had climbed
down the well from Gina’s house
and was looking for them. One,
two, three heavy robos appeared,
flashing their lights among the
superstructure of city supports.
The robos by the Dark Thing
began signalling and calling to
the newcomers. There was
a swift exchange of calls, and
they began to join forces. Mak-
ing a dash for it, Gina and Rob-
in jumped behind a buttress. A
shout rose as they went.
“They’ve seen us! We’ll never
get away,” Gina said.
116
the lip of the city came up, us, Robin! They can’t do with-
“Wait!” He looked cautious-
black and ponderous, then they out us the way we can do with-
ly round the buttress. The robos saw the city itself, canting at an out them. We may be redundant
had their backs turned. Their angle, a tangle of light and dark, in the city, but in the world,
lights shone through a maze of
a smaller place than he knew, a they are redundant. You shall
girders onto a vehicle. He pulled
place it was very easy to escape see —
we’re heading for my city,
Gina up. “That’s what they’re from. where robos are back in their
shouting about. Is that your She was laughing, and he en- proper place.”
car?” joyed the sight of it. She said something else more
She nodded. Above the noise, she" shouted, gently, so that he could not hear
“There’s a chance, Robin. Fol- “One last scare for them for the noise.
low me.”
She was running out into the
— I can’t switch the banshee si- “What did you say?”
ren off!” Again he missed her shouted
open. He followed without hesi-
“Why do they need all this reply. Only her smile was clear
tation; he had to be with her. spook apparatus?” he yelled. “If as they sped over the featureless
They ran out towards the Dark they don’t want man, why don’t plain, howling like a banshee all
Thing.
He was not afraid. If robos
they —
just wipe him out?” the way.
worked it, it was another ma-
“They need men! They need —
Brian W. Aldiss
He chine.
A lively, illusfrafed explanation of a useful
t was bigger than he had
and fascinating branch of mathematics
I expected. They pulled up
together, sheltered under one
wing from the robos now exam-
ining her vehicle.
Experiments [
“Can you work this thing?” he
asked. It was half a prayer.
my
in Topology
“Now’s
“Good girl!”
chance to leam.”
They scrambled into a roomy
cabin, sat on unpadded seats be-
fore a control board that meant
"Until
pology
Barr
by STEPHEN BARR
turned his thoughts toward to-
had never occured to anyone that
it
closed, one-sided surfaces such as Klein bot-
tle and projective planes could be made sim-
3^'
ply by cutting and pasting sheets of paper . . .
"A mathematician
nothing to him. She worked Yet it would be unfair to say that his book is named Klein
switches. Lights came on. Motors no more than a collection of topological recre- Thought the Moebius
ations. The play is mixed with important math- band was divine.
roared, died, burst into full life. ematics, and there are occasional asides that Said he: Tf you glue
“Hold tight!” she called, but The edges of two,
plunge into deep waters."
Yce^ll get aweird
MARTIN GARDNER,
they were already tipping up- Illustrated $3.50.
bottle like minef"
wards. He caught a last glimpse THOAAAS Y, CROWELL COMPANY,
of their pursuers, galloping out New York 3, N. Y.
J
towards them. Horribly near.
JUNGLE SUBSTITUTE 117
GALAXY
 THE
WATCHERS
THE
IN
GLADE
BY RICHARD WILSON

Illustrated by GAUGHAN

If a bad planet.
wasn't
The food was good once —
you managed to eat iU

group, are you? How’s the

fever?”

N evins, who had

did not rejoin the others
for nearly two weeks after they
been iU, “Gone,
lightheaded.”
I guess.

Jeffries laughed.
But I still feel

“So do we
had been cast away by the muti- all.It’s something in the atmo-

neers. It was dusk hewhen sphere of this bloody planet

walked into the glade of flame-
colored grass where they had de-
cided to wait. Jeffries was the
only one to greet him.
“HeUo, Nevins,” he said. “Go-
ing to be part of the happy
Well, pick yourself a spot. One’s
as good as another.”
Nevins looked around. There
was no hut or lean-to, or even
bedding. “Where do you sleep?”
he asked.
118
 Jeffries laughed again, with “That’s damn nice of you,” little ways. Just as you will, “Hold!” she cried, fling-
little humor. “You’ve been Nevins said. Ralph L. Nevins of Galactic ing out an imperious arm.
sleeping? You’re the lucky one. Jeffries said; “Code of the News, now that you’re back “None approaches save at our
We don’t sleep, friend.’’ journalist, eh, Cadman?” from limbo.” bidding.” She glared at them.
“They had me doped up. I “Just the decent thing to do,” “How’s Cindy? She’s a pretty “What seek ye?”
guess I was out most of the time. Cadman said, not looking at level-headed one.” Ralph turned to the older
You mean you can’t sleep?’’ Jeffries. Cindy Garth, feature writer man in dismay. “Whafs hap-
“Can’t — and don’t need to,” “Thanks, Cadman,” Nevins for World Wide News, wasn’t pened to her?”
Jeffries said. “It’s the atmo- said. “I’ll have a look later.” the prettiest girl in the world. Cindy’s hair was a tangle. She
sphere, old boy. Something in it. “Okay.” Cadman went back to Few women correspondents were wore no makeup. Her clothing
But nothing to knit up the old typing. “There’s really no hur- externally beautiful. But Cindy was rumpled. Nevertheless her
raveled sleave. Damn nuisance, ry.” was intelligent and pleasant and, carriage was erect and her gaze
of course, but there it is. We’re Before Jeffries led him away, before the mutiny, had been a haughty.
the original lively four. Five, Nevins had a glimpse of the line real diplomat as lone woman in “She’s Queen of the May,”
now you’re here.” Cadman was typing. It said: the ship. She’d earned the re- Jeffries said. “Or perhaps Cath-
“Nobody looks very lively,” damn nice code journalist look spect of each of her male col- erine the Great. Had enough for
Nevins said. later no hurry leagues, even those she’d had to now?”
Cadman, who was closest to rebuff when they tried too un- Yes. talk
I’ll to her when
them, sat crosslegged in front of tt ^adman’s got it all down,” subtly to be lady-killers. I’m stronger.”
his portable typewriter, which ^ Jeffries said. “Every jot Jeffries said: “Want to talk to
her now, or save it for dessert?
They turned away. Cindy
he had propped on top of a flat and tittle. Every crashing bore of went back to her hummock,
rock. He was pecking "at the keys an incident. It’s there for when It may come as a shock.” muttering. It sounded as if she
with two fingers, without enthu- you want it, but you won’t want Ralph Nevins hesitated. He were saying, “ . . respect for our
siasm but steadily. it. He’s crackers, you know.” could see Cindy at the far end sovereign person.”
“Hello, Cadman,” Nevins “Crackers?” of the glade. She was perched
said. “Working?” “Nutty as a fruit cake, to use on a hummock, turned half \ s they headed back toward
Cadman looked at him your idiom. More so than the away from them, watching the the center of the darkening
with no particular expression. rest of us.” sun-moon as it prepared to sink glade Hunter, the fifth in their
“That’s what Interplanetary Nevins looked at him closely. behind the dark red ridge across group, jogged past them around
News pays me for,” he said. “I’m “Not you,” he said. “Not Justin the little valley. She looked per- the perimeter. His head was
preparing a dispatch.” Jeffries of the Daily Mail, dean fectly normal, almost pretty, in flung back and his eyes ap-
“I see. That’s the spirit.” of the British press corps.” He’d the gathering dusk. What could peared to be closed. He held his
Cadman brightened a lit- tried to say it lightly, but it came be wrong with her? hands in fists, close to his chest,
tle. “Look, Ralph,” he said. out sounding nasty. hadn’t He Nothing, Ralph decided. and trotted soundlessly around a
“You’ve been away. You can use meant it to; Jeffries was super- “Come on; let’s go say hello.” narrow track which had been
a fill-in. Feel free to look over cilious and full of biting wit but Jeffries shrugged. “Hold on worn into the yellow - orange
my stuff any time. It wouldn’t there was no malice in him. to your illusions.” grass. He was breathing in a
be right for you to miss out on “The same,” said Jeffries, Cindy Garth looked around deep, controlled rhythm.
the story just because you’ve who’d apparently taken no of- sharply as they neared. She “What’s he doing?” Ralph
been sick.” fense. “We’ve all developed our sprang to her feet. asked.

120 GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GUDE 121

 “Working himself up to it”
“To what? I’d say hello, but
he looks as if he doesn’t want
anybody to bother him.”
“He wouldn’t talk to you now.
Afterwards, maybe.”
“After what?”
“Let’s see if we can fine you
a hummock to call your own,”
‘We may not sleep,
Jeffries said.
but we can’t stand up all night
like bloody horses, either.”
The sun-moon touched the
rim of the horizon and seemed
to spread its softly silver lumi-
nescence along the edge of it, as
if it were an egg yolk accommo-
dating itself to the flatness of a
pan. Then it was sucked under
the rim, leaving the sky dark but
with fiery streaks at one of the
bottom edges of its inverted
bowl.
Then the moon-moon rose, in
almost the exact place where the
sun-moon had srt, and, on a far
between it and the glade,
ridge
some figures began to move back
and forth in a curious, jerky
way.
at such a distance
They were
that was hard to judge their
it
size, but Ralph imagined they
were about as big as wolves.
They traveled in a kind of me-
chanical lope, moving in one di-
rection for several seconds, then
halting with a jerk and going
in the opposite way. They were
little more than silhouettes at
122
this distance, and to Ralph they were spared —
Captain Brian man with a terrible scar over his
looked like cookie-cutter figures Larcom and Lieutenant John left eye, spoke.
being manipulated by a child in Raney, the medics —
and neither “We’ve got nothing against
the beam of a projector. They would discuss it. you,” he said. “There’s a planet
constantly moved back and The uprising had been carried on the chart where we’ll drop
forth, crisscrossing, perhaps out swiftly early one morning you and the two medics who
even swinging around one an- (ship’s time) as the Patton sped didn’t want to throw in with
other the way people did at a in tertiary max. toward a ren- us.”
bam dance. dezvous with the remnants of a “I’ll go with you,” one of the
Then another image came in- beleaguered Earth fleet, a speci- correspondents said to the mu-
to Ralph’s mind, that of a crack- fied number of parsecs from tineer chief.
the-whip at a carnival, where Barnard’s Oph. He was Ramsey Hunter, a
each car was sent speeding in Nevins had heard one scream. lean, unfriendlywar correspon-
one and then was
direction When he dragged himself out of dent whose reputation had been
whipped around as it reached his cabin, feverish and half made because he happened to
the end of its mechanical tether. asleep, a mutineer prodded him be in the right place to dash to
But that was still not right toward the lounge. The other the Sinkiang border to report
The word “wolves” came back four correspondents were al- that short-lived, accidental Sino-
into his mind, without reason. ready there, herded into a cor- Soviet war in which a million
Jeffries had paused and ner under a diorama of Paris-be- men and women died in three
watched with him. “Hstj- fore-the-bomb. Even Justin Jeff- days because of a misunderstood
notic spectacle, isn’t it? For ries had lost some of his imper- order from either Moscow or
some reason, undoubtedly psy- turbability, possibly due to the Peking. Had it not been for
everybody calls them fact that he hadn’t been allowed Hunter, the rest of the world
chological,
the wolves. Yet they don’t look a to dress except for a robe over might never have heard about
bit like wolves, do they?” He his pajamas. the terrible conflict. Had it not
watched them for a while long- There had been a gidfly mo- been for his dispatches, there
er, then turned away and said
ment as the ship came to a stop, might not have been those basic
abruptly: “Besides, there aren’t ending the flutter-in-the-stom- changes in east-west diplomacy
any animals on this planet Ex- ach of tertiary max. which they which brought some sense to a
cept for us.” had almost come to accept as world which had been on the
normal. lip of the pit of disaster.
II There had been some whisper- No one knew then, of course,
ing among the mutineers. Then that soon a united Earth would
T iey
name
had never learned
of the leader of the
mutiny aboard the man o’ war
the Cindy Garth screamed. She’d
had a glimpse through a port of
the bodies of the murdered offi-
face interplanetary disaster.
Hunter, who was only 28, had
been hired away from his news
cers, in orbit anound the Patton. agency and was now a rove-at-
Patton. Nor were the correspon-
dents able to learn the reason The apparent leader of the Will syndicated war correspon-
for it Only two ship’s officers uprising, a gaunt, middle-aged dent for Trans- Universe Fea-
GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 123
tures. He claimed he had a Chi- said, with a glance at the bod-
circling outside against the there was no need for building. double pneumonia and the oth-
nese bullet in his left arm and a ies
unfamiliar sky. The mutineers Nothing went up in the glade. er had to say he’d once had a
piece of Russian shrapnel in his
right leg. Though he never men- could easily add five more gris- The medics had put up their terrible case of triple pneumo-
ly satellites. Or four more, keep- place in a smaller clearing be- nia.”
tioned them except in print, his
scars had been plain to see ing Cindy for themselves. hind a low hill and out of sight “I see. A sort of one-upman-
when he went for a swim at Wal- No, it would be best to take of the glade. They called it a dis- ship —
over nothing.”
what was offered and to ask no pensary. It actually had served “Over nothing important, any-
lops Island before the Patton
leapt away to fling itself across questions, such as what the mu- as a hospital for Ralph Nevins way,” Ralph said.
tinyhad been about. until he recovered from his “And the kiss-and-make-up
six light-years to the vicinity of
Barnard’s Oph, to fight the war “Very sensible, Mr. Jeff- fever. went on out of sight.”
ries,” the chiefmutineer told But Jeffries called the fairy
it “If there was any. We’re just
of the particles.
So Ramsey Hunter naturally him. “Now you pioneers go back palace. He was positive that guessing, aren’t we?”
to your cabins and pack what Captain Larcom and Lieutenant “Gossiping,
said to the mutineers that he I’d call it. But
you want to. Stay there till we Raney were homosexuals and there’s nothing much
would join them, in a pro- else to do,
of course. let you know. It’ll be a few hours that they had built their dispen- is there? Not until mealtime,
fessional capacity,
There would be many
a column yet before we get you to your sary not because they were anyway.”
in the experience, and probably new home.” concerned about the health of “When is mealtime?”
their fellow castaways but be- “Whenever Hunter
a better chance of getting back gets
to Earth.
“No, you won’t,” the mutineer
T he warm climate, where the
temperature did not vary by
cause they were the only two
people on the planet who were
having any kind of sexual rela-
back,” Jeffries said.
“Back from where?”
chief said. “We’re taking our a degree day or night, and the “It’s interesting how we’ve ad-
own and nobody else. This is a lack of rain made shelter un- tions. justed to eating only one meal a
uninhabited planet we necessary. “Ihave no proof,” Jeffries day. Like the family dog.”
nice
Captain Larcom and Lieuten- told Ralph. “It could be just my Ralph said: “This is the sec-
picked out for you. It’s got air
ant Raney, the medics, had built nasty mind. You spent a fort- ond time you’ve evaded one of
and everything.” He had a sense
of humor, of a kind, this scarred a chemical privy near the little night there. In your lucid mo- my questions about what Hunt-
house they put up. ments, how did they strike you?” er goes out for. Why?”
mutineer.
“But that’s inhuman!” Arthur The mutineers had let them Ralph shrugged. “There’s “Why have I evaded your
“Who would ever have pre-formed material out of nothing overt about them, but question? I’ll keep on evading
Cadman said.
the stores. The mutineers also there are signs, if they mean for a while.”
find us?”
“Nobody, maybe. On the oth- had left enough material for each anything: the fussy way they
of the correspondents to have fight with each other, for one T>y then it was dark, or as
er hand,
going,
if we get where we’re

and if we feel like it, we’ll built himself a fair-sized hut, had thing.” ^ dark as it ever got. Hunter,
send a message to Earth and tell he wished to. But none had. Per- “You don’t mean physically who all this time had been jog-

them where you are. If you co- haps if Cindy Garth had singled fight?” ging aroimd the track, increased
operate and don’t make any out one of them there would “No; I mean argue. It’s a pet- his pace for a final lap, then

trouble, that is.” have been some carpentry. But ty sort of contradiction or a — sped away from the glade until
“I don’t think we can ask for with the medics’ toilet available vying for superlatives. It’s as if he disappeared among the tall,
that,” Justin Jeffries to all and with Cindy gone mad. one of them said he had once toad-stool-shaped trees.
more than
treated a very difficult case of Arthur Cadman, whose typing
GALAXY
124
THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 125
 though ear- hovered there, concentrical- tentatively, fearfully, not look- others were being so profoundly
had finally stopped,
ly ringed, like a thin onion-slice ing at her, he stretched out a moved made him seek harder for
lier it had continued despite the
gathering gloom; in the dark sky.
hand to her, ready to withdraw clues to what was really happen-
The was it instantly if it were rebuffed. ing on the ridge where Ramsey
Cindy Garth, wary-eyed and far-off stage filled

aloof, but obviously in need, vnth ever-changing shapes. Oc- But it was not rebuffed. It was Hunter and the other silhouett-
casionally, although the move- ignored for a time; then Cindy ed creatures were acting out
now, of having people around
ments had to be
of the figures reached out, without looking, their macabre ballet.
her;
Lieutenant John Raney, a purely random, Ralph was and grasped Cadman’s hand Those others on the stage-like
man, apparently in his late tempted to ascribe rational mo- and clung to it as she watched ridge now drew away from
thin
the distant tableau. Hunter as if he were contamin-
twenties, whose hair was rapidly tives to them.
turning gray; Even as a dedicated sky- ated. It was as if those who ap-
Captain Brian Larcom, a watcher must inevitably find O alph looked away to the proached Hunter from the right
once-trim figure in his early for- meaning in a cloud-shape, so did others. Larcom and Raney, did so with the greatest reluc-
ties who was now beginning to Ralph find significance in the who had entered the glade so tance. But approach they must,
bulge above the belt and below motions of these others with conspicuously apart, were sitting Ralph thought, because they
the chin; and whom he and his fellow cast- on a hummock. As Hunter ap- were on a treadmill. No, not so
Justin Jeffries, who led Ralph aways shared the planet. peared on the ridge they moved much a treadmill as one of those
Nevins to the center of the glade And as they watched intent, — closer together, as if in fear. little hand-cranked merry-go-
as if initiating him into a rite. involved, apprehensive, fear- Then slowly, unconsciously per- rounds you used to see in the
The medics arrived in single ful— a new figure appeared at haps, Larcom’s right hand
reached out and gripped Raney’s
city, on the back of a truck,

file, several feet apart, from out the left of the double-moon-illu- where the horses and swans and
of the toadstool wood beyond minated stage. It was Ramsey left and they clung to each oth- ostriches moved with strobo-
er, their eyes fixed on the drama
the circular glade of grass. The Hunter, instantly recogniz- scopic haltingness both from left
But then, as Hunter’s pres- being enacted on the far ridge. to right and right to left. All that
glade had lost its yellow-orange able.
daytime fire and was now the ence made the move-
itself felt, Justin Jeffries, having brought was lacking was the music, the
color of a steak which had lain ments on the stage,
of the others Ralph to the center, sat apart imitation-calliope sound.
too long in the supermarket heretofore calm and ordered, if from him. Jeffries watched as While the figures approaching
freezer-shelf. swift, became frenzied and fran-
intently as any of the others, but —
Hunter did so haltingly fear-
No one spoke. They arranged tic, as if menace had entered seemingly wi&out the need for fully? —those fleeing from him
another’s support. Yet toward went in a wild plunge, as if
themselves on hummocks, almost from the wings.
ceremoniously, facing the far- Then Ralph noticed Cindy. the end of the drama he too had strung on elastic, almost as if ex-
off rise where the silhouetted As Hunter joined the group become tensely involved. As he ultant at having been spared.
figures persisted in their silent, across the valley and became one watched, his right hand made a The weird dance became even
fist and slowly bored into his left more frenzied. It must have
tireless dance. Ralph, his ques- of the silhouettes, Cindy became
tions hushed by the obvious so- less aloof. Her hands began to
palm. been Ralph’s delusion but Hunt-
lemnity of the occasion, sat flutter, to her hair, to her face, Ralph, not knowing what any er, the hunter, had become
down where Jeffries indicated to her breast.
of this meant, was less personal- shninken and had assumed the
he should. Cadman, who was sitting near ly involved, though the obvious shape of a wolf. Or had he mere-
The moon-moon had risen Cindy, watched her with con- emotion of the others was affect- ly dropped down on all fours?
ing him. His realization that the But at the same time the oth-
just so far over the horizon and cern. He moved closer and then.

