Worlds of IF (July 1961)

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A TASTE OF TENURE BY GORDON R. DICKSON SCIENCE FICTION. JULY 1961 • 35 CENTS

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It s good to be a boy, exploring the wide world, soaking up wonderful new sounds and sights everywhere you go. And if the world’s a peaceful place, it’s good to grow up, too, and become a man. But will the world stay peaceful? That depends on whether we can keep the peace. Peace costs money. Money for military strength and for science. And money saved by individuals to help keep our economy strong. Your Savings Bonds make you a Partner in strengthening America’s Peace Power. The Bonds you buy will earn good interest for you. But the most im- portant thing they earn is peace. Are you buying enough? HELP STRENGTHEN AMERICA’S PEACE POWER BUY U. S. SAVINGS BONDS The U.S. Government do* - not pay for this advertising. The Treasury Department thanks The Advertising Council and this magazine for their patriotic donation. •oc

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THERE are some things that cannot be generally told — things you ought to know. Great truths are dangerous to some — but factors for personal power and accomplishment in the hands of those who understand them. Behind the tales of the miracles and mysteries of the ancients, lie centuries of their secret probing into nature’s laws — their amazing discoveries of the hid - den processes of man's mindt and the mastery of life's problems. Once shroud- ed in mystery to avoid their destruc- tion by mass fear and ignorance, these facts remain a useful heritage for the thousands of men and women who pri- vately use them in their homes today. THIS FREE BOOK The Rosicrucians (not a religious organization) an age-old brotherhood of learning, have preserved this secret wisdom in their archives for centu- ries. They now invite you to share the practical helpfulness of their teachings. Write today for a free copy of the book, "The Mastery of Life.” Within its pages may lie a new life of oppor- tunity for you. Address: Scribe L.D.L. SEND THIS COUPON * [ Scribe L-D.L. ! The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORO i San Jose, California j Please send me the free book yThe Mastery J i of Lifef which explains how I may learn to j i use my faculties and powers of mind. | Name i i | Address 1 Log i UJTe Rosicrucians (AMORC) SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.SA.

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JULY 1961 worlds of Voh 11, Number 3 All Stones New and Complete science fiction Robert M. Guinn, Publisher 0 H. L. Gold, Editor Sam Ruvidich, Art Director £ Frederik Pohl, Managing Editor Theodore Sturgeon, Feature Editor NOVELETTES The Planet With No Nightmare by Jim Harmon 6 The Stainless-Steel Knight by John Rackham 39 A Taste of Tenure by Gordon R . Dickson S3 The Junkmakers by Albert R. Teichner 109 SHORT STORIES The Real Hard Sell by William W. Stuart 25 Doormat World by J. T . McIntosh 68 SPECIAL FEATURES Kangaroo Quiz 66 The Bern Called Windigo by Theodore Sturgeon 81 DEPARTMENTS IFun 67 Science Briefs 107 Hue and Cry 130 COVER by Dember : “Operation Overlook* Next issue ( September ) on sale July 14th IF is published bi-monthly by Digest Productions Corporation, VoL 11, No. S. Main Of- fice: 421 Hudson Street, New York 14, New York 85c per copy. Subscriptions 12 issues $8.00 in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. 8. pos- sessions, elsewhere $4.00. Second-class postage paid at New York, New York, and at additional mailing offices. Copyright by Digest Productions Corporation, 1901. All rights including translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self- addressed, stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All stories printed in this magazine are fiction, and any similarity between characters and actual persons is coincidental. Printed An the U. S. A. by the Guinn Company, Inc., New York 14, N. Y

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IF • ZN^ovelette BY JIM HARMON Illustrated by Wood 3UWUH3IN The creatures on the little planet were real bafflers. The first puzzler about them was that they died so easily. The second was that they didn't die at all. I TENSION eased away as the spaceship settled down on its metallic haunch- es and they savored a safe planetfall. Ekstrohm fingered loose the cinches of his decelera- tion couch. He sighed. An exploration camp would mean things would be simpler for him. He could hide his prob- lem from the others more eas- ily. Trying to keep secret what he did alone at night

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was very difficult under the close conditions on board a ship in space. Ryan hefted his bulk up and supported it on one el- bow. He rubbed his eyes sleepily with one huge paw. “Ekstrohm, Nogol, you guys okay?” “Nothing wrong with me that couldn’t be cured,” No- gol said. He didn’t say what would cure him; he had been explaining all during the trip what he needed to make him feel like himself. His small black eyes darted inside the olive oval of his face. “Ekstrohm?” Ryan insist- ed. “Okay.” “Well, let’s take a ground- level look at the country around here.” The facsiport rolled open on the landscape. A range of bluffs hugged the horizon, the color of decaying moss. Above them, the sky was the black of space, or the almost equal black of the winter sky above Minneapolis, seen against neon-lit snow. That cold, empty sky was full of fire and light. It seemed al- most a magnification of the Galaxy itself, of the Milky Way, blown up by some mas- ter photographer. This fiery swath was ac- tually only a belt of minor planets, almost like the aste- roid belt in the original So- lar System. These planets were much bigger, nearly all capable of holding an at- mosphere. But to the infuri- ation of scientists, for no known reason not all of them did. This would be the fifth mapping expedition to the planetoids of Yancy-6 in three generations. They lay months away from the near- est Earth star by jump drive, and no one knew what they were good for, although it was felt that they would probably be good for some- thing if it could only be dis- covered— much like the con- tinent of Antarctica in an- cient history. “How can a planet with so many neighbors be so lone- ly?” Ryan asked. He was the captain, so he could ask ques- tions like that. “Some can be lonely in a crowd,” Nogol said elaborat- ely. 66 \V THAT will we need out- W side, Ryan?” Ek- strohm asked. “No helmets,” the captain answered. “We can breathe out there, all right. It just won’t be easy. This old world lost all of its helium and trace gases long ago. Nitro- gen and oxygen are about it.” “Ryan, look over there,” Nogol said. “Animals. Ring- ing the ship. Think they’re in- telligent, maybe hostile?” “I think they’re dead,” Ek- strohm interjected quietly. “I get no readings from them at all. Sonic, electronic, gal- THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE 7

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vanic — all blank. According to these needles, they’re stone dead.” “Ekstrohm, you and I will have a look,” Ryan said. “You hold down the fort, Nogol. Take it easy.” “Easy,” Nogol confirmed. “I heard a story once about a rookie who got excited when the captain stepped outside and he couldn’t get an en- cephalographic reading on him. Me, I know the mind of an officer works in a strange and unfathomable manner.” “I’m not worried about you mis-reading the dials, No- gol, just about a lug like you reading them at all. Remem- ber, when the little hand is straight up that’s negative. Positive results start when it goes towards the hand you use to make your mark.” “But I’m ambidextrous.” Ryan told him what he could do then. Ekstrohm smiled, and fol- lowed the captain through the airlock with only a glance at the lapel gauge on his cover- all. The strong negative field his suit set up would help to repel bacteria and in- sects. Actually, the types of in- fection that could attack a warm-blooded mammal were not infinite, and over the course of the last few hun- dred years adequate defenses had been found for all basic categories. He wasn’t likely to come down with hot chills and puzzling striped fever. They ignored the ladder down to the planet surface and, with only a glance at the seismological gauge to judge surface resistance, dropped to the ground. It was day, but in the thin atmosphere contrasts were sharp between light and sha- dow. They walked from mid- night to noon, noon to mid- night, and came to the beast sprawled on its side. Ekstrohm nudged it with a boot. “Hey, this is pretty close to a wart-hog.” “Uh-huh,” Ryan admitted. “One of the best matches I’ve ever found. Well, it has to happen. Statistical average and all. Still, it sometimes gives you a creepy feeling to find a rabbit or a snapping turtle on some strange world. It makes you wonder if this exploration business isn’t all some big joke, and somebody has been everywhere before you even started.” THE surveyor looked side- wise at the captain. The big man seldom gave out with such thoughts. Ekstrohm cleared his throat. “What shall we do with this one? Dissect it?” Ryan nudged it with his toe, following Ekstrohm’s ex- ample. “I don’t know, Stor- my. It sure as hell doesn’t look like any dominant intel- ligent species to me. No hands, for one thing. Of 8 JIM HARMON

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course, that’s not definite proof.” “No, it isn’t,” Ekstrohm said. “I think we’d better let it lay until we get a clearer pic- ture of the ecological setup around here. In the mean- time, we might be thinking on the problem all these dead beasts represent. What kill- ed them?” “It looks like we did, when we made blastdown.” “But what about our land- ing was lethal to the crea- tures?” “Radiation?” Ekstrohm suggested. “The planet is very low in radiation from mineral deposits, and the at- mosphere seems to shield out most of the solar output. Any little dose of radiation might knock off these critters.” “I don’t know about that. Maybe it would work the other way. Maybe because they have had virtually no radioactive exposure and don’t have any R’s stored up they could take a lot without harm.” “Then maybe it was the shockwave we set up. Or may- be it’s sheer xenophobia. They curl up and die at the sight of something strange and alien — like a (spaceship.” “Maybe,” the captain ad- mitted. “At this stage of the game anything could be pos- sible. But there’s one possi- bility I particularly don’t like.” “And that is?” “Suppose it was not us that killed these aliens. Suppose it is something right on the planet, native to it. I just hope it doesn’t work ort Earthmen too. These critters went real sudden.” Ekstrohm lay in his bunk and thought, the camp is quiet. The Earthmen made camp outside the spaceship. There was no reason to leave the comfortable quarters inside the ship, except that, faced with a possibility of sleeping on solid ground, they simply, had to get out. The c^mp was a cluster of aluminum bubbles, ringed with a spy web to alert the Earthmen to the approach of any being. Each manjiad a bubble to himself, privacy after the long period of enforced inti- macy on board the ship. Ekstrohm lay in his bunk and listened to the sounds of the night on Yancy-6 138. There was a keening of wind, and a cracking of the frozeii ground. Insects there were on the world, but they were frozen solid during the night, only to revive and thaw in the morning sun.. The bunk he lay on was much more uncomfortable than the acceleration couches on board. Yet he knew the others were sleeping more soundly, now that they had THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE 9

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renewed their contact with the matter that had birthed them to send them riding high vacuum. Ekstrohm was not asleep. Now there could be an end to pretending. He threw off the light blanket and swung his feet off the bunk, to the floor. Ek- strohm stood up. There was no longer any need to hide. But what was there to do? What had chang- ed for him? He no longer had to lie in his bunk all night, his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. In privacy he could walk around, leave the light on, read. It was small comfort for in- somnia. Ekstrohm never slept. Some doctors had informed him he was mistaken about this. Ac- tually, they said, he did sleep, but so shortly and fitfully that he forgot. Others ad- mitted he was absolutely cor- rect — he never slept. His body processes only slowed down enough for him to dis- pell fatigue poisons. Occa- sionally he fell into a waking, gritty-eyed stupor ; but he never slept. Never at all. Naturally, he couldn’t let his shipmates know this. In- somnia would ground him from the Exploration Service, on physiological if not psy- chological grounds. He had to hide it. OVER the years, he had had buddies in space in whom he thought he could confide. The buddies invari- ably took advantage of him. Since he couldn’t sleep any- way, he might as well stand their watches for them or write their reports. Where the hell did he get off threat- ening to report any laxness on their part to the captain? A man with insomnia had bet- ter avoid bad dreams of that kind if he knew what was good for him. Ekstrohm had to hide his secret. In a camp, instead of ship- board, hiding the secret was easier. But the secret itself was just as hard. Ekstrohm picked up a lightweight no-back from the ship’s library, a book by Bloch, the famous twentieth century expert on sex. He scanned a few lines on the social repercussions of a cel- ebrated nineteenth century sex murderer, but he couldn’t seem to concentrate on the weighty, pontifical, ponderous style. On impulse, he flipped up the heat control on his cover- all and slid back the hatch of the bubble. Ekstrohm walked through the alien glass and looked up at the unfamiliar constella- tions, smelling the frozen sterility of the thin air. Behind him, his mates stir- red without waking. 10 JIM HARMON

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H “Listen, Ekstrohm, I want to give you the benefit of EKSTROHM was startled every doubt. But you aren’t in the morning by a bang- exactly the model of a sur- ing on the hatch of his bub- veyor, you know. You’ve been ble. It took him a few sec- riding on a pink ticket for six onds to put his thoughts in years, you know that.” order, and then he got up “No,” Ekstrohm said, “No, from the bunk where he had I didn’t know that.” been resting, sleeplessly. “You’ve been hiding things The angry burnt-red face from me and Nogol every of Ryan greeted him. “Okay, jump we’ve made with you. Stormy, this isn’t the place Now comes this! It fits the for fun and games. What did pattern of secrecy and stealth you do with them?” you’ve been involved in.” “Do with what?” “What could I do with your “The dead beasties. All the lousy dead bodies? What dead animals laying around' would I want with them?” the ship.” “All I know is that you “What are you talking were outside the bubbles last about, Ryan? What do you night, and you were the on- think I did with them?” ly sentient being who came in “I don’t know. All I know or out of our alarm web. The is that they are gone.” tapes show that. Now all the “Gone?” bodies are missing, like they Ekstrohm shouldered his got up and walked away.” way outside and scanned the It was not a new experi- veldt. ence to Ekstrohm. No. Sus- There was no ring of ani- picion wasn’t new to him at mal corpses. Nothing. Noth- all. ing but wispy grass whipping “Ryan, there are other ex- in the keen breeze. planations for the disappear- “I’ll be damned,” Ek- ance of the bodies. Look for strohm said. them, will you? I give you “You are right now, buddy, my word I’m not trying to ExPe doesn’t like anybody pull some stupid kind of joke, mucking up primary evi- or to deliberately foul up the dence.” expedition. Take my word, “Where do you get off, can’t you?” Ryan?” Ekstrohm demand- Ryan shook his head. “I ed. “Why pick me for your don’t think I can. There’s patsy? This has got to be still such a thing as mental some kind of local phenome- illness. You may not be re- non. Why accuse a shipmate sponsible.” of being behind this?” Ekstrohm scowled. THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE 11

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“Don’t try anything vio- lent, Stormy. I outweigh you fifty pounds and I’m fast for a big man.” “L wasn’t planning on jumping you. Why do you have to jump me the first time something goes wrong? You’ve only got a lot of form- less suspicions.” r “Look, Ekstrohm, do you think I looked out the door and saw a lot of dead animals missing and immediately de- cided you did it to bedevil me? I’ve been up for hours — thinking — looking into this. You’re the only possibility that’s left.” “Why?” W^piIE bodies are missing. A What could it be? Sca- vengers? The web gives us a complete census on every- thing inside it. The only ani- mals inside the ring are more wart-hogs and despite their appearance, they aren’t car- nivorous. Strictly grass-eat- ers. Besides, no animal, no in- sect, no process of decay could completely consume ani- mals without a trace. There are no bones, no hide, no nothing.” “You don’t know the way bacteria works on this planet. Radiation is so low, it may be particularly virulent.” “That’s a possible explana- tion, although it runs counter to all the evidence we’ve es- tablished so far. There’s a much simpler explanation, 12 Ekstrohm. You. You hid the bodies for some reason. What other reason could you have for prowling around out here at night?” I couldn't sleep. The words were in his throat, but he didn’t use them. They weren’t an explanation. They would open more questions than they would answer. “You’re closing your eyes to the possibility of natural phenomenon, laying this 1 op me. You haven’t adequate proof and you know it.” “Ekstrohm, when some- thing’s stolen, you always sus- pect a suspicious character before you get around to the possibility that the stolen goods melted into thin air.” “What,” Ekstrohm said with deadly patience, “what do you think I could have possibly done with your preci- ous dead bodies?” “You could have buried them. This is a big territory. We haven’t been able to search every square foot of it.” “Ryan, it was thirty or for- ty below zero last night. How the devil could I dig holes in this ground to bury any- thing?” “At forty below, how could your bacteria function to rot them away?” Ekstrohm could see he was facing prejudice. There was no need to keep talking, apd no use in it. Still, some re- flex made him continue to JIM HARMON

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frame reasonable answers. “I don’t know what bac- teria on this planet can do. Besides, that was only one ex- ample of a natural phenome- non.” “Look, Ekstrohm, you don’t have anything to worry about if you’re not responsible. We’re going to give you a fair test.” What kind of a test would it be? He wondered. And how fair? Nogol came trotting up lightly. “Ryan, I found some more wart-hogs and they keeled over as soon as they saw me.” “So it was xenophobia,” Ekstrohm ventured. “The important thing,” Ryan said, with a sidelong glance at the surveyor, “is that now we’ve got what it takes to see if Ekstrohm has been deliberately sabotaging this expedition.” THE body heat of the three men caused the air-con- ditioner of the tiny bubble to labor. “Okay,” Ryan breathed. “We’ve got our eyes on you, Ekstrohm, and the video cir- cuits are wide open on the dead beasts. All we have to do is wait.” “We’ll have a long wait,” Nogol ventured. “With Ek- strohm here, and the corpses out there, nothing is going to happen.” That would be all the proof they needed, Ekstrohm knew. Negative results would be positive proof to them. His pink ticket would turn pure red and he would be grounded for life — if he got off without a rehabilitation sentence. But if nothing happened, it wouldn’t really prove any- thing. There was no way to say that the conditions to- night were identical to the conditions the previous night. What had swept away those bodies might be comparable to a flash flood. Something that occurred once a year, or once in a century. And perhaps his presence outside was required in some subtle cause-and-effect rela- tionship. All this test would prove, if the bodies didn’t disappear, was only that conditions were not identical to conditions un- der which they did disappear. Ryan and Nogol were pre- pared to accept him, Ek- strohm, as the missing ele- ment, the one ingredient needed to vanish the corpses. But it could very well be something else. Only Ekstrohm knew that it had to be something else that caused the disappear- ances. Or did it? He faced up to the ques- tion. How did he know he was sane? How could hexbe sure that he hadn’t stolen and hid the bodies for some murky reason of his own? 13 THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE

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There was a large question as to how long a man could go without sleep, dreams and ob- livion, and remain sane, Ekstrohm forced his mind to consider the possibility. Could he remember every step he had taken the night be- fore? It seemed to him that he could remember walking past the creature lying in the grass, then walking in a cir- cle, and coming back to the base. It seemed like that to him. But how could he know that it was true? He couldn’t. THERE was no way he could prove, even to him- self, that he had not dispos- ed of those alien remains and then come back to his bubble, contented and happy at the thought* of fooling those smug idiots who could sleep at night. “How much longer do we have to wait?” Nogol asked. “We’ve been here nine hours. Half a day. The bodies are right where I left them out- side. There doesn’t seem to be any more question.” Ekstrohm frowned. There was one question. He was sure there was one question . . . Oh, yes. The question was: How did he know he was sane? He didn’t know, of course. That was as good an answer as any. Might as well accept it; might as well let them do 14 what they wanted with him. Maybe if he just gave up, gave in, maybe he could sleep then. Maybe he could. . . Ekstrohm sat upright in his chair. No. That wasn’t the an- swer. He couldn’t know that he was sane, but then neither could anybody else. The point was, you had to go ahead liv- ing as if you were sane. That was the only way of living. “Cosmos,” Ryan gasped. “Would you look at that!” Ekstrohm followed the staring gaze of the two men. On the video grid, one of the “dead” animals was slow- ly rising, getting up, walking away. “A natural phenomenon !” Ekstrohm said. “Suspended animation !” Nogol ventured. “Playing possum!” Ryan concluded. Now came the time for apologies. Ekstrohm had been through similar situations be- fore, ever since he had been found walking the corridors at college the night one of the girls had been attacked. He didn’t want to hear their apo- logies ; they meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of forgiving them. He knew the situation had not changed. They would suspect him just as quickly a second time. “We’re supposed to be an exploration team,” Ekstrohm said quickly. “Let’s get down JIM HARMON

