A large anthology of sci.., p.526
A Large Anthology of Science Fiction, page 526
He tuned in on the other human, inside what was obviously a dwelling, a crude structure of slabs hacked from trees and blocks of baked earth stacked in near-geometric precision. Not what you’d call remotely scientific in construction, yet obviously a house. This human was female, so violently female that it shocked Garth. She was thinking of the foetus within her body, and then, gently and with thoughts that were almost a song to Garth, of the male out in the field. And of the food cooking in the crude stove in front of her. Sensing through her, Garth could almost taste the food, and his mouth slavered. Real food, picked from a vine, fruit from a tree, a flour ground from grain, a fowl of some undetermined nature broiling slowly, and some aromatic herb that boiled and bubbled on the back of the stove to serve as a stimulating potion. It stirred long-forgotten dreams—a cup that steamed fragrantly under his nose, his mother slicing a pie that oozed tantalizing juices, a succulent brown bird that fell apart at the touch of a fork.
For a moment Garth almost lost himself in memories, came very close to hurling himself from the protecting shield of invisibility to run staggering down the uneven path, legs pumping, hands clenched, calling out, “Mommie! Mommie! I’m hungry!”
ONLY ROTH’S illness held him down to reality; it was a very real and very messy illness. Tending Roth made Garth remember their mission and the need for secrecy, gave him time to conquer his strange homesickness for this alien planet.
They were there to learn, in utmost secrecy, the strength of the weapons of these alien people—to learn if the spaceship weapons were superior, capable of easy conquest. Easy conquest was essential; there were so few, so pitifully few, left. Less than a hundred thousand in the three remaining spaceships. They couldn’t risk a battle against even good weapons; they didn’t dare.
Against a primitive culture they would be safe; against even one that had explosive weapons they could conquer; against even mere nuclear weapons—if the range wasn’t too great—they could expect fair success. To gain a new home on a new world, the risk was worth it. But they had to know the aliens’ weapons.
Garth had deliberately chosen an area away from the concentration he had taken to be a community. If the culture patterns were anywhere near similar to those he was familiar with, this would be a rural area, devoted to producing crops to feed the central community. To all appearances, he had been right. The spot he picked had all the appearance of a farm, different from yet hauntingly similar to those he remembered.
Trying to place it in the development pattern of cultures, Garth estimated, from the explosion-type engine the male was driving, from the electric lights, the radiation waves, all the things he had learned from the satellite observatories, this was about at the steel-and-liquid-carbon age. That meant internal combustion engines pretty general, with aerodynamic flight a possibility.
AS IF TO confirm this, Garth heard a thundering roar overhead and looked up to see a sleek craft of some sort cleave through the air. He classified it, from its winged form, as air-borne, not supported by anti-gravity beams such as his own father had helped to develop less than a century before.
Garth frowned, watching Roth slowly recovering from the initial impact of sound, sight and odor, while he, Garth, tried to place the cultural level. If development had been, on this alien world, comparable to that on his own, these creatures were still fifty to a hundred years from space flight—possibly farther than that from the ultrasonic weapons. Yet development levels might not have been comparable. One phase could surge ahead of another. If the communities were naturally warlike, weapon-development might have taken precedence over other cultural developments.
Garth probed out at the male in the field to get his reaction to the winged aircraft overhead and had got nothing. Acceptance. The male accepted air-borne flight as normal* therefore it must be fairly general. The farmer—Garth couldn’t help but think of the male in the field as a farmer—didn’t think of it in terms of war or destruction; therefore air-borne flight must be primarily commercial, possibly for the transfer of passengers, possibly only of cargo.
All this helped Garth to evaluate the cultural level of this alien world, so he was grateful for Roth’s violent reaction to the sights and sounds and odors that had momentarily overwhelmed Garth with memories. Now, his emotions stabilized, he could be objective. He had a job to do and he must do it.