126 GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 127 I

ers — the hunter’s prey — therefore, as the wolf-shaped
became human-shaped. Their creature Ralph knew to be a hu- such duration that at one point how she liked the show. I
man being crept ever closer to they had blended into a unified thought it was horrible,
scissorwork outlines took on the
expression of group emotion. of course.”
forms of rounded men and
full, the terrified pack of tethered
human-seeming beings. As the hunter left the distant He saw Cadman cock an ear
women. They grew arms and legs
The tableau became a silent stage with his kill the dancers toward them, then write in his
of the most astonishing realism.
crescendo of agonized movement on that knoll returned to the notebook, nose almost touching
With the legs they sought hope-
as the hunter reached slowly into
measured round in which they a page. Ralph could image him
lessly to run from this alien
their midst and came away with
had been peacefully engaged be- putting down: Lincoln theater
creature intent on their destruc-
the one he had chosen. fore the stranger joined the horrible of course . .
tion.
scene. “Of course,” “But
Jeffries said.
But their legs were chained to
the eternally revolving central Ill Now that this act of the drama fascinating, too, you must ad-
had ended, those in the glade mit. You wouldn’t think the
mechanism. There was nowhere
had been done so drew apart. Cindy Garth same routine could hold an au-
they could go except to cower t quickly,
away from their himter as they I after the ritualistic prelimi-
dropped Arthur Cadman’s hand dience night after night, but it
with an expression of distaste does. The same audience, need-
were drawn toward him and nary, that Ralph almost missed
away He had
expected to see Hunt- and retired to a separate hum- less to say.”
then to fling themselves as it.

human form and mock. Cadman looked after her “You mean it’s always Hunter
soon as they were able. er re-assume
strike with a knife, with a dra-
for amoment, then took a small who goes out?”
With arms they gestured
their
matic upflung and downthrust notebook from his pocket and “He’s a volunteer. Never mind
to each other and to their foe,
arm. But Hunter attacked from
began to write busily, bending now. Here comes the killer with
making plain their fear and dis-
close to the page so he could see his kill.”
gust. They did not hold each near the ground and used no
in the dimness. Hunter strode into the glade
other’s nor did they
hands weapon that Ralph could see.
The one taken from the midst Larcom and Raney unclasped with some awful thing over his
strike out against the wolf-shape
of the others threw up its arms
hands and self-consciously with- shoulder.
of the hunter who menaced
one final hopeless gesture. Its drew to opposite sides of the
them. Their arms appeared de- in
signed less for offense or self- head went back on its neck in a same hummock, where each sat
stiffly upright.
O amsey Hunter, chronicler of

defense than to express their silent scream of despair. Then it wars, castaway of fate, killer
withered. It simply collapsed Justin Jeffries, the cool one, of aliens, strode into the glade
otherwise unvoicable emotions
— their terror at being attacked and was borne away across the stopped turning his fist in palm
and stood up, thrusting hands
with a confident step and a proud
He went directly to
by this alien creature. shoulder of the man who had bearing.
hunted could
of the now risen to his full human into pants pockets. He looked at Cindy Garth and kneeled before
The faces
Ralph, who shook his head and her.
not be distinguished, but there height.
was enough in the way they A great sigh, whether of relief gave a smile of no meaning. “I have returned, O my Queen,
shame Ralph could not Jeffries walked to Ralph’s with food for your subjects,” he
turned their heads, this way or or tell,

rose from the watchers in the hummock. He said with forced said. His expression was a mix-
that, or held them at an angle,
glade. Ralph himself felt chiefly lightness: “What do you think ture of haughtiness and mock
to persuade Ralph that only in-
of our amateur theatricals?’’
telligence could have directed release from tension. The others servility, overshadowed by a
had not sighed in unison, but Ralph, putting his voice to- look which laughed at everyone
such movements.
each individual sigh had been of gether, said: “You sound like the and everything.
It was appalling to watch,
actor who asked Mrs. Lincoln Cindy ignored the look, if she
GALAXY
128
THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 129
 grave. “Carry on, Cadman, and plied. “I’ve offered before, you

and She stretdied them, then went off beyond the remember the old precept: Nev- remember, but you’ve never ac-
saw it, stood.
glade to their infirmary er mind the facts, but be sure cepted.”
out a tentative hand which did
(or fairy palace), Larcom you spell the names right.” He “You’d
not quite touch Hunter on the first willing go?” Hunter
and Raney carrying the food. kept an absolutely straight face. asked, as
forehead. “Rise, mighty hunter,” if in disbelief. “You’d

she said. “Thou hast done well.”
Hunter rose and tossed down
the thing he had been carrying.
Ralph djdn’t know what he
had expected —
perhaps a clat-
No words were exchanged. A little frown appeared on
Cadman was the next to go up. Cadman’s forehead. He
Hunter, a benevolent smile on “Forgive me for asking, but is it
his lips, waited for him to ap- Hunter with a capital H
or is it
proach. Ralph, watching, thought small-h hunter? I mean in the
generic sense. I do get confused.”
•
risk the perils, the psychic ter-
said:
rors?”
“Ah, bull,” Jeffries said. “It’s
not so terrible as all that. I par-
ticularly want to put my offer

ter of skeletal bones or the thud
of a body. What he heard was
the faintest rustle, as if Hunter
had dropped an autumn corn-
stalk. And when he looked he
saw a leafy bundle, a sheaf,
hose plucking would have been
no more traumatic than the
picking of an apple.
“Will Your Highness honor
me by accepting the first of the
servings?” Hunter asked.
“We accept,” Cindy said and.
Hunter leaned down and broke
off a piece. It was about as long
as a leg of lamb and not quite
as thick.
Cindy grabbed it out of his
of Hunter as heir apparent and
wondered how he would treat
poor Cadman as he claimed his
pound of grain, or whatever the
stuff was that lay, inert, on the
ground.
To Ralph’s surprise. Hunter
(Hunter the hunter, dispenser of
life) treated Cadman very de-
cently. “How are you, Cad-
man?” he said. “Everything all
right?”
“Fine, Hunter,” Cadman said.
“I’m keeping it up to date.”
“That’s the way,” Hunter said.
“Take some chow so you’ll have
the strength for it.” He put a
piece Cadman’s pocket
in
on the record because we have a
And Hunter said, again more new arrival today: Ralph
kindly than Ralph would have Nevins.”
expected: “It depends entirely “I am
glad to welcome him,”
on your point of view, Arthur. Hunter said. “Out of courtesy to
You’re the historian; you’re He- him I overlook all the ways you
rodotus, you’re Toynbee. And the have attempted to subvert my
historian is the referee. Call ’em authority
and belittle my
as you see ’em, Arthur, and
achievement.”
damn the dissenters.” Ralph, who had drawn close
Cadman, his notebook out, to the two, said: “Surely Hunt-
as busy recording it all, his
er hasn’t forgotten that we were
face close to the paper, as he all together aboard the Patton.”
backed away from Hunter, the “I’m afraid he has,” Jeffries
man on the Queen’s hummock; replied under his breath. “He’s
Hunter, the acting chief. completely absorbed in this he-
roic drama he’s playing. Try him
’^hen it was Justin Jeffries’ out you like.”
if

hand and ran to her place at the
edge of the glade, calling over
her shoulder: “Serve the others,
mighty hunter, and thyself.”
Hunter reached down again
and broke off a piece which he
put in his pocket. Then he beck-
oned to the medics, who seemed
the most eager to be fed. Cindy
“Here, have another little some-
thing for later, in case you
bogged down in the middle of
the night while you’re doing the
history. It’s amazing how a little
something to nibble on stimu-
lates the creative juices.”
“Thank you,” Cadman
gravely. “Having been a writer
turn. Jeffries went with a Ralph thought for a
“I will.”
get combination of bravado and sub- moment while Hunter stared
servience, a mingling of defiance coldly at Jeffries. Then he said:
and dependence. He said: “Hail, “Hunter, what do you plan to do
Chief. Congratulationson a suc- when
the rescue ship comes?”
cessful hunt. What can
I, your Hunter went into the first per-
humble servant, do for you?” son plural, as if Cindy no long-
Hunter regarded him coldly. and said: “Our fealty
said er existed,
“You can hunt in my place to- to our subjects. Naturally we
is

Hunter, you un- morrow night. How would that shall stay here with them.”
had seemed more eager to leave yourself.
suit you, wise guy?”
them than to eat. derstand our problems. I appre- Jeffries put left ear to left
ciate that” “Perfectly,” Jeffries re- shoulder and rolled his eyeballs
Larcom and Raney accepted
the portion Hunter tore off for “Quite,” Hunter said, equally
THE WATCHERS IN THE GUDE 131
130
GALAXY
 Com- “But they’re shaped like peo- Cindy Garth was eating as if now that Ralph Nevins was the
up as if to say: You see?
there might never be tomorrow,
ple.” sole member of the audience.
pletelymad. man. cramming food
empty talk,” “So’s a gingerbread into her mouth But then, for no apparent rea-
“Enough of this
“Here is your You’ve got to be realistic. The in an orgy of self-gratification. son, Hunter clutched his belly,
Hunter said. Ralph stared
Nev- only other stuff that grows here at her for a time groaned and ran. Like anyone
share, Jeffries, and yours, but she either did not see him
that is impossible. It has no
nourish- who is about to vomit, he head-
ins. Now get thee hence, or chose to ignore him.
the hunter may enjoy what is ment and it makes you sick. ed away from his fellow crea-
“Maybe we could build up an His gaze went next to Arthur tures. He went a little beyond
left to himself, before the
great
immunity to it.” Cadman, the fortunate one who the perimeter and stood there,
sleep descends.” had held the Queen’s hand and
“Don’t think we
haven’t tried. facing out from them, his body
Ralph watched Hunter detach who had been spoken civilly to
It’s like eating a poison ivy sal- heaving as his stomach worked
a piece which he handed to Jeff- by Hunter. But Cadman was to rid itself of that which of-
ries. He gave another
to Ralph ad.”
Saying no more, Jeffries went even less responsive. He had eyes fended it.
and stuffed what was left under for nothing but his journal. He To Ralph, who had not yet
the off to his own hummock, clutch-
his arm and loped off to
ing the meal that Hunter had wrote steadily, a pencil in his eaten, this was a discouraging
edge of the glade, halfway be- right hand and his eyes close to
given him. sight. If the great hunter could
tween Cindy and Cadman. the page, his left hand only oc-
“He talks not stomach his own provender,
Ralph told Jeffries;
moment’s
a casionally bringing a bite who else could be expected to?
like a
James
cross
version
between the King
and Edgar Rice
R alph,
hesitation,
after
took
own
his share
place, near
of supper to his mouth.
Ralph looked next to Jeffries, Ouddenly Ralph had no ap-
and v/ent to his
Burroughs.”
a dozen feet away. Jeffries, for- petite. He took his share to
“Really?” Jeffries said with a the perimeter.
There, sitting beside his hum- mer man-about-London, so- Cadman. (His firstimpulse had
minimum of interest now that
phisticate, sometimes adviser of
dinner had been served. “I’m mock, which so accommodating- been to go to but Jeff-
Jeffries,
prime ministers, was so en-
ly fitted its edge to the back
of ries’ gluttony had disgusted
hungry, so I suggest you go and
his neck, Ralph examined
his grossed in his meal that Ralph, him.) Cadman
looked up from
eat, privately, while I do the
ration.
shocked, looked away quickly. his notebook and said
same. Don’t be self-con-
was ominous than he
less At the moment there was noth- “Thanks.”
scious. No one will watch.”
It
There was nothing ing to be learned from Jeffries “Does Hunter always get sick
As Ralph hesitated. Jeffries, had feared.
about was the least like
that except gluttony. like that?” Ralph asked.
though, obviously anxious to go, it

flesh. Relieved, Ralph broke

off Ralph turned finally to study “Always when it’s his turn.”
took the time to say; “What
a piece. It caused him no more
the hunter himself, Ramsey “You mean others have been
you’ve got to understand is that
pain than it would to snap a Hunter. out? Hunter talked as if he was
they’re vegetables.”
bread stick. Hunter was eating like a gour- the only one.”
“I know that, I suppose.”
It was crisp, like celery. It
had met, choosing a bit of this, a “Oh, no,” Cadman said;
“Well, you have no compimc-
separated cleanly, with no trifle of that, wiping his lips with “we’ve all been out. Hunter’s
tions about digging up a potato,
bleeding or any other indica- a handkerchief and then nibbling just going through one of his he-
have you? And then plucking
that might once again, unhurriedly. It was a roic moods. Then it’ll be up to
out its eyes and boiling it in wa- t-on it

ter, or baking it in its skin, and

have been flesh. Grateful for bravura performance, like his Jeffries or me — or you.” He
this, Ralph looked to see
what earlier one on the knoll across smiled at Ralph. “You thought
then eating it? Same thing. Only
I

the others were doing.

the valley, none the less polished was crazy, didn’t you? I suppose
these are mobile vegetables.”
GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 133
132
I am, in a way. But not as crazy in mind. You’ve seen waving
as some. Poor Cindy, for in- wheat and Mexican jumping
stance, is worse off by far. And beans. You’ve seen a willow tree
Jeffries — I really feel sorry for in a windstorm, shaking its skirt
him. He can’t eat at all when like a hula dancer. Didn’t you
he’s the hunter and he tries to ever see an aspen shimmer in
make up for it by stuffing him- the slightest breeze, like a wom-
self when somebody else has an in sequins in a spotlight?
gone out.” Here, take this and go on back
Ralph looked at Cadman to your hummock and try. No
through new eyes. "You've been one will watch you. It’s a sort of
out?” he said. “By yourself?” unwritten rule.”
“Certainly,” Cadman said. Ralph was touched by Cad-
“I tcld you. We’ve all been out man’s concern. After a moment
— all except Cindy, and even he said: “Thanks; I’ll try. I
she said she wanted to but we shouldn’t have stared at you and
wouldn’t let her.” the rest, should I? I’m sorry.”
“The medics, too? Have they “That’s all right. Go ahead
gone?” and eat. I have a lot of writing
Cadman smiled. “Yes, in tan- to do. I especially want to get

dem.” down my little speech to you —

Ralph considered this new in- the one about the moving vege-
formation. Then he said: tables —
before I forget it. For-
“Could you eat afterwards, when give my vanity.”
you’d been out?” Ralph went back to his hum-
“Only when I wasn’t notic- mcc’: and, resolutely thinking of
ing,” Cadman was en-
said. “If 1 gingerbread men and Mexican
grossed in my journal, and eat- jum.ping beans, managed to eat a
ing was secondary, yes. Only little. Then he must have dozed,

once, when it was so dark I back of neck comfortably

couldn’t write at all and when against hummock’s edge, be-
eating became a conscious thing cause when he next noticed the
—then 1 couldn’t.” sun -sun had joined the sun-
“I can’t eat now,” Ralph said. moon in the sky.
“Oh,- you must. You’ll need
your strength.” IV
“I keep seeing them up there,
like people, terrified of Hunter.” 'n hard light the
the bright,
“Lots of vegetables move,” I knoll where the drama had
Cadman said. “Try to bear that taken place was like any small