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to business. Why do you sup- pose these alien creatures fake death?” Nogol shrugged his wiry shoulders. “Playing dead is easier than fighting.” “More likely it’s a method of fighting,” Ryan suggested. “They play dead until they see an opening. The n — ripppp.” “I think they’re trying to hide some secret,” Ekstrohm said. “What secret?” Ryan de- manded. “I don't know,” he answer- ed. “Maybe I’d better — sleep on it.” Ill RYAN observed his two crewmen confidently the next morning. “I did some thinking last night.” Great, Ekstrohm thought. For that you should get a Ha- zardous Duty bonus. “This business is pretty simple,” the captain went on, “these pigs simply play pos- sum. They go into a state of suspended animation, when faced by a strange situation. Xenophobia ! I don’t see there’s much more to it.” “Well, if you don’t see that there’s more to it, Ryan — ” Nogol began complacently. “Wait a minute,” Ekstrohm interjected. “That’s a good theory. It may even be the correct one, but where’s your proof?” 16 “Look, Stormy, we don’t have to have proof. Hell, we don’t even have to have theo- ries. We’re explorers. We just make reports of primary evidence and let the scientists back home in the System fig- ure them out.” “I want this thing cleared up, Ryan. Yesterday, you were accusing me of being some kind of psycho who was lousing up the expedition out of pure — pure — ” he searched for a term currently in use in mentology — “demonia. May- be the boys back home will think the same thing. I want to be cleared.” “I guess you were cleared last night, Stormy boy,” No- gol put in. “We saw one of the ‘dead’ pigs get up and walk away.” ‘‘That didn’t clear me,” Ek- strohm said. The other two looked like they had caught him clean- ing wax out of his ear in pub- lic. “No,” Ekstrohm went on. “We still have no proof of what caused the suspended animation of the pigs. What- ever caused it before caused it last night. You thought of accusing me, but you didn’t think it through about how I could have disposed of the bodies. Or, after you found out about the psuedo-death, how I might have caused that. If I had some drug or some- thing to cause it the first time, I could have a smaller dose, JIM HARMON

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or a slowly dissolving capsule for delayed effect.” The two men stared at him, their eyes beginning to nar- row. 4<I could have done that. Or either of you could, have done the same thing” “Me?” N o g o 1 protested. “Where would my profit be in that?” “You both have an admit- ted motive. You hate my guts. I’m ‘strange,’ ‘different,’ ‘sus- picious.’ You could be trying to frame me.” “That’s insubordination,” Ryan grated. “Accusations against a superior officer. . .” “Come off it, Ryan,” Nogol sighed. “I never saw a three- man spaceship that was run very taut. Besides, he’s right.” Beet-juice flowed out of Ryan’s swollen face. “So where does that leave us?” “Looking for proof of the cause of the pig’s pseudo- death. Remember, I’ll have to make counter-accusations against you two out of self- defense.” “Be reasonable. Stormy,” Ryan pleaded. “This might be some deep scientific mys- tery we could never discover in our lifetime. We might never get off this planet” That was probably behind his thinking all along, why he had been so quick to find a scapegoat to explain it all away. Explorers didn’t have to have all the answers, or even theories. But, if they ever wanted to get anyplace in the Service, they damned well better. “So what?” Ekstrohm ask- ed. “The Service rates us as expendable, doesn’t it?” BY Ekstrohm’s suggestion, they divided the work. Nogol killed pigs. All day he did nothing but scare the wart-hogs to death by com- ing near them. Ryan ran as faithful a check on the corpses as he could, both by eyeball obsei*- vation and by radar, video and Pro-Tect circuits. They lack- ed the equipment to program every corpse for every sec- ond, but a representative job could be done. Finally, Ekstrohm went scouting for Something Else. He didn’t know what he ex- pected to find, but he some- how knew he would find some- thing. He rode the traction-scoot- er (so-called because it had no traction at all — no wheels, no slides, no contact with the ground or air) and he reflect- ed that he was a suspicious character. All through life, he was go- ing around suspecting every- body and now everything of having some dark secret they were trying to hide. A simple case of transfer- ence, he diagnosed, in long- discredited terminology. He had something to hide — his THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE 17

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insomnia. So he th. r'\ everybody else had their gau- ty secret too. How could there be any deep secret to the pseudo- death on this world? It was no doubt a simple fear reac- tion, a retreat from a terri- fying reality. How could he ever prove that it was more? Or even exactly that? Internal glandular actions would be too subtle for a team of explorers to estab- lish. They could only go on behavior. What more in the way of behavior could he really hope to establish? The pattern was clear. The pigs keeled over at any unfamiliar sight or sound, and recovered when they thought the coast was clear. That was it. All there was! Why did he stub- bornly, stupidly insist there was more to it? Actually, by his insistence, he was giving weight to the idea of the others that he was strange and suspicious him- self. Under the normal, sane conditions of planetfall the phobias and preoccupations of a space crew, nurtured in the close confines of a scout ship, wouldn’t be taken seri- ously by competent men. But hadn’t his subsequent beha- vior given weight to Ryan’s unfounded accusations of ir- rational sabotage? Wouldn’t it seem that he was actually daring the others to prove his guilt? If he went on with un- orthodox behavior — 18 That was when Ekstrohm saw the flying whale. TENSION gripped Ekstro- hm tighter than he grip- ped the handlebars of his scooter. He was only vaguely aware of the passing scenery. He knew he should switch on the homing beacon and ride in on automatic, but it seemed like too much of an effort to flick his finger. As the tension rose, the capillaries of his eyes swelled, and things began to white out for him. The rush of landscape became blurred streaks of light and dark, now mostly faceless light. The flying whale. He had seen it. Moreover, he had heard it, smelt and felt it. It had re- leased a jet of air with a distinctive sound and odor. It had blown against his skin, ruffled his hair. It had been real. But the flying whale couldn’t have been real. Con- ditions on this planetoid were impossible for it. He knew planets and their life possi- bilities. A creature with a skeleton like that could have evolved here, but the atmos- phere would never have sup- ported his flesh and hide. Wa- ter bodies were of insufficient size. No, the whale was not native to this world. Then what, if anything, did this flying alien behemoth have to do with tile pseudo- JIM HARMON

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death of the local pig crea- tures? I’ll never know, Ekstrohm told himself. Never. Ryan and Nogol will never believe me, they will never believe in the flying whale. They’re ex- plorers, simple men of action, unimaginative. Of course, I’m an explorer too. But I’m different, I’m sensitive — Ekstrohm was riding for a fall. The traction-scooter was going up a slope that had been eroded concave. It was at the very top of the half- moon angle, upside down, standing Ekstrohm on his head. Since he was not strap- ped into his seat, he fell. As he fell he thought rue- fully that he had contrived to have an accident in the only way possible with a traction- scooter. Ekstrohm’s cranium collid- ed with the ground, and he stopped thinking. . . . EKSTROHM blinked open his eyes, wondering. He saw light, then sky, then pigs. Live pigs. But — the pigs shouldn’t be alive. When he was this close they should be dead. Only they weren’t. Why. . . why. . . He moved slightly and the nearest pig fell dead. The others went on with their business, roaming the plain. Ekstrohm expected the droo- ping of the pig to stampede the rest into dropping dead, but they didn’t seem to pay any attention to their fallen member. I’ve been lying here for hours, he realized. I didn’t move in on them. The pigs moved in on me while I was lying still. If I keep still I can get a close look at them in action. So far, even with video, it had been difficult to get much of an idea of the way these creatures lived — when they weren’t dead. Observe, observe, he told himself. There might be some rela- tionship between the flying whale and the pigs. Could it be the whales were intelligent alien masters of these herds of pigs? Ekstrohm lay still and ob- served. Item : the pigs ate the soft, mosslike grass. Item: the pigs eliminated almost constantly. Item : the pigs fought regu- larlv. Fought? Fought? Here was something, Ek- strohm realized. Why did animals fight? Rationalizations of nature- lovers aside, some fought be- cause they had plain mean nasty dispositions — like some people. That didn’t fit the pigs. Thev were indolent grazers. They hadn’t the energy left over for sheer-cus- 19 THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE

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sedness. There had to be a definite goal to their battles. It wasn’t food. That was abundant. The grassy veldt reached to all horizons. Sex. They had to be fight- ing for mates! He became so excited he twitched a foot slightly. Two more pigs dropped dead, but the others paid no heed. He watched the lazily mill- ing herd intently, at the same time keeping an eye out for the flying whales. Back on Earth porpoises had been taught to herd schools of fish and of whales. It was not im- possible an intelligent species of whale had learned to herd masses of land animals. But Ekstrohm knew he needed proof. He had to have something to link the pseudo- death of the wart-hogs to the inexplicable presence of the whales. Perhaps, he thought, the “death” of the pigs was the whales’ way of putting them into cold storage — a method of making the meat seem unattractive to other animals, on a world perhaps without carrion scavengers. . . Something was stirring among the pigs. ONE under-sized beastie was pawing the dirt, a red eye set on the fattest ani- mal in sight. Then Shortie charged Fatso. But abruptly a large raw-boned critter was in Shortie’s path, barring him from Fatso. Faced by Big Boy, Shortie trembled with rage and went into a terrible temper tan- trum, rolling on the ground, pawing it in frenzy, squealing in maddened rage. Then Shortie was on his feet, des- perate determination showing in every line of his body. With heedless, desperate, foolhardy courage he charged Big Boy. Big Boy took the headlong charge in his side with only a trifling grunt. Shortie bounced ten feet in the light gravity, and grimly wallowed to his feet. He lev- eled an eye at Big Boy, and his legs were pumping in frenzied fury again. Big Boy shifted his kilos of weight casually and met Shortie head on. The tremendous ker-rack reverberated from the bluff behind Ekstrohm. Shortie lay on the ground. No, Ekstrohm thought, he isn’t dead. His sides were pumping in and out. But he was knocked cold. Ekstrohm had to sympa- thize with him. He had never seen a more valiant try against insurmountable odds. Big Bov was ambling over towards Fatso, apparently to claim his prize. Fatso appar- ently was the sow. But Big Boy stalked on past Fatso. She squealed after him tentatively, but he turned and blasted her back with a bel- lowing snort. 20 JIM HARMON

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Ekstrohm watched the scene repeated with other ac- tors several times before he was sure. The older males, the Big Boys, never collected the fa- vors of the harem for them- selves. Instinctively, the pigs were practicing birth control. The older males abstained, and forced the younger males to do the same. On a world like this, Ek- strohm’s first thought was of death. He thought, these pigs must be like lemmings, deliberately trying to destroy their own race, to commit geno-suicide. But that didn’t answer any of the other questions, about the pseudo-death, the alien whales. . . And then Ekstrohm thought not of death but of life. IV THE traction-scooter was where he had left it, hang- ing upside down on the un- derside of the concave slope. It had stopped automatically when his weight had left the seat. He reached up, toggled the OVERRIDE switch and put it manually into reverse. Once straightened out, he was on his way back to the base. I feel good, he thought. I feel like I could lick my weight in spacemen. Only then did he realize why he felt so good. What had happened had been so strange for him, he couldn’t realize what it had been until now. While he had been knock- ed out, he had been asleep. Asleep. For the first time in years. Sleep. He felt wonderful. He felt like he could lick all of his problems. . . Ekstrohm roared back into the base. The motor was si- lent on the traction-scooter, of course, but the air he kick- ed up made its own racket. Ryan and Nogol came out to greet him sullenly. “Listen,” he told them, “I’ve got the answer to all of this.” “So have we,” Ryan said ugly. “The fir§t answer was the right one. We’ve been scaring pigs to death and watching them, scaring and watching. We learned noth- ing. You knew we wouldn’t. You set us up for this. It’s like you said. You fed all of these beasts your stuff in ad- vance, something that acts when they get excited. . .” It didn’t make sense, but then it never had. You couldn’t argue with prejudice. He was “different.” He didn’t act like they did. He didn’t believe the same things. He was the outsider, therefore suspect. The alien on an alien world. Ekstrohm sighed. Man 21 THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE

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would always be the final ali- en, the creature man would never understand, sympathize with or even tolerate. There was no point in try- ing to argue further, Ek- strohm realized. “You’ll never understand, Ryan. You could have seen all the things I saw if you’d bothered to look, but you were too anxious to blame me. But if I can’t make you under- stand, I can at least beat you into acceptance.” “Huh?” Ryan ventured. “I said,” Ekstrohm repeat- ed, “that I’m going to beat some sense into your thick skull.” Ryan grinned, rippled his massive shoulders and charg- ed. EKSTROHM remembered the lesson Shortie had taught him with Big Boy. He didn’t meet the captain’s charge head on. He sidestep- ped and caught Ryan behind the ear with his fist. The big man halted, puzzled. Ek- strohm sank his fist into the thick, solid belly. Slowly, Ryan’s knees gave way and he sank towards the ground. When his chin was at the right level of convenience, Ek- strohm put his weight behind his right. Ryan swayed dreamily backward. But he threw himself for- ward and one ham of a fist 22 connected high on Ekstrohm’s cheek. He was shaken to his toes, and the several hours’ old pain in the back of his head throbbed sickeningly. One more like that would do for him. Ekstrohm stood and drove in a lot of short punches to Ryan’s body, punches without much power behind them be- cause he didn’t have it. But he knew better than to try a massive attack on a massive target. When he couldn’t lift his arms any more, Ekstrohm stopped punching. He realiz- ed Ryan had fallen on his face a few seconds before. Then he remembered, and whirled. He had left his back exposed to Nogol. N o g o 1 smiled. “I’m not drawing Hazard Pay.” After a while, Ekstrohm stopped panting and faced Nogol and the captain who was now sitting, rubbing his jaw. “Okay,” he said, “now you’ll listen or I’ll beat your skulls in. I know what’s be- hind all of this on this planet.” “Yeah? What do you think it is. Stormy?” Ryan asked. “First of all, I think there’s a basic difference between this world and any other the ExPe has investigated.” “Now what could that be?” Nogol wanted to know with a tiny smile. “These worlds are close. The gravity is low. You JIM HARMON

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wouldn’t need much more than a jet plane to get from one of these planetoids to an- other. Some animals have de- veloped with the power to tra- vel from ohe of these plane- toids to another — like a squid jetting out water. They har- nessed some natural power system.” “What does that prove?” Ryan wanted to know. “It proves that this world and others in this belt are prepared for interplanetary travel. It’s probably a part of their basic evolutional struc- ture, unlike that of heavy, in- dependent planets. This false ‘dying’ is part of their prep- aration for interplanetary visitors.” “Why would these aliens want others to think that they were dead?” Ryan asked. “Correction, captain. They want visitors to believe that they can die.” RYAN blinked. “Meaning that they can't die?” “That’s right. I think everything on this planet has immortality,” Ekstrohm said. “I’m not exactly sure how. Maybe it has to do with the low radiation. Every indi- vidual cell has a *memory’ of the whole creature. But as we age that ‘memory’ becomes faulty, our cells ‘forget’ how to reproduce themselves ex- actly. Here, that cell ‘mem- ory’ never fades. Bodies re- new themselves indefinitely.” “But why hide it?” Nogol asked. “This planetoid can just support so many creatures. They practice birth control among themselves,” the sur- veyor said. “The natives na- turally want to discourage colonization.” Ryan whistled. “Once we report this, every rich and powerful man in the Federa- tion will want to come here to live. There’s not enough space to go around. There will be wars over this little hunk of rock.” Nogol’s hard, dark eyes were staring into space. “There’s only one sensible thing to do. We’ll keep the world to ourselves.” “I don’t like that kind of talk,” Ryan growled. “Ryan, this little ball of dirt isn’t going to do the Fed- eration as a whole any good. But it can be of value to us. We can make ourselves com- fortable here. Later on, we can bring in some women. Any women we want. Who wouldn’t want to come here?” Ryan began to argue, but Ekstrohm could see he was hooked. The man who risked his life, the man who sought something new and different, the explorer, was basically an unstable type removed from the mainstream of civiliza- tion. Nothing was liable to change that. By nightfall, Rvan and Ekstrohm had agreed. THE PLANET WITH NO NIGHTMARE 23

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“We’ll have to keep a con- stant watch,” Ryan was say- ing. “We'll have to watch out for ExPe scouts looking for us. Or, after a few genera- tions, another ship may come to complete the mapping.” Nogol smiled. “We'll have to keep an eye on each other too, you know. One of us may get to wanting more room for more women. Or to have chil- dren, a normal biological urge. Death by violence isn’t ruled out here.” “I don’t like that kind of talk,” Ryan blustered. Nogol smiled. Ekstrohm thought of the others, of the sleepless, watchful nights ahead of them. That was probably his trouble, all of his life. He didn’t trust people ; he had to stay awake and keep an eye on everybody. Well, he would be one ahead here. Of course, it was wrong not to trust anybody, but Ek- strohm knew habit patterns were hard to break. Sleep is a habits RYAN and Nogol were jar- red awake in the night by the spaceship blasting off without them. They ran out and shook their tiny fists in fury at the rising flame. Operating a spaceship alone was no cinch but it could be done. Ekstrohm would get back to the nearest Federation base and report the planetoid without death. He didn’t have absolute con- fidence in any government, no. But he suspected the Fed- eration could do more with the world than two men like Ryan and Nogol. Ekstrohm took his fingers off the punchboard and lay back on his couch. He yawned. Ryan and Nogol were slow, but in time they might have learned to do without sleep, and to guard their treasure night and day. Fortunately, Ekstrohm knew from long experience what the two others didn’t. An eternity without sleep isn’t worth the price. — END In our next issue — SPAWNING GROUND by Lester del Rey THE FROZEN PLANET by Keith Laumer MIRROR IMAGE by Daniel F. Galouye — and many morel 24 JIM HARMON

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IF ’Short Story Naturally human work was more creative, more inspiring, more important than robot drudgery. Naturally it was the most important task in all the world ... or was it? THE REAL SELL BY WILLIAM W. STUART BEN TILMAN sat down in the easiest of all easy chairs. He picked up a maga- zine, flipped pages; stood up, snapped fingers; walked to the view wall, walked back; sat down, picked up the maga- zine. He was waiting, near the end of the day, after hours, in the lush, plush waiting room — “The customer’s ease is the Sales Manager’s please” — to see the Old Man. He was fidg- ety, but not about something. About nothing. He was irri- tated at nobody, at the world ; at himself. He was irritated at himself because there was no clear reason for him to be irritated at anything. There he sat, Ben Tilman, HARD normally a cheerful, pleasant young man. He was a sales- man like any modern man and a far better salesman than most. He had a sweet little wife, blonde and pretty. He had a fine, husky two-year-old boy, smart, a re*il future Na- tional Sales Manager. He loved them both. He had every reason to be contented with his highly desirable, comfort- able lot. And yet he had been getting more sour and edgy ever since about six months after the baby came home from the Center and the novelty of re- sponsibility for wife and child had worn off. He had now quit three jobs, good enough sales jobs where he was doing well, in a year. For no reason? 25