* * *
HE HAD DONE it, and now he was back in the scout ship, fleeing this alien world, his whole being shaken. Roth, he noticed, was taking it philosophically. But then Roth had never seen a world like this, a world that might have been home or a wonderful, miraculous counterpart of home. And lost it! That was the terrible part! This world was irretrievably lost to them! As much as he wanted to possess this world, he dare not send back word to attack. It would have meant annihilation for all of them. Against such weapons . . . Garth shuddered.
“Better write your report, Garth, and we’ll skip off to some other planetary system.” Roth beamed it lazily from his acceleration couch, so that Garth almost felt the mental shrug. “There’ll be other worlds.”
That was what being born on the spaceship did for the young! They had no feeling of attachment to anything, no roots, no memories of—home. Passing up this beautiful green and blue world of earth and trees and water meant nothing. But to Garth it was a wrenching loss. If he only dared! Perhaps he could word his report so that the spaceships would attack. Maybe some of them would survive the holocaust—perhaps even enough to start again on a conquered world. Then he remembered the weapons and shuddered.
“PRETTY gruesome stuff,” Roth beamed. “A good thing you slammed us out of there as quick as you did.” There was a puzzled confusion in Roth’s thoughts before they beamed again. “With the invisibility beam on, how do you suppose those guys knew we were there?”
Again a little confusion and again a mental shrug. “Telepathy, I suppose. We have it; why shouldn’t they? And, man, was it concentrated! Pure, unadulterated hate-stuff. And the little monsters were so small. Only about half human size. Thought at first they were spacer s—kids—until . . .” Roth’s thoughts went vague and then beamed on again. “I figure the rural male and female—‘farmers’ you called ’em—must be their slaves, raising their food for them.”
Garth picked up the microphone angrily and started dictating his report in quick, gruff terms. It was difficult. He hadn’t used his voice recently.
The first part was over quickly. He simply confirmed the electronic and spectroscopic analysis. It was an earth-type planet. The intelligent beings were more than humanoid. True human. The male had dark brown skin, two startlingly blue eyes, an air-breathing nose, two normal five-fingered hands, wore clothing composed of interwoven plant fibers. Female, mamalian, vivaporous . . . Garth caught himself about to compare her to Jan, his own wife, who would soon bear a little spacer and brought himself up sharply.
“We emerged from the scout, each wearing personal invisibility beams that appeared to function well enough in so far as the rural couple were concerned. However . . .”
THAT “HOWEVER” made Garth shudder, but he went on, “three small humanoids, each oddly and differently clad, emerged from a thicket . . .” How long since he had used the word, or even thought of a thicket. “Roth and I immediately tuned in on their minds . . .” Again Garth shivered. “. . . sensing patterns of utter destruction and annihilation. Though the three humanoids undoubtedly could not see us, some intelligence they possess enabled them to know we were present, and they crept upon us, bearing . . .” Garth hesitated, then breathed the word . . . “weapons.”
“The thing that struck both Roth and myself was the utter and complete assurance of these monsters of their own invulnerabililty and the absolute accuracy and destructiveness of their weapons. One was clad in what our beams sensed was a soft, irregular breastplate of a light metallic substance similar to our aluminum and wore a pot-like contraption on his head. He carried a rather slight, wand-like weapon that, with only a surge of his own arm, which seemed puny to me, could slice through any metal. The second, his head encased in a protective plastic bubble, held a weapon . . .”
Garth shivered, losing the thread of his discourse. The shock of that mental wave was still with him. That weapon that looked so harmless in those small hands would have shrivelled a spaceship in one short burst of incredible energy. Garth forced himself back to the report. “This one also gave us mental pictures of other, even deadlier weapons at his command. The third humanoid was clothed in a fringed garment of some sort and wore the skin of an animal on his head. His weapon was antipersonnel, strictly limited in use, but deadly . . .” Again Garth shuddered with the memory of that deadly wave of thought he had encountered . . .
“So, since the presence of our spaceships is suspected, and the denizens of this world adequately armed, we, Scouts Garth and Roth, recommend immediate departure to some other solar system . . .” And regretfully Garth looked back at the dwindling green-and-blue world below.