134 GALAXY
 every- where the vegetation stood mo- gathering took place after the
fresh,’’ Jeffries said, as if
and the creatures which
hilltop, tionless under the brilliant sky. sun-sun had set.
had been hunted were about as body should have known that.
Step by dogged step he
“All the good goes out of it over-
lively as a cornfield. "O alph felt a bright light in- brought himself to the base of
night.”
Ralph’s companions sat on or side his skull. Although the ridge where the crop, or
weak.”
lay against their hummocks
in a “I feel
there was a visual impression of whatever it was, grew. It stood
seeming stupor, except Cadman,
“You should have eaten last
great heat the temperature was there in stalks, like a dusty corn
Cadman was al- night. Last night it had the crun-
who was writing. no higher than it had been the field, yellowy-tan, silent, unmov-
chiness of celery, the juiciness of
most always writing. previous night. He was not per- ing.
Ralph stood up, then good rare steak, the crumbly
spiring. But there was no breath In a final burst of forced en-
consistency of cheese. I enjoyed
staggered as he tried to walk. He of motion to the air, and the un- ergy, Ralph went up the rise and
was weak, like any hospital pa- it.Mad or not. Hunter gave me filtered light hurt his eyes so cut a single stalk.
back a particularly fine piece.
But to-
tient who had been on his that he had to close them to slits. His machete sliced through it
for a long time. knew then,
He day it would be like eating an The glare also seemed to focus There was no excite-
effortlessly.
medics old cowflop.”
as well as if one of the on his brain, cooking it without ment or danger,as there had
“I’m hungry,” Ralph said.
had explained it to him, that he heat. seemed to be when Hunter was
He felt him- “Isn’t there anything else I
needed food. He envied the others their tor- here last night.
could eat?”
self toppling and guided
his fall por and their full bellies. Well,
ivy Nobody, nothing, grimaced at
Jeffries shrugged. “Poison
toward the little pile of food the sooner he got to the ridge Ralph, or threw up his-her-its
Cadman had persuaded him to salad.”
I’d drag
and cut himself a meal, the hands in despair.
“If I had the strength
keep and to try to eat. sooner he’d be able to lounge Nobody, nothing, screamed;
Lying on his left side where myself over to the ridge and cut
against his own hummock and or opened a mouth (or anything
myself a fresh piece. I don’t
he had gone down (none of the experi- wait for it to be a more bearable like a mouth) to scream, silent-
others had made the slightest ef- think it’s as traumatic an time of day. ly or otherwise.
fort to help him, Ralph
reached ence as Hunter made out. Ralph stopped at the medics’
again. He It was He felt a
dull, in fact.
But Jeffries shrugged
for one of the food pieces. Ralph s to borrow a machete. No one an- little disappointed because there
looked bored with
even before he brought it to his swered his call, so he helped had been no dashing back and
realized he couldn’t troubles. “Suit yourself.”
mouth he go. himself to the heavy jungle forth of humanoid plants, no
there was “I suppose I’ve got to
eat it. It was not that knife which hung outside and mystery or drama. Each of the
Ralph tried a jest; “I can’t sit
anything psychologically wrong, went on through the wood. other faded-tan stalks had
as there had been last night, around starving until the next The toadstool - shaped, umber- drooped dutifully, dully in its
the stuff was literally inedi- safari leaves, can I?
now Jeffries
colored trees gave some relief place while he cut down its
could no more have got “It’s your stomach,”
ble. He He from the stabbing light, but the brother.
vastly uninterested.
nourishment from the thing he said,
glare was so much more intense The stuff didn’t even wave, as
leaned back against his hum-
was holding than he could have when there were gaps between wheat was said to do. It certain-
got marrow from a stone. mock and closed his eyes. the tall trees that it seemed al- ly hadn’t waved at Ralph, either
Feebly, he threw it away. It Hating him suddenly, Ralph most worse
bounced toward Jeffries, who fi-
— *•
to his knees, then stood erect
random
to
protection.
have had their with affection or fear.
Giddy because of his hunger
and, carefully putting one foot
nally looked up, rousing himself His brain cooking, Ralph and the piercing light in his
ahead of the other, started out
from his torpor. could understand why the food skull but pleased with himself,
of the glade toward the far ridge
“You have to eat it while it’s
GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 137
136

_Jl
 ” ”

Ralph looked across the v. ley Hunter looked down at it, “Go ahead, Cindy,” Cadman “Try it and see,” Cindy said
to the glade where his fellow then at Ralph. “Back with your said. softly.
castaways sat or lay, locked in kill, are you, Nevins?” he asked Captain Larcom said: “Don’t With histriumph turned to
ennui. They had certainly made sardonically. excite yourself, Cindy. It’s not straw, Ralph’s hunger could no
a big problem out of this harvest- Ralph replied modestly; “Oh, worth it.” longer be denied. Finally, em-
ing, this bringing in of the I wouldn’t call it a ‘kill.’ It Cindy said to Ralph: “You’re barrassed and in gnawing pain,
sheaves. wasn’t all that hard.” new here and we can forgive he tried it. There was no nourish-
He couldn’t make out the ex- “Was it easy?” Jeffries asked. that.” It wasn’t the royal “we” ment in it. No juice or even mois-
pressions on their faces, but all “Well, I did what I had to do. she was using now. “Of course ture in the silly little stalk he had
of them seemed to be watching It was easy, frankly, and not at we were all together aboard the bravely harvested and brought
him. Hunter particularly all traumatic.” Patton and that should count for back to gloat over. It was simply
(mighty hunter, indeed!) seemed “So much so,” Hunter said something, but these past two a dried hulk, like a cornstalk
to have an intent eye on him. with a sneer, “that you don’t see weeks when you were safely from last year’s mulch pile. He
Having gained strength what aU the fuss was about, do tucked away in the infirmary spat out the tasteless, powdery
from his triumph, Ralph decid- you? Isn’t that right?” sometimes seem more like two thing.
ed it would be possible to return “Oh, I think I can understand years. We’ve all gone crazy in “Sorry,” Cindy said. She add-
to the glade with his stalk intact how the ritual came to be built different ways, Nevins, and some ed, ever so rationally: “I suppose
and eat there
it —
perhaps even up,” Ralph said, smiling despite more than others. You’ll find somebody should have told you
to make the magnanimous ges- a sudden new pang of hunger your own peculiar mania in a the juices leave the stalk in day-
ture of offering some to Hunter. (he could hold out a few min- day or two. I’m sure. In the light. The moisture that makes
This thought buoyed him up so utes longer, anyway.) “I guess meantime give us credit for hav- the plant edible hides in the
that the trip back took much after I’ve been out here in the ing a small residue of common roots until the sun-sun goes
less time than his outward jour- glade as long as you have. I’ll sense. We do what we have to do down.”
ney. welcome some sort of diversion
— —a few of us a little more
too. Some kind of strenuously than necessary — but V
T he sun-sun had passed
zenith before his return. His
its “Amateur dramatics?” Hunter
asked. “Group theatricals?”
“That’s it, of course,” Ralph
we’re all human beings and we’ve
all adjusted to this impossible XTight came and he
finally
fellow castaways seemed to gain planet the way we’ve had to. So ^ was able to go out again.
strength as the brightness faded said recklessly. “A kind of com- stop feeling superior to Hunter His hunger had become a gnaw-
and they left their hummocks to munity pageant to relieve the te- because you went out in the mid- ing ache, punctuated by an oc-
him. Even Larcom and dium, with everyone playing his day sun. Things are not what
greet
Raney had come to the glade assigned role
— they seem, especially in the eu-
casional stabbing pang. Ralph
had taken Hunter’s advice on
from their self-imposed segrega- Ralph’s voice trailed off as phoric noon. Nobody’s going to how to alleviate it by jogging
tion. Cindy Garth came forward. The eat your pathetic little offering. around the perimeter, as all
Ralph, so elated by this re- others stepped aside for her. Not even you.” true hunters were alleged to do.
ception that he felt he could She looked much better. Last Ralph met their various glanc- The monotonous, jarring of
postpone eating almost indefin- night she had been mad; but es, then dropped his gaze to his feet on earth (Earth! —
would he
itely, tossed his trophy to the now she was angry. “Just let me dry stalk. “Why not?” he asked ever see it again?) had made the
ground. It fell with a tiny rus- say something to him while I’m hopelessly, already knowing the time pass faster and had even
tling noise. rational,” Cindy said. answer. “What’s wrong with it?” taken his mind off his hunger a

138 GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 139

 as she we were savages, we were can- cannibal, will dance with me. I
had also numbed his listening respectfully if
little. It nibals.”
told a truth they knew.) “We won’t think then; I’ll just
mind, but again only a little. dream.”
Because the waiting for night know them well. They are
oggity jog-jog. Words, only Hunter; “Shut up, Cindy.”
had been hard, they took com-
passion on him to the extent of
friendly, compatible,
gent; lovable, even. They have
intelli-
J words.They had no mean- Thud, thud. Jog, jog. The vi-
ing to match that of hunger. brations jarring through
talking^ to him now and then. As been, at times, evocative to us of his
.” Another (Cadman?) “At body were almost as good as
old friends, family, lovers
:

he jogged he remembered dis-

. .

least we’re honest cannibals now. food. (What a lie!) This way he
jointed random fragments: Cadman: “I had a Bunk John-
son record that I used to play
We our fellow thinkers only
kill could stand it (he told himself).
Hunter saying: “Let me assure that we may keep alive. If they As he jogged around the track,
all the time. It was my grand-
you that there’s not one unnec- think. There once was a paper head back, fists clenched, he re-
was You Always Hurt
essary move in this nightly per- father’s. It
in New York — remember New membered Cadman trying to
the One you Love.”
formance. In the first place it
Himself?: “That’s all right; York? —
that called itself ‘The persuade Cindy to let him
has to be every night. You found Paper for People who Think.’ It (Ralph) have some of the emer-
out for yourself that the stuff I’m a vegetarian.”
won’t keep through the heat of Hunter: “Is that your bad was a Hearst paper and when it gency ration —
the food he had
wanted to emphasize a word or been fed in the hospital. There
the day.
.” joke for today, cannibal?”
.
a phrase in an editorial it print- couldn’t have been much of it
Jog, jog, jog.
Who?: “We were all canni-
ed it all in capital letters. It’s
That’s the kind of but he found it hard to under-
Somebody (himself?) saying: bals once.
critics called it ‘The Paper for
“Grant me that you consider business we were in. We stole stand Cindy’s flat refusal. “Nev-
and cop- People who Think They Think.’ ins isn’t going to starve to death
each other’s stories
murder an odious occupation.” So maybe we only think they
Thud of heels on packed ied each other’s leads. We bribed
—
in the next couple of hours,”
think I mean maybe we only she had said. “And
and spied to cultivate a new he’ll learn a
earth. (Earth? No.)
source, preferably one ‘close to
think they think. At least let — lesson.”
Somebody else: “Murder, yes; - me see if I can think this He (Ralph) was learning it.
but not picking vegetables.” the presidential palace’ or ‘ac —
with the Leader s
through I’d like to think we He was Ralph. He was Nevins.
Ignore the pangs. Jog. Thud. quainted
only think they think. What do He was (full name now Ralph
our journalistic
Himself?: “Tell me what you thinking,’ in
you think?” Leslie Nevins. Oh, yes, he (you
consider murder to be.” jargon, and then we fed on each
And Cindy said: “If you know who) was learning a good
Thud. Jog. Pang, pang. other’s sources until they’d been
think about long enough you
it lesson. He was learning to hate
Another: “The destruction of milked dry and discarded for go crazy. If you think about any- them the bastards. Bastards
more sensational ones. Too of-
all,
a thinking being, I suppose.” thing long enough you go crazy. and a bitch. Cindy Bitch -Queen
ten we were less interested in We — I
;

Head back, breathe deeply of went crazy, thinking. I

(which might Garth, who wouldn’t let him
the still air. Jog, jog. writing the truth haven’t come back yet.” have the ration. Justin Bastard
Cindy Garth (listen, now; lis- just explode under everybody,
And Hunter said: “Shut up, Jeffries, who had let him go out
Cindy; Cindy knows):
to us included) than we were in
ten Cindy. It’s hard enough without under the sun-sun, sadistically
“We have communicated with promulgating a government line you reminding us all.” knowing he was making a futile
them, though we know not how. or in helping an obscure depart- And Cindy: “But when I do He hated Jeffries worse.
trip.
A queenly gift of second sight? ment send up a trial balloon come back I’ll comb my hair and He had wanted to go early but
Telepathy? No matter; they are which quite often was shot down put on makeup and maybe some- they explained (some of them
tiiinking beings.” (Cindy was the following day. Knowingly body, not noticing that I’m a
we were immoral, reasonably, some shouting an-
mad again. Still, everyone was abetting this,
THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 147
GALAXY
grily) that it would do no good
to cut a stalk until the juices had
returned to it from the roots.
Hadn’t he learned that? Ralph
had said he would dig the roots
(he was in pain, starving, fam-
ished; it was impossible to bear)
but explained (as to a
they
child, some of them, but others
in disgustbecause he didn’t
know what they knew) that
when the roots were disturbed
the moisture fled through them
into the soil, leaving no nourish-
ment.
“You may think this is a lot
Who had said
of melodrama.”
that. The Who who had spoken
several times earlier. “It
a lot of melodrama. It
tial. Es-sen-tial. Know this.”
He knew it now. He was con-
vinced of it. His stomach was
convinced, at least. His stomach
was devout, a true believer. Jog;
jog and thud. Was it still too
early to go? He could under-
stand how the -jogging would
numb the mind as well as the
stomach.
inally, finally, it was
F He left perimeter,
the
scarcely believing his release
had come, he left the well-beat-
en track and set off across the
valley as the short night began.
There they were, on the
ridge, waving, beckoning to him.
To him? Beckoning? Or
^42
fied to see him approach? Him He had gone across the valley, tor’s killed to feed their famit
— Nevins the hunter, the killer,
through the toadstool wood, and
was
lies? Hadn’t they killed daily?
the vegetable - eating cannibal. at the edge of the field of Hadn’t they slaughtered the dear
Nevins the new one, perhaps thrashing, terrified creatures. little chickens and geese and
crueler than the others who had
(Hunter was right: “fear” was bulls and brown-eyed calves and
too pallid a word.) wooly lambs and whatever other
come before.
Off he went, recalling his rel- Th_y could not be human; sweet, succulent creatures stood
atively calm conversation with could not even be creatures. His between them and hunger, or
Hunter (Hunter who had joined mind told him this, but his emo- even appetite? Of course they
hunter —
Ralph in jogging— tions told him something else: had. They might even be burn-
around the track:) “But why do Not only could they be creatures ing in hell for it —
if there waa
you call them wolves?” (living, if not breathing; think- a hell, anywhere else but here.
And Hunter saying “A eu- ing, not speaking), they were
if
:
phemism. Both hunter and hunt- human. He knew that now, as of '^hen he recalled Cindy’a
this minute. And what was he do- of having communi<<
vision
ed became the wolves, the beasts.
Each, driven by something out- ing about to cornmit an
here, cated with them, or of hav-
its human qual-
atrocity upon one of them? Who ing thought she had. He was hav-
side itself, loses
ities. I, forced by hunger; they, was he, God?, to be destroying ing a vision of his own, in hia
is not shaken by terror.” another living creature? He was extremity of starvation. He waa
is essen- “You agree with Cindy that not a flesh-eater, true, but he communicating with them him-
they think?” was undeniably a cannibal. self.
“I reject that possibility. I Shut up, he told himself. You Well, not really: they were re-
must. All I know is that they haven’t destroyed anybody yet vealing themselves to him; he
thrash about. Lots of plants can and it’s a moot question whether had said nothing to them except
do that under certain circum- you will. (This was not his stom- by being there with a
tacitly,
stances. But these seem to be un- ach talking.) So don’t let any- weapon which spoke for him; si-
der a double terror, or whatever body panic you. You’re just out lently, terribly.
word you want to use. ‘Fear’ is here on a tactical exercise, so to His hunger - induced rev-
too weak. First, their terror of speak —
a dry run, so far, to see elationswere graphic depictions
being killed; second, the un- how you’ll react when the real of the most awful things that
acceptable realization that any- thing comes along, if it ever had ever happened to people he
time. one or anything on their hereto- does. Of course you aren’t going knew or to whom he was relat-
fore peaceful planet could con- to kill these dear, helpless crea-
tures.
ed. As remembered from his
ceive of killing another. In fact, childhood in ghastly detail, they
killing was impossible because His stomach laughed at this included:
nobody — nothing, I mean — nonsense. Certainly he was go- His Uncle Alfred, arrested
v/as able to move from the spot ing to kill. Kill and eat; kill and through some terrible miscar-
far where he first germinated. I provide. It was kill or starve. riage of justice and sentenced to
mean it. ” It wasn’t an ethical problem at a road gang in the South, drag-
horri- Ralph knew what he meant. all — hadn’t his pioneer ances- ging his ball and chain behind
GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 143
him as his poor, broken- horrible,it was shocking and ob-
hurricane-tossed palm branches, “A change of tune,
blistered hands, which he had scene, that he should be the in- straining to escape, to be beyond a dull harpoon;
previously used to chalk ab- strument of their distruction, the reach of his terrible blade. lesshaughty
struse, beautiful mathematical that he should be forced to Three times he raised his ma- than he thought he was.”
formulae on a blackboard at the
Institute for Advanced Theory,
choose which
beloved
of
creatures
these
he
well
would
—
chete three times, impelled by It had a pedantic sound, as if
the gnawing in his stomach. one of his old professors of jour-
tried to drive his mattock into maim and kill.
Each time he let it fall to his nalism, or maybe an over edu-
the soil often enough to avoid Worse: not which, but whom. side. cated city editor, was sneering at
the lash of the gang-master; You always hurt the one you He sobbed in frustration: how him.
His Grandma Maud, polio vic- love . . .
could be cut down these beauti- Then came Hunter’s voice.
tim, her leg in a brace, dragging But must you kill? ful people, these gods and god- There was nothing hallucina-
it behind her as she tried to get Must you choose among moth- desses? How could he butcher tory about it.
closer to the faith healer who, er, father, saint, president, God? his mother or his father (or his “Okay, Nevins, let’s go. That’s
for a twenty-five-dollar love of- Was necessary to decide, cold-
it Father) and then feed them to all for today.”
fering, was laying on hands un- ly, in the midst of horror, whom his friends? But Ralph could do nothing
der a big tent in the vacant lot to destroy? Did continued exis- Of course he couldn’t. He and Hunter had to half-carry
down near the railroad siding; tence demand that he pick dropped his machete. He’d rath- him back to the glade.
His father, a foot caught in which body would be sliced er die.
his own fox trap, and so weak through with his blade? Did life Then Hunter was there, shout- VI
from loss of blood that he was depend on slaughter? ing: “You’ve got to jog, man,
unable to pry it open, crawling jog! You were just standing. You '^he otherswatched openly
through the woods toward the
house more than a mile away; R alph avoided the answers as
the terrified plant creatures
can’t
you;
let
it’s
them get
impossible
through to
if they do
as Cindy, cradling him in
her left arm, his head against
mother,
His alone in the hurler themselves away from Jog, jog. Come on, Nevins! Can her breast, fed him. Too weak
house her wheelchair after
in this executioner; from this des- you do it? Can you?” now to move or protest, he ac-
her when the oil-
operation, picable thing that would kill and Obviously Ralph could not. cepted mouthfuls of nourish-
burner exploded . . eat its own family, its own Lord. He sank to the ground. Hunter ment without questioning its
More visions crowded in on (But why not? Did not some said: “Too bad. Never mind; origin. Cindy, feeding him and
him; visions of people burdened religions hold that the commu- stand back.” herself alternately, chewing
or crippled or otherwise ren- nion wafer was the actual, the With a swish of his own ma- away, smiled at him. He smiled
dered unable to move very far literal body of Christ? Is it can- chete,Hunter lopped down a back, chewing also, his palate
or very fast: nibalism to eat the flesh of Je- big stalk as it hurtled past him, reveling in what it imagined to
Visions of Roosevelt, of Joan sus? expertly severing it close to the be a smorgasbord of delicacies,
of Arc, of Tantalus, of Christ . . Faster and faster they seemed ground. successively:
Then thevisions coalesced and to circle, to come toward him re- A hallucinatory voice, not • the whitest, crunchiest cel-
the vegetable people, hurling luctantly, bending
fearfully, Hunter’s, taunted Ralph: ery, stuffed with the best home-
themselves away in their terri- back away from him until they “How speaks he now, made cheese, sprinkled with pap-
fied attempt to escape his sword, were almost flat on the ground; This loud-voiced, rika;
took on the personalities of his then, as their Coney Island ride proud-voiced • a gargantuan ripe olive, pit-
hallucinations. It was more than brought them inevitably past newcomer? ted;
144 GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE. 145
 • crisp, warm, buttered whole lusions, his hallucinations to was out bagging their game, was Ralph became alarme.J. If
wheat toast; was obvious that Cin-
himself. It there a drawing together in an there were no more to write his
• freshly-given milk; dy was only the titular ruler. approximation of a community function would vanish as Cad-
• a bite into a Winesap apple; Sometime later Cadman died spirit. And it was clear to Ralph man’s had. He would become su-
• a morsel of perfectly-fried and Ralph took over the keep- now that nothing else mattered. perfluous.
scallop; ing of the journal. Nothing else was vital. He went to Cindy Garth, to re-
• a mouthful of Maine lobster, The medics, who did not say And of course after a while cord her reactions to the nightly
dipped in melted Wisconsin but- why Cadman had died, buried Ralph wrote about nothing else. kill, but she waved him away
ter; him during the short, bright His daily entry was an ingeni- languidly. He wrote this up as
• a forkful of Idaho potato, day, at the edge of the plant-peo- ous attempt, by a resourceful verbosely as possible.
baked, whipped with butter and ple patch on the far ridge. It was journalist - turned - historian, to He went to Jeffries, who met
salted; only right, Ralph supposed, that find fresh meaning in the night- him with an amused smile but
• a slice of rare roast beef; Cadman’s remains should nour- ly hunt. told him: “Nothing to say, old
• a slightly-salted, gorgeous- ish the roots of the plants. The only other one who cared boy.” When Ralph persisted,
ly-green avocado half; Ralph wrote: “Now that I am was Hunter. Therefore it be- Jeffries dismissed him by say-
• a demi-tasse of Columbian no longer an active participant came a ritual with them to meet ing: “It’s all been said, you
coffee. in the hunt, I am beginning to after the nightly division of the know. I told it to Cadman a doz-
He was very t delirious, of find it exciting.” nutrient (the vegetable, the en times and he took it down
course. At the others expressed
first meat, the Wafer —
whatever it each time. I have no desire to re-
interest in his daily journal en- was) and for Hunter to describe peat myself to you. Look it up
^"T^hat was about the end of tries and even praised him, his adventures to Ralph. Hunter in Cadman’s journal if you like
it.Ralph never went out sometimes, for the cleverness of would talk — in the first person but don’t bother me.”
again. After he had been nour- his writing. singular or plural, depend- Ralph wrote up his talk with
ished back to the point where he “Cadman merely
record- ing on his mood and Ralph — Jeffries at as great a length as
could feed himself, Cindy would ed,” Jeffries said to him once, would make notes before either possible, quoting himself as well
have nothing more to do with “but you comment. Cadman was of them touched his nightly ra- as Jeffries (he had deliberately
him. She retreated into her re- a journalist, you are an histo- tion. asked some long-winded ques-
gal self, her moment of compas- rian.” Having finished his notes, tions). But it was impossible to
sion spent. Ralph glowed to that for days, Ralph and Hunter would with- string it out forever.
Hunter once again as- although in his American way he draw to their separate hummocks He went to the medics and was
sumed de facto command. He would have said “a historian.” and eat. Hunter vomiting less rewarded with an outpouring of
was their only possible provider. To him the other was like say- often than he used to. Ralph ate words. Away from the others,
Despite the others’ brave talk or ing “an horse.” thoughtfully and without after- Larcom and Raney had witty
their sneers at Ralph, Hunter But after a while Jeffries and effects, scarcely aware of his and crackling things to say about
was the only one who had been the others, with one exception, bites as he considered how best the few events their world pro-
out more than once. Hunter lost interest in the journal, even to transcribe his notes. vided. Ralph, delighted, took
alone had been capable of work- when it mentioned them, and But there the strain became full notes and transcribed at
ing out the logistics of the situa- drew back to their own hum- too much for even Hunter’s ego great length. This kept him busy
tion; he alone had been strong mocks. and he became repetitive atyjl for many days.
enough to keep his fears, his il- Only at night, when Hunter duU. But then they began to repeat