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For petty, pointless reasons. With Ancestral Insurance, “Generations of Protection,” he’d made the Billion Dollar Club — and immediately begun to feel dissatisfied with it — just before cute, sexy, blonde Betty had suddenly come from nowhere into his life and he had married her. That had helped, sure. But as soon after that as he had started paying serious attention to his job again, he was fed up with it. “Too much paper work. All those forms. It’s work for a robot, not a man,” he’d told Betty when he quit. A lie. The paper work was, as he looked back on it, not bad at all; pleasant even, in a way. It was just — nothing. Anything. Indoor-Outdoor Climatizers — sniffles, he said, kept killing his sales presentation even though his -record was good enough. Ultra-sonic tooth- brushes, then, were a fine product. Only the vibration, with his gold inlay, seemed to give him headaches after ev- ery demonstration. He didn’t have a gold inlay. But the headaches were real enough. So he quit. So now he had a great new job with a great organization, Almagamated Production for Living — ALPRODLIV. He was about to take on his first big assignment. For that he had felt a spark of the old enthusiasm and it had carried him into working out a bright new sales ap- 26 proach for the deal tonight. The Old Man himself had taken a personal interest, which was a terrific break. And still Ben Tilman felt that uneasy dissatisfaction. Damn. “Mr. Robb will see you now, Mr. Tilman,” said the cool ro- bot voice from the Elec-Sec Desk. It was after customer hours and the charming hu- man receptionist had gone. The robot secretary, like most working robots, was function- al in form — circuits and wires, mike, speaker, exten- sion arms to type and to reach any file in the room, wheels for intra-office mobility. “Thanks, hon,” said Ben. Nevertheless, robot secre- taries were all programmed and rated female — and it was wise to be polite to them. Af- ter all, they could think and had feelings. There were a lot of important things they could do for a salesman — or, some- times, not do. This one, being helpful, stretched out a long metal arm to open the door to the inner office for Ben. He smiled his appreciation and went in. THE Old Man, Amalgamat- ed’s grand old salesman, was billiard bald, aging, a lit- tle stout and a little slower now. But he was still a fine sales manager. He sat at his huge, old fashioned oak desk as Ben walked across the office. “Evening, sir.” No re- WILLIAM W. STUART

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sponse. Louder, "Good eve- ning, Mr. Robb. Mr. Robb, it’s Ben, sir. Ben Tilman. You memo’d me to come — ” Still no sign. The eyes, under the great, beetling brows, seemed closed. Ben grinned and reached out across the wide desk to- ward the small, plastic box hanging on the Old Man’s chest. The Old Man glanced up as Ben tapped the plastic lightly with his fingernail. "Oh, Ben. It’s you.’’ The Old Man raised his hand to adjust the ancient style hearing aid he affected as Ben sank into a chair. "Sorry Ben. I just had old Brannic Z-IX in here. A fine old robot, yes, but like most of that model, long-wind- ed. So — ’’ He gestured at the hearing aid. Ben smiled. Everyone knew the Old. Man used that crude old rig so he could pointedly tune out conversations he didn’t care to hear. Any time you were talking to him and that distant look came into his half closed eyes, you could be sure that you were cut off. “Sorry, Ben. Well now. I simply wanted to check with you, boy. Everything all set for tonight?” "Well, yes, sir. Everything is set and programmed. Betty and I will play it all evening for the suspense, let them wonder, build it up — and then, instead of the big pitch they’ll be looking for, we’ll let it go easy.” THE REAL HARD SELL "A new twist on the old change-up. Ben, boy, it’s going to go. I feel it. It’s in the air, things are just ripe for a new, super-soft-sell pitch. Selling you’ve got to do by feel, eh Ben? By sales genius and the old seat of the pants. Good. After tonight I’m going all out, a hemisphere-wide, thirty day campaign I’ll put the top sales artist of every regional office on it. They can train on your test pattern tapes. I be- lieve we can turn over billions before everybody picks up the signal and it senilesces. You give an old man a new faith in sales, Ben! You’re a sales- man.” “Well, sir — ” But the Old Man’s knack with the youth- ful-enthusiasm approach was contagious. For the moment Ben caught it and he felt pretty good about the coming night’s work. He and Betty together would put the deal over. That would be some- thing. Sure it would . . . “How do you and your wife like the place, Ben?” It was some place, for sure, the brand new house that Amalgamated had installed Ben, Betty and Bennie in the day after he had signed up. “It’s — uh — just fine, sir. Betty likes it very much, really. We both do.” He hoped his tone was right. "Good, Ben. Well, be sure to stop by in the morning. I’ll have the tapes, of course. 27

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but I’ll want your analysis. Might be a little vacation bonus in it for you, too.” "Sir, I don’t know how to thank you.” The Old Man waved a hand. “Nothing you won’t have earned, my boy. Robots can’t sell.” That was the set dismis- sal. “Yes, sir. Robots can’t man- age sales, or — ” He winked. The Old Man chuckled. An old joke was never too old for the Old Man. The same old bro- mides every time; and the same hearty chuckle. Ben left on the end of it. DIALING home on his new, Company-owned, conver- tible soar-kart, he felt not too bad. Some of the old lift in spirits came as the kart-pilot circuits digested the direc- tions, selected a route and zipped up into a north-north- west traffic pattern. The Old Map was a wonderful sales manager and boss. The new house-warming pitch that he and Betty would try tonight was smart. He could feel he had done something. Exercising his sales ability with fair success, he fed him- self this pitch all along the two hundred mile, twenty- minute hop home from the city. The time and distance didn’t bother him. “Gives me time to think,” he had told Betty. Whether or not this seemed to her an advantage, she didn’t say. At least she liked the place, “Almalga- mated’s Country Gentleman Estate — Spacious, Yet fully Automated.” “We are,” the Old Man told Ben when he was given the Company - assigned quarters, “starting a new trend. With the terrific decline in birth rate during the past 90 to 100 years, you’ll be astonished at how much room there is out there. No reason for everyone to live in the suburban cen- ters any more. With millions of empty apartments in them, high time we built something else, eh? Trouble with people today, no initiative in obso- lescing. But we’ll move them.” Home, Ben left the kart out and conveyed up- the walk. The front door opened. Betty had been watching for him. He walked to the family vueroom, as usual declining to convey in the house. The hell with the conveyor’s feelings, if so simple a robot really had any. He liked, to walk. “Color pattern,” Betty or- dered the vuescreen as he came in, “robot audio out.” With people talking in the house it was still necessary to put the machines under mas- ter automatic and manual control. Some of the less sophisticated robots might pick up some chance phrase of conversation and interpret it as an order if left on audio. “Ben,” said Betty, getting up to meet him, "you’re late.” Ben was too good a sales- WILLIAM W, STUART 28

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man to argue that. Instead, he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was a very good sixty seconds later that she pushed him away with a severeness destroyed by a blush and a giggle to say, “Late but making up for lost time, huh? And sober, too. You must be feeling good for a change.” “Sure — and you feel even better, sugar.” He reached for her again. She slipped away from him, laughing, but his wrist tel-timer caught on the locket she always wore, her only momento from her par- ents, dead in the old moon-orb crash disaster. She stood still, slightly annoyed, as he un- hooked and his mood was, not broken, but set back a little. “What’s got into you tonight anyway, Ben?” “Oh, I don’t know. Did I tell you, the O.M. may give us a vacation? Remember some of those nights up at that new ‘Do It Yourself’ Camp last summer?” “Ben !” She blushed, smiled. “We won’t get any vacation if we blow our house-warming pitch tonight, you know. And we have three couples due here in less than a half hour. Besides, I have to talk to you about Nana.” ti^pHAT damned new CD- 1 IX model. Now what?” “She’s very upset about Bennie. I’m not sure I blame her. This afternoon he simply THE REAL HARD SELL refused his indoctrination. All the time he should have been playing store with Playmate he insisted on drawing things — himself, mind you, not Playmate. On the walls, with an old pencil of yours he found someplace in your things. Nana couldn’t do a thing with him. She says you’ve got to give him a spank- ing.” “Why me? Why not you?” “Now Ben, we’ve been over that and over it. Discipline is the father’s job.” “Well, I won’t do it. Ben- nie’s just a baby. Let him do a few things himself. Won’t hurt him.” “Ben!" “That Nana is an officious busybody, trying to run our lives.” “Oh, Ben! You know Nana loves little Bennie. She only wants to help hirm” “But to what?” “She’d never dream of lift- ing a finger against Bennie no matter what he did. And she lives in terror that he’ll cut her switch in some temper tan- trum.” “Hmph ! Well, I’m going up right now and tell her if I hear another word from her about spanking Bennie, I’ll cut her switch myself. Then she can go back to Central for reprogramming and see how she likes it.” “Ben! You wouldn’t.” “Why not? Maybe she needs a new personality?” 29

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“You won't say a thing to her. You’re top soft-hearted.” “This time I won't be.” This time he wasn't. He met Nana CD-IX in the hallway outside Bennie's room. Like all nurse, teaching, and chil- dren’s personal service robots, she was human in form, ex- cept for her control dial safely out of baby’s reach, top, cen- ter. The human form was re- assuring to children, kept them from feeling strange with parent’s back. Nana was big, gray-haired, stout, buxom, motherly, to reassure parents. “Now, Mr. Tilman,” she said with weary impatience, “you are too late. Surely you don’t intend to burst in and disturb your son now.” “Surely I do.” “But he is having his sup- per. You will upset him. Can’t you understand that you should arrange to be here be- tween 5:30 and 6 if you wish to interview the child?” “Did he miss me? Sorry, I couldn’t make it earlier. But now I am going to see him a minute.” “Mr. Tilman!” “Nana! And what’s this about your wanting Bennie spanked because he drew a few pictures?” “Surely you realize these are the child’s formative years, Mr. Tilman. He shouM be learning to think in terms of selling now — not doing things. That’s robot work, Mr. 30 Tilman. Robots can’t sell, you know, and what will people, let alone robots think if you let your boy grow up — ” WTTE’s growing up fine; and 11 1 am going in to see him.” “Mr. Tilman!” “And for two credits, Nana, I’d cut your switch. You hear me?” “Mr. Tilman — no! No, please. I’m sorry. Let the boy scrawl a bit ; perhaps it won’t hurt him. Go in and see him if you must, but do try not to upset him or — All right, all right. But please Mr. Tilman, my switch—” “Very well Nana. I’ll leave it. This time.” “Thank you, Mr. Tilman.” “So we understand each other, Nana. Though, matter of fact, I’m hanged if I ever . did quite see why you senior- * level robots get so worked up about your identities.” “Wouldn’t you, Mr. Til- man?” “Of course. But — well, yes, I suppose I do see, in a way. Let’s go see Bennie-boy.” So Ben Tilman went into the nursery and enjoyed every second of a fast fifteen-minute roughhouse with his round- faced. laughing, chubby son and heir. No doubt it was very bad, just after supper. But Nana, with a rather hu- manly anxious restraint, con- fined herself to an unobtru- sive look of disapproval. WILLIAM W. STUART

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He left Bennie giggling and doubtless upset, at least to a point of uneagerness for Nana’s bedtime story about Billie the oldtime newsboy, who sold the Brooklyn Bridge. So then he was run through a fast ten-minute shower, shave and change by Valet. He floated downstairs just as Betty came out of the cocktail lounge to say, “Code 462112 on the approach indicator. Must be the Stoddards. They always get every place first, in time for an extra drink.” “Fred and Alice, yes. But damn their taste for gin, don’t let Barboy keep the cork in the vermouth all evening. I like a touch of vermouth. I wonder if maybe I should- n’t—” “No, you shouldn’t mix the cocktails yourself and scan- dalize everybody. You know perfectly well Barboy really does do better anyway.” “Well, maybe. Everything all set, hon ? Sorry I was late.” "No trouble here. I just fed Robutler the base program this morning and spent the rest of the day planning my side of our Sell. How to tan- talize the girls, pique the cu- riosity without giving it away. But you know — ” she laughed a little ruefully — “I sort of miss not having even the shopping to do. Sometimes it hardly seems as though you need a wife at all.” Ben slid an arm around her waist. “Selling isn’t the only thing robots can’t do, sugar.” He pulled her close. “Ben ! They’re at the door.” They were, and then in the door, oh-ing and ah-ing over this and that. And compli- menting Barboy on the mar- tinis. Then the Wilsons came and the Bartletts and that was it. “Three couples will be right,” Ben had analyzed it. "Enough so we can let them get together and build up each others’ curiosity but not too many for easy control. People that don’t know us so well they might be likely to guess the gimmick. We’ll let them stew all evening while they enjoy the Country Gentleman House-Warming hospitality. Then, very casually, we toss it out and let it lie there in front of them. They will be sniffing, ready to nibble. The clincher will drive them right in. I’d stake my sales reputa- tion on it.” If it matters a damn, he added. But silently. They entertained three cou- ples at their house-warming party. It was a delightful par- ty, a credit to Ben, Betty and the finest built-in house ro- bots the mind of Amalgamat- ed could devise. By ten o’clock they had dropped a dozen or more ran- dom hints, but never a sales pitch. Suspense was building nicely when Betty put down an empty glass and unobtru- sively pushed the button to cue Nana. Perfect timing. THE REAL HARD SELL 31

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They apologized to the guests, “We’re ashamed to be so old- fashioned but we feel better if we look in on the boy when he wakes in the night. It keeps him from forgetting us.” Then they floated off up- stairs together, ostensibly to see Nana and little Bennie. Fred Stoddard : “Some place they have here, eh? Off-beat. A little too advanced for my taste, this single dwelling idea, but maybe — Ben sure must have landed something juicy with Amalgamated to afford this. What the devil is he pushing, anyway?” Scoville Wilson (shrug) : “Beats me. You know, before dinner I cornered him at the bar to see if I could slip in a word or two of sell. Damned if he didn’t sign an order for my Cyclo-sell Junior Tape Li- brary without even a C level resistance. Then he talked a bit about the drinks and I thought sure he was pushing that new model Barboy. I was all set to come back with a sincere ‘think it over’ — -and then he took a bottle from the Barboy, added a dash of ver- mouth to his drink and walked off without a word of sell. He always was an odd one.” Lucy Wilson (turns from woman talk with the other two wives) : “Oh no! I knew it wasn’t the Barboy set. They wouldn’t have him set so slow. Besides didn’t you hear the way she carried on about the nursery and that lovely Nana? 32 That must have been a build- up, but Ben goofed his cue to move in on Sco and me for a close. Doesn’t Amalgamated handle those nurseries?” Tom Bartlett : “Amalgamat- ed makes almost anything. That’s the puzzle. I dunno — but it must be something big. He has to hit us with some- thing, doesn’t he?” Belle Bartlett: “Who ever heard of a party without a sell?” Nancy Stoddard : “Who ever heard of a party going past ten without at least a warm- up pitch? And Betty prom- ised Fred to send both Ben and Bennie to the Clinic for their Medchecks. You know we have the newest, finest diagnosticians — ” Fred Stoddard: “Nancy!” Nancy Stoddard: “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be selling you folks at their party, should I? Come to think, you’re all signed with Fred anyway, aren’t you? Well, about Ben, / think—” Lucy Wilson : “Sh-h-h ! Here they come.” SMILING, charming — and still not an order form in sight — Ben and Betty got back to their guests. Another half hour. Barboy was pass- ing around with nightcaps. Lucy Wilson nervously put a reducegar to her sophisticated, penpermint-striped lips. Quickly Ben Tilman was on his feet. He pulled a small, WILIIAM W. STUART

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metal cylinder from his pock- et with a flourish and held it out on his open palm toward Lucy. A tiny robot Statue of Liberty climbed from the cyl- inder, walked across Ben’s hand, smiled, curtsied and reached out to light the re- ducegar with her torch, pip- ing in a high, thin voice, “Amalgamated reducegars are cooler, lighter, finer.” “Ben ! How simply darling !” “Do you like it? It’s a new thing from Amalgamated Nov- elDiv. You can program it for up to a hundred selective sell phrases, audio or visio key. Every salesman should have one. Makes a marvelous gift, and surprisingly reasonable.” “So that's it, Ben. I just love it!” “Good! It’s yours, compli- ments of Amalgamated.” “But — then you’re not sell- ing them? Well, what on earth—?” “Damn it, Ben,” Fred Stod- dard broke in, “come on, man, out with it. What in hell are you selling? You’ve given us the shakes. What is it? The Barboy set? It’s great. If I can scrape up the down pay- ment, 1*11 — ” “After we furnish a nur- sery with a decent Nana, Fred Stoddard,” Nancy snapped, "and get a second soar-kart. Ben isn’t selling Barboys any- way, are you, Ben? It is that sweet, sweet Nana, isn’t it? And I do want one, the whole nursery, Playmate and all, THE REAL HARD SELL girl-programmed of course, for our Polly.” “Is it the nursery, Betty?” Lucy pitched in her credit’s worth. “Make him tell us, darling. We have enjoyed everything so much, the din- ner. the Tri-deo, this whole lovely, lovely place of yours. Certainly the house wanning has been perfectly charming.” “And that’s it,” said Ben smiling, a sheaf of paper forms suddenly in his hand. “What? Not — ?” "The house, yes. Amalga- mated’s Country Gentleman Estate, complete, everything in it except Bennie, Betty and me. Your equity in your Cen- ter co-op can serve as down payment, easy three-genera- tion terms, issue insurance. Actually, I can show you how, counting in your entertain- ment, vacation, incidental, and living expenses, the Country Gentleman will honestly cost you less.” “Ben!” “How simply too clever!” Ben let it rest there. It was enough. Fred Stoddard, after a short scuffle with Scoville Wilson for the pen, signed the contract with a flourish. Sco followed. “There!” y “There now, Ben,” said Bet- ty,, holding Bennie a little awkwardly in her arms in the soar-kart. They had moved out so the Stoddards could move right in. Now they were on their way in to their re- 33

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served suite at Amalgamated’s Guest-ville. “You were abso- lutely marvellous. Imagine selling all three of them!” “There wasn’t anything to it, actually.” “Ben, how can you say that? Nobody else could have done it. It was a sales master- piece. And just think. Now salesmen all over the hemis- phere are going to follow your sales plan. Doesn’t it make you proud? Happy? Ben, you aren’t going to be like that again?” No, of course he wasn’t. He was pleased and proud. Any- way, the Old Man would be, and that, certainly, was some- thing. A man had to feel good about winning the approval of Amalgamated’s grand Old Man. And it did seem to make Betty happy. But the Actual selling of the fool house and even the two other, identical houses on the other side of the hill — he iust couldn’t seem to get much of a glow over it. He had done it; and what had he done? It was the insurance and the toothbrushes all over again, and the old nervous, sour feel- ing inside. “At least we do have a va- cation trip coming out of it, hon. The O.M. practicallv promised it yesterdav. if our sell sold. We could — ” “ — go back to that queer new ‘Do It Yourself’ camp un on the lake you insisted on dragging me to the last week 34 of our vacation last summer. Ben, really !” He was going to be like that. She knew it. “Well, even you admitted it was some fun.” “Oh, sort of, I suppose. For a little while. Once you got used to the whole place with- out one single machine that could think or do even the simplest little thing by itself. So, well, almost like being savages. Do you think it would be safe for Bennie? We can’t watch him all the time, you know.” “People used to manage in the old days. And remember those people, the Burleys, who were staying up there?” “That queer, crazy bunch who went there for a vacation when the Camp was first ooened and then just stayed? Honestly, Ben! Surely you’re not thinking of — ” “Oh, nothing like that. Just a vacation. Only — ” Only those queer, peculiar people, the Burleys had seem- ed so relaxed and cheerful. Grandma and Ma Burley cleaning, washing, cooking on the ancient electric stove; little Donnie, being a nuisance, poking at the keys on his father's crude, manual type- writer, a museum piece; Don- nie and his brothers wasting away childhood digging and piling sand on the beach, pad- dling a boat and actually building a play house. It was mad. People playing robots. And yet, they seemed to have WILLIAM W. STUART