THE SMALLEST human held his deadly weapon steady on the man on the tractor and spoke with utter conviction . . . “And I kilt me a bar when I was only three . . .” The man on the tractor laughed. “Not much more’n that, now, are you?”
The small human stiffened. “I’m six, going on seven,” and lowered the wooden gun.
The farmer chuckled, glancing at the other two, then sighed. “The idea, wear in your maw’s soup kettle for a helmet, Tad. And ain’t that a slat from a Venetian blind?”
“I’m King Arthur, and this here is “Ex Calibar” the magic sword.” Tad glared, shrilling with the utter conviction of an
eight year old. “It’ll whack smack through anything!”
“And I’m Buck Rogers with my very own disintegrator ray gun I got with six box tops and a whole quarter.” He pointed back over the hill. “And my ‘World Blasters’ are right back yonder. I bet the next time any old space pirates from Arcturus come around I’ll b’ast ’em into ten parsecs . . .” The small human tugged at his muffling space helmet and peeled it off, holding it up. “Ten box tops and a whole half dollar.” He sighed. “But pretending is awful tiring, Uncle Al.” He smiled with ingenuous nine-year old appeal. “And after all, we did chase off them space pirates . . .”
Al Travis climbed down from his tractor, nodding. “Yesterday it was Indians. Yup, I ’low pretending is mighty nigh as tiring as plowing, hard as you tads do it. Maybe Janey’s just about finished baking that apple pie and . . .”
The saviors of the world flung aside their formidable weapons and went whooping into the house.
1960
THE BLIND PILOT
Charles Henneberg
THE SHOP WAS LOW AND DARK, as if meant for someone who no longer knew day from night. Around it hung a scent of wax and incense, exotic woods, and roses dried in darkness. It was in the cellar of one of the oldest buildings of the old radioactive district, and you had to walk down several steps before you reached a grille of Venerian sandalwood. A cone of Martian crystal lighted the sign:
THE BLIND PILOT
The man who came in this morning, followed by a robot porter with a chest, was a half-crazy old voyager, like many who have gazed on the naked blazing of the stars. He was back from the Aselli—at least, if not there, from the Southern Cross; his face was of wax, ravaged, graven, from lying too long on a keelson at the mercy of the ultraviolets, and in the black jungle of the planets.
The coffer was hewn from a heartwood hard as brass, porous here and there. He had set it down on the floor, and the sides vibrated imperceptibly, as if a great captive bee were struggling inside.
“Look here,” he said, giving a rap on the lid, “I wouldn’t sell that there for a million credits, but I’m needing to refloat myself, till I get my pay. They tell me you’re an honest Yahoo. I’ll leave this here in pawn and come back to get in six days. What’ll you give me?”
At the back of the shop, a young man raised his head. He was sitting in an old armchair stiff with flowered brocade. He looked like one of those fine Velasquez cavaliers, who had hands of steel, and were not ashamed to be beautiful; but a black bandage covered the upper part of his face.
“I’m no Yahoo,” he answered coldly, “and I don’t take live animals as pledges.”
“Blind! You’re blind!” stammered the newcomer.
“You saw my sign.”
“Accident?”
“Out in the Pleiades.”
“Sorry, shipmate!” said the traveler. But already he was scheming: “How’d you know there was an animal in there?”
“I’m blind—but not deaf.”
The whole room was tingling with a crystalline vibration. Suddenly it stopped. The traveler wiped great drops of sweat from his forehead.
“Shipmate,” he said, “that ain’t really an animal. I’m holding onto that. I don’t want to sell it to nobody. And if I don’t have any money tonight, it’s the jug for me. Understand? No more space voyages, no more loot, no more nothing. I’m an HZ, to be suspended.”
“I get it,” answered the quiet voice. “How much?” it asked.
The other almost choked. “Will you really give me—?”