146 GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 147

 said, regardless of whether it was Thus, one night, after having
themselves. Their apparent wit completely silent but whose at-
worth saying, if Ralph were to dined with pleasure, without
charmed the new acquain- titude Ralph described in great
remain sane against the day questioning the source, on an
tance, but one who came to know detail, drawing heavily on sur-
when the rescue ship heaved to unusually thick stalk which he
them for any length of time re- mise.
and took him home. The easy chose to think tasted of Thanks-
alized that there was a limit to Again there was no one left.
the variations they could apply Except — inspiration! —
him- way would be to let himself slip giving turkey, he wrote the fol-
into the madness of Ramsey lowing in his journal:
to their basic conversational for- self. But he found himself a thin
For several days he Hunter and Cindy Garth, the
mula. They became tiresome as source.
apathy of Justin Jeffries or the
well as repetitious. Then, as if talked to himself and recorded Book I, Chapter One
self-centered isolation of the Nevins the Child, or, The Humble Start
realizing their failure to enter- the result. But Ralph had always
medics. But Ralph was not ready Ralph Leslie Nevins, so named by
tain, they became argumentive been an honest reporter and this his parents, Leslie Coombs and Les-
— first with each other, then deceit soon palled.
to give up. As long
as he did not
have to go out at night to bring
lie Hume Nevins (we shall return to

with Ralph. He v/as unable to delude him- this coincidence of names presently,
in the sheaves, it was possible to aged respectively 25 and 22, was
self, as Cadman had, that he was
work and to hope.
bom. In wedlock, on an August day.
preparing a dispatch. Nor would
A t that
ing
point
transcribed
Ralph,
all that
hav-
he put down fiction or half-
entire journalistic
Then
the engine in his mind
started and its fuel was his mem-
the 17th, a Thursday, to be precise.
In the Year of Our Lord, or Who-
ever is In Charge, 1999 . . .
was available from them jointly, truths; his
ories. He realized that what was
interviewed them singly. Separ- background rebelled against
within himself was limited 4 nd thus Ralph Nevins be-
ate floodgates opened; Ralph such heresy.
there was only Ralph Nevins, at gan the chronicle which we
took down page after page of He examined pen and the
his
other one that Cadman had in-
the current or earlier age, on found when we grew over to the
pent-up frustration, petty tirade
him. which to draw. Still a single per- glade and which, together with
and invective as each of the med- voluntarily bequeathed
son was a microcosm of the hu- other scattered documents from
ics turned his wrath on the oth- Ink aplenty, enough for a dec-
man race and perhaps he was as the worlds that they had
er. ade, remained in each. It seemed
good as any other for the pur- attempted to colonize, provided
Fascinated, occasionally re- clear that there was more ink
pose, at this particular time. us with an invaluable insight to
pelled, Ralph wrote them up at than there were words to write
That being so, he reached the mores of those who knew
gratifying length, first together with it.
back as far into his memory as themselves as human beings.
and then separately. But this He knew now why poor Cad-
Cadman had been it was possible to go. Oh, yes. To answer Ralph’s
field went fallow as even-
also man had died. .

(he knew that when he had question, it might just be noted

tually each developed a case of no egocentric hero. He had been,
nothing more to say he would be that we’re in charge here. And
the sulks and refused to talk to as Ralph Nevins was, an honest
dead) everywhere.
him. journalist: not an analyst but an
This left no one. annalist.
and he found a place
. . .
—Richard Wilson
Doggedly, Ralph went back to And the annals were com-
each: to Hunter who, having plete. Nothing more remained to
Complete in Worlds of Tomorrow:
rested as raconteur, was good for be said about this handful of hu-
a few more nights; to Jeffries, xr-'n beings stranded on the only VALENTINE'S PLANET
whose now-insulting behavior to- habitable planet between Sol’s by Avram Davidson
ward Ralph provided a day's Earth and Barnard’s Oph. Riproaring story of space adventure— on sale now!
copy; and to Cindy, who was Nevertlieless much had to be

148 GALAXY THE WATCHERS IN THE GLADE 149

 NEIGHBOR
BY ROBERT SILVERBERG

illustrated by NODEL

Mortal enemies? No for . . .

they were not quite mortall

I a blot on the horizon, the metal-

lic tower that was Andrew Mc-
resh snow had fallen dur- Dermott’s dwelling.
F ing the night. Now it lay Not in seventy or eighty years
like a white sheet atop the older had Holt looked at the McDer-
snow, nine or ten feet of it, that mott place without feeling ha-
already covered the plain. Now tred and irritation. The planet
all was smooth and clear almost was big enough, wasn’t it? Why
to the horizon. As Michael Holt had McDermott chosen to stick
peered through the foot - thick his pile of misshapen steel down
safety glass of his command right where Holt had to look at
room window, he saw, first of it allhis days? McDermott’s es-
all, the zone of brown earth, a tate was big enough. McDermott
hundred yards in diameter, cir- could have built his house an-
cling his house, and then the be- other fifty or sixty miles to the
ginning of the snowfield with a east, near the banks of the wide,
few jagged bare trees jutt- shallow river that flowed
ing through it, and then, finally. through the heart of the con-

150
 tlnent. He hadn’t cared to. Holt view, but some direct, specific
hideous keep blazed and glowed dream left him satisfied. His
had politely suggested it, when affront. Poaching on his land, too
in hellish fire and crumpled heart raced perhaps a little
the surveyors and architects first perhaps. Or sending a robot out
and toppled and ran in molten enthusiastically as he pictured
came out from Earth. McDer- to hack down a tree on the bor-
puddles over the snow. that slagheap on the horizon. He
mott had just as politely insist- derland. Or putting up a flash-
Yes, that would be the mo- made an effort to calm himself.
ed on putting his house where ing neon sign that mocked Holt
ment to live for! He was, after all, a fragile old
he wanted to put it. in some vulgar way. Anything
That would be the moment of man, much as he hated to admit
It was still there.. Michael that would serve as an excuse for
triumph! it, and even the excitement of a
Holt peered at it, and his insides hostilities.
To back from the con-
step daydream taxed his strength.
roiled. He walked to the control And then: Holt saw himself
trols at last, and look through He walked away from the
console of the armament panel, coming up here to the command
the window and see the glowing panel, back to the window.
and let his thin, gnarled hands room and broadcasting an ulti-
red spot on the horizon where Nothing had changed. The zone
rest for a moment on a gleaming matum to the enemy. “Take that
the McDermott place had been. of brown earth where his melt-
rheostat. sign down, McDermott,” he
To pat the controls as though ers kept back the snow, and
There was an almost sexual might say. “Keep your robots off
they were the flanks of a be- then the white field, and final-
manner to the way Holt fondled my land,” perhaps. Or else, ly the excrescence on the hori-
the jutting knobs and studs of loved old horse. To leave the
“This -means war!” glinting coppery red
house, and ride across the bor- zon,
the console. Now that his two McDermott would answer
derland into the McDermott es- in the thin midday sunlight.
hundredth year was approach- with a blast of radiation, of
tate, and see the charred ruin, Holt scowled. The daydream
ing, he rarely handled the bod- course, because that was the kind
and know that he was gone for- had changed nothing. No shot
ies of his wives that way any of sneak he was. The deflector
ever. had been fired. McDermott’s
more. But then he did not love screens of Holt’s front line de-
Then, of course, there would keep still stained the view.
his wives as keenly as he loved fenses would handle the bolt
be an inquiry. The fifty lords of Turning, Holt began to shuffle
the artillery emplacement with with ease, soaking it in and feed-
the planet would meet to discuss slowly out of the room, toward
which he could blow Andrew ing the energy straight to Holt’s
the battle, and Holt would ex- the dropshaft that would take
McDermott to atoms. own generators.
plain, “He wantonly provoked him five floors downward to his
Just let him provoke me. Holt Then, at long lasf. Holt would
thought. me. I need not tell you how he family.
answer back. His fingers would
He stood by the panel, a tall, gave me offense by building his
tighten on the controls. Crack-
man with a withered face house within my view. But this II
gaunt
and a savage hook of a nose and
ling arcs of energy would leap
toward the ionosphere and bound
time —
a surprisingly thick shock of
faded red hair. He closed his
downward
spearing
at
through
McDermott’s
his
place,
piti-
And Holt’s fellow lords would
nod sagely. They would un- T he communicator chimed.
Holt stared at the screen in
eyes and allowed himself the derstand, for they valued their surprise.
ful screens as though they
own unblemished views as high- “Yes?”
luxury of a daydream. weren’t there. Holt saw himself
ly as Holt himself. They would “An outside call for you. Lord
gripping the controls with
exonerate him and grant him Holt. Lord McDermott is call-
T Te imagined Andrew
that knuckle - whitening fervor,
McDermott’s land, as far as the ing,” the bland metallic voice
McDermott had given him launching thunderbolt after
horizon, so no newcomer could said.
offense. Not simply the eternal thunderbolt while on the hori-
repeat the offense. “Lord McDermott’s secretary,
offense of being there in his xon Andrew McDermott’s
Michael Holt smiled. The day- you mean?”
152 GALAXY
NEIGHBOR
 “It is Lord McDermott him- the array of weaponry Holt had “Let me remind you,” Holt “You know there can’t ever
self, your lordship.” assembled. The outcome of a said coldly, “that you have be peace between us,” Holt said.
Holt blinked. “You’re jok- conflict was in no doubt. Let called me. The normal rules of “Not so long as that eyesore of
ing,” he said. “It’s fifty years him statt something, Michael etiquette require that I have the yours sticks up over the trees.
since he called me. If this is a Holt prayed. Oh, let him be the privilege of deciding on the It’s a cinder in my eye, McDer-

prank I’ll have your circuits aggressor! I’m ready for him, and manner of transmission. And I mott. I can’t ever forgive you for
shorted!” more than ready! prefer not to be seen. I also pre- building it.”
“I cannot joke, your lordship. The bell chimed again. The fer not to be speaking to you. “Will you listen to me?” Mc-
ShallI tell Lord McDermott you robot voice of Holt’s secretary You have thirty seconds to state Dermott said. “When I’m gone,
do not wish to speak to him?” said, “I have spoken to him, your complaint. Important busi- you can blast the place apart, if
“Of course!” Holt snapped. your lordship. He will tell me ness awaits me.” it pleases you. All I want is for
“No —
wait. Find out what he nothing. He wants you.” you to come here. I — I need
wants. Then tell him I can’t Holt sighed. “Very well. Put
*
I
'here was silence. Holt you. Holt. I want you to pay me
speak to him.” him on, then.” gripped the arms of his a visit.”
Holt sank back into a chair in There was a moment of elec- chair and signalled for a more “Why don’t you come here,
front of the screen. He nudged a tronic chaos on the screen as the intense massage. He became then?” Holt jeered. “I’ll throw
button with his elbow, and tiny robot shifted from the inside aware, in great irritation, that my door wide for you. We’ll sit
fingers began to massage channel to an outside one. Holt his hands were trembling. He by the fire and reminisce about
the muscles of his back, where sat stiffly, annoyed by the sud- glared at the screen as though all the years we hated each
tension poisons had sud- den anxiety he felt. He realized, he could burn his enemy’s brain other.”
denly flooded in to stiffen him. strangely, that he had forgotten out simply by sending angry “If I could come to you,” Mc-
McDermott calling? What what his enemy’s voice sound- thoughts over the communicator. Dermott said, “there would
for? ed like. All communication be- McDermott said finally, “I be no need for us to meet at all.”
To complain, of course. Some tween them had been through have no complaint. Holt. Only “What do you mean?”
trespass, no doubt. Some serious robot intermediaries for years. an invitation.” “Turn your visual on, and
trespass, if McDermott felt he The screen brightened and “To tea?” Holt sneered. you’ll see.”
had to make the call himself. showed a test pattern. A hoarse, “Call it that. I want you to Michael Holt frowned. He
Michael Holt’s blood warmed. querulous voice said, “Holt? come here. Holt.” knew he had become hideous
Let him complain! Let him ac- Holt, where are you?” “You’ve lost your mind!” with age, and he was not eager
cuse, let him bluster! Perhaps “Right here in my chair, Mc- “Not yet. Come to me. Let’s to show himself to his enemy.
this would give the excuse for Dermott. What’s troubling have a truce,” McDermott But he could not see McDermott
hostilities at last. Holt ached to you?” rasped. “We’re both old, sick, without revealing himself at the
declare war. He had been guild- “Turn your visual on. Let me stupid men. It’s time to stop the same time. With an abrupt, im-
ing his armaments patiently for have a look at you, Holt.” hatred.” pulsive gesture. Holt jabbed the
decade after decade, and he “You can speak your piece Holt laughed. “We’re both control button in his chair. The
knew beyond doubt that he had without seeing me, can’t you? Is old, yes. But I’m not sick and mists on the screen faded, and
the capability to destroy McDer- my face that fascinating to you’re the only stupid one. Isn’t an image appeared.
mott within moments after the you?” it a little late for the olive All Holt could see was a face,
first shot was fired. No screens “Please. This is no time for branch?” shrunken, wizened, wasted. Mc-
in the universe could withstand bickering. Turn the visual on!” “Never too late.” Dermott was past two hundred.
154 GALAXY NEIGHBOR 155
 !