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a wonderful time while they were doing it. “But how do you keep stay- ing here?” he had asked Buck Burley, “Why don’t they put you out?” “Who?” asked Buck. “How? Nobody can sell me on .iv- ing. We like it here. No robot can force us out. Here we are. Here we stay.” THEY pulled into the Guest- ville ramp. Bennie was fussy; the nursery Nana was strange to him. On impulse, Betty took him in to sleep in their room, ignoring the dis- approving stares of both the Nana and the Roboy with their things. They were tired, let down. They went to bed quietly. In the morning Betty was already up when Ben stum- bled out of bed. “Hi,” she said, nervously cheerful. “The house Nanas all had overload this morning and I won’t stand for any of those utility components with Bennie. So I’m taking care of him my- self." Bennie chortled and drool- ed vita-meal at his high-chair, unreprimanded. Ben mustered a faint smile and turned to 00 dial a shave, cool shower and dress at Robather. That done, he had a bite of breakfast. He felt less than top-sale, but better. Last night had gone well. The Old Man would give them a pre-paid vacation clearance to any re- THE REAL HARD SELL sort in the world or out. Why gloom? He rubbed Bennie’s unruly hair, kissed Betty and convey- ed over from Guest-ville to office. Message-sec, in tone re- spect-admiration A, told him the Old Man was waiting for him. Susan, the human recep- tionist in the outer office, fa- vored him with a dazzling smile. There was a girl who could sell ; and had a product of her own, too. The Old Man was at his big, oak desk but, a signal honor, he got up and came half across the room to grab Ben’s hand and shake it. “Got the full report, son. Checked the tapes already. That’s sell- ing, boy! I'm proud of you. Tell you what, Ben. Instead of waiting for a sales slack, I'm going to move you and that sweet little wife of yours right into a spankirg new, special Country Gentleman unit I had iivmind for myself. And a nice, fat boost in your credit rating has already gone down to accounting. Good? artistic sales challenge that is Good. Now, Ben, I have a real, crying for your talent.” “§ir? Thank you. But, sir, there, is the matter of the va- cation-— ” “Vacation? Sure, Ben. Take a vacation anytime. But right now it seems to the Old Man you’re on a hot selling streak. I don’t want to see you get off the track, son; your into 35

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^ #»V4 • » * * rfTf1 ' " *nrv^# • ^ ^ * *r *«r • »^r W. STUAI V/ILL'AW

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ests are mine. And wait till you get your teeth into this one. Books, Ben boy. Books! People are spending all their time sitting in on Tri-deo, not reading. People should read more, Ben. Gives them that healthy tired feeling. Now we have the product. We have senior Robo-writers with more circuits than ever be- fore. All possible information, every conceivable plot. Maybe a saturation guilt type cam- paign to start — but it’s up to you, Ben. I don't care how you do it, but move books.” “Books, eh? Well, now.” Ben was interested. “Funny thing, sir, but that ties in with something I was think- ing about just last night.” “You have an angle? Good boy!” “Yes, sir. Well, it is a wild 'bought maybe, but last sum- mer when I was on vacation I met a man up at that new camp and — well, I know it sounds silly, but he was writ- ing a book.” “Nonsense!” “Just what I thought, sir. But I rpad some of it and, I don't know, it had a sort of a feel about it. Something new, sir, it might catch on.” “All right, all right. That’s enough. You’re a salesman. You’ve sold me.” “On the book?” Ben was surprised. “Quit pulling an old man’s leg, Ben. I’m sold on your needing a vacation. I’ll fill out THE REAL HARD SELL your vacation pass right now.” The Old Man, still a vigorous, vital figure, turned and walked back to his Desk- sec. “Yes sir,” said the secre- tarial voice, “got it. Vacation clearai.ce for Tilman, Ben, any resort.” “And family,” said Ben. “And family. Very good, sir.” The Old Man made his sign on the pass and said heavily, “All right then, Ben. That’s it. Maybe if you go back up to that place for a few days and see that psycho who was writ- ing a book again, perhaps you’ll realize how impractical it is.” “But sir! I'm serious about that book. It really did have — ” he broke off. The Old Man was sitting there, face blank, withdrawn. Ben could feel he wasn’t even listening. That damned hear- ing aid of his. The Old Man had cut it off. Suddenly, un- reasoningly, Ben was furious. He stood by the huge desk and he reached across toward the hearing aid on the Old Man’s chest to turn up the volume. The Old Man looked up and saw Ben’s hand stretching out. A sudden look of Tear came into his china blue, clear eyes but he made no move. He sat frozen in his chair. Ben hesitated a second. “What—?" But he didn’t have to ask. He knew. And he also knew what he was going to do. 37

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“No!” said the Old Man. “No, Ben. I’ve only been try- ing to help ; trying to serve your best interests the best way I know. Ben, you must- n’t—” But Ben moved forward. HE took the plastic box on the Old Man’s chest and firmly cut the switch. The Old Man, the Robot Old Man, went lifeless and slump- ed back in his chair as Ben stretched to cut off the Desk- sec. Then he picked up his va- cation clearance. “Robots can’t sell, eh?” he said to the dead machine be- hind the desk. “Well, you couldn’t sell me that time, could you, Old Man? Clumsily, rustily, Ben whis- tled a cheerful little off-key tune to himself. Hell, they could do anything at all — ex- cept sell. “You can’t fool some of the people all of the time,” he re- marked over his shoulder to the still, silent figure of the Old Man as he left the office, “it was a man said that.” He closed the door softly behind him. Betty would be waiting. Betty was waiting. Her head ached as she bounced Bennie, the child of Ben, of herself and of an unknown egg cell from an anonymous ovary, on her knees. Betty 3-RC-VIII, secret, wife-style model, the highest develop- ment of the art of Robotics had known instantly when Ben cut the Old Man’s switch. She had half expected it. But it made her headache worse. “But damn my program- ming!” She spoke abruptly, aloud, nervously fingering the locket around her neck. “Damn it and shift circuit. He’s right ! He is my husband and he is right and I’m glad. I’m glad we’re going to the camp and I’m going to help him stay.” After all, why shouldn’t a man want to do things just as much as a robot? He had energy, circuits, feelings too. She knew he did. For herself, she loved her Ben and Bennie. But still just that wasn’t enough occupa- tion. She was glad they were going to the new isolation compound for non-psyehotic but unstable, hyper-active, socially dangerous individual humans. At the camp there would be things to do. At the camp they would be happy. All at once the headache that had been bothering her so these past months was gone. She felt fine and she smiled at little Bennie. “Ben- nie-boy,” she said, kissing his smooth, untroubled baby fore- head. “Daddy’s coming.” Ben- nie laughed and started to reach for the locket around Mommy’s neck. But just then the door opened and he jump- ed down to run and meet his daddy. END 38 WILLIAM W. STUART

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IF • tA (j)velette ★ ★ The Stainless- Steel tonight BY JACK RACKHAM illustrated by IVIE ★ He had everything a knight needed s gallant steed , fair lady mid the most unconquerable little home-made dragon in a billion solar systems l 39

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I WHEN the twisted and radioactive wreckage screamed down out of space on to their dark planet, the Shogleet were instantly in- trigued. To that incredibly an- cient race, evolved to the point whei'e energy, matter and form had no more secrets to hide and only curiosity re- mained, anything new was an occasion for rejoicing. And this was new. Metals, plastics, physical and chemical combinations — they were familiar enough. But this strange mass had been formed into a particular shape. They probed at once, and at once found that there was something more. Something lived, but only just. Using their combined tal- ents, they caught at the fragile remnant, preserved it, studied it, reconstructed it. From the still viable patterns of intelli- gence, they deduced the whole. They remade a man. They went further, discovering his history and, from that, some- thing of the history of the whole species. They were un- willing to admit that such a monstrosity could be genuine, yet their probings could not be argued. So they remade his ship, which had obviously been only a small part of the whole tangled wreckage, and they sent it back whence it had came. And they appointed one of their number to go With it, and him, to investigate. THE Shogleet crouched by Lancelot’s beautiful boots, and purred. The purr was not a sign of pleasure, but the by- product of producing an out- line-blurring vibration and a curiosity-damping field. The corridor outside the Agent- Director’s office was a busy place, and the Shogleet had no wish to be observed. Yet it was pleased. These things called Men were even more fantastically odd than it had at first imagined. With its perceptors extended, it was listening to the conversation on the other side of the wall. Voices were discussing Lance- lot. “ — not only made us a laughing-stock, but he’s get- ting to be a damned pest! Hanging about outside my of- fice, demanding to be sent on a mission. I wouldn’t trust him to empty my waste-bas- ket. What the hell am I going to do with him?” “Perhaps we might cook up a mission for him, Chief.” “Don’t be obscene, Peters. That moron, on a mission? Don’t forget, this is the blast- ed idiot who tried to rescue a disabled star-ship with a one- man raft!” “Just the same, Chief, we could pick out something.” “But I can’t send a Prime G-man on a routine call, damn it. Not that he is a Prime, 40 JOHN RACKHAM

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except on paper. But you know what I mean.” “Ah, but wait until you hear what I’ve dug up. It’s from a Vivarium planet. We don’t usually handle those. What generally happens is that the local man goes in, disguised, and re-sets the alarm, then smoothes out the fuss. Doesn’t affect us unless it’s a case of external invasion, you know.” “All right, all right. I know all that. But what’s it to me? Some inside problem on a Viv planet. So?” “Yes. But this planet is called Avalon. It’s static in the ‘pseudo-feudal’ stage, with a culture based on Arthurian legend. Get it?” The Shogleet, recording all this avidly, head a gasp. Put- ting mental query marks against the new terms, it went on listening. “Arthurian!” Hugard breathed. “Peasants. Knights in armor. Sword and shield stuff. Go on.” "I thought we could play it up big, and let him have it. Make it sound a desperate emergency. Give him some- thing to do.” “Yes. Quite harmless, of course. But I like the sound of it. Where is this Avalon?” “That’s the best part, Chief. It’s in the Omega Centaurus cluster. That’s twenty thou- sand lights away!” “That settles it for me. It will take him a . month, real time, just to get there. I’ll be THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT shut of him for a while. Sure we’re not treading on any pri- vate toes with this?” “Absolutely. Strictly a rou- tine call, on a waiting list.” “Fine. Fine! Get me the data so I can blow it up big, and then shoot him in here. Peters, I won’t forget this. To think that I’m going to be rid of that moron, for a while at least — ” THE Shogleet crept to Lan- celot’s shoulder, shivering gently with anticipation. When the summons came, it rode into the office with him and saw him stiffen into a stern salute before the Direc- tor’s desk. “Ah, Lake,” Hugard nodded portentously. “At last I have a mission for you. Something I cannot pass on to anyone else. It will tax your powers to the utmost. I am not asking you to volunteer ; I am order- ing you to go. That is how serious it is. You understand?” “I do, sir,” Lancelot said, sternly. “Rely on me!” “Good man! I was count- ing on that. Now, you’ll take full details with you to study en route, of course, but I can give you the gist. The planet is Avalon. The alarm is ur- gent. Avalon is a closed cul- ture. No one, not even we of Galactopol, can intervene in a closed culture, unless the situation is desperately criti- cal.” The Shogleet felt Lance- lot stiffen, saw the swell of 41

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his chest and the fire in his eyes, and wondered anew at these strange creatures who thrilled to the prospect of imminent danger. “Most importantly — ” Hug- gard hushed his voice — “As this is a closed culture, I can only send one man. You will be alone. Single-handed. You will be equipped, of course, as fully as possible, compatible with the culture. But everything else will be up to you. You’re on your own.” “I understand, sir,” Lance- lot said simply. “Rely on me. If it's called for, I’ll stake my life, rather than let down the Service.” Huggard turned his face away, obviously overcome by some strong emotion. Then, coughing, he handed a form to Lancelot and stood up. “That’s your authorization. You’ll pick up the rest of the documents at the front office. How soon can you leave?” “At once!” Lancelot snap- ped, saluting crisply. Hugard put out a hand. “Good luck, my boy. You’ll need it.” “Thank you, sir.” Lancelot took the hand with an enthu- siasm that made the Director wince. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll come through!” He spun on his heel and marched from the office. “You know,” he confided to the Shogleet, “Hugard isn’t such a bad old guy, after all. I thought he was neglecting me. But I can see his point, 42 now. I’ve misjudged him.” ... “Lancelot,” the Shogleet whispered, “do something for me. Get a stock of visio-tapes on feudal cultures, vivarium planets and the Arthurian legend.” “All right. Anything to oblige. But you pick the queer- est things to be curious about. Arthurian legends, is it? My Dad used to be interested in them.” THIS the Shogleet already knew, as well as much more. It had learned, for one thing, the truer version of how Lancelot Lake came to be cast away in the first place. This it had picked up from various sources, in and about Galactopol headquarters. Lancelot Lake had been a humble technician in the low- est grades of Galactopol, serv- ing his time in a spaceways emergency - and - observation station, and passing his time in dreams of glamor and glory. He shared the simple faith of his equally simple parents, that it was just a matter of time before he had his big “break.” And Fate had been very obliging. The star-class liner Orion, carrying wealthy passengers but very little else, had devel- oped a major defect in her main drive. Her skipper, in angry calm, warped out of hyper-drive, gave the order “Abandon Ship!” and pointed his lifeboat cluster toward the JOHN RACKHAM

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nearest E-and-O station. It had not been an emergency. There had not been the least danger — only nuisance, and the loss of a valuable ship. The lifeboat signals had plain- ly said so. But Lancelot had read his own special brand of under- standing into those signals. On the run, fired with holy zeal, he had broken out his one-man raft, designed purely for short-range forays about the surface of his planetoid- station. Linking in to the pow- erful, all - wave, sub - etheric emergency radio of the sta- tion and giving a blow-by- blow account of his effort, he had stormed off to rescue the Orion single-handed. No one could hear the life- boat signals, after that. The Orion company reached the E-and-0 station quite safely. There, in company with every other open planet in the Gal- axy, they had listened, fas- cinated, to the classic broad- cast that Lancelot was pour- ing out. Dedicated, always brave, heedless of personal safety, washed with the radiation from a rapidly disintegrating nuclear drive, he kept on to the inevitable, hopeless, gal- lant end. Like a gnat grao- pling a runaway elephant, he went spiralling down into the great gravity sink of Antares, until the thermal radiation from that giant sun over- whelmed his transmission. THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT The rest was silence. Now, a stupid, gloriously gallant, dead hero, is one thing. Posthumous awards are a matter of little consequence. It was nothing — the least they could do — to make the deceased Lancelot a Prime G- man. But the same hero re- turned from the dead was something else again, as the Shogleet had learned. Perhaps, it pondered, they had done too good a job of the reconstruction. They had made him strictly according to the images in his own brain. Con- sequently, he was big, brawny, blue -eyed, golden-haired, handsome, and well-nigh in- destructible . . . translating literally the concept “You can’t keep a good man down.” Had Lancelot known Hamlet, he would have agreed with his description : “What a piece of work is Man ; how noble in reason; how infinite in facul- ties ; in form and .moving, how express and admirable; in ac- tion how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god !” But Hamlet was insane, whereas Lancelot was sincere, simole, and assured of the reality of his dream. Hence — as Hugard had said — a damned pest. II LANCELOT’S happy glow lasted well into the second week. Then he grew bored. The ship, though small, was 43

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comfortable and almost self- directive. There was nothing to do. He decided to check his equipment. The Shogleet, en- grossed in the tortuous lan- guage of Mallory, was inter- rupted by its ward, who came bearing a long and shining rod tipped with a razor-edged blade. “This thing,” he said. “It’s a lance, isn’t it? And there’s another thing, like a big blade with a cross-bar and a hand- grip. A sword?” “I would think so. There should be armor, also. I gather you are to masquerade as a knight. From the literature, it seems there actually was a knight named Sir Lancelot.” “That’s so. My Dad used to tell about him. Oh, Hugard knew what he was doing when he picked me for this mission ! Fate, that’s what it is.” The Shogleet had other views, but kept discreetly silent about them. 'v “The concept of a vivarium culture interests me,” it said. “Apparently not all men seek change, only a small percen- tage?" “That’s so,” Lancelot nod- ded, sagely. “The happy man is the adjusted man. Knows what he’s good at and where he belongs, and gets on with it. Like me, for instance. Nat- ural born adventurer — and here I am.” “But you were originally a station-keeper. A mistake?” 44 “Oh, no. Psycho-dynamics is infallible. That station- keeper job was just a starter, so that I could work up.” The Shogleet, knowing full well that Lancelot knew noth- ing at all about the science of psycho - dynamics, wished it had asked for a tape on that. It was curious to see how the technique would work out on a whole planet seeded with one psycho-type. Eventually, warning bells gave tongue and their little ship went down, on a guide beacon, over a green and peaceful world, dotted with islands, laced with blue sea, into a small glade ringed with rugged hills. It was just on sunrise, on a glorious spring morning. Lancelot breathed deep of unfiltered air and the sweet scent of growing things, and found an immediate complaint to make. E’RE about a hundred ▼V miles away from the chief city, Camlan,” he said, as he frowned at a map. “And no transport. I mean, that kit I have to wear, it’s a weight. It’s not going to be easy just getting it on, much less walk- ing.” “According to the accounts,” the Shogleet said. “A knight rode something. A steed, I believe, or horse. What is a horse, Lancelot?” “Damned if I know. I vague- ly recall drawings, when I was JOHN RACKHAM

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a kid. Sort of big animal,If%r legs, head at one end, tail1* at the other. But stop a bit, that explains something — ” and he lugged out some massive pieces of metal-work. ‘These had me baffled, but they must be horse-armor. And this thing is a seat, to go on its back, 1 guess.” “I shall have to approxi- mate,” the Shogleet decided. “From your memories, and what I have read, 1 will trans- form myself into a horse.” “All right, but give me a hand with this hardware first. I can't get it on alone. In fact, I don't see how it can all go on one man!” But, with patience and struggling, trial and error, they got the pieces that a skilled synthesist had fabri- cated from the patterns of museum relics buckled, strap- ped and locked about Lancelot. His guess had been good. He could hardly hold upright under the load of metal. “How the hell does any- body hop about,” he complain- ed, making a few labored steps, “and swing a sword in this lot? It's not possible!” The Shogleet paid no atten- tion. It was busy on its own accou nt. Swallowing great quantities of air and energy, and speeding its metabolism to a great rate, it was con- verting its mass to a some- thing that would fit that armor. Lancelot, shambling round, gave advice according THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT to Els Blurred memories. Then, struggling mightily, he hoist- ed up the pieces one at a time, and then, the saddle. Sweat was dribbling into his boots by the time he was done. “Hell! This is a day's work by itself,” he groaned, bash- ing his helmet in a vain at- tempt to wipe away the sweat from his brow. “There must be an easier way.” “I imagine,” the Shogleet- horse guessed, “that this is why the knight had a squire, as it says in the tapes.” Lan- celot grunted his heartfelt agreement at this, hung the blank shield on a saddle-hook, the sword and sheath on the opposite side, stood the long lance by a handy tree, and eased his visor down past his nose, which was already raw from the first, light-hearted try. Then he eyed the stirrups. “You'll have to kneel,” he said. “I'll never make it up there.” He climbed aboard gingerly, and they left the glade at a sedate walk. “First thing,” he said firmly, “we get a squire. I'll never make it to Camlan at this rate.” “Very well,” the Shogleet agreed, trying to work out a method of progress that would not unseat Lancelot. It com- promised on a rubber-legged shamble which carried them at a smooth glide through what it assumed was a “woody glen.” Half an hour of this 45

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brought them to a clearing, laid out in a chessboard of little fields, with a huddle of timber shacks in the center. Their arrival was the signal for a bedlam of shouts, screams and f ran tics barking from a horde of half -wild dogs. The uproar lasted only a second or two. Then all was silent, apart from furtive rus- tlings in the nearby bushes. “Where did everybody go?” Lancelot demanded, grabbing the saddle-horn. “How am I going to round up a squire, if they all run off like that? No, wait — there’s one, over by that tree.” HE was an old man, grizzle- haired and cramped with rheumatic stiffness. In his simple brown smock, he clung to the tree and trembled at their gliding approach. Lan- celot let go the saddle-horn and tried to sit up, impres- sively. “Ho, there !” he called. “Why did everyone run away?” “Marry, fair sir,” the old- ster mumbled, cringing. “It would have been at sight of the strange beast thou ridest. No mortal eye ever saw such a mount before.” “What's wrong with me?” the Shogleet demanded curi- ously. “Isn’t a horse like this?” “Now strike me dead!” the peasant blanched, clutching the tree. “It spoke like a Christian. I heard it!” “Naturally,” Lancelot said grandly. “’Tis a magic steed, just as I am a holy knight. I have need of a squire. Call the others, that I may choose.” “Nay, noble sir, we are but humble peasants. Wilt find no squire here.” “Oh, blast!” Lancelot re- lapsed into Galactic in his irri- tation. Then, with strained patience, “Where then shall a knight find himself a squire?” “The Baron Deorham has many such,” the old man of- fered. “Steeds, too, though none such as thou ridest. But he is a wonderly wroth man, and a great warrior. He will surely attack thee, an thou come near him.” “Fear not for me, old man. I am Sir Lancelot. I will to Deorham.” “Lancelot! Now am I dead and in hell, forsooth. Lancelot is legend!” “Never mind . that. Just point the way, you old fool.” The old man cringed again, and wobbled a shaky arm in the direction of a rough track. The Shogleet went into its gliding run again. “A pity I couldn’t get him to put me right on this shape,” it said. “I must study a real horse at the first opportunity.” “This feels all right,” Lan- celot argued. “Still, I suppose you’re right. It won't do to scare the locals out of their wits all the time . . . Say, that looks a likely place.” They had broken clear of trees, and before them the 46 JOHN RACKHAM