“Not a thing, I don’t give anything for nothing, and I told you before, I’m not interested in your cricket in a cage. But I can let you have five thousand credits, no more, on your shipping papers. In six days, when you come back to get them, you’ll pay me five hundred credits extra. That’s all.”
“You’re worse than a Yahoo!”
“No. I’m blind.” He added grimly, “My accident was caused by a fool who hadn’t insured his rocket. I don’t like fools.”
“But,” said the adventurer, shuffling his feet, “how can you check my papers?”
“My brother’s over there. Come on out, Jacky.”
A sharp little grin appeared in the shadows. Out between a lunar harmonium in a meteorite, and a dark Terrestrial cloth on which a flayed martyr had bled, came a cripple mounted on a little carriage—legless, with stumps of arms, propelling himself with the aid of two hooks: a maLicious little old man of twelve.
“Mutant,” said the blind man curtly. “But he makes out, with his prosthetics. Papers in order, Jacky?”
“Sure, North. And dirtier than a dust rag.”
“That only means they’ve seen good use. Give him his five thousand credits.”
The blind man pressed a button. A cabinet opened, revealing a sort of dumb-waiter. In the top half there was a little built-in strong box; in the bottom crouched a Foramen chimera, the most bloodthirsty of beasts, half cat, half harpy.
The traveler jumped back.
The cripple rolled himself over to the strong box, grabbed up a bundle of credits and blew on the monster’s nose. It purred.
“You see, the money’s well-guarded here,” said North.
“Can I leave my chest with you, anyhow?” asked the traveler humbly.
So the chest remained. Using the dumb-waiter, the cripple sent it up to the small apartment which the two brothers shared in the penthouse of the building.
According to its owner, “the beast which was not really an animal” was in hibernation; it had no need of food. The porous wood allowed enough air to pass. But the box had to be kept in a dark place. “It lives in the great deeps,” he had explained; “it can’t stand daylight.”
The building was really very old, with many elevators and closets. The mutants and cripples of the last war, who lived there because it was cheap, accommodated themselves to it. North dragged the chest into the strong room next to his study.
That evening, the free movie in the building was showing an old stereo film, not even sensorial, about the conquest of the Pleiades, and Jacky announced that he wanted to see it. He asked his brother, “You don’t suppose that animal will get cold in there?”
“What are you talking about? It’s in hibernation.”
“Anyhow,” said Jacky spitefully, “we’re not getting paid to keep it in fuel.”
The movie lasted till midnight, and when Jacky came back, there was a full moon. The boy testified later that he had been a little overexcited. A white glimmer flooded the upper landing, and he saw that the window of the “garret,” as they called his brother’s study, was masked with a black cloth. Jacky supposed North had taken this extra precaution on account of the animal; he pushed himself forward with his hooks and knocked on the door, but no one answered, and there was no key in the lock.
He told himself then that maybe North had gone down six stories to the bar in the building, and he decided to wait. He sat on the landing; the night was mild, and he would not have traded the air at that height for any amount of conditioned and filtered atmosphere. The silver star floated overhead in the black sky. Jacky mused that “it means something after all, that shining going on just the same for x years—that moon that’s seen so many old kings, and poets, and lovers’ stories. The cats that yowl at night must feel it; and the dogs too.” In the lower-class buildings, there were only robot-dogs. Jacky longed for a real dog—after all, he was only twelve. But mutants couldn’t own living animals.
And then . . .
(On the magnetic tape where Jacky’s deposition was taken down, it seemed that at that moment the boy began to choke. The recording was interrupted, and the next reel began: “Thanks for the coffee. It was good and bitter.”)
He had heard an indefinable sound, very faint . . . just the sound of the sea-tide in a bed of shells. It grew, and grew . . . At the same time (though he couldn’t say how) there were images. A pearl-colored sky, and green crystal waves, with crests of sparkling silver. Jacky felt no surprise; he had just left the stereo theater. Perhaps someone in the building opposite had turned on a sensorial camera—and the vibrations, the waves, were striking their landing by accident.