Holt knew, and he looked it. But come. There’s something I in him. Could this all be some need to use the heavy artillery
There was no flesh left on his have to tell you, something of vi- subtle way, he wondered, of that he had been so jealously
hoarding against this day. A
I

face. skin lay like parch-

The tal importance to you. And causing him to have a fatal heart
ment over bone. The left side of you’ve got to be here in person attack through overstimula- light beam would do it easily

his face was distorted, the nos- when I teU you. You won’t re- tion? enough.
tril flared, the mouth-corner gret coming. Believe that. Holt.” He gripped the controls. He It would be too easy this way,

dragged down to reveal the Holt stared at the wizened pondered, considered tossing a though.
teeth, the eyelid drooping. Be- creature in the screen, and trem- thousand megawatt beam at Mc- There could be no pleasure in
low the chin, McDermott was bled with doubt and confusion. Dermott, then decided to use a wanton attack. McDermott had
invisible, swathed in machinery, The man must be a limatic! It sometliing a little milder. If the not provoked him. Rather, he
his body cocooned in what was was years since Holt had last screens really were down all the sat there in his cocoon,
probably a nutrient bath. He stepped beyond the protection way, even his feeblest shot would sniveling and begging to be
was obviously in bad shape. of his own screens. Now McDer- score. visited.

mott was asking him not only to He sighted — not on the house Holt returned the visual
to
field. “I must be as crazy as you

H e said,
Holt.
“I’ve had a
I’m paralyzed from
down. I can’t hurt
stroke. go into the open field, where he
might be gunned down with
ease, but to enter into McDer-
but on a tree just within
itself,
McDermott’s inner circle of de-
fense. He fired, half con-
are,” he said. “Turn your robots
loose and leave your screens
the neck still

you.” mott’s house itself, to put his vinced he was dreaming. The down. I’ll come to visit you. I
“When did this happen?” head right between the jaws of tree became a yard-high stump. wish I understood this, but I’ll

“A year ago.” the lion. “That’s it,” McDermott called. come anyway.”
“You’ve kept very quiet about Absurd “Go on. Aim at the house, too!
it,”Holt said. McDermott said, “Let me Knock a turret off — the screens Ill

“I didn’t think you’d care to show you my sincerity. My are down!”

know. But now I do. I’m dying.
Holt, and I want to see you once
face to face before I die. I know
screens are off.
the house. Hit
ahead. Do
Take a shot
it anywhere. Go

your worst!”
at Senile dementia. Holt
thought. Baffled, he lifted the
sight a bitand let the beam play
M
wives,
ichael
family
Holt
together. Three
the eldest near his own
called his

you’re suspicious. You think I’m Deeply troubled, chilled with against one of McDermott’s out- age, the youngest only seventy.
crazy to ask you to come here. mystification. Holt elbowed out buildings. The shielded wall Seven sons, ranging in age from
ni turn my screens off. I’ll send of his chair and went beyond glov.'ed a moment, then gave as sixty to a hundred thirteen. The
aU my robots across the river. the range of the visual pickup, the beam smashed its way wives of his sons. His grand-

Ill be absolutely alone here,
helpless,and you can come with
an army if you like. There.
Doesn’t that sound like a trap.
Holt? I know I’d think so if I
were in your place and you were
in mine. But it isn’t a trap. Can
you believe that? Ill open my
door to you. You can come and
laugh in my face as I lie here.
over to the control console of through. Ten square feet of Mc- children. His top echelon of ro-
the guns. How many times in Dermott’s castle now was a soup bots.
dreams he had fondled these of protons, fleeing into the cold. He assembled them in the
studs and knobs, never once dar- Holt realized in stunned grand hall of Holt Keep, took
ing to fire them except in test disbelief that there was nothing his place at the head of the ta-
shots directed at his own prop- at cll preventing him from des- ble, and stared down the rows at
e^'ty! It was unreal to be actual- troying McDermott and his odi- their faces, so like his own. He
ly training the sights on the ous house entirely. said quietly, “I am going to pay
gleaming tower of McDermott’s There was no risk of a coun- a call on Lord McDermott.”
bouse at last Excitement surged terattack. He would not even He could see the shock on

156 GALAXY NEIGHBOR 157

 their faces. They were too well
disciplined to speak their minds,
of course. He was Lord Holt.
His word was law, and he could,
if he so pleased, order them all
put to death on the spot. Once,
many years before, he had been
forced to assert his parental au-
thority in just such a way, and
no one would ever forget it.
He smiled. “You think I’ve
gone soft in my old age, and per-
haps I have. But McDermott has
had a stroke. He’s completely
paralyzed from the neck down.
He wants to tell me something,
and I’m going to go. His screens
are down and he’s sending all his
robots out of the house. I could
have blasted the place apart if
I wanted to.’’
He could the muscles
see
working jaws of his sons.
in the
They wanted to cry out, but they
did not dare.
Holt went on, “I’m going
alone except for a few robots. If
there’s been no word from me
for half an hour after I’m seen
entering the house, you’re
thorized to come after me.
there’s any interference with the
rescue party, it will mean war.
But I don’t think there’U be
trouble. Anyone who comes
er me in less than half an hour
will be put to death.’’
Holt’s words died away in a
shiver of echoes. He eyed them
all, one at a time.
158
This was a critical moment,
he knew. If they dared, they
might decide among themselves
that he had gone mad, and de-
pose him. That had happened
before, too, in other families.
They could topple him, repro-
gram all the robots to take com-
mands from them instead and
confine him to his wing of the
house. He had given them evi-
dence enough, just now, of his
irresponsibility.
But they made no move. They
lacked the guts. He was head of
the household, and his word was
law. They sat, pale and shaken
and dazed, as he rolled his chair
past them and out of the grand
hall.
Within an hour, he was ready
to go. Winter was in the fourth
of its seven months, and Michael
Holt had not left the house since
the first snowfall. But he had
nothing to fear from the ele-
ments. He would not come in
contact with the frigid air of the
sub-zero plain. He entered his
au- car within his own house, and it
If glided out past the defense peri-
meter, a gleaming dark teardrop
sliding over the fresh snow.
Eight of his robots accompanied
aft- him, a good enough army for al-
most any emergency.
A visual pickup showed
him the scene at McDermott
Keep. The robots were filing out,
•a army of black ants cluster-
GALAXY
^ ing around the great gate. He They left the bounds of Holt’s
could see them marching east- own estate, now, and entered
ward, vanishing from sight McDermott’s.
beyond the house. A robot over- There was no warning ping to
head reported that they were tell them they were trespassing.
heading for the river by the McDermott had even turned off
dozens. the boundary scanners, then.
Holt pressed sweaty palms to-
rr^he miles flew past. Black, gether. More than ever now he
twisted trees poked through felt that he had let himself be
the snow, and Holt’s car weaved drawn into some sort of trap.
a way through them. Far below, There was no turning back now.
under many feet of whiteness, He was across the border, into
lay the fertile fields. In the McDermott’s own territory. Bet-
spring all would be green. The ter to die boldly, he thought,
leafy trees would help to shield than to live huddled in a shell.
the view of McDermott Keep, He had never been this
though they could not hide it al- close to McDermott Keep before.
together. In winter, the ugly When it was being built, Mc-
copper-colored house was totally Dermott had invited him to in-
visible. That made the winters spect it, but Holt had of course
all the more difficult for Holt to refused. Nor had he been to the
endure. housewarming. Alone among the
A robot said softly, “We are lords of the planet, he had
approaching’ the borderlands, stayed home to sulk. He could
your lordship.’’ hardly even remember when he
“Try a test shot to see if his had last left his own land at all.
screens are still down.” There were few places to go on
“Shall I aim for the house?” this world, with its fifty estates
“No. A tree.” of great size running through
Holt watched. A thick- the temperate belt. When-
boled, stubby tree in McDer- ever Holt thirsted for the com-
mott’s front palisade gleamed a panionship of any of his fellow
moment, and then was gone. lords, which was not often, he
“The screens are still down,” could have it easily enough via
the robot reported. telescreen. Some of them came
“All right. Let’s cross the bor- to him, now and then.
der.” It was strange that when he
He leaned back against the finally did stir to pay a call, it
cushion. The car shot forward. should be a call on McDermott.
NEIGHBOR 159
 Drawing near the enemy IV J
“You could send a member of room, nesting in his life-capsule.
keep, he found himselT reluc- ^ !
your family down,” Holt said A tangled network of tubes and
tantly admitting that it was less f T^hen they were a hundred sourly. pipes surrounded him. All oi
\
close range than it seemed ^ ’ yards from the great gate McDermott ignored that. McDermott that was visible was
from the windows of Holt Keep. of McDermott Keep, the doors “Continue down the corridor a pair of eyes, two shining coals
It was a great blocky building, swung wide. Holt called McDer- luitil it turns. Go past the armor in the wasted face.
hundreds of yards long, with a mott and said, “See that those room. You will reach a drop-
tall octagonal tower rising out doors stay open all the time I’m shaft that leads upward.” tcT’m glad you came,” Mc-
i
of its northern end, a metal here. If they begin to close, i
Holt and his robots moved -i- Dermott said. His voice,
spike jabbing perhaps five there’ll be trouble.” ; through the silent halls. without . benefit of electronic
hundred feet high. The reflected McDermott said, “Don’t The place was li’ .e a museum. amplification, was thin and
afternoon light, bouncing from worry. I’m not planning any The dark, high-vaulted corridor feeble, like the sound of feathers
the snowfield, gave the metal- tricks.” was lined with statuary and ar- brushing through the air.
sheathed building a curiously Holt’s car shot- between the everything musty-looking
tifacts, Holt stared at him in fascina-
oily look, not unattractive at this gate walls, and he knew and depressing. How could any- tion. “I never thought I’d see
distance. thatnow he was at his enemy’s one want to live in a tomb like this room,” he said.
“We are within the outer de- mercy in earnest. His car rolled this? Holt passed a shadowy “I never though you would
fense perimeter,” a robot told up to the open carport, and room where ancient suits of ar- either. But it was good of you to
Holt. went on through, so that now he mor stood mounted. He could come. Holt. You look well, you
“Keep going.” was actually within McDermott not help but compute the cost of know. For a man your age.” The
The robots sounded worried Keep. His robots followed him shipping such useless things thin lips curled in a grotesque
and perturbed, he thought. Of through. across the light-years from twisted smile. “Of course, you’re
course, they weren’t pro- “May I close the carport?” Earth. still a youngster. Not even two
grammed to show much emo- “Keep it open!” Holt said. “I They came to the dropshaft. hundred yet. I’ve got you by
tional range, but he could detect don’t mind the cold.” Holt and his two robots entered, thirty-odd years.”
a note of puzzlement in what The hood of his car swung j
A robot nudged the reversing Holt did not feel like listen-
they said and how they said it. back. His robots helped him out. I
and up they went, into the
stud, ing to the older man’s ram-
They couldn’t understand this at Holt shivered momentarily as tower Holt had hated so long, blings. “What is it you wanted?”
^
all. It did not seem to be an in- the cold outside air, filtering in- ^ McDermott guided them with a he asked without warmth. “I’m
vasion of McDermott Keep — to the carport, touched him. word or two. here, but I’m not going to stay
that they could have understood. Then he passed through the iris- They passed down a long hall all day. You said you had some-
But it was not a friendly visit, ing inner door and, flanked by whose dull, dark walls were set thing vital to tell me.”
either. The robots did not know two sturdy robots, walked slowly : off by a gleaming floor that “Not really to tell,” McDer-
what to make of this journey. but doggedly into the Keep. |.
looked like onyx. A sphincter mott said. “More to ask. A favor,
They were not alone in their McDermott’s voice reached opened, admitting them to an I want you to kill me. Holt.”
confusion at this most unusual him over a loudspeaker. “I am oval room ringed by windows, “What?”
situation, Holt thought grimly. on the third floor of the tower,” exhaling a dry, foul stench of very simple. Disconnect
“It’s
He satback nervously as he and he said. “If I had not sent all death and decay. my feed line. There it is, right
his guardian robots were swiftly the robots away, I could have let Andrew McDermott sat by my feet.
Just rip it out. I’ll b*
carried forward. CMie of them guide you.” squarely in the middle of the dead in an hour. Or do it even
160 GALAXY ,
NEIGHBOR 161
more quickly. Turn off my lungs. come home when they find
my robots to trespass? Set fire V
to your orchards? What will
This switch, right here. That they’ve inherited. Not before.
provoke you. Holt?” i^T^he teardrop-shaped car
would be the humane way.” There’s no one here to throw
“Nothing,” Holt said. “I don’t sped across shining snow.
“You have a strange sense of the switch.”
want to kill you. Get someone Holt said nothing as he made
humor,” Holt said. “Your robots,” Holt suggested.
else to do it.” the return journey.
“Do you think so? Top the Again the grim smile. “You
joke, then. Throw the switch and
The eyes glittered. “You His mind climg to the image
must have special robots. Holt. I
cap the jest.” don’t have any that can be
devil,” McDermott said. “You of the immobilized McDermott,
absolute devil.I never realized and there was no room for any
“You made me come all the tricked into killing their master.
way here to kill you?” They know what’ll
how much you hated me. I send other thought. That stench of
I’ve tried it.
for you time of need, asking
in a decay that tingled in his nostrils
“Yes,” McDermott said. The happen my life-capsule is dis-

bla2ing eyes were unblinking connected.

if

They won’t do it.

to be put out of my misery, and — that glint of madness in the
will you grant me that? Oh, no. eyes as they begged for oblivion.
now. “I’ve been immobili2ed for You do it. Holt! Turn me off.
Suddenly you get noble. You They were crossing the bor-
a year now. I’m a vegetable in Blow the tower to hell, if it
won’t kill me! You devil, I see derlands now. Holt’s car broke
this thing. I sit here day after bothers you. You’ve won the
right through you. You’ll go the warning barrier and got a
day, idle, bored. And healthy. I game. The pri2e is yours.”
back to your keep and gloat be- pinging signal to halt and iden-
might another
live hundred
years —
do you reali2e that. i^'T^here was a dryness in
cause I’m a living dead man
here. You’ll chuckle to yourself
tify. A robot gave the password,
and they went on toward Holt
Holt? I’ve had a stroke, yes. I’m Holt’s throat, a band of pres-
because I’m alone and frozen in- Keep.
paraly2ed. But my body’s still sure across his chest. He tottered
to this capsule. Oh, Holt, it’s not
vigorous. This damned capsule His family clustered near the
a little.
right to hate so deeply! I admit entrance, pale, mystified. Holt
of mine keeps me in tone. It His robots, ever sensitive to
I’ve given offense. I deliberately walked in under his own steam.
feeds me and exercises me and his condition, steadied him and
— do you think I want to go on guided him to a chair. He had
built
your
the tower here to
pride. Punish me, then.
wound They were bursting with ques-
tions, but no one dared ask any-
living this way, Holt? Would been on his feet a long time for
He
Take my life. Destroy my tower. thing. It remained for Holt to
you?” a man of his age. sat quiet-
Holt shrugged. “If you want spasm passed.
Don’t leave me here!” say the first word.
ly until the
to die, you could ask someone in Then he said, “I won’t do it.”
Holt was silent. He moistened He “McDermott’s a sick,
said,
his Hps, filled his lungs with crazy old man. His family is
your family to unplug you.” “Why not?”
breath, got to his feet. He stood dead or gone. He’s a pathetic
“I have no family.” “It’stoo simple, McDermott.
straight and tall, towering over and disgusting sight. I don’t
that
“Is true? You had five I’ve hated you too long. I can’t
sons —
the capsule that held his enemy. want to talk about the visit.”
just flip a switch and turn you
“Throw the switch,” McDer- Sweeping past them. Holt as-
“Four dead. Holt. The other off.”
mott begged. cended the shaft to the com-
one gone to Earth. No one lives “Bombard me, then. Blast the
“I’m sorry.” mand room. He peered out, over
here any more. I’ve outlasted tower down!”
“Devil!” the snowy field. There was a
them all. I’m as eternal as the “Without provocation? Do
Holt looked at his robots. “It’s double track in the snow, lead-
heavens. Two hundred thirty 3'ou think I’m a criminal?” Hclt
time to go,” he said. “There’s no ing to and from McDermott
years, that’s long enough to live. asked.
need for you to guide us. We can Keep, and the sunlight blazed
My wives are dead, my grand- “What do you want me to do?”
find our way out.” in the track.
children gone away. They’ll McDermott said tiredly. “Order
NEIGHBOR Ml
162 GALAXY
 The building shuddered sud- TLyffcDermott did not un-
denly. Holt heard a hiss and a derstand. Not cruelty, but
whine. He flipped on his com- simple selfishness, had kept him
cnunicator and a robot voice from killing the enemy lord.
said, “McDermott Keep is at- Just as, all these years. Holt had
tacking, your lordship. We’ve refrained from launching an at-
deflected a high - energy bom- tack he was certain to win. He
bardment.” felt remotely sorry for the para-
“Did the screens have any lyzed man locked in the life-
trouble with it?” capsule. But it was inconceiv-
“No, your lordship. Not at all. able that Holt would kill him.
Shall I prepare for a counterat- Once you are ^ne, Andrew,
tack?” who will I have to hate?
Holt smiled. “No,” he said. That was why he had not
“Take defensive measures only. killed.For no other reason.
Extend the screens right to the Michael Holt peered through
BY WYMAN GUIN
border and keep them there. the foot-thick safety glass of his
Don’t let McDermott do any command room window. He saw
harm. He’s only trying to pro- the zone of brown earth, the Illustrated by FINLAY
voke me. But he won’t succeed.” snowfield with its fresh track,
The tall, gaunt man walked to and the coppery ugliness of Mc-
the control panel. His gnarled Dermott His intestines
Keep.
hands rested lovingly on the writhed at hideousness of
the Wild as political conventions are
equipment. So they had come to that baroquetower against here on Earth — think whcjf they're
warfare at last, he thought. The the horizon. He imagined the like out among the turbulent stars!
cannon of McDermott Keep skyline as it had looked a hun-
were doing their puny worst. dred years ago, before McDer-
Flickering needles told the mott had built his foul keep.
story: whatever McDermott was He fondled the controls of his
I bluff. I selected an arrow and
throwing was being absorbed artillery bank as though they
fitted it to my bow and cautious-
easily. He didn’t have the fire- were a young girl’s breasts. Then
power to do any real harm. he turned, slowly and stiffly,
TV /Ty eldest son, who looks so ly walked out across the hot
Holt’s hands tightened on the making his way across the com- ^^•much like his mother, my glade of teree grass. In the far
controls. Now, he thought, he mand room to his chair, and sat chief wife, shrugged his shoulders thicket the charl boar grubbed
could blast McDermott Keep to quietly, listening to the sound of and glanced at the branch above and snorted unconcernedly.
ash. But he would not do it, any Andrew McDermott’s futile He said sullenly, “Yes, I will Pack at the lodge, a day’s walk
more then he would have bombardment expending it- swing into the tree when it’s from here, all my elite people
thrown the switch that would self against the outer defenses of time.” had paused and were concentrat-
have ended Andrew McDer- Holt Keep as the winter night I turned again to be sure the ing telepathically on our minds
mott’s life. fell.— ROBERT SILVERBERG. bearers were safely up on the here. Through my eyes, through
his head. my son’s eyes, through the eyes
164 GALAXY
 —
of the nontelepathic bearers on the thicket. I felt the old thrill
the bluff, they watched this race along my back, and I glanc-
scene, alerted by our tension. ed reassuringly across to my son.
My third wife, the dainty little His sudden thought shook me
one from Kewananga, stopped farmore than the sonic boom
her romping with the children thatcame at that moment from
and hushed them. Innocently, some Matterist rocket beyond
she censured me. the Guapanga mountains. The
“You should not have taken boar, monstrous and unstoppable,
your son on this dirty killing.
’
charged from the thicket.
My chief wife, the boy’s moth- My was to put an
son’s task

er, was not speaking to me. arrow into his driving rear flank.
My father, aging beside the He was to yell and divert him
small fire in his room of memo- toward the tree. He did neither.
ries,whispered to me in excite- He threw down his bow and
ment. “Careful, son. He’s a big swung into the tree.
brute. Hear the weight of him There was no place for me to

when he moves.” run. The bearers were yelling

Red Giant boiled hugely in from the rock with no effect
. . .