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grass went away in a slow rise to a hill, where there was a massive gray building. “Just let me do the talking. Appar- ently horses aren’t supposed to talk.” He clutched the sad- dle-horn valiantly, and they went on at a fair speed. Suddenly the Shogleet sens- ed life and movement nearby, and swung round. “What did you do that for?” Lancelot demanded, clinging desperately. Then he saw what the Shogleet had detected. About seventy yards away, just rounding an outflung clump of trees, came three rid- ers. On either side the figures were slight, but the man in the center was gross, his steed huge, his armor bright in the sun. His shield bore the device of a mailed fist, and his lance carried a fluttering blue plume at its tip. “That’s what I want,” Lan- celot muttered. “A picture on my shield and a flag on my stick. Then they’ll know who I am.” “So that,” the Shogleet mur- mured, interestedly, “is what a horse is like.” And it dis- creetly began modifying its shape. “We should keep still,” it advised. “Let him come to us. I want to see that creature move.” As if in answer to the thought the big man put up a mailed fist. They distinctly heard the click of his visor as it snapped into place. Then he applied his heels to his mount THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT and began thundering at them over the turf. 44T OOK at him go!” Lan- -L* celot said, admiringly. “I must learn to ride like that.” The mighty figure thun- dered nearer, and Lancelot grew uneasy. “He’ll never be able to stop in time,” he mut- tered. “Not at that clip. Now what’s the fool up to?” — for the stranger had dropped his lance to the horizontal, and the point was aimed straight at Lancelot. The Shogleet, ever curious, stood quite still. “Hey! You lunatic! Point that thing the other way !” Lancelot yelled. But it was obvious even to him that the other had no intention of do- ing any such thing. At the last minute, he managed to fumble up his shield. There was a rending crash as point met shield, fair and square. Lance- lot shot backwards over the Shogleet’s cruppers, to land with a jarring thud on the ground. The Shogleet spun round, to watch as the yoilng man groaned, sat up and then struggled to his feet. “Art unhorsed!” the stran- ger roared. “Dost yield?” “Yield nothing,” Lancelot gasped, indignantly. “I wasn’t even fighting. You want to give a bit of notice, next time you do something like that. Charging up like that without so much as a word . . .” and that was as far as he got. The strange knight, backing up 47

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and tossing away his shattered lance, had yanked out his sword. Putting heels to his horse again, he tore up to where Lancelot stood. His blade rose and fell mightily, and a clang echoed across the meadow. Lancelot went down on his knees, hung there a moment and then kneeled over, groaning. The Shogleet trotted to where he lay and nuzzled him. “You must get up and fight,” it murmured. “I believe you are liable to be taken captive otherwise.” “Fight !” Lancelot mumbled. “I’m half-killed already. That damned lunatic should be put away.” He sat up and banged his mailed fist on his helmet to clear his head. The knight backed off a yard or two, waiting. “Get up, quickly,” the Shog- leet encouraged, and knelt. This sent the knight’s horse into a rearing frenzy, giving Lancelot time to mount — and time to get annoyed, also. “All right,” he growled. “Wants a fight, does he? We’ll see about that.” He unsheath- ed his sword with an effort The strange knight crouched, setting his horse into another gallop. At the critical mo- ment, he stood up in his saddle to give more power to his sword-arm. Lancelot heaved his shield up, the shock numb- ing his arm. then swung blind- ly in riposte. “Turn round,” he ordered, 48 as the knight charged past. “Let me have another bash at him. I only nicked him that time.” “You may kill him, you know.” “And what d'you fancy he’s been trying to do to me? I’m black and blue all over. Let me have another crack at him, I said !” “Wouldn’t it be wiser to ask him to yield? In that way, we might get some information, which we sadly need.” Lance- lot grumbled under his breath, but when he saw that his cas- ual swipe had sheared the knight’s helmet-spike, and split his shield in half, he agreed reluctantly. “Ho, knight,” he called, and waved his sword. “Wilt yield?” “To a foul fiend from the pit?” the knight roared, toss- ing away his ruined shield and bent sword. “Never! Pit thy sorcery against this !” And he unhooked from his saddle a short length of heavy chain, ending in an iron ball studded with vicious spikes. Once again, he came thundering forward. “There!” Lancelot gasped. “I said the man was raving. If he catches me with that thing, I'm a dead duck.” He put up his shield and peered round it warily. The spiked ball flailed through the air and crashed full on the shield, slamming the young man over to an extreme angle. In sudden, blind rage, he JOHN RACKHAM

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swung back, lashed out with the sword, felt it bite into something. Then, as the Shog- leet bridled off, he looked back, and his stomach squirmed. The super-hard, razor-keen blade had sliced through ar- mor and knight, from shoul- der to groin. There was blood everywhere. Ill 44npHE fool would have it,” A he muttered. “Now there’ll be trouble.” But the body was hardly flopped to rest before the two attendants rode up, slid from their mounts and went down, each on a knee, heads bowed. “Spare me, Sir Knight,” they said, in unison. “I am thy servant.” “They’re only kids,” Lance- lot said, surprised. “What are your names?” “I am hight Alaric,” said the ginger one, on the left. “And I, Ector,” the other added, shaking his long yel- low locks. “How shall we call thee, Lord?” The Shogleet felt Lancelot brace up and stiffen. “I am Sir Lancelot!” he announced. They promptly flat on their faces. “Oh, get up!” he said, irritably. “I’m not going to eat you. Now, one’s to be my squire, and the other to look after my horse. Which way do you want it?” “The horse!” they said, to- gether and at once. THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT “That won’t be necessary,” the Shogleet said, forgetting. “I can look after myself quite well.” Again the two youths fell to the ground, shaking and white. “Get up !” Lancelot shouted. “How can I get anything done if you keep passing out, all the time? Now, what happens about him?” “Thy liege-men will attend to it, Lord,” said Alaric, in a shaky voice. “My liege-men?” “But certainly. Hast slain Deorham. That which was his is now thine.” “Oh !” Lancelot looked round. “Castle and all? Well, that’s handy. And that was Deor- ham, was it? All right, one of you nip off and tell the gang the boss is coming home, hun- gry . . . and bruised, too !” “I will. Lord!” Alaric fled for his horse and raced on ahead. The Shogleet contented it- self with a modest canter, finding the new movement in- triguing. Lancelot was not im- pressed. “You’re shaking me to a jelly,” he groaned. “Can’t we go back to the other way?” “This is more accurate. You had better learn. You/ may have to ride a real horse some day.” Lancelot forgot to grum- ble as they reached the court- yard of the castle, and he could appreciate the size of the place. He slid off, and stood agape at high rough- 49

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scone walls and towers, their slit-windows innocent of glass, but with gay cloths trailing from every vantage point. Ec- tor approached, unwillingly, to take the Shogleet’s bridle. Lancelot objected at once. “You can’t go off and leave me, not now. What’ll I do? I mean, you know more than me about all the customs and things.’’ “It will be quite all right,” the Shogleet consoled him in Galactic, ignoring the flabber- gasted stares of the men-at- arms who had drawn near. “Just give orders. Tell them what you want. I will join you as soon as I can.” It went with Ector to a great low stable, where there were many half-wild horses and a great smell. As soon as it could be alone^ it cast off the horse-shape. It had given a degree of thought to this, and decided it was best to as- sume some human-like form. So, on its rapid transit through the stables, courtyard and into the great hall, it settled into a small, dark-hued, manikin shape, thinking to be less im- pressive and thus less fright- ening in that guise. Trotting through the serfs who were busy scattering fresh rushes on the stone-slab floor, it found Lancelot seated at the head of a long, rude table, on which more serfs were arranging platters heap- ed with hot food. He was deep in conversation with an old, 50 rugged-looking, gray-bearded man, but looked up as the Shogleet came close and scrambled on to the arm of his chair. WrpHIS is Gildas,” he said. -I “Calls himself a senes- chal. Sort of head-man. Been telling me all about the prop- erty.” Gildas backed off warily. “Now, sooth,” he muttered. “I do believe thou art Lance- lot, and this thy familiar. What is it, a troll?” “Lancelot,” the Shogleet said, in Galactic. “Have you forgotten? We are on a mis- sion? You should be asking Gildas for news of the emer- gency.” “Say, that’s right. I’d for- gotten. It’s not every day a man gets a barony.” He turn- ed in his chair. “Draw near, Gildas. There is nothing to fear.” “Thou sayest it well, Lord,” Gildas growled, “but. I like it not. A troll that stands and parleys like a man. Still, it is but part and parcel with the strange things that have come on this land but lately.” “Ah, now, that’s what I wanted to know about. What’s going on? I have to know, because I'm here to stop it.” Gildas stepped back, trans- formed from a sullen gray- beard into an angry enemy. “I knew it!” he roared. “I knew thou wert false! I will hail the men-at-arms, that JOHN RACKHAM

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they may cut thee down. Nay, strike me dead an thou canst, but I will say it.” “Oh, lord!” Lancelot mut- tered. “What now? For heav- en's sake, man, I’m not going to strike anybody dead. Not again. I’ve had enough of that for one day. Just get a grip on yourself and tell me what it’s all about.” “Methinks yon troll doth already know, and the ques- tion is but a trap. Natheless, I will tell. Ye wit well there is but one great sin in this land. It is hight ‘Change.’ The wise ones tell us this is the best of all worlds, and that it is sin to think otherwise. So all say, where it can be heard. But who can say what a man thinketh in his heart? To la- bor and sweat and garner the fruits of the land is the old way, the honest way. But who will labor and sweat when his fields may be ploughed, sown, aye, and garnered into his barn, without he turn a hand? This be a change that many welcome.” “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re going on about,” Lancelot confessed. “Don’t tell me the sky is going to fall over a few ploughed fields? I was thinking of gathering some of those lads out there to ride with me to Camlan — ” “Camlan !” Gildas leaped back again, surprisingly spry for one of his age. “Again I say ye are false !” And he had his mouth open to shout as THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT Lancelot jumi>ed up and seiz- ed him. “Stop it!” he yelled. “I’m getting sick of this double- talk. Why the hell can’t you come right out and say what you mean?” He turned to the Shogleet, with Gildas dangling chokingly from his mailed fists. “Can you make any sense out of it? I think they’re all stark raving mad here.” The Shogleet eyed Gildas. “Put him down,” it said. “Now, what land is this, and who is your king?” “This is Brython,” Gildas said, squeakily, “and our king hight Cadman. Soon to be Cadman of the Fiery Dragon, in sooth. He dwells in Alban, twenty miles south. If ye be the wise troll, advise this your master to ride to Cadman and plead to aid, on our side!” “I’m beginning to get it,” Lancelot sighed “What’s Cam- lan then?” “Camlan is for Bors, King of the Kellat, and our deadly foe. Even now doth he call an army of knights, to invade our land and seize our dragon. To destroy it, he claims, but many suspect it is but to capture it for his own use.” “Oh, come now. A real dra- gon?” “It is sooth, Lord. I myself have seen it, and my eyes were weak for a day after. It is truly a fearsome thing for an enemy. But for us it be great good. It is strange, and we all fear it, but who can argue 51

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against a full barn and tilled fields, all without labor?" 66 A DRAGON which labors -rV in the field? That would be something really worth see- ing, Lancelot. The tapes said nothing of this.” “A dragon!" Lancelot mur- mured, dreamily. “That would be right up my street. All right, Gildas, we’ll leave the question of politics for a bit. Shove some of that grub my way, would you? And pass some tools.” Gildas frowned at this. “There are no eating imple- ments in this culture, Lance- lot," the Shogleet advised, drawing on its studies. “Dag- ger and fingers only.” Before Lancelot could voice his grumble, Gildas said, “Wilt permit thy wives now, Lord?" “My what? How do I come to have wives?” “They were Deorham's, are now thine. They wait thy leave to come to table." "Good grief! Now I have a couple of wives." “Nay, Lord. Six." Lancelot shrank into his glittering armor. He cast an appealing eye on the Shogleet. “What do I do now? Six wives! One w'o'uld be too many.” “Ask Gildas," the Shogleet advised. “He will know. There was nothing in the tapes about such a situation, so I cannot help you." “Here a minute,” Lancelot THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT gulped. “I have been long in the grave and forget many customs of this land. What shall I do with these — wo- men? What are they all for, anyway? And why six?” “Marry, Lord, but I under- stand thee not. A man may take as many wives as he needs and can support, if he be a knight. And what would a wife be for, but to serve? Still, it matters not, now. If thou art truly for our cause, then must eat and depart forthwith. All is to hand. We can fetch Alban by nightfall.” “What, right away?” “All is to hand,” Gildas re- peated firmly. “Even this day did Deorham make ready for the journey, to join Cadman and all the other great knights of this land, against the Kel- lat. Else thou wouldst not have found him in the meadow, where he did but try out his armor and steed.” Lancelot groaned and looked about fe- verishly. The Shogleet, watch- ■ ing, saw him shudder. “I’m up a tree this time. I can’t face a twenty-mile drag, not after what I’ve just had from the Baron. I ache, I tell you. But I don’t fancy all these women hanging about either. I’m caught both ways.” “The Lady Phillipa hath the healing touch,” Gildas offer- ed. “If thou wilt shed thy mail, Lord, she will attend thee.” And he clapped his hands before Lancelot could stop him. 53

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They came in at once. The Shogleet suspected they had been close at hand, listening. At any rate, there was no need to warn the Lady Phillipa that her services were needed. A large and robust woman of some thirty years, she made at once for the hapless knight and, with Gildas assisting, had him out of his mail as readily as a mother undresses a child, and with as little concern. It was the Shogleet’s first contact with women at close quarters and it was intensely interested in this new phe- nomenon. What it found par- ticularly puzzling was Lance- lot’s obvious awkwardness, as if he was afraid the females might see the body that had been built for him. This was not the behavior-pattern that it had traced in Lancelot in the beginning. According to that, he was lordly and quietly compelling in the presence of the opposite" sex. It began to suspect that this, too, had been part of the young man’s fantasies. It was all very strange. HALF an hour later, on a real horse, into the saddle of which Lancelot had been hoisted by a primitive block- and-tackle arrangement and three sweating serfs, the young man led a great rout from the castle courtyard. On his arm, the Shogleet listened keenly to the chatter of the men around. A few were 54 mounted, most were afoot, and they all were filled with en- thusiasm for the battle ahead. But, of the dragon, there were divided opinions. Some thought it a blessing,, a gift from the gods to a deserving country, but they were in a minority. The rest devoutly believed that it was evil. The right and proper thing for a man was to work or to fight, they declared. What man could do either, when a dragon did both so much better than any man? Not so, they said, and this legendary knight was come, for sure, to rid them of it. Lancelot, jogging along in his armor, was acting and talking in anything but a knightly manner, but the Shogleet paid him little heed. Disguished under the mini- strations of Lady Phillipa, it had managed to help him with doses of carefully tuned ener- gy. The young man was as good as new, except in spirit, in which region he was badly bruised. “I shall never keep this up for twenty miles,” he groan- ed, as his teeth jarred and clicked at every pace. “I’m a nervous wreck, I tell you. If this is knivht errantry, then I’ve had it.” They made a good twenty miles an hour, and should have fetched Al- ban in two hours. But it was nearer five, and the sun low- ering in the sky, before the roofs of the city came in sight. JOHN RACKHAM

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Then the Shogleet recalled, from its studies, the low level of education consistent with this culture. Few of these peo- ple could count as far as twen- ty. For them, forty was well- nigh an infinite number. Over the bridge and into the narrow streets of Alban, Lancelot was pushed into the lead. The Shogleet sharpened its senses for more informa- tion about the dragon. There were whispers on all sides about the “knight with the naked shield” and “how his armor doth glitter, like sil- ver,” but not a mention of the mysterious beast. In the cen- ter of the city they came to the castle. The crowd of idle sightseers gave way to a great throng of men-at-arms, knights, squires. They came to the foot of a great flight of steps. “That’s it,” Lancelot said, with resigned conviction. “Just let me fall off right here. I’m through." But Alaric had spurred his mount forward, just as a tall, gray-headed man, with a heavily - lined, strong face, came to the head of the steps. “ Your Majesty,” the squire cried in a high but quite audi- ble voice. “I am squire to this knight. This day hath he slain Deorham in a great battle. Whereupon, and without stay for rest, hath he ridden right speedily, with this great com- pany, to offer service with thee against thine enemy. THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT Your Majesty, this is Sir Lancelot!” The Shogleet could hear the great gasp which ran through the crowd at this awesome name. Even the King himself seemed to shrink a little. “It is, indeed, a great hon- or,” he said uneasily, “to have such a great one return from the shades to serve in our cause. Dismount, Sir Lance- lot. Approach and be welcom- ed to our presence.” Lancelot crawled wearily fronvthe sad- dle. He stood on shaky legs, looked up the steps and began to climb. But the Shogleet, with its razor-keen senses, had caught something highly irregular. Alaric had gone on, to keep one pace to the rear of Lance- lot, while Ector stayed to hold the horse. “Ector!” the Shogleet hiss- ed, becoming part-visible for the purpose. “See you that man in the brown jerkin and the cap over his eyes, there close by the knight in the fal- con shield?” Ector peered, and nodded. “Mark him. Discover what you can. When the moment is ripe, have word with him. and say Lancelot has need of him. Have him come.” “And if he will not come. Lord?” “Whisper in his ear this word. It is a great magic, so forget it not. The word is ‘Galactopol.’ Hearing it, he will come.” 55

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IV ECTOR repeated the word fearfully, and went off with the horse. The Shogleet scurried up the steps, its curi- osity-damping field going full blast. Lancelot was wearily explaining to King Cadman that he had travelled far and fast, and that all he wanted to do, right then and there, was to rest. “They must be made of steel and leather,” he com- plained bitterly, in the cham- ber that had been assigned to him, as Alaric helped him un- buckle his armor. “Believe it or not, but that crowd down there are just getting set for an all-night session. Drinking, carousing and eating. Moun- tains of food. Entertainers standing by. Women all over the place. Don’t they ever get tired?” The squire was sent off for bread and wine and a bowl of hot water, and the Shogleet soon had Lancelot easier in body. But his spirits were well down. “I’m a flop at this game,” he gloomed. “All right, I’ve turned up a dragon. But sup- pose I can’t fight it? And sup- pose I do? I still don’t know what the emergency is all about, and I’ve no idea how to start looking. I’m a duff, I tell you. Best thing I can do is go back to Director Hugard and turn in my badge.” “Patience,” the Shogleet counseled. “I think Ector may have news for us. Ah, here he is now.” 56 ECTOR had found his man. Lancelot looked, indiffer- ently. “Who might you be?” he asked. “That’s a good question,” the stranger replied crisply. “I was going to ask the same thing. Who the hell are you? And what’s the big idea of riding around in that fake chrome - silicon - steel armor, hey?” “That’s it,” the Shogleet nodded, shimmering into full visibility. “That’s what I heard you say, down there by the steps.” The man in brown stepped back carefully, blinked a time or two and swallowed. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “I see it. I hear it. A little brown pixy, with red eyes, talking Galactic. But I don’t believe it.” “Hey!” Lancelot sat up, painfully. “That’s a point, too. You’re talking Galactic. Who are you, anyway?” “He is obviously a Galacto- pol agent,” the Shogleet said patiently. “The real point is, why is he here? Why would they send two agents?” “Two agents?” The stran- ger stared, then pushed his cap back. “I'm beginning to get it, I think. Heard of you, haven’t I? Lancelot Lake?” “That’s right. And you?” “Oh, I’m just a third-level sector man. Name’s Alfred North. Pass myself off as a ' JOHN RACKHAM