the afternoon sky as if he trem- on the boar. Flashing toward me

bled to engulf his tiny companion
sun, White Dwarf. In this glade
the pink teree grass reflected the
red sunlight and shimmered om-
inously.
glanced back one last time
I
at my son. In that instant, I saw
was not yet the “young
that he
man” I had thought to bring on
his first hunt. He was just a slim
across the teree grass, the boar
held the gleaming tusks high. A
greasy chill clutched my belly
while I cursed my chief wife
with my mouth and with my
mind.
The boar’s head went down
and I drew the bow. I watched
the heaving spot at the base of
his massive shoulder hump where

boy confused by his noodle-head- the gray bristles make a swirl.

ed mother. Well, it was too late There an opening there. A

is
it, but a man
spear will not enter
now him home as he and
to leave
his mother had wished. may sometimes put an arrow
The charl boar would have through it and sever the spinal
scented us long ago except for cord.
the pungent odor of the giant I did. His front legs buckled.
fungus he was grubbing. Now, I The great rump with its shoddy
penetrated too far into the bitter- flag of a tail vaulted at me. I
sweet aroma that drifted from was knocked flat and the car-

166
GALAXY

cass crashed painfully across
legs.
At his shoulder t^s boar had
stood almost as high as a man. I
lay waiting for the bearers to
get him off me. I looked up at
the churning surface of
Giant and marveled that I
still alive.
A fter I was standing, the head
bearer grasped my arms in
the traditional gesture but he
avoided my eyes. He said, “Tawe
tawa,” which scholars say once
meant, “Hunter of hunters,” in
the primitive vocal language.
The other bearers were blank-
faced and they did not dance
on the carcass or pass wine. I
looked down on the charl boar
. . certainly the greatest I had
.
ever killed.
I yelled with my mind and
did not care that elite Guapanga
might hear: “Woman! Because
of your nuts-and-fruit thinking,
I cannot mount this shameful
head in our lodge!”
The chief bearer, knowing only
the silence in the glade, took out
his steel knife and began expert-
ly to dress the animal. The other
bearers got in his way helping.
They were anxious to avoid
eyes. Their atelepathic minds
cringed from the probing they
hoped I was gentlemanly enough
not to make.
I felt my face bum. I looked
168
give us. The boy had never seen rocket screamed overhead. Its
my over where my eldest son
to
a live boar. He did not know. parting thunder boomed back
stood. Because of this boy’s
Forgive me, and I will give i p from the gorges of Guapanga.
mother and the radical Mentalist my thinking.” This irritating sound was, as they
thinking she had recently sub-
“Leave us.” say, the gem that sank the boat.
scribed to, none of my three
“You were dying and you curs- I slapped the boy.
wives now admitted me to their ed me before the elite world.” Yet, even as my helpless rage
Red rooms. Because of this boy and
“Leave us.” propelled the hand, I felt my
was his goose of a mother, I was al-
own guilt slow it.
most dead with a tusk from groin T stood hot- eyed before the boy. Afterward, it was not a time
to throat.
I am
a conservative Mentalist to admit that feeling of guilt. It
I walked over to where
with sactimoni-
his
— which is the conservative par- was time —and far too late a
mind seethed
ous pride in his absurd Mentalist
ty in the first place. I know ex- time —to start contradicting his
actly what the Matterists are mother’s thinking.
extremes, and with horror at the
sight of the great boar bearing
after —
and I am dead against With my mind I said to him,
It. I do not allow the use of any “Very well. All is mind. Matter
down on me.
The words in thisconfusion
machines anywhere on my lands. is an illusion. But a mental charl
My grandfather fought against
what I knew at the boar can kill a mental man as
were, “I did
the vote for women until the surely as if he were material.
last moment I had to do. I tried
radical
my
Mentalist princi-
Mentalists finally beat And a mental son has a duty to
to explain
him fifty years ago. To this day his mental father.”
ples to you and you wouldn’t
no elite woman from Guapanga Now his shame dominated his
listen. My
mother has condoned
casts a vote. confusion and he bawled. I went
my decision.”
Among conservative
Mental-
Abruptly, my chief wife was
on, “The Mentalist culture of
am
ists, I rockbound conserva- which you are so proud will not
in my mind, horrified at what To
had almost happened to me, pro-
tive. the radicals, I am “The protect your feet from stones,
Mountain Ogre.” Now I faced a while this boar will make shoes
tective of the boy and still stub-
cowardly son because radical for the whole lodge. You must
born with righteousness. “Our
women’s thinking had entered eat meat and meat must be
son will devote his life to build-
my own household. I was about kiUed.”
ing our beautiful Mentalist heri-
as dead politically as a man can Stubbornly, through his shame,
tage. He cannot taint himself
get and still cast a vote. he echoed his mother. “The kill-
with killing.”
Even as I stood there I could ing should be done by common
heard a groan from
I my lips.
hear the first repercussions of men, not by a Mentalist.”
“Leave us, woman.”
this shameful incident snickering These Mentalist fads and cults,
my Now she wept. From the bench off into the Mentalist world. “Oh, such as the one my chief wife
were she sat in the courtyard of
didn’t he turn out to be an ogre was dabbling in, had grown only
the lodge the paving stones blur-
at home?” “Well, you must ad- in the last five years since the
red as though in rain, and her
mit, he’s great with boars.” Chupa Uprisings. They were un-
mouth cried out, “My husband,
Another Matterist passenger healthy signs of the shock and
we have almost killed you. For-
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 169
GALAXY
fear left in us by the unexpected
revolt of the chupas.
I shook my head. “Arm your
tenants and train them to hunt?
One day you will find them hunt-
ing you.” reached out and grip-
I as they made their dainty way
ped his arm. “Your grandfather
built this Mentalist empire here
in the Guapangas, sprang be-
tween two Matterist republics.
Geographically and spiritually it
must be the most Mentalist of
empires. It must be the conserva-
tive stronghold. And that means,
among many other things, killing
your own meat.”
Now I was through with him.
I was not quite in a mood to
start making a chum of him.
“You will return with the bear-
ers. I am going back alone.”
I walked over to the bearers.
“The boy will return with you.”
The head bearer looked me in
the eye now and nodded respect-
fully. “Yes, Excellency.”
II
T7rom that high valley at the
^ feet of the Guapangas,
followed a great conifered ridge
that borders my lands. I walked
in telepathic solitude, angry and
ashamed.
In the late afternoon I arrived
at a craggy mountain that stands
apart from its parent Guapangas.
There the ridge begins to drop
toward my lodge. At the base of
this moimtain there is a little In the truce after the “war”
lake and I stopped and bathed. the candidate of the victors cau-
Afterward, I lay on the grassy tiously contacts the minds of the
bank and watched a herd of defeated. With utmost care he
greathoms high on the mountain synthesizes a pragmatic position
for himself embracing, if he is a
from one perilous coign to an- Mentalist, one after another of
other. the Matterist points of faith, as
I became aware of the ap- “beliefs necessary to the well-
proach of a Matterist. We both, being of my Matterist subjects.”
ceremonially closed our minds. At the same time he rarefies his
“I pass your mind in peace. former Mentalist beliefs into
May Mr. Executive shield us pragmatic notions necessary to
both.” “guide my actions and obtain my
“I withdraw my mind with re- ends as Old Man.”
spect. I commend you to Old Now his one mind handles the
Man.” two conflicting faiths in a logical
The present political divisions, manner, and for his lifetime he
Matterists and Mentalists, were keeps the peace.
the ancient tele-
left after all of He keeps the peace absolutely
pathic cultures had fused or been because none may plot against
annihilated. In the meantime him for a moment. Awake or
there had evolved the institution asleep, and without any bother
of the Old Man. (The priggish on his part, his mind would auto-
Matterists call him Mr. Execu- matically shunt contradictory be-
tive, but he is still just Old Man.) liefs into the mind of the plotter
The Old Man is one mind and thus confuse him complete-
which stands between the two ly-
planet-wide political parties and I rose from the grass and
acts as final law for both. Our dressed to meet the Matterist.
I greatest political crisis comes
when an Old Man dies. Then t was some time before he ap-
hurriedly come the two planet- I peared around a wooded knoll.
wide telepathic conventions — He had with him two bearers
the building of the two new plat- who carried the carcass of a
forms —the election of two op- greathom. The beautiful curving
T'osing candidates (one of which horns were the color of nut
will become the new Old Man) meats.
— and finally, the moment of His machine-made clothing
“war”. was drab and unpretentious com-
pared to the elegance of my cap
and tunic, the silk of my
breeches and the handsomely
tooled leather of my boots. He
wore the usual unadorned clothes
and his machine-made boots
were plain.
He was a neighbor of mine.
As looked to the south down
I
his valley, I could see the ugly
smudge from his pulp mills and
paper factories. (The Matterists
have a type of daily reading they
are addicted to instead of enjoy-
ing books. Everything that has
happened that day in their so-
ciety, endless minutiae you
would never pause over in tele-
pathic scanning, they read about
in the evening. They require
enormous amounts of cheap pap-
er to keep up this “papernews”.)
The Matterist apologized' un-
necessarily. “I hope you don’t
mind that I pass through this
part of your land. It is the only
way I can get to the greathoms
of this mountain.
I spread my hands. “You are
welcome at any time.”
Naturally we did not touch,
and of course we spoke only
with our mouths. Our minds
were closed to each other. He
was carrying a high-powered rifle
with a telescopic sight The tele-
scope excited me. We may build
telescopes to study Lalone and
the other planets and moons. But
to build or use a sight with which

170 GALAXY THE DHEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 171

to kill would be a Matterist here- “Why are you so stuDDom
experiment ... at least until it
about this one thing? We only “Yes, sir. I understand.”
by- has proved successful. That little
want to try it on one of them, “Nevertheless, your voters are
I glanced up at the face of the insignificant yellow sun is so far
mountain and found the herd of and it is so far away.” among the best trained in the
away. Those distant semi-ration-
greathorns. “May I use your I shook my head. “It is not
als who call their planet “Erth”
Mentalist party, and your prag-
just ‘one thing’. I do not want matic stand is very important to
sight?” do not even telepath. It is all so
Knowing I should not touch to be told how many wives I us.”
innocent and “progressive”. “Yes, sir. I am aware.”
the rifle, he graciously dismount- may have, when I should work,
I said coldly, “I think your “Begin contacting your elite
ed the sight and handed it to or what I may read.”
soul has plenty of room to im-
He flushed. “The last three people at once. Old Man has ral-
me. prove right here under Red Giant lied momentarily, but the end
It was a wonderful thrill to Executives have been Mentalist
and White Dwarf.” might come suddenly.”
me to have the herd of great- candidates. Yet with the coopera-
His face went rigid with anger. “I will do so.”
horns leap into close perspective. tion of your radical Mentalists
He saluted me stiffly and he and
I watched their frightful, sure- these Executives have been able
much of the change
his bearers moved on. Ill
footed progress until retention of to afford us
the sight became impolite. I re- we needed. Why not this? We T contacted my father-in-law in T had no desire to be in this part
turned it to him and he remount- only want to try it on one of
Basahn at once. “Councillor, of my lands
ed it. Then he stood for a mo- them.” with elections
I have had some personal prob-
ment looking at the rusty sky He referred to a distant, yellow coming up. The moment Old
lems. I did not realize
where Red Giant hovered over sun where the Matterists want to
.” . . Man was dead, the Matterists
He is my chief wife’s father. would be able to send out groups
Guapangas. invade and colonize one of the
tire
He said, “Yes, I have had tear- of atelepathic non-voters carry-
He time to-
said, “Well, this planets. They have a theory that
ful news of those problems. I
each probably life is at its best imder yellow
ing rifles and explosives to pick
morrow we will
reminded your wife that I would
be casting our vote for the next suns. Three times now this am- off our elite people.
not tolerate her behavior myself For this they cannot of course
Mr. Executive.” bition of theirs to colonize plan-
and do not expect you to. In the spare elite people from the vot-
ets ofyellow suns had been de-
layed because we had won the
name of my family, I apologize.” ing and the “war”. Also they
stared at him in a stupid He proceeded bluntly to the
I pause. He saw the ignorance “war” and placed a Mentalist as
plans for the Mentalist conven-
cannot use highly destructive,
Old Man. nuclear weapons, because the
on my face.
tion where he would certainly be
said, “You must have spent This the reason we Mental- geography of the two parties
He is
the outstanding nominee for Old
is

not allow improvements so interlaced. They can only be

tile day absorbed in some very ists will
Man. He is a vigorous old lecher picky with such killing, but I
disturbing personal problem.” in technology until we have im-
We who keeps three wives and three did not intend to be “picked”.
I focused in panic on the mind proved our own souls. see
concubines happy and still drinks While walked and
of Old Man. in the Matterists how the de- I trotted, I
a full gourd of wesah spirits a
He was dying. He had had a structiveness of their engines has contacted my party lieutenants
day. “I am sorry to say that your and
stroke and he was dying. The outstripped their ability to con- instructed them in the
‘charl boar incidenti has made grouping of our voters along their
mountain beneath me rocked. trol themselves. They rationalize
you a laughing stock. There is convictions in pragmatism. My
We looked at each other, the the crime they wish to carry out
now no chance to get you on voters would, of course, be vot-
Matterist and I, and each saw with the wide-eyed innocence of
the Council of Pragmatists until ing for the things I believe in.
tiie other’s determination. anim als. It is to be only “one”
next fall.” Any man that didn’t would find
172 GALAXY
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 173
 Hill I will swing a lantern until in the tallow light of Falrn. His
himself off my lands next day, "Delow the ridge the streaking
you sight me.” lantern came swinging toward me
packing his wife and kids for the lights of Matterist cars be-
polar mines. gan to glow along their highway.
“I am climbing toward Skull and he laughed with his mouth.
Until this morning, when my Only a few years ago Old Man
Hill now. We will meet there.” “I saw your thatch before you
I envied him, the chupa. He is saw my lantern.”
chief wife had made a planet- had granted them this highway
now a lieutenant in my political I had taken off my cap, leav-
wide ass of me, I had been a which crossed part of my land.
powerful force in our Mentalist It was not the least part of my
organization and a good one. In ing my red hair loose.
this election he would work hard The subtle mixture of lantern
party. I had campaigned several disgust with the radical Mental-
for me, though he had fought light and moonglow showed
years now for her father who ists that, to spite me, they had his
skillfully against me in the Chu- firm features grinning at me. We
owns much of Basahn beyond provided Old Man the necessary
pa Uprisings. He was not the grasped thumbs affectionately
the Guapangas. balance of opinion in this matter
least ashamed of the Uprisings and started back the way he had
I invented his campaign slo- and allowed the desecration of a
gan, “A man who believes in virgin Mentalist forest.
and, unlike many in the Mental- come.
ist elite, I do not hold those days I noticed that when he was
nothing makes a great Old Man.” The moon nearest our planet,
Night before last, while my the little yellow one we call Fal-
against the chupas. The improve- not speaking directly with his
ments in their station which they mind closed rhythmically
son and 1 were at camp on our on the Messenger, came rocket- it
then gained had been due. After against me. I understood he
inglorious charl boar hunt, I had ing up in the east. By its waxy
made a scheduled speech that light I was able to descend at
all,we in the elite worlds have would protect me against his
only our own moral laxity to thoughts about my son and chief
was listened to across the planet the proper point to the highway
blame for the fact that there
by all Mentalists. My pragma- and under it through one
cross
are chupas.
wife.

tism was naturally cheered by of the wide tunnels which had I focused at once on my son’s
conservative Mentalists and hiss- been provided for moving wild- mind and spoke firmly but cheer-
ed by radical Mentalists., But life. Above me the cars whistled
T^rom chupa lieutenant’s
the fully. “How is your camp?”

the most heartening response had on their pavement. The Matter- mind came a solemn remark. “It is good, father. We are
“I, too, do not know for sure. about half way back to the lodge
been from the chupas. These ist minds they carried were still

children from the union of an
elite person with a common,
atelepathic person (usually a
concubine), lacks nothing in in-
closed to us, but they, too, were
But I would be honored if it from the high valleys.”
hurrying to be ready for Old
were so.” “Have you seen to the com-
Man’s death. The open minds which he and fort of your bearers?”
I kept with each other were oc- “Yes, we .” He paused and
As I came out of the tunnel, I . .

telligence and they telepath as became aware that the young
well as elite people. Like the Chupa overseer of my lands was
common people, however, they on his way to meet me with a
have minds of their own. Each lantern. I was pleased that he
chupa is a little culture to him- had not delegated this to an
self, completely independent. atelepathic on this
They are realists, first and night.
last,and seem always pragmatic. He called to me
They like me. Now, since the strong, cheerful mind. “Excellen-
Uprisings, they had become im- cy, Ihave just crossed the creek
portant politically. above Serapon Marsh. On Skull
174
casionally embarrassing. It had
passed through my mind that
this chupa’s mother had died
without telling, but many have
claimed that my own father was
dangerous her elite lover.
One thing was sure, father
with his kept a stingy grip on that part
of his memories.
I mounted the pass below the
great rock skull that was bathed
GALAXY THE DELEGATE FROM
continued meekly, “We are broil-
ing part of the boar and will eat
soon.”
“You realize that the Mental-
istconvention could start at any
minute. Since you are not of
my voting age, close your mind at
once and remain that way until
contacted.”
“Yes, father. I will do so."
The chupa shifted his lantern
GUAPANGA 175
 knew that I never cared to speak my harness of arrows and my
to his other hand and put his when the “war” comes we will
with her except to persuade her clothesand left them in a heap
free arm on my
shoulder. “I win. If I am placed as Old Man
to have big heavy babies with
knew you wovild not continue to I ask immediately for you
will
on the stones of the court I
heads like red melons. vaulted into the fountain, fright-
be harsh with the boy. It was not to be voted into the Council.
his fault, and he would never do You will lose due to that ridicu- A breeze moved through the ened the decorative fish into a
trees and shrubs of the court. shimmering explosion. Aftejrward
it again.” lous chart boar business of this
The splashing of the fountain I walked in angry nakednesa
Momentarily, the picture of morning. However, I will keep
was a great noise. The crackling across the court and along the
thrashing a naked woman with asking and I am sure you will
of coals in the open cooking pit great portico to my
a stick was embarrassingly sharp be voted in next fall.” rooms.
beyond the fountain was anoth-
in his mind. He hastened his My father-in-law withdrew his
er noise. I found that I was de- '
thinking to the words, “Of busy focus as the chupa and I I 'he Matterists marry only one
*
sperately hungry. woman. have often assum-
course, I have no rightful passed beneath the autumn- I
Over the bed of coals the car- ed from basic
thoughts on whose fault it might spangled leera trees and entered this stupidity
cass of a black horn sizzled. springs the meanness of their cul-
have been.” the great stone-paved court of
There was a loaf of bread and a
As we started down the slopes my lodge. I caught a glimpse of skin of wine on the stone table.
ture. This night I had learned

above Serapon Marsh, he point- my chief wife hurrying along a that three women are no certain-
There were no servants to help ty of affection.
ed east where Garrison Bluff portico in the waning light of
me, of course. All the men were Alone in my rooms,
was drenched in moonlight. Falon. Her robe blew about her I shouted
stationed about the grounds,
I nodded. The garrison was fine figure in tallow folds that to all three of them with my
guarding with bow and spear
dark and deserted. My monks were mystically related to the mind, “Don’t worry that I will
against the possible rifles and not return from this convention
had already left their cells and wax-hard withdrawal of her
explosives of Matterist common with a firm mind! I will come
each had departed alone for some proud mind.
people. Their women were hud- back here with a stick and beat
impromptu retreat in the forest. The chupa grasped thumbs
dled about their own cooking fire two of you all the way to the
There they would hold their con- with me. “May the Mentalists
where they whispered the age- Basahn Hills. I will save the stick
victionsagainst Matterism and win again.” He saluted rrie ironi-
old superstitions about politics. and when the other had whelped
vote steadily Mentalism.
for cally and left.
I cut a huge piece of the meat
When the brief moment of “war” The lodge was dark and silent. I will stand in one spot and beat
and ate itwith the bread, sitting affection into her. Her heart
came, their full telepathic force The children were all asleep. The
at the stone serving table. I will melt for man and child.”
would be against the Matterist adults were awake and anxious
platform. So now, if a Matterist
drank the wine directly from the I threw on a cap and left my
about the convention. In his
non-voter chose to blow up the rooms off one of the upper porti-
skin, chewed ravenously and rooms and let my boots crash
stared into the coals.
garrison, little would be lost. cos my aged father hummed to theatrically on the stones. I went
himself and dreamed of a con-
My third wife, the little one up the stairs and along the up-
A the chupa and I came up from Kewananga, was no longer per portico to my father’s rooms.
s vention and “war” in his youth.
speaking with me, even to scold. He said with his mind, “Come
the stone walk to the lodge, My second wife stirred uncom-
She now sided completely with
my father-in-law contacted me fortably in bed with the big baby in, son. After the convention I
the chief wife whom I had curs- will come out on the portico to
again. “Old Man has weakened she was carrying and resented its
ed. see you return with a stick. Then
so that Intelligence is able to father profoundly. She would not
I decided to bathe again when we will have peace and love
study the possible Matterist speak with me when focused
I
I had finished eating. I threw off about here once more.”
platform. I am confident that comfortingly on her mind. She
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA
176 GALAXY 177
 I entered and stood before
him. To me his face will always
be the most beautiful of my life.
There is written in those deep
seams a long life of building and
adventure and care. It was he
who had fought in three elections
to win and place a Mentalist Old
Man and prevent the Matterists
from invading the planets of oth-
er suns. It was who had
he, too,
counseled me Chupa
during the
Uprisings. The memory of his
understanding in those days stir-
red in me a sudden question.
“Are you the father of my chu-
pa?”
He was angry with me. “You
think of trivia in the presence of
this ceremony!”
I was ashamed. I had caught
from his mind a hard ache of
remembered love and a sweet
face, and this I had tricked from
him. But this thought left one
certainty. It is a fine thing to
love a woman who can’t read
your mind.
I gestured placatingly for the
ceremony.
All over our planet, where it
was now light and where it was
now dark, these ancient Mental-
ist words were being spoken. The
hands of an old man trembled on
the kneeling young one and the
primitive, almost meaningless
words of mouth were said by the
ancient. After these magical
words of mouth one could go
178
into the forest and lie on the
ground and fight the telepatliic
war. For, in ancient times, be-
fore the institution of Old Man,
the election was the war.
I walked out of the lodge along
the great portico which is sup-
ported by thirteen caryatids
carved as the demons spawned
in “The Beginning” by White
Dwarf. There my chief wife knelt
on the stones and grasped my
thighs.
I did not put my hand on her
dark and lovely head. She drew
herself up my body and sought
my lips. I did not refuse her
this, but I could not return the
kiss. Too clearly, gleaming tusks
flashed in the teree grass.
It was cruel and insulting.
moaned
Salty with tears, her lips
away from me. She turned and
clung to a caryatid and it was
the female demon, Paline. I left
her sobbing face imcomforted be-
tween wooden breasts.
IV
autumn dawns start softly,
a subtle, pink glowing with-
out direction that grows and
grows until suddenly day crashes
in. Deep in a secret part of the
forest I stood on a little emin-
ence and leaned against a cold
face of basalt.
I have always attended the
political conventions from this
GALAXY
secret place in my forests.
Through the enormous rusty
glowing a great black chahar
winged his heavy way. Even as
I watched his flight he gave his
screaming cry, and it was day.
The first ray from Red Giant
lanced the black belly of a cloud,
splashing blood across the high
cliffs of Guapanga.
At that moment Old Man died.
His hand, held by that of his
chief wife, relaxed. Over his fad-
ing telepathic fans, he muttered
a name that was heard by wait-
ing millionsof us across the
planet. Then he was dead.
The Mentalist convention be-
gan immediately. I walked over
to a grassy knoll and lay down
and closed my eyes.
Throughout the morning of
voting on issues and principles
that would make up our plat-
form, there whispered outside our
minds the ominous workings of
the Matterist convention where
an opposing platform was taking
shape. These foreign arguments
and all this communication we
kept firmly from our minds. The
moment would come soon enough
when we would face them with
our platform and they would
face us with theirs. And in less
time than it takes to melt a
scoop of butter over a fire, the
logic of the stronger side would
begin to confuse and dissolve
the logic of the weaker side.
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA
This would be the moment of
“war”. When it was finished one
logic would stand intact across
the planet and the victors would
install the next Old Man.
While we were busy building
the Mentalist platform our chupa
minds stood respectfully aside.
For a chupa thinks independent-
ly of the party platforms, just
as a common man thinks pretty
much as he pleases in his lonely
world. But an elite man
neces-
sarily takes part in his telepathic
culture (or, as we call it today,
“platform”). It is the thing which
forms his mental boundaries.
Every elite person, upon the
death of an Old Man, is deeply
concerned with the changes that
will occur in his allowable philo-
sophy.
Touring the morning my chupa
half-brother contacted me.
“Excellency, can you spare a
moment? It is important.”
“Of course, but you know not
to keep me too long.”
“I have been increasingly
aware that you intend to enter
again your plea for dishonest
government.”
“Yes, I do. I suppose it will
make as little impression this
time as it has in the past. But
it isan essential part of my con-
servatism and I can’t neglect it.”
“Pardon me. Excellency. I
think it wrill make a very definite
179
impression this time. We chupas,
loyal to the Mentalists, have held
just now.
a conference about it
We can promise you a solid vote
for dishonesty in government.”
I was stunned with pleasure.
All morning, in the face of the
general amusement over my first
wife’s disloyalty, I had availed
myself only of my routine vote.
Now saw that my political for-
I not come again until afternoon.
tune had turned in a moment.
“You see. Excellency, what
this could mean when the two
platforms are face to face.”
Lying in the cool forest, I op-
ened my eyes and looked across
the rusty sky, and closed them.
With a thrilling start I under-
stood him. The chupas on the
Matterist side would like this
part of our platform as much as
our chupas. They would vote for
this aspect of our platform.
hortly, the convention was at
S that point where the provin-
cial law in Guapanga which for-
bids voting to woman was caus-
ing its usual trouble. A radical
Mentalist from the east had the
attention and was being particu-
larly abusive.
This maneuver was not intend-
ed to do anything practical about
the law itself. It was meant simp-
ly to discredit me, Ae law’s chief
defender, before I could propose
any of my pragmatic aspects for
our new
platform.
180
The radical" shouted, “Out
there in those hills the women
tive responses. Ii anything came fruit for herself, a bunch of ice-
up he had only to contact me. blue wesah. Then she indicated
will try anything to get free.”
This was the inevitable refer-
When I opened my eyes to the the meal with her head.
ence to “the charl boar incident.”
red forest, I found a young wom- “Eat, Excellency. You will
an sitting on a rock near me. have to get back to the conven-
Everyone laughed, even the con-
She rose and came toward me tion.”
servatives.
gracefully. She carried a freshly I did not wish to think about
I held my peace. I would just
cut hasam gourd and in the other the speech I would give in the
have to wait my turn for atten-
hand one of the huge hasam afternoon. Instinct told me I
tion which I could now see would
leaves folded as a pouch. would destroy essential spontani-
She knelt before me and hand- ty. I welcomed this woman as a
But when my turn did come, I
ed me the gourd. “It is water diversion.
was going to rock them.
from the creek.” She indicated and munched the we-
She sat
I had been the first politician
the nearby sound of the stream. sah while I ate the meal and
to see that pragmatism could be
The water had, only a short drank from the gourd. We watch-
used within a party platform as
time ago, splashed from the high each other in appreciative sil-
well as by Old Man and the
snows of Guapanga. It made my ence and grinned occasionally.
Council of Pragmatists. For ex-
teeth ache.
ample, I inovated having our
She spread the huge hasam ' 'he little ginkas, both the red
common people vote against I
me and I found that
leaf before and the blue-furred ones,
work. They continue to vote
against work cheerfully and with
she had provided for my lunch were gathering nuts beneath the
exactly as I had planned to do. red trees. In the forest there was
great energy, knowing that they
She had gathered the autumn only their chatter and the occa-
will be plowing their fields to-
nuts and berries and several sional belling of a black jay.
morrow. In our Mentalist plat-
form a request for this vote is
kinds of fruit. She had cracked When she was satisfied that I
without difficulty, but in the fin-
and cleaned the nuts into a sep- was through eating, she asked,
arate smaller leaf. “Excellency, why doesn’t your
al facing of the two platforms
She was not telepathic, but chief wife come to you?”
this strong vote cannot be ab-
she was an unusual beauty. Her I saw that the common people,
sorbed by the Matterists to
features were sensual without as well as the elite, knew of my
whom “work” must be the most being soft. I watched with pleas- problems. “You know it is un-
important of virtues if they are
ure the grace of her walk. lawful for a delegate to be with
to keep their factories going.
I asked with my mouth, “Who his women during a convention.”
The
parts of the platform com-
sent you here?” She pretended to be naive.
ing up did not require unusual “No one sent me.”
action. I decided to leave and
“Why is that. Excellency?”
“Did you know I would be “It used to be thought they
have lunch. I contacted one of
here?” might influence one’s vote. Now
my elite lieutenants and left my She smiled mysteriously. “I they just vote ‘contrary to one.”
vote for him to proxy with in-
knew.” “And
yet. Excellency, you may
tructions for standard, conserva-
She picked up some of the ask me to your arms.”
GALAXY THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 181
 I did not like her brazen calm.
“That is not proper at any time.”
Her strange smile angered me.
tl was about to order her away
when she raised her arms and
ttmdid the knot of her honey-
colored hair so that it fell to her
shoulders as girls wear their hair
before marriageable age.
“Do you recognize me, Excel-
lency? Wasn’t there a time dur-
ing the telepathic fighting of the
chupas when you felt less harsh-
ly against my company.”
Then I recognized her. She
was the daughter of one of my
tenants. While I had rested from
fighting the chupas five years
ago, she had happened by here.
She smiled. It was entirely a
forgiving smile. “I was only a
girl then. Excellency. a
I am
woman now. I have heard that
your wives do not come to you,
election day or not.”
She declared this as bluntly as
she might say, “I see that your
red thatch needs trimming.”
We sat there for some time,
looking at each other through
knowing lids while I remember-
ed her sweet youth and felt a
ravenous need for her. I beckon-
ed her to me, and as I did so
I realized that the air-tide of our
planet was rising.
Red Giant and White Dwarf
were overhead. Together they
draw an angry tide of storm
through all our noons.
182
Even as the woman knelt to
me the first confused gusts of
the tide whirled crimson leaves
about us. Presently the tide rac-
ed through the forest. It sang
through bare autumn branches
and half buried us in a drift of
leaves. The woman’s warm
mouth whispered over my face.
Then, far away I heard the
mighty wave of wind bellow into
the gorges of Guapanga, shrilling
in the wild crags.
lay dreaming. One day
I would be Old Man. If I
came a councillor next fall my
way would be easy. This would
be inevitable, because my grand-
father and my father had built
an empire and left it to me. With
such an empire and my own good
talent as a logician I could, as
I lay there in the forest, decide
that I wanted one day to be
Man.
The woman lay still in my
arms. Her eyes had been fixed on
the depths of trees where Red
Giant cast Vermillion spears.
Now they turned to me in a
dream. I stroked her shoulder
where coils of honey-colored hair
buried my hand. The last gusts
of the tide lifted lazy dervishes
from the leaves about us and
r^nled the flame of her cheeks.
She said, “I have loved you
since you came to me, like a god
here in your forest.”
GALAXY
I saw in her gentle mind that
this was so, and also that she
had hardly realized her capacity
to love.
Suddenly I remembered the
name that Old Man had mutter-
ed as he died. His elite wives
had been gathered at his bed.
His dearest friends had been
there. But the last name he had
uttered had been that cf a com-
mon woman, a concubine who
was not even allowed in the
house.
I
marveled that he had taken
I
be-
woman to him-
this atelepathic
selfand outraged elite people
even before he became Old Man.
And I saw that what this might
have lost him in political support
from elite women had been more
than offset by his later populari-
ty among
the chupas.
focused again on the mind of
I There was a massive, telepath-
Old this gentle, passionate woman
beside me, and I found that her
adoration was tempered by a
strong determination of her own.
The strength of her will astonish-
ed me until she said in her mind,
“He has hair like yours. It is
red like the flame of Red Giant.”
Then this woman’s mind open-
ed to me. I was happy with un-
derstanding. I kissed her face
tillshe wept, and she said halt-
ingly, “He is like Red Giant in
another way. He takes a storm
with him everywhere.”
And suddenly, of all my child-
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA
ren, I loved best the wild
littl/
chupa.
V
t is wrong by the old stand-
I ards, but I lay beside the
woman throughout the afternoon
of the convention. She neither
stirrednor spoke with her mouth
in all that time. My awareness
left the forest and centered en-
tirely in the convention.
I had returned barely in time.
The voting had reached subjects
critical to me. My
turn for at-
tention before the delegates came
quickly.
I began my speech gravely.
“Mr. Chairman, ladies and
gentlemen, and delegates. I am
going to return to my plea for
dishonesty in government.”
ed groan from the ranks of radi-
cal Mentalists and even some
heavy sighs from conservatives.
The radicals began hooting. It
took the chair several seconds to
quiet the disorder.
Afterward I spoke dramatical-
ly, directly to the chair. “Mr.
Chairman, to protect this as-
sembly against further outbursts
of childishness, I am going to
make an announcement. After 1
have made it, I think you may
wish to grant a 15-second recess
to allow the delegates to confirm
the announcement
183