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journeyman blacksmith here. It’s a living, with all the armor about. That’s how I could spot your stuff. Nothing here to even scratch that. You’d be a pay-off bet in a tourney.” “No fear!” Lancelot said, hastily. “I’ve had all I want of that. But what is this all a- bout? What’s the emergency?” “It’s a dilly, all right.” North fished out a case, of- fered it. “Smoke?” “Thanks!” Lancelot’s eyes shone, until he recalled the squires. “How about them, then? Won’t they mind?” “It'll scare them, but they’ll write it off as magic. That’s a handy way to cover up any- thing you don’t understand. That’s why they can take the dragon so easily.” “There really is a dragon, then?” “But surely. You mean you didn’t know? It’s had me stop- ped, I can tell you. I was thinking of screaming for spe- cial aid. How come you’re here, if you don’t know about it?” “I gues3 I’m your special aid. I only got here this mor- ning, and I can’t seem to keep still long enough to find out anything that makes sense.” North frowned, then shrug- ged resignedly. “I suppose you special boys have your own methods. Anyway, I’d say you have the right approach in this case. We usually work under cover, but this one isn't like that at all. When the alarm went off, I wasn’t both- ered — ” “That alarm,” the Shogleet interrupted. “I am curious about that. Is it some form of automatic device?” North sighed. “I was hop- ing you’d go away, if I didn’t pay any attention.- Ah, well.” He inhaled thoughtfully. “You see, when these planets are colonized, they implant the compatible beliefs as a dogma. But, just to take care of any sports, there’s a ritual, a form of exorcism, that is triggered off by any major change. And that fires the alarm. Doesn’t happen very often. It’s usu- ally a gene-twist. Some kid gets curious about the stars up there, or begins to fiddle about with experiments in steam-pressure. That kind of thing. But this one is dif- ferent.” “A real dragon?” Lancelot asked, wide-eyed. 64nnHAT would be the day,” A North grinned. Then he sneaked a look at the Shogleet, and his grin slipped a little. “No,” he said, stubbing out his smoke-tube. “If you think back a couple of hundred years, when they were terra- forming this planet, they used machinery. Big stuff. One gad- get was a combined cultivator- harvester. Thorium powered, and just about everlasting. They used hundreds of ’em. And somebody goofed. One got left behind, in a cave they THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT 57

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were using for storage space. Now, after all these years, one of the local boys has found it. He’s using it.” “Hold on,” Lancelot object- ed. “He wouldn’t know how.” “That’s the hell of it. He wouldn’t have to; I’ve check- ed. The thing is run from a mentrol — a sort of head- band, with trimmings. You put it on, and think your or- ders, like ‘stop,’ ‘go,’ ‘right,’ ‘left,’ ‘fast,’ and ‘slow.’ And what more do you want? The way I figure it, somebody must have found the mentrol and tried it on for size, and that started the whole thing off.” “Yeeow!” Lancelot gasped. “He must have had the hell of a fright when it came rum- bling out of its cave. But it all fits. The way they lap up magic here, it wouldn’t be any trouble for them to spot that whoever wears the mentrol controls the beast. Which is right, anyway. Who owns it now?” “That's Sir Brian de Boyce. Next to old Cadman, he’s the big boy in these parts. The way I heard it, one of his freemen found the mentrol, so Sir Brian eliminated him, and took charge. And it’s ruining the economy. There isn’t a peasant in miles who’s put his back into his job in months. I’m stymied. I’m only a free- man here. I can’t just charge in and tell Sir Brian what to do. But you can. You’re a knight.” 58 “That’s all right,” Lancelot mused, “but how do I get it from him?” “You’ll fight him for it, of course.” Lancelot fell back. “Oh, no ! I’m not having any more of that,” he groaned. “You didn’t see what Deor- ham did to me. I can show you the bruises — ” “Come off it.” Noah was curt. “If you took a stroll down to the main hall right now, you’d find that they’re working out the list for the big fight, in the morning. No, not against Bors and his boys. Against each other.” “Eh? What for?” “It’s the culture pattern. Trial by combat. Knights fight for rank, prestige. Cadman wouldn’t dream of leading a field of knights unless they had all been graded by prow- ess. That’s how it’s done. The winners qualify; the losers flunk out. I’ll bet you there’s a dozen down there right now, just aching to have a crack at you. You can call yourself Sir Lancelot. But they’ll want you to prove it. And you can’t refuse, either; if you chicken out, your name will smell. Even a serf will spit on you.” “Oh lord !” Lancelot sat up, jmd r»nt his head in his hands. “I wish I’d never seen this place. What the hell am I go- ing to do?” “Your best bet is to lash out with a challenge to Sir Brian, rio'ht away. If you’re lucky, and he’s free to take you on, JOHN RACKHAM

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then all you have to do is chop him down, and you’re top man — and the mentrol is yours. You’d better be quick. The competition is fierce.” 1MTASQUERADING as a ■L*-!- horse again, the Shogleet carried Lancelot through the busy streets, early the next morning. It was of the opinion that Lancelot had been rea- sonably fortunate. He had drawn one strange knight from the far west, called Gnut, an unknown about whom fantastic stories were rife. “Discounting the tales,” it argued, “for these people have only the vaguest ideas of accu- racy, you are fortunate. You will defeat Gnut, then Sir Brian, and the mentrol will be yours.” Lancelot refused to be cheer- ed. “I’m sick of this knight business,” he muttered. “I spend all my time in this blasted metal strait- jacket, jogging my guts out on a horse, people bashing me about. Now I’ve got to fight a couple of guys I’ve never seen before. And if I win what hap- pens? Every knight for miles around will be waiting to have a bash at me to show how good he is. And they talk about competition in a dynamic cul- ture! They don’t know what they’re talking about.” They were turning the cor- ner, by a high-roofed house. The Shogleet was pondering on the unspoken implication in Lancelot’s words. He was actually so low in spirit as to entertain the thought that he might not win! Then there came a gentle hail from the balcony, and a gay-colored scrap of silk fluttered through the sunlight, to catch on the tip of Lancelot’s lance. “Tis a troth. Lord,” Alaric said. “Wouldst have me seek out its owner?” Then he ex- plained, as Lancelot was com- pletely fogged. He would enter the house find out who had tossed the silk, ask for her glove, and Lancelot would car- ry it into battle. “An thou art victorious, Lord, the hand which fits the glove is thine. It is the custom.” “But I’ve got six wives, now!” “What of that?” Alaric de- manded. “Who knoweth what treasures may hap, today? I know not of Gnut, but Sir Brian is a wonderly rich man — and all can be thine.” “Good grief!” Lancelot shuddered. “Doesn’t a man ever settle down with just one wife here?” “To wed, thou meanest? Marry, that is a different mat- ter. That is the way of a man who is old, and would put an end to glory and adventure.” “Precious few of these lads will live so long,” Lancelot mumbled. “The way they go at it. What do you call ‘old’?” Alaric frowned. “I can but guess, sire. A great many THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT 59

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years, certainly. As many as thirty." The Shogleet was amused by Lancelot’s sudden silence. It knew he was thirty-three. But there was food for thought, too. If it was rare for a knight to live longer than thirty years, then this would be a self-control mechanism tjo keep down the numbers of the non-productive to within the capacity of an agricultural community. Knighthood, it seemed, served the multiple function of entertainment, hazard, prestige and the skim- ming off of the restless few. But the wives were an en- igma. The Shogleet determine ed to question North at the first opportunity. THE tournament field was riot of color. Gay streamers flirted with the breeze from the pavilions at either end. Each pennant was a knight. Tabarded heralds carried ros- ters. The chattering populace was accommodated on rude plank seats along either length of the field. In the privileged center of one side was the royal stand, thick with drapes. Alaric was kept busy point- ing out the various celebrities, reeling off their reputations, their possessions, their pedi- grees, until even the Shogleet marvelled a little at such a memory. Then the boy saw Sir Brian’s pennant. He indicated it. “His lands are the most spa- 60 cious in Brython, second only to the King. Vast herds, great forests and three castles.” _ “How many wives?" “As I heard it last, sire, eleven.” “Oh, great!" Lancelot sag- ged. “That’s a hell of an in- centive to win. But if I don’t kill him, then he’ll kill me!" Bugles rent the chatter, and set the pennants rising and falling. The contest began. Lancelot watched gloomily. “Look at that!" he mutter- ed to the Shogleet. “Ton and a half of raving insanity, trav- elling at about thirty miles an hour. Double it, because the other lunatic is doing the same. No wonder they count you out if you fall. By the time you stop that with your belly and fall about five feet onto hard ground, plus all the hardware, it’s no wonder they don’t get up to argue.” The pennants rose and fell. Trumpets blared. Brass-lung- ed heralds told the tally of victor and vanquished. Then up went a barred black pen- nant, with a gold spot. A her- ald roared. “Sir Gnut, of the Westland . . . to meet Sir Lancelot!” Alaric broke out a pure white pennant, and the chal- lenge was shouted back. “Sir Lancelot to meet Sir Gnut!" The great surf-roar of the crowd was stilled as that fab- ulous name spread from lip to lip. Lancelot settled himself in JOHN RACKHAM

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the saddle, and put out a hand for the lance which Alaric held ready. But the Shogleet had already spotted Gnut, at the other end. A smallish man, in all-black mail, on a small, wiry stallion, he looked fast. “Leave the lance,” it order- ed. “Prepare to use your sword.” It cantered on to the field before Lancelot could ar- gue “Now sit firm. Fend off his point with your shield, then cut him down with your sword.” “Who, me?” Lancelot chat- tered. “How the blazes can I, with you bouncing me about like that?” A great yell went up from the crowd as the gal- lant knight flung his arms about the neck of his steed to keep from falling off. The Shogleet halted. The warden’s flag fell. Sir Gnut went into his gallop at once, head well down, crouching over his crouched lance. Lan- celot fumbled for his sword. The Shogleet braced itself. Lance met shield with a rend- ing crash, and splintered into matchwood. The Shogleet pranced backward and round, to keep Lancelot in the saddle. Gnut was equally nimble, toss- ing away the ruined lance and whipping out his blade. In and out like a snake, he battered Lancelot, again and again, rocking him in his saddle until he was good and angry. “All right!” he roared. “You asked for it!” And he stood in his stirrups, waiting for the THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT black knight to charge in just once more. Then the Shogleet felt him slash down, viciously . . . and there was a shocked Aaah! from the crowd. “Serve him right,” Lance- lot growled as they trotted from the field, and the serfs ran on to carry off the sliced remains of Sir Gnut. “Let’s hope that made Sir Brian stop and think a bit.” V BACK in his tent there was a surprise waiting for Lancelot. The Shogleet, poking its horse-head through the tent flap, saw a slim, girlish fig- ure, with her glossy gold hair done in gleaming braids about her head. This was the young- est female it had seen. It stud- ied her with great interest. Her complexion was curiously translucent, so that the flush of blood in her cheek was clearly visible. And her voice was soft and low, as she greet- ed Lancelot. Alaric, as usual, was on hand with explana- tions. “This is the Lady Jessica, sire. She who threw thee the silk which thou accepted.” “I pray,” she said, softly, “that thou’rt willing to ac- cept my glove as a gage, Sir Knight.” Timidly she held out a slim hand. Lancelot took it as if it was an eggshell. The Shogleet was completely baf- fled by his beet-red face and 61

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the glazed look in his eye. This was a side to Lancelot that it had not seen before. The Lady Jessica had to stand on tiptoe to put her face to Lancelot's. Then she went even more red in the face, and whispered, “I pray that thou wilt be triumphant, Sir Knight — for my sake!” Then she was gone, leaving Lancelot staring into vacancy and rubbing his cheek. North pushed his way into the tent, grinning. “Nice work, Lake,” he said. “Not much style, but you chopped him down quick.” “Here — ” Lancelot said, abstractedly. “Something I wanted to ask you. This busi- ness about wives. I mean, I won six from Deorham. Lord knows how many Gnut had, but Sir Brian has eleven. What do I do with all them?” “Ah!” North chuckled. “You’re a bit mixed, there. The word should rightly be ‘housewives.’ They’re a kind of high-class servant. When you think about it, there isn’t much else a high-born lady can do, except run the domes- tic side, while the menfolk are busy battling. They have their duties, you see, like keeping track of the hired help, tending to the kitchen, the bedchamber, the linen — that sort of thing. They tend to the man of the house, too, of course, and entertain his guests. But they’re strictly property. No need to be both- 62 ered, if that's what you’re worried about.” Lancelot’s face went red again. “So there isn’t any reg- ular getting married and set- tling down, then?” “Oh, sure, but that’s a dif- ferent thing. For the knight who is past his prime and wants to settle down. Retire. You know. He usually selects some old place out in the sticks, turns in the rest of his property to the King, to be a prize for some contender, and settles in to raise a family. More squires and ladies, and the whole thing starts all over again. Not many get that far. It’s too dull for them. Why?” Lancelot was saved his stammering explanation by the sound of a herald from the field. Sir Brian’s pennant had gone up. “Take the lance this time,” the Shogleet decided, studying Sir Brian. “Good grief!” Lancelot had been looking, too. “See the size of him! No wonder he’s the top man in these parts. He’s going to take a bit of knocking out.” The Shogleet pricked up its ears at the sudden change in Lancelot’s tone, but it had more urgent matters to con- sider. “Couch your lance firm- ly,” it advised. “Aim for his midriff.” The flag fell. They began to go forward, from a canter into a gallop, Lancelot manfully sitting forward and forgetting to complain. The JOHN RACKHAM

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mighty Sir Brian thundered toward them, his lance glitter- ing in the sun. At the very moment of impact, the Shog- leet stiffened, rearing on its haunches to keep Lancelot in the saddle. There was a deaf- ening double clang from the shields, a wheeze from Lance- lot as the wind was punched out of him, the screech of tor- tured metal and a gruesome gargle from Sir Brian. Then, despite all the Shog- leet could do, it felt Lancelot lifted and dragged from the saddle. SKIDDING furiously to a stop, it wheeled to look. There was Lancelot, on foot, dazedly clutching the haft of the lance. The other end, with its razor tip, had stabbed through Sir Brian’s shield, his armor and Sir Brian himself, and stuck out a hand’s breadth on the far side. With a grunting effort, Lan- celot tore the lance free. He staggered back as the Shogleet cantered up, to kneel so that he csould remount. The crowd was stunned into momentary silence. Then it went wild. Even King Cadman looked shaken, as they cantered pa^t the royal stand for the salute and accolade. Back in the tent, Lancelot eased himself out of his helmet and sat. “That’s me,” he said flatly. “I’m through, done, finished.” North pushed through the tent-flap just in time to dis- THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT agree with the last word. “There's still the dragon,” he said. “That shouldn’t be too hard, now that you've won the mentrol. Nice bout, that was. Just as well you’re not staying in these parts. The rest of the boys don’t stand a chance against you.” “It’s the superior metal, of course,” the Shogleet com- mented, poking itsJhorsehead into the tent. North jumped a clear foot off the ground, knocking his head on the wooden spar of the tent. “Talking horses, now,” he breathed. “Is this routine equipment for you Prime G- men?” “Forget that,” Lancelot snapped. “What about this dragon? Let’s get it over with, and we’ll see whether I’m staying here or not.” North eyed him thoughtful- ly. “I suggest you play it this way. There should be a coffee- break, soon. You get an audi- ence with Cadman. Tell him this dragon is a great evil. You’ve come to kill it and, once done, you'll return to the shades. That way, everybody’ll be shut up. All right?” “Sounds simple enough. But tan I kill the thing?” “I'll fix that,” North said briskly, “once I have the men- trol.” He glanced out of the tent and chuckled. “Here they come now.” “Who?” “Sir Brian’s crowd. His lieges, turning themselves in. 63

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You want the lad with the gadget. Never mind the rest.” “Suppose . . said Lancelot, in a tone that made the Shog- feet prick up its ears at once. “Suppose I was staying here, and I didn’t want all these retainers hanging about — what’s the routine proced- ure?” “Nothing to it.” North gave him that thoughtful look again. “You just manumit them. Give ’em their freedom. They’ll just go off and sign up with somebody else. It’s not wise, though, because you couldn’t run an estate without staff, and they work for their keep.” “That’s a point,” Lancelot admitted. He went to receive his spoils with a pensive air. Late that afternoon, with the awed populace keeping a safe distance, the Shogleet bore Lancelot, following North who was on foot, to the mead- ow where the monster “slept.” North had the mentrol in his hand. “This shouldn’t be any trouble,” he said. “A bit of expert sabotage, and it will be all over. There she is, folks.” IT was easy to see why the peasants had dubbed it a dragon. Its sectioned body, all of fifty feet long, hugged the ground, rising to a twenty- foot high hump in front. There a single head-lamp grave it a one-eyed, evil look. “That front scoop,” North 64 explained, “can be set to any level you like, and there are controls which can be adjusted so that the stuff is processed, inside. Got a rudimentary ‘brain’ — enough to identify and reject organic matter that’s still alive. It wouldn’t touch a man, even if you tried to make it. Not that any of the locals would have the nerve to chance it. Nor do I blame them. Incidentally, it proc- esses wastes and makes its own bags and fertilizer, all in one operation. That’s not do- ing the economy any good, either, believe me. I’ve been stuck because I couldn’t lay my hands on this little gadget. But now I have it, I know that it’s immobile. Nothing can happen until I put it on my head. Come on.” . But the Shogleet had other idcES “Lancelot,” it said. “You had better go back. Warn the audience not to come too near. And there is someone you would wish to see, I think?” “That’s right.” Lancelot slid down eagerly, and went clanking back. “You’re a smart animal,” North said, shrewdly. “What’s on your mind?” “Answer me a question, first. I gather that there is a sort of personal polarity, an attraction and an attachment between humans of opposite sexes, if certain other factors are favorable. It involves such activities as marrying, set- JOHN RACKHAM

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tling down, raising a family — all of which are concepts which I do not quite under- stand. But I believe such re- lationships are not amenable to reason. Yes?” “If you mean that there’s neither sense nor reason in a guy who’s in love, that’s dead right,” North chuckled. “Love makes a fool of a man. There’s never been a cure for it yet.” “That is what I thought. Thank you. Now, it is not enough that the dragon be destroyed. It must be seen to be destroyed. Impressively.” “It’s a good point. What’s on your mind?” The Shogleet proceeded to tell him, in rapid, explicit de- tail. North’s eyes widened. “I can do it, sure, if that’-s the way you want it. I hope you know what you’re doing, that's all.” He hurried off across the meadow, to disappear into the gaping jaws of the cultivator. Lancelot came, clanking back. He had already mounted by the time North returned. “Let’s get it over with,” he said impatiently, dropping his visor. “I might as well tell you that, as soon as I’ve fin- ished with this thing, I’m re- tiring from Galactopol. I’m through. Now, what do I do?” “It’s all fixed,” North said dryly. “I’ll get well clear, then I’ll put this on and make it look as if you two are battling. When you’ve had enough, you bash it with your sword.” THE STAINLESS STEEL KNIGHT “Fat lot of good that’s go- . ing to do !” “I told you, it’s all fixed. Keep an eye out for a yellow danger-plate. It’s marked ‘DRIVE - UNIT SAFETY COVER.' Just hit that. That’s all.” The Shogleet broke into a gentle canter. Lancelot drew his sword. The long, gleaming machine suddenly broke into loud and grumbling life, its great jaws agape. With a growl of gears, it moved and swung its great head round, like a humped serpent seeking prey. Then the headlight lit up, sending out a bright beam. “You know,” Lancelot jerk- ed, as the Shogleet swerved to chase the lumbering ma- chine, “this isn’t such a bad place, after all. I mean, once you get away from this armor- plated business. I think I’ll retire. I own all Sir Brian’s lands now. I could settle down, take life easy — ” “But you are a Prime G- man, Lancelot. It is your duty to return to Headquarter’s and report the successful com- pletion of your mission.” “North will take care of that for me.” “But you don’t really belong here.” “What’s that got to do with it? It’s a free country, isn’t it?” Lancelot waved his sword valiantly, and the Shogleet swerved suddenly, so that the tip of the blade struck the yellow panel. 65