“Mr. Chairman,
gentlemen, and delegates. What
I am going to ask as an integral
part of our platform what
I am going to put into that plat-
form concerning dishonesty in
government
rible moment
noon . . . will
moment . .
paused for a second while
I that the source will remain fruit-
they sweated in anticipation of
the moment that our logic would
face the Matterist logic.
“ will in that decisive mo-
. . . ernment. I know where they
ment, receive a solid vote of
•yes’ from every
. . . this . . . planet.”
It was a stunning moment.
They were getting the thrill that
had come to me when my half-
brother had told me the news
and it had crashed into my mind
that chupas on the Matterist
side could join chupas on our
side to vote for us.
In one moment our politics had
been revolutionized.
\ fter the recess which the
Chairman eagerly called, I
did not have to ask if chupa
friends of the delegates had con-
firmed me. The attention on me
had deepened to the absolute.
I had indeed rocked them, and
for the first time they would hear
me.
“Mr. Chairman,
gentlemen, and delegates. It re-
184
IT
ladies and mains for me to state in a form
suitable for our platform, the
logic of our attitude tov/ard dis-
. . . honesty in government.
“Politicians who want your
money want, at worst, the least
. . . will in the ter- part of you. Even then they us-
of “war” this after- ually take only a little of the
in that crucial least part. They take what will
not cause much excitement, so
ful. Such men are almost never
dangerous.
“Give me the dishonest gov-
stand. We need only structure
. . . chupa ... on our laws so that their activities
have the dignity of commercial
defense. Then these clever foxes,
while fleecing us lightly, will de-
fend our freedom and our prin-
ciples like lions. In such a strong
government we need only on oc-
casional politician who is a fan-
atic about ‘honesty’ to keep the
rest in reasonable line.”
I paused a few seconds and
felt only profound attention fo-
cused on me. I had begun nicely,
a logic that would fit our plat-
form.
“No, it is among honest politi-
cians that danger may lie! Show
me the politician that has never
gained money or made it possi-
ble for his friends to do so, or
h''s never partaken of the other
licenses that power provide, and
ladies and I will show you a fanatic.
“The best that an honest poli-
GALAXY
i
tician can be is a fanatic about that was repeated over and over our political platform, what will She offered me a drink fronl
honesty. But he can be much from all directions like a shower happen to the Matterists when thehasam gourd and I took it.
worse. It behooves you first to of autumn leaves. “Their money- we face them in the moment of Then I asked with my mind,
ask why he is honest. If he can economy. Their money-econo- “war”? “How far is it to your father’s
answer that satisfactorily it be- my. “In that moment when our house.”
hooves you to ask why he is in minds are open to them, won’t In her mind there was not an
government. T?or the first time this assembly their logic be confounded? For answer to my question. Rather,
“How much of your freedom ^ had caught a glimpse of my they cannot deny the prevalence her mind filled with the reali-
does the honest politician want pragmatism and the di-
political
of dishonesty. And they cannot zation that I would buy her for
deny that the most dangerous a concubine.
in exchange for not taking your mensions in which it could work
money? Does he want your right for us. With the Matterists every-
politicians are honest fanatics So I had to repeat my ques-
to vote? Your right to your land? thing isorganized into man-
. . .
from whom we are protected by tion,and still there was in her
strong, dishonest governments. mind only this realization.
Your right to your women, your agement teams, labor unions and
Yet acceptance of these things Then I laughed and said loud-
right to drink spirits, or eat meat, clubs. They have only black-
or read books? and-white language for their sup-
implies destruction of their econ- ly with my mouth, so that it
omy. startled her in the silent, after-
“Such questions become critical posed virtues such as “industry”,
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will noon forest, “How far to
when many honest men congre- “honesty” and “frugality”. Yet is it
win the “war” and lose nothing in your house?”
gate in one government. Why there is less virtue in their higher father’s

have they foregathered in this
ominous way? Why this unnatur-
al climate of sobriety and thrift?
What is it these honest men are
seeking to change? The foxes
have flown and your society is
sick.
“Let the next Old Man reduce
the penalties against government-
al dishonesty and embezzlement
— just as I proposed at the last
convention. Let the next Old
man make our political position
attractive to clever and intelli-
gent men who happen to be a
little dishonest. Only in this way
can we have a government strong
enough to resist honest fanatics
and radical encroachment.”
I paused again, and I found
a surprised approval falling to-
ward me ... a murmured phrase
186
circles than in my
ant.
So now I shouted to the as-
sembly. “Yes, their money-econ-
omy! The Matterists have an
almost complete money-economy
in which dishonesty and embez-
zlement are, at one and the
same time, essentially prevalent
and highly abhorred.
“But what of our semi-feudal
economy? Need we be fearful of
political dishonesty where power
and position are the right of
birth? Will not the chupas be
pleased that we lower the penal-
ties on dishonesty to give them
greater opportunity to succeed
our world?
“So, if we have logical reasons,
as I have given them, to accept
dishonesty as a fundamental in
meanest ten- the peace!” Now I saw in her mind that
This conclusion was greeted the house would not be far be-
with a storm of approval. yond the creek. A place with a
My father - in - law focused well in the yard and an arbor
tightly on me. “You will not for wesah. The little chupa would
have to wait till next fall. You be teasing the hopani fowl in
will be voted to the Council of cackling flurries around the
Pragmatists later in the after- house.
noon. Why don’t you tactfully That was the way it was as
leave the convention now, at the we walked down from the forest
height of your approval? You except that the little chupa was
need not return until the voting not about. We crossed a field of
starts.” freshly mown teree grass and
walked up to the house. The
VI woman straightened her hair
self-consciously. I adjusted my
lay in quiet triumph beside tunic and my cap and found
I the woman, and she knew I some leaves on my breeches. Red
had returned. She did not say Giant hung in a cloudy blaze,
anything, but she thought about waiting to start his plunge at
me unashamedly, and I knew her the horizon.
thoughts. The father and his workmen
GALAXY THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 187
had finished in the fields for the T T e went to the bam
day. They had just returned to his three workmen out as
the barns and the animals as the witnesses to the “fraud”. He had
woman called him. had no wife for many years and
He came out, a tall weathered so these would be the only wit-
man, straight and kindly faced. nesses. The workmen stood with
Yet I saw the face harden with their caps in their hands. Two of
resentment when he recognized them who were married were
me. This was a proud man who smiling over the young woman’s
would never have asked me to fortune, but the unsmiling bach-
right a wrong. elor had had a secret hope of
Nevertheless, he bowed with his own.
respect. Doing my best to
I spoke the proper idiom with this ceremony, I took the tradi-
warmth, for I respected the fath- tional coin of small worth from
er of such a woman. “I withdraw my purse and grasped the fath-
respectfully from the door to er’s hand and placed the coin
your mind.” in I repeated, “I would
Now, as was proper, he
it.
your daughter, man.”
straightened from his bow. I saw The
father cast the coin on
that in the interim he had under- the ground. I was grateful that
stood what this was about. He he used the ancient, simpler form
was happy for his daughter, and of the ceremony. He stamped on
that the wrong would now be the coin and said, “I count not
righted. your money but your honor.
Now the ceremony would have Thus I see that you will mistreat
to come at once. In small talk her.”
tiiere might occur exchanges “I will treat her with respect.”
which are thought to be bad “And then you will bring her
omens. So I declared, “Man, I unhappiness.”
would buy your daughter for a
“I will bring her love and ten-
concubine.”
derness.”
The woman at once turned her “And finally, you will
twick to us and lowering her head, her to wretchedness.”
sighed. “I will keep her with
The were sudden-
father’s eyes ways.”
ly misted. Ceremonially, he look- The father turned to his wit-
ed up at the sky. “Red Giant nesses and demanded, “You hear
witnesses what a fraud has come this fraud?”
here.”
And the workmen used
188
and called dent form, retorting in ragged thumbs again. “But you can do
unison, “No, we deem it honor- nothing if I sign to you whatever
able.” land you now cultivate.”
With him this made a purchase
The father then asked me,
“You swear by Theda to do these possible because he need not
things?” physically accept something. It
“I swear by Theda I will do was an extravagant price that
all these things.” would outrage elite people.
The ceremony was and over, He saw that this measured my
the father and I clasped thumbs respect for his inability to accept
while the woman remained as the usual money. He shook his
she was with bowed head. head and stared at the ground,
remember He said, “I will take these wit- unable to hide his smile of pride.
nesses to the village tomorrow The woman, w.io should have
and sign papers. They will be de- been standing in ceremonial si-
livered to you for signing, will lence some distance behind us,
they not?” suddenly ran past callii'g, “Oh,
buy
“I think so. I have never done my son, drop the thing. Throw it
away. Father, you were supposed
this.”
He smiled and it was kind of to look after him. Oh, my son,
him to say, “Though you think drop the thing.”
not. White Dwarf will reappear.” It was the little chupa. He
This common figure, referring to strode from the brush grimed and
the regular eclipse and return of sweaty, holding in his hand a
White Dwarf, meant it had been thin, lavender-striped nolegs as
beyond human power that I was long as a man’s arm. The woman
five years late in purchasing his would not approach her son when
daughter. she reached him because he glee-
fully waved the coiling nolegs at
drew him aside at this point her.
I and this perturbed him. “No, Her father left me and took
Excellency, do not make a sug- the nolegs from the child and let
abandon
gestion. There is no need for a it glide away in the grass. Only
purchase.” then did she kneel and scold the
me al-
“I know there is no need, but chupa, while she brushed the
I honor you and I insist.” dust from his tunic and the grime
“Please, no. I would not feel from his face and picked leaves
right.” and twigs from his red hair.
I knew
that he spoke the truth. He stared over her shoulder
the aii-
I smiled and forced him to grasp at me. Even when she used the
GALAXY
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 18f
 hem of her gown
to wipe the dirt platform. Collectively and in- ly under way, it was fascinating
her pack only what she may
from pushing his face
his face, tensely we believed our platform to listen to snatches of conversa-
need for tonight. I will send ser-
this way and
that, he kept his in all its logicalbeauty; an al- tion back and forth between in-
vants tomorrow for whatever she
wide eyes on me. I could feel his gebra of faith, cemented at every dividual Matterists. They were
wishes.” and family
possible point to reality. Every contacting friends
mind searching, and I opened my He started to agree but an ex-
mind to him. Mentalist on the planet partook members now that their collec-
pression of intense concentration
of one mind and one logic. tive mind had been broken, and
The workman had laughed came over his face. I spun to the they spoke not as a stationary
lightly about the nolegs. But woman and found the same look my god, the way we continued to
when one of them saw the red- /^nly three times in life
on her face. speak, but as mystified people.
polled chupa being presented to have I been part of this al-
One of my lieutenants was in-
most unendurable moment of to- “What in the name of Paline
me with my red hair falling from structing them to begin voting.
social awareness. It is like a was that business about dis-
under my cap, he guffawed. The I took just a monent to scan
tal,
moment of being a god. honest government being the best
farmer ordered all three back to all of Guapanga, found the peo-
Our logic neatly encompassed government?”
the barns. ple voting hard against the Mat-
and projected, on my pragmatic Then a woman to her promi-
I lifted the child so that
he sat “organized labor”, and
terists’
basis, the massive, uniform vote nent husband, “I tell you, you
on my arm
and his mind seemed the monks voting their subtle
of the common people and the have to do something. H6w hor-
to be coming from his eyes. denials of Matterism, and the
Presently he put his hands on me telepathing of the chupas. We rible to be ruled by an Executive
chupas voting like crazy for dis- with three wives and a raft of
and he loved me. saw, even as the collective mind
honest government. It was a fine messy concubines!”
of the Matterists became discern-
panorama for
the dead-serious Then one industrialist to an-
A able, how impossible it would be
fter a time the woman took Matterists to have to face when other: “There they were again
for their logic to digest or deny
him from me and he rested they opened their minds to us.
these comically true assertions with all their people voting
his head at her throat. She took I promptly returned my aware-
about life with which we could against work. If our workers get
her eyes from me and looked up ness to the convention. I learned
live so easily. that way we’re doomed.”
at Red Giant. Then she said the in an incidental flash that I had A young schoolman cursed
simple thing that was true.
Now the two collective minds
won my place on the Council, were completely interpentrated angrily. “How can they go on
“If all were chupa there would and I found the delegates in a Age-old confusions were stirred disbelieving in progress and beat
be no need for this “war”. hasty vote for our candidate for
in us by the Matterist’s foreign us every time?”
What she said was even truer Old Man. And we millions of Men-
logic. But we were stirring more still
than she meant it. For, as I My father-in-law won, as had than confusion in them. In only held our collective mind,
talists
glanced with her at the sky, I been foregone, and only just in
a few minutes they were in de- our god-like awareness of each
saw the pale glow of our sister time. The Matterists were al-
feat, their collective logic frag- other and the total, victorious
planet, Lalone, where the Mat- ready probing for our collective platform of belief and logic we
mented by our stronger logic.
teristsinvaded and enslaved the awareness. It was the moment
Abruptly, they were asking indi- had put together that day. While
semi-rationals during the reign of “war”.
vidually for tlie placing of Old we held this collective mind, our
of the last Matterist
Old Man. If This probing of foreign logic
Man to begin. new Old Man, my father-in-law,
all were chupa we would not
acts as a catalyst. All elite Men-
While we still held our collec- made his delicate, pragmatic way
have to fight over and over talists, including now even the Matterists’ shattered
tive mind in order that the plac- into the
against the Matterist ambitions. women of Guapanga, opened ing of Old Man could get safe- faiths.
I turned to her father. “Have
tbeir minds to the logic of our
GUAPANGA 191
THE DELEGATE FROM
190
GALAXY

This process of becoming Old
Man requires a consummate logi-
cian and the ardent assistance,
throughout the truce, of his form-
er enemies as well as his friends.
Frequently, the first pretender to
this position has had more ambi-
tion than talent for pragmatic
logic and has gone out of his
mind.
But my father-in-law would
make it.
There was no doubt about the
old lecher’s ability. He would
make a fine Old Man and.
one who would not live too long
for my ambitions.
VII
y^hen at last we Mentalists
were released from the col-
lective mind by an order from
the new Old Man, I found my-
self in the farmer’s yard. Of
course I had fallen to the ground
during the great concentration.
The woman was kneeling near
My elite women consider
crude, and saw that this wom-
I
an and I would get along fine.
For, in the common language,
my remark had a double mean-
ing and her quiet laugh had a
hoydenish ring.
But we did not leave in time
to be warmed by Red Giant.
The father came out and an-
nounced, “You have had a vic-
tory.”
I corroborated that and he
added, “Then we have two things
. . to drink to.”
We went into the kitchen and
he poured liberal glasses of cool
wesah wine. We
drank them
slowly sitting before a wood fire
and talking about how the father
should have another wife. Then
he poured us another glass, ex-
cept for the woman who said she
would have no more. So her
father and I had two more.
After that I said, “No, thank
you. I am sufficiently drunk to
withstand a walk through the
My chupa half-brother stated, the honey-haired woman. She
me “Excellency, you have kept a smiled at him and he smiled with
closed mind and we have been widening eyes. Then he dashed
worried about you.’- forward and threw himself in my
“Thank you. I have been well.” arms.
He stared at the honey-haired “Father, I’m so glad you’re
woman. The thought that crossed back.”
I held the youth with one arm
his mind was immediately pick-
ed up inside the lodge, and I and stroked his dark head. “I’m
feltthe minds of all three elite glad to be back, son.”
wives tense. Well, they would “Father, you know we have
stay tense all night, I could tell had big gray karks in the grain
them. bins.”
I was weary of my role as “Yes, they have been eating
strong father. I said to my half- and spoiling too much grain.”
brotlier,“Here, please carry this “I killed three of them today
dumpling.” with a club.”
To a servant I said, “And you I looked him in the eye steadi-
please take the woman’s bundle.” ly. Then I my arm from
removed
Now, my half-brother was star- the woman and
took his head
ing at the child’s red poll, and in my and kissed his
hands
he laughed aloud with his mouth. cheek. “Thank you, son. That
At that there was a flurry of had to be done.”
telepathic gabbling from within I pushed him away playfully.
the lodge. They left the bathing “Get along now. We have to
of the children and the roasting meet your mother.”
of a flank of the charl boar, and
the entrance to the central
the overseeing of the setting of
the table for dining, and they
A t

courtmy three elite wives

me without touching me. She woods.” were coming to meet us. stopped and stared at us. We
explained, “Father has fed the I carried the sleeping child and I put my arm about the wom- stopped and the servants stopped.
boy and is putting him to bed.” tile woman carried her bundle. an’s shoulder. We walked into With my mouth I announced
Red Giant boiled on the crest Sometimes we touched each oth- the great lodge with its hundred to my elite wives, “I have
of the black Guapangas and er, but it was a little late for rooms and many courts to meet brought a concubine,” and
home
darkness streaked across the foot- woodland love —
especially since my elite women. I felt her trem- realized with embarrassment that
hills. The larger moon, the elec- I was burdened with the past of- ble and I pressed her shoulder I had made it sound like I had
tric blue Theda, Goddess of fense that slept on my shoulder. to me reassuringly. brought home some grand pre-
Love, had risen behind us. My eldest son came running sent for them.
So I said, “Our way home will "IT^hen we reached the lodge pellmell and stopped before us. Graciously, my chief wife said
be lighted by Theda and warm-
^ ^
we found servants out in He stared in stunned silence at with her moutih, “Isn't love- Ae
ed by Red Giant” the entrance with lanterns.
THE DELEGATE FROM GUAPANGA 19S
192 GALAXY
!y.” And she extended her hands be diupa. That will
ture, all will
^
NOW MONTHLY!
and came forward to greet the
woman.
To me she telepathed, “I had
rather you came home with a
stick, My Husband.”
end the Matterist plans to colon-
ize yellow suns.
I stroked the child’s red head
and knew his dreaming mind. He
^
/
^ m
(effective with July issue)

My father was suddenly in my
mind, irritable and resentful. “I
want to see her. I want to see
the honey-haired woman and her
red-haired child. I want to see
the big club you have brought
home.”
“Forgive me, father. Please!
Tomorrow. This is so short a
night.”
Ilis mouth chuckled. “Tomor-
row, son. This has been a fine
convention all around.”
''T^his day had made it
me that the old worlds of
the elite were very nearly over.
As a politician first and an arch-
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I

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