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THE bang was enough to impress even the Shogleet. It was very busy, for a few fractionated seconds, warding off blast, radiation and chunks of flying debris. Then there was a ringing silence. In a thick haze of settling dust, it turned, scrambled up out of the hole and crept over the torn and ruptured earth to where North was peering, open-mouthed, from a shelter- ing bankside. Of the Brythons there was nothing to be seen but the puffs of dust from their flying heels. “You look all right,” North gasped, “but what about him?” “He is stunned, and in tem- porary fugue. It will pass. If you would hang the mentrol on my saddle, we will be leav- ing. You can clear up the odd details?” “Sure, I can handle those. You’re leaving right now?” “I think it would be wise. Lancelot seems to have formed one of those attachments, for a certain young lady. He in- tended to remain here per- manently. That would have been unwise, I understand?” “Dead right,” North grin- ned, but there were grim un- dertones. “With what he’s got, and you along, he would be ‘Change’ in a big way. That wouldn’t do. I’d have to inter- fere. And that might be nasty.” “Yes, that is what I thought. It is better this way.” “Just what are you, any- way — a sort of guardian angel?” “You might say that, yes,” the Shogleet nodded, and set off to gallop the long trail, back to the ship. But it was still curious. It wondered just what Director Hugard would say when Lan- celot got back. END Kangaroo Quiz This is a quiz with something in its pocket. Try the prob* lem below, then hop to p. 108 for the answer. There you’ll find some surprising information about the quiz — and about you . o o o o o o o o o Problem: Without raising your pencil from the paper, con* nect all the above points with four straight lines. 66 JOHN RACKHAM

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IF • Short Story I HATED TO SEE THAT FELLOW KIDNAP OUR GIRLS, STEAL OUR MONEY, WRECK OUR HOMES — IT WAS ALL I COULD DO TO KEEP FROM SCOLDING HIM ABOUT IT DOORMAT WORLD by j. t. McIntosh After w a t c h i n g the stranger drag Rosie Ash- win the length of Main Street, screaming her head off, Bill Garland, the town’s Law En- forcement Officer, turned to his cronies and said : “Did you see that? I don’t mind telling you, it was all I could do to stop myself going right out there in the street and telling the stranger to let Rosie alone!” 68

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“He doesn’t mean any harm,” said Taft Barker un- easily. There were still a lot of people in Winsafton who preferred to ascribe anything the stranger did to mere ex- uberance. “Sooner or later, Bill Gar- land,” said Sam Basch, who didn’t, “you’re going to have to do something about that guy. You’re the LEO.” Garland pretended not to hear that. The stranger had Winsaf- ton pretty near the end of its tether. Gradually he had taken complete control of the town. Now he seemed to spend most of his time thinking up new, more capricious, more outrageous ways of exercis- ing his power. The stranger had a perfect- ly good name, Ed Ramsay, but nobody in Winsafton ever used it except to his face. “Stranger” meant “colonist” these days. There were seldom enough colonists around for it to be necessary to specify the one you meant. Few colonists returned to Earth. When they did they usually came to some town where they had family ties, where cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces still lived. But the stranger apparently had no connections on Earth, certainly not in Winsafton. Every day a dozen people asked resentfully: “What did he have to come here for, any- way?” It must have been a OOORMAT WORLD rhetorical question. There was never any answer. At first he merely pushed people around the way re- turned colonists always did. When he began to realize just how push-aroundable the peo- ple of Winsafton were, how- ever, he began to make his early behavior look like old- fashioned gallantry. He picked on the best house in Winsafton, the Goodman place, and just moved in. Well, what could the Goodmans do? They could hardly throw him out bodily. They just had to put up with him. And at first everybody but the Goodmans snickered and said it served the Goodmans right for hav- ing the showiest plaee in town. People snickered even more when it became known, as such tilings always become known in nothing flat, that the stranger had pulled Sally Goodman into his bedroom one night and kept the door lock- ed until next morning. There was no jealous lover to get mad about it. Sally was well on in her thirties and hadn’t been pretty even at eighteen. It seemed a good joke on the Goodmans that the stranger had not only elected to use their house as his own but also regarded their daugh- ter as part of the furnishings. THEY stopped snickering when the stranger casually tossed Sally aside and started 69

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helping himself to any pretty women who caught his eye. And to anything else he fan- cied. After all, you never knew it wouldn’t be your own wife next. Or it might even be your car or your house. It was Hank Hawk’s new Chrysler that the stranger eventually took, only two hours after dragging Rosie Ashwin into his lair at the Goodman place and slamming the door. Hawk’s complaints to the Law Enforcement Offi- cer were bitter. “Well, we don’t want to go off half-cocked about this, Hank,” said the LEO cau- tiously. “Maybe he’s only bor- rowed your car.” “I didn't say he could bor- row it. He stole it.” “Now, you can’t go around saying things like that. Hank, even about a stranger. He nev- er even spoke to you, did he? So maybe he thought you wouldn’t mind.” “I want my car back !” said Hank obstinately. “Then why don’t you just take it back?” ,“How can I do that? The stranger knocked Bob Good- man all the way downstairs once, when he’d ordered fried chicken for dinner and got steak instead. I doift want to take any chances. I don’t see why I should. You’re the Law Enforcement Officer, not me.” “Sure, Hank,” said Garland soothingly, “but I can’t do a thing until I know a law’s 70 been broken. As of now, all I know is, the stranger borrow- ed your Chrysler. That ain’t against the law.” “I want my car back !” Hank Qrrpamprf “Then take it back, Hank.” “You’re scared of the stran- ger,” Hank said bitterly. “Now, there’s no call to be abusive. Hank. Run along now, and come to me when you have a genuine complaint.” Hank raised his fists to heaven in frustration. IN this way the LEO man- aged for a long time to do nothing whatever about the stranger and his actions. How- ever, as time went on, Gar- •and became uneasily conscious that sooner or later he might be forced to speak severely to the stranger. This he was re- luctant to do. The stranger was all too liable to spit to- bacco juice at him. It wasn’t good for a LEO’s prestige and authority to have tobacco juice spat at him. Yet more and more people were starting to talk like Hank Hawk. There was, for example, the storekeeper who said the stranger now owed $3,216.58 and had shown nei- ther inclination nor ability to pay a cent. There was Wesley Coleman, who bumped into the stranger as Coleman emerged from his own front gate. The stranger immediately threw stones at Coleman’s house, breaking every single front j. t. McIntosh

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window. There was the truck driver who was unable to pre- vent the stranger denting Hank Hawk's Chrysler against his truck. The stranger not only knocked the truck driver down, he found a can of yel- low paint on the truck, tore the truck driver’s pants to ribbons and poured the paint on his naked belly. Everybody agreed that this was rude. As Law Enforcement Offi- cer, Garland was sheriff, po- lice chief, police force, district attorney and public prosecu- tor rolled into one. There was no one to whom to pass the buck. If anybody did anything about the stranger, it would have to be the LEO. Garland was so concerned over this that he seriously considered emigrating. He got as far as reading pamphlets about sixteen of the forty- three available colonies. Then he realized something he should have seen at once. On any one of those forty-three pioneer worlds the entire population would consist of people like the stranger. He dismissed the possibility of emigrating from his mind. There remained, of course, suicide . . . The trouble was, the stran- ger got worse every day. Although he didn’t appear to give a damn for anybody or anything, the pattern of his behavior showed clearly enough that from the moment he arrived in Winsafton he had been trying things to see if he’d get away with them. When he did, he’d try some- thing a little more extreme. At first when he took things on credit there had been at least a pretense that he was going to pay eventually. Later he bullied people into saying they’d presented the things to him as gifts. Eventually he simply took what he wanted without explanation or prom- ise. His caveman tactics witr women, too, started quietly with Sally Goodman, extended to young, unmarried girls who were far too timid to describe publicly and in detail exactly what had happened to them and complain about it, and gradually spread to any fe- male the stranger happened to fancy. TIE limit was reached when the stranger arrived at a wedding and carried off the bride, pretty little Lucy Smith, the instant she became Lucy Jaffray. It was no good talk- ing about droit de seigneur to citizens of Winsafton. This, they felt, was going too far. Unable to stall any more, Garland organized a posse of all the men who had least reason to love the stranger — Lucy’s father Tom Smith, Harry Jaffray, Hank Hawk, the truck driver, the store- keeper, Wesley Coleman, half a dozen others. They called at the Goodman place. DOORMAT WORLD 71

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The stranger came out to stand on the porch and look at them. He was a big man, but no bigger than Garland or the truck driver. A stronger sun than Sol had burned his face so brown it was almost pur- ple. He was untidily dressed in an off-the-peg suit he had taken from the local tailor — without, of course, paying for it — and there was egg on his chin. “Well?” he said, grinning wolfishly at them. His act could be as corny as he liked. Nobody was going to laugh at him. Garland cleared his throat. “Mr. Ramsay,” he said, “Win- safton is a peaceable little town. In my ten years as Law Enforcement Officer, all I’ve ever had to deal with, except for the Saturday night drunks, has been one case of justifiable homicide and three of theft. We’re proud of this record, and—” “Why was the homicide jus- tifiable?” the stranger asked, suddenly interested. “Husband shot a man who assaulted his wife. You rea- lize, Mr. Ramsay, that if any one of six or seven men shot you dead, they’d go free.” “Six or seven!” the stran- ger roared suddenly, affront- ed. “Hell, I been here a month ! It must be at least thirty.” As he yelled at them, the whole posse took an involun- tary step backwards. The 72 stranger took a step forward. “Say, if anybody has any com- plaint against Ed Ramsay, he’s come to the right place. Let’s hear what you’ve all got to say.” He stepped down from the porch. The group hurriedly rearranged itself, everybody trying to get as far away from the stranger as possible. Cole- man was unlucky. He bumped into the truck-driver and couldn’t get any further back. “You,” said the stranger, standing so close to Coleman that their breaths mingled. “Have you got something against me?” Coleman took a deep breath. His voice came out in a high whine. “You broke all my windows !” “Well, it’s summer, ain’t it?” “Yes, but—” “You want plenty of fresh air, don’t you?” “Yes, but — " “Want me to sue you for deliberately running into me and trying to knock me down?” “I didn’t deliberately — ” “I say you did. And no- body’s going to disagree with me.” Coleman gulped and made no answer. “Would you like to with- draw your complaint?” the stranger asked, clenching his large, knotted right hand and brandishing it under Cole- man’s nose. “I would,” said Coleman hastily. “Very much.” j. t. McIntosh

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“Okay,” said the stranger. “Your apology’s accepted. Get the hell out of here.” Coleman scuttled off, his ears red, not looking back. NEXT the stranger stepped up to the truck-driver. “Have you something you want to say?” “I’ve still got patches of yellow paint on my stomach !” said the truck-driver indig- nantly. “What do you want, the second coat?” “No, I . . . No, I . . . I just wanted to tell you . . .” “You’ve told me.” The truck-driver made off rapidly after Coleman. Garland saw what was hap- pening but was powerless to prevent it. The posse had felt strong and resolute when there were more than a dozen of them. Now as men left, one after another, those who re- mained became more and more uneasy and less willing to stand up to Ramsay. "You. Who are you?” the stranger demanded. “I’m Harry Jaffray. It was my wife you — ” The stranger ehuckled.“Sure boy, I know what you want to know. Very natural.” He winked, slapped Jaffray’s shoulder, whispered into his ear and pushed him away. Curiously enough, it was Sam Basch, who had never had any direct cause to hate Ramsay, who stood up to him. DOORMAT WORLD “We don’t like you,” he said bluntly. “Go away.” “You want me to push your nose out of the back of your head, maybe?” “No. That wouldn’t make me like you any better.” The stranger looked Sam Basch over. Once Sam had been a very powerful man, but Sam was sixty-one now. He was beginning to stoop a little and he limped slightly. “Old man,” said the stran- ger, “you know what’ll hap- pen when I hit you ?” “No,” Sam admitted. “You do now,” said the stranger, and shot out his fist like a piston. Sam Basch took it right on the belly-button, and shut up like a jackknife. That was the end of the discussion. The three who re- mained picked Sam up, dusted him off, and wouldn’t let him go after the stranger, who had disappeared into the house. "If I was only thirty -years younger . . .” Sam gasped, holding his middle. “But you’re not,” said Gar- land regretfully. For a mo- ment of wild hope he had thought he was going to be able to pass the buck to Sam Basch (who, he now remem- bered, had nearly emigrated once). But Sam was too old. And the stranger was too tough. No, there was nothing for it now but to keep out of the stranger’s way and not catch him at anything. So long as 73

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the LEO did that, he could pretend that Ramsay hadn’t done anything. WHEN the second colonist arrived in Winsafton, the town for a few hours was close to panic. It was very rare indeed for colonists to visit Earth. The emigration regulations were strict and unequivocal. Any- body who wanted to emigrate was told bluntly that he could either go or stay, but he had to make up his mind one way or the other once for all time. And in all the colonies there was so much to do, and so much more opportunity than there had been on Earth for centuries, that few people had any time to be homesick and bemoan the fact that the emi- gration authorities wouldn’t let them go back to Earth. Inter-galactic travel was so expensive and demanded so much organization that no in- dividual could actually pay for his passage, any more than any one person could pay for a country’s national defense Consequently individuals did not decide for themselves that they’d leave Earth for the col- onies or return from a colony to Earth. They submitted their cases to a board which considered each case on its merits. Since Earth was still the leading manufacturing planet Earth made most of the gal- axy’s spaceships. They left 74 Earth crammed with emi- grants, and not one of them in ten ever returned. They were used thereafter for inter- galactic trade, not for ferrying back malcontents to Earth. The case of the stranger in Winsafton was therefore un- usual; and the arrival of a second colonist in the same small town at the same time was even more unusual. The people of Winsafton weren’t worried for long, how- ever. It soon got around that the newcomer was Jim Arlen, Hugh Arlen’s youngest boy, who had been born and brought up in Winsafton. That made all the differ- ence, of course. Everybody remembered Jim Arlen, a tough but likeable youngster who had been chased out of every fruit orchard in the dis- trict at one time or other. “Let’s see,” people said, scratching their heads, “young Jim must be — why, he must be thirty-five now.” “All of that,” others agreed. “Time flies, doesn’t it?” It was Sam Basch, not Bill Garland, who went to see Jim Arlen at the town’s one hotel. “Hi, Jim,” he said. “Re- member me? I shot you full of buckshot once.” “Nobody ever shot me full of buckshot,” Jim replied. “If you shot at me, you missed.” Basch sighed. “I never was much of a shot. Pity. There’s somebody in town who needs shooting right now.” j. t. McIntosh

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“You mean Ed Ramsny?” Jim grinned. “I’ve heard about him.” Sam Basch wanted to know one thing before he talked to Jim Arlen about Ramsay. “Why’d you come back, Jim?” Jim was as big as Ed Ram- say, a little younger and not so heavily tanned. He still had the easy grin Sam remem- bered. “It seems my father still owns a big plot of land north- east of town,” Jim said. “We never gave it much thought when we emigrated. We tried to sell it, but nobody would buy. Now it seems there’s some trouble over this land. The board on Zukeen sent me back to straighten out the mess and report on some new agricultural equipment while I’m here.” Basch nodded. “So you’ll be going back soon?” “In a couple of months, I reckon.” “You've heard about Ram- say? You know him, maybe?” “Hell, no. He comes from Benvice and I’m from Zukeen. Never met anybody from Ben- vice. Don’t know much about the place.” “The fact is, Jim, Ramsay’s been terrorizing the town.” “I’ve heard that. I don’t see how.” SAM explained. As he did so, Jim’s smile became a puzzled frown. “I don’t get it,” he said at DOORMAT WORLD last. “You mean he did all this and nobody stopped him?” “Nobody tried to ’cept me. He gave me a poke in the guts and that was that.” “I still don’t get it. He’s just one man. How can one man have a whole town lick- ing his boots?” “You were pretty young when you left here, Jim. You weren’t old enough to look around you and do any think- ing. Don’t you know Earth’s been sending out colonists for hundreds of years?” “Sure, but what’s that got to do with it?” “You were a pretty tough family, Jim, you and your folks and your brother. I bailed your father out of jail two or three times, and as for your mother . . . well. We won’t go into that. Point is, you were all pretty hard to handle. Tell me, Jim, are you known as a tough family on Zukeen?” Jim grinned. “Hell, no. Solid citizens, the Arlens. Hardly ever in jail, any of us. The old man’s a counselor. Even my brother hasn’t been in any trouble since he shot his father-in-law, and that was five years ago.” “Well, Jim, Earth isn’t like the colonies. For centuries anybody with any courage, determination or imagination has emigrated. It’s still pos- sible to make a fortune in the colonies. It hasn't been pos- sible here on Earth since the 75

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early twentieth century. Nat- urally anybody with any initi- ative emigrates. And this has been going on for hundreds of years.” Jiln nodded slowly. “I’m be- ginning to see what you’re getting at.” “Natural selection, Jim. People without courage, de- termination, imagination and initiative tend to beget chil- dren without courage, deter- mination, imagination and initiative. ’Course, they don’t always succeed. Even now, a lot of fellows like you are growing up here on Earth. That’s why the flow of emi- grants to the colonies never dries up. See?” “Yes, I guess I do.” “Earth’s a doormat world, Jim. People here ask to be stepped on. Mind, I don’t say they like it. But if you apolo- gize every time somebody wipes his feet on you, it’s not surprising if you get stepped on a lot. Still, we get on all right when there aren’t any colonists around. It’s only when men like Ed Ramsay are here that people get stepped on. What can you expect, when there’s nobody in Win- safton with enough guts to say boo to a goose?” “I seem to remember that you were always ready to say boo to a goose.” "Maybe, Jim, but do you remember something else? I always wanted to emigrate. Only my wife wouldn’t go.” 76 Jim nodded. “I remember.” “Well, look, Jim. You were born here. But you’re a colon- ist. You’re not scared of Ed Ramsay. You can get rid of him. Do that for us, and we’ll be grateful.” Jim grinned but shook his head. “Hell, Sam, Ramsay’s nothing to me. He never did me any harm.” “Wait around,” said Sam meaningly. "I guess it won't be long before you change your mind.” SAM was wrong. A month passed and there was no clash between Ed Ramsay and Jim Arlen. Whether by chance or by design, Ramsay avoided antagonizing Jim in any way. Although he didn’t stop tak- ing anything he wanted, from whisky to women, Ramsay did nothing new during this peri- od. He didn’t seek Jim’s com- pany either. When the two colonists met in the street they merely nodded to each other and passed on. Meanwhile Jim Arlen was finding out for himself how it had been possible for Ed Ram- say to subjugate the whole town so that whenever he ap- peared, doors and windows slammed, loungers scuttled off down side streets and women ran like startled does. Resistance had been bred out of Terrans. They weren’t scared of each other, and con- sequently when no colonists were around they acted like j. t. McIntosh

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any human society anywhere. But when somebody who did have a strong will said: “Do this,” everybody in Win- safton — except Sam Basch — meekly did as he was told. Out in the square on a hot day, Jim experimentally handed his coat to a man he’d never seen before. “Take that to the hotel, please,” he said firmly. The other didn’t say a word. He simply took the coat to the hotel. Gradually Jim began to understand the situation, and realize what was happening to Ed Ramsay. All power cor- rupts, someone had said, and absolute power corrupts abso- lutely. If it wasn’t absolute power that any colonist wielded in Winsafton, it was something very dose to it. Seeing Wesley Coleman one day with an expensive cigar- ette case, Jim tried another experiment. “That’s a nice case,” he said casually “You like it?” said Coleman guardedly. “Sure do. Let me look at it, will you?” Silently Coleman handed the case to him. “I sure would like a case like this,” Jim said. He knew perfectly well that if he took it, Coleman would say nothing. He also knew that if he told Coleman to give it to him, Coleman would do so. What he wondered was if Coleman could be made appar- ently voluntarily to offer him the case. Coleman could. It took a while, and Jim had to admire the case very pointedly before Coleman said reluctantly that he could have it if he liked. Satisfied, Jim shook his head and handed it back, to Cole- man’s obvious relief. That was power. If you had to break the law to get what you wanted, you might find yourself in real trouble even- tually, even when the law was represented only by a spine- less figurehead like Bill Gar- land. Among people like this, however, you didn’t even have to break the law. You did what you liked and then made anybody else concerned say you had their full permission. Ramsay was still using Hank Hawk’s Chrysler, and Hank was still complaining about it to Garland. But every-- body knew, including Garland and Hank, that if the L.E.O. ever brought himself to the point of charging Ramsay with theft, Ramsay would make Hank say he’d lent him the Chrysler. Or even that he’d given it to him. Almost involuntarily, Jim found himself ordering people about. After all, when he was sitting down comfortably and suddenly wanted something, why should he go for it when there were others around? When he wanted to go out of town and look round the prop- DOORMAT WORLD 77

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erty his father owned, why shouldn’t he tell somebody to drive him out and show him? He knew that Ramsay was simply waiting for him to leave before turning the screw still harder on the citizens of Winsafton. He knew also that Sam Basch hadn’t been the only one who had hoped that Jim Arlen would fix Ed Ram- say for them. But now, after a month, they were getting worried. If Ramsay could avoid a clash with Jim Arlen for a month, couldn't he go on doing it for another month? Would Jim Arlen go away from Winsafton, his business completed, leaving Ed Ram- say to extend his power until the whole town literally crawled at his feet? There had been efforts to make Jim stay longer, but he had pointed out that the only ship from Earth to Zukeen in the next two years left on August 7. He was sorry for the Win- snftonians and from what he’d heard of him he didn’t think much of Ed Ramsay. How- ever, in the colonies your own business took all your time and effort, and you got out of the habit of meddling in other people’s. If Ed Ramsay tangled with him, okay, he and Ramsay would settle the business be- tween them. If Ramsay didn’t tangle with him, Jim Arlen h^d no intention of interfer- ing. WALKING one day in the square — which was oval — Jim Arlen became aware of something different, without knowing what it was. It took him a couple of minutes to realize that the statue in the center of the grass patch was missing. It was no great loss. The statue had been of some gloomy, long - faced pioneer who had lived long before space travel. Turning from the empty plinth Jim saw Lucy Jaffray, who was undoubtedly the pret- tiest girl in town. Another ex- periment instantly suggested itself to him. “Lucy!” he called. She started, and seemed only moderately relieved to find that it was Jim Arlen and not Ed Ramsay who had shouted. She came submissive- ly enough. “Look, the statue’s gone,” Jim said. She nodded. “It’s being cleaned,” she said guardedly. “I think you’d make a lovely statue, Lucy.” “Me?” “Yes, you, Lucy.” He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to stand on the empty plinth. “Please let me come down,” she begged, blushingly. Al- ready a hundred spectators had gathered. Jim looked up at her ad- miringly. She certainly made a very attractive statue. “Statues don’t wear clothes,” 78 j. t. McIntosh

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he said. “Anyway, girl statues don’t. If you’re going to be a statue, I guess you’ll have to take yOur clothes off, Lucy.” “But I don’t want to be a statue !” “You can’t help it, Lucy. You’re pretty enough to be a statue, and we can’t leave the plinth empty, can we? Take your clothes off, Lucy.” Blushing still more violent- ly she unzipped her dress and dropped it to the ground. “Now when did you see a statue wearing a girdle?” said Jim. “It isn’t right, Lucy. It isn’t right at all.” Slowly and reluctantly she took off her underclothes, stockings and shoes and crouched on the plinth, cover- ing herself with her arms. “Really, Lucy, you don’t seem to have the idea at all. I don’t think you’ve ever seen a statue. Stand straight up — that’s better.” The crowd was huge now. It stayed at a respectful dis- tance, however, and nobody snickered or said anything loud enough for Jim Arlen to hear. Poor Lucy went white, then red, then white again. It seemed to her as if all the eyes in the world were fixed on her. “Okay,” said Jim at last, “you can come down now.” “Stay where you are,” said a voice behind them. Ramsay was looking at the naked girl with frank lust in his eyes. “I must have been crazy,” he said, “taking you home only once.” “I said you could come down, Lucy,” Jim said. “And I said stay where you are,” said Ramsay. Jim lifted the girl down, ig- noring Ramsay. Ramsay spat tobacco juice and bellowed like a bull. Jim turned, and in an instant Winsafton had what it wanted — a fight between the two colonists. LUCY picked up her things and ran. Nobody else went, however. It was a fight the like of which hadn’t been seen on Earth for centuries. Such a fight would have been impos- sible between two Earthmen, or between a colonist and an Earthman. Both fighters were down at least a dozen times, and no Earthman would have kept getting up. The winner of any tough, even scrap is not so much the man who can take more as the man who does take more. Be- fore half the population of Winsafton, neither contestant was prepared to be beaten. Both knew that the loser would be finished in the town. Ramsay’s nose was bleed- ing copiously, making him look much more badly hurt than he was. Jim Arlen’s left eye was closing rapidly and his shirt was torn half off. For the tenth time Ramsay rushed at Jim and both men rolled on the ground. Both 79 DOORMAT WORLD

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rose and Ramsay went down. Ramsay leapt to his feet and Jim went down. Now one of Ramsay’s eyes was cut and Jim spat out a tooth. For a long time there was nothing in it. Then Ramsay went down three times in a row. He was slower each time he got up. And the crowd watched him realize that al- though he could still take a lot more, he couldn’t take enough. The fourth time he went down in a row he stayed down. Perhaps he could have made another try. The fact was that he didn’t. “I don’t want to see you in town again, Ramsay,” Jim said. “You won’t,” Ramsay mut- tered. They had both forgotten the crowd, since everybody had kept a very respectful dis- tance away. But at this every citizen of Winsafton let out such a yell of delight that Ramsay, still on the ground, jerked convulsively. In a moment Jim was sur- rounded by hundreds of people who wanted to shake him by the hand. In the intoxicating joy of the moment, Wesley Coleman accidentally trod on Ramsay’s face. . . They heard later that Ram- say went back to Benvice. Jim Arlen was feted for days. He was a public hero. No one who saw that fight ever forgot it. What amazed 80 the spectators was the dogged courage of men who could be knocked down time after time and come back for more. In the exceedingly rare physical arguments which still took place on Earth, it was always taken for granted that if a man hit the ground, that was the end of the fight. Often the first blow was the last. Curiously enough, it was less than a week before Win- safton’s attitude changed dra- matically. The start of the change was when Jim made Wesley Coleman give him his cigarette case. Then Jim bor- rowed Hank Hawk’s Chrysler, which Hank had had for four days altogether. Then, sines it was obviously the most com- fortable house in town, Jim moved in with the Goodmans. - And finally Jim Arlen, not sq^ polygamous as Ramsay, took Lucy Jaffray in to live with him. He was not unaware, him- self, of what had happened. .4/1 power corrupts, he told himself ruefully, pulling Lucy to him, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Winsafter relied desperately on one thing — Jim Arlen’s spaceship blasted off on Au- gust 7. With the warmth of Lucy against him, Jim was wonder- ing vaguely if it might not be possible to miss his ship. He decided it wouldn’t mere- ly be possible. It would be easy. END j. t. McIntosh

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IF • Feature By: THEODORE STURGEON THE BEM CALLED WINDIGO What do you do when you KNOW you're insane? 44C O she ordered her b^oth- O er-in-law to strait-jack- et her, stun her with an axe and then set fire to her tent. While this was done, her hus- band and children looked on, for she had an undisputed right to dispose of herself as she chose.” So reads one of the high points — and they are many — in an extraordinary report recently published in the Pro- ceedings of the American Eth- nological Society, and written by Dr. Morton I. Teicher, a dean at Yeshiva University. Many years ago — 71, to be exact — one James George Frazer wrote down a similar brief anecdote (a suspenseful description of a priest in an olive grove, naked sword in hand, moving about among the shadows, sleeping in sec- l'et, brief snatches, watching, watching every waking sec- ond for the man who would murder him to take his place, as he had murdered and re- placed his predecessor. Ex- plaining who, where and es- pecially why this happened took Sir James a quarter of a century and twelve monu- mental volumes. The result was The Golden Bough. Such anecdotes, out of con- text, are provocative in the extreme, and this kind of pro- vocation is just what nudges the best science fiction out of the best science-fiction writers. What these two anecdotes have in common is the note of 81

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social acceptance they carry, for in one the brother-in-law does the dirty work while the family looks on, and in the other the murderer/victim is a priest. BUT back to Dr. Teicher and his work. His special field is the Algonkian-speak- ing group of northeast Ameri- can Indians — the Cree, Ojib- wa, Beaver and others — and their strange and ancient monster, the windigo. There are few, if any, draw- ings or sculptures of the wind- igo, mainly because these peo- ple have never gone in for the graphic arts. But their myths are very specific. The windigo has (rather like the Abomin- able Snowman) yard-long feet with only one toe and long pointed heels. His eyes are bloody and bulging, and you can hear his hissing breath for miles. His lipless mouth, jagged teeth and terrible clawed hands are used to pack the monster full of swamp moss, rotten wood and mush- rooms, but only when he can’t get human flesh. Now, these Indians are not cannibals, and have a rather unusually strong taboo against the practice. Yet fre- quently— in 42 out of the 70 cases here documented — can- nibalistic acts were com- mitted, usually against rela- tives or close friends. And in every one of the cases, which must be termed “insanity”, 82 the windigo was involved. Dr. Teicher calls them “windigo psychoses”, having used the windigo element in them to tie together a whole collection of case histories which range right across the clinical spec- trum, from mild neurosis to the most advanced psycho- pathological states. These In- dians are as familiar with the presence of the windigo, and its ability to cause such a variety of disorders, as we are with the presence of a virus- group which can cause every- thing from sniffles to epidemic influenza. They too have their therapies. One of these is the ceremonial murder of the in- fected person, even before he has committed a cannibalistic act. Which brings us to the case of the bound, axed, doomed woman in the burning tent, and the solemn husband and children who passively wit- nessed the scene. She had felt that she was becoming a win- digo. It got worse; it got so bad that the people around her began to look like beavers; she wanted to eat them. She therefore ordered her own death. This is undoubtedly insan- ity, but one must remark in passing that it startlingly lacks the “I’m all right” ra- tionalization of so many ma- jor psychoses. She knew she was insane. And isn’t that the traditional proof of sanity? END THE BEM CALLED WINDIGO

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IF* V^oyelette The rubber plant was only a symbol but it was dangerous. It might endanger a planet— or it might take a human life! i IN 2212, when Walt Onegh died, Arm Brewer, Direc- tor of Staff, recommended Tom Calloway to fill the emp- ty position as Director of Crews at Midwest Construc- tion. The board, of course, confirmed. One of Tom’s first acts was to drop by Arm’s office and thank him. “I’d hoped—” he said. “But not so soon.” Arm clapped his big hand on Tom’s shoulder. His crop- ped white hair aureoled his healthy pink face. “Not a moment too soon,” he said. “You’re management material, Tom. A man of prin- ciples is rare in this cutthroat world of ours.” “You overestimate me,” said Tom. But he glowed in- side. It was true he had hop- ed; but not quite as modestly as he implied to Arm. Fifty was not old these days. But neither was it younj*. And he would be fifty-one m three weeks. And with people knif- ing each other in the back for every little job or advan- tage. . . “Run along and take over your offices,” said Arm geni- ally. “You inherit from Walt, lock, stock and barrel. Suite 312.” “Suite 312,” echoed Tom, sa voring it. For the three hun- dreds were third level. Exe- cutive. THE meaning of lock, stock and barrel became more apparent when he actually stood in the outer room of his two-office suite, however. It obviously included Christine Nyall and the plant. It was the plant which, of the two, struck him more strongly at first glance. Among the silver and opale- scences, the businesslike glit- ter of the office, it stood out like a drab of nature, its A TASTE OF TENURE By GORDON R. DICKSON niu«toi«d by wood 83

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thick, shiny green leaves spread out flatly above the crystal pot. “Why, what is it?” Tom asked, forcing a smile. “A sort of rubber plant,” Christine Nyall replied. She ducked her head above her stenomachine, then added, with almost a touch of defi- ance, “Mr. Onegh liked a touch of green about the place.” She did not meet his eye when speaking. It was this more than anything else that disturbed Tom, who had tak-. en pride all his life in meet- ing everyone with a level gaze and a clear conscience. It was painfully obvious to him at this moment that Christine ■was being turtle-cautious. That was what came from be- ing formerly Walt’s secretary, and thus now a holdover. The plain fact of the mat- ter was that there was now no job for her, with Walt dead. In the glutted labor market of overpopulated Earth, there was not any other position available for her within the company — un- less Tom made one. And Tom did not. His own secretary, Bera Karlson, had been with him twenty years. He had no intention of replacing her with this old woman. On the other hand, by virtue of her age and length of service, Christine was Class A Secre- tarial. She had tenure. She could not be discharged short 84 of the legal retirement age. It was an uncomfortable situation, with its only possi- ble solution lying in Chris- tine’s voluntary retirement. And it was clear she had no present intention of that. “Um,” said Tom, stepping over to the plant. He looked down at it. It was not a pret- ty thing, he thought; and on one broad and fleshy leaf a small spot showed whitely. “It seems to have a touch of blight,” he said; “Oh no,” said Christine, swiftly. “That’s just a little bald spot.” “I see,” said Tom. He turn- ed away and went on into the private office to examine that which would be his. Afterwards, he took the problem of Christine home with him. It was still obsessing him after dinner, when he woke to the realiza- tion that his wife had been speaking to him and he had not been listening at all. “What?” he asked. And looked at her contritely. “Sor- ry, Josi. I had my mind on the office.” She smiled at him forgiv- ingly, this slim, amazingly youthful woman to whom he had been married for the last nineteen years. He had mar- ried late and, as he firmly be- lieved, for love. And all that had come out of his marriage, including his two young sons — one fifteen and one eleven GORDON R. DICKSON

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— had made him idyllically happy. “What’s bothering you?” she asked. “No,” he said. “Tell me what you were talking about, instead.” She shook her head. “I'll save it,” she said. “You first.” He stretched and straight- ened up on his couch, look- ing across to where she sat half-curled upon an overstuff- ed hassock, brown against the white of it, her long limbs and the slight angularity of her body softened by the lounging pajamas tightbelted around her slim waist. “It’s Christine Nyall,” he said. “She’s not retiring.” “Oh?” said Josi. “But that doesn’t affect you, does it?” “I’m afraid so.” He gri- maced slightly. “She’s a hold- over. And with no place to go she’ll be staying in my outer office. You see — ” He ex- plained the holdover system, and tenure. “But can’t you make her do her sitting around some- place else?” asked Josi. “Not without risking a writ of prejudice and a work fine, if a court convicts me,” he said unhappily. “The tenure law reads she must be kept ‘on the job’. And the job is that of being secretary to the Director of Crews.” “Oh,” said Josi. There was silence. Finally he broke it by asking what had been on her mind. “I shouldn’t bother you with it now,” she said. “Nonsense. I shouldn’t bring the office home with me, anyway. Go ahead.” “ — Can’t you talk her into retiring?” Tom sighed. “The only thing I can do is make life in the office a liv- ing hell for her,” he said. “I’ve known it done before by other men with the same problem. Only I’m just not built to do something like that.” “No,” she answered, look- ing at him. “No.” He looked down at his hand, which had closed itself into a fist. He opened it, wiggled the fingers, then looked again at Josi. “We’ll forget it,” he said. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?” SHE got up from the has- sock and came over to sit down beside him. He looked curiously at her. “Something important?” he asked. “Yes. Tom — ” “What?* “You’re class A manage- ment now,” she said. “You’ve got tenure. You don’t have to work any more. We don’t need to go on living close to the Company Offices.” “No — ” He still looked at her, slightly puzzled. “But what about it? Where would you want to live?” A TASTE OF TENURE 85

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“Away from the city.” He looked at her in aston- ishment, convinced that she must be joking. But her face was unsmiling. “But there is no away from the city,” he said. “Not now- adays. You know that, Josi. There’s no unimproved land left anywhere in the world.” “There’s the Preserves,” she said. “The Preserves!” He blink- ed. “But you can't live in them. They’re parks. De- liberately restricted — you know that — by the govern- ment, so we’ll have a few scraps of open country to look at and remember the past.” “Oh yes,” she said. “But they have tourist lodges.” He smiled with sudden un- derstanding. He reached out for her hands. Josi let him take them, but they lay limp and quiet in his grasp. “Honey,” he said. “I hate to disappoint you, but these cabins and things might as well be on Pluto as far as you and I are concerned. I know it looks like you can live around the Preserves. But you can’t. Those tourist quar- ters have all been bought up years in advance by the big travel agencies. To get them you’d have to sign up for what they call perpetual tours — all-expense luxury set-ups. And the prices are fantastic. Why, for you and me and the boys, just the four of us, it’d 86 be twenty or thirty thousand a year.” He smiled at her con- solingly. She still refused to smile back. Her face was calm and still. “Forty,” she said. “Forty?" He frowned. “Forty thousand a year, Tom, for the four of us.” He shook his head. Her words seemed to buzz in his 6£IX*S. “Forty thousand?” he ech- oed. “How do you know?” “I've been checking up.” “But Josi — ” He ran out of words, trying not to think what he could not help think- ing. “You didn’t suppose, ser- iously— ” “I’ve never supposed any- thing else,” she replied. And he wondered then how she could look him in the eye and say it. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Tom — longer than you’d believe. Since my first baby was born.” HE shook his head again, unbelievingly. “We can do it now,” she said. “With your increase in salary and if we use the sav- ings and borrow against your pension. We’ll have enough for five years; and by that time you’ll have got another income boost.” “Josi!” “Oh, stop staring like that!” she snapped, suddenly. “Did you think I’d let my boys miss GORDON R. DICKSON

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out on a chance at what the real world once was, if there was any way at all to give them even a taste of it?” He sat back on the couch, dazed. “It isn’t like you.” “Because I’ve been a good wife all these years and done what you wanted, and lived where you wanted? You thought I never had a selfish desire of my own? Oh, Tom, Tom!” She clutched his hands with a strength that shocked him. “How long are you go- ing to go on pretending that people are still like they were in the old days? There’s no civilization left now. You ought to know that! It’s claw, tooth and nail ! And I’m looking after my children!” “Josi,” he said. She shook her head at him. “Tom,” she said, “Do you know how many people there are on Earth now ?” “Yes,” he said. “And I know they’re considering laws to control the population ex-, pansion.” “Control it!” She laughed like someone lie had never seen before. “If they’d talk- ed of controling it fifty years ago, it might have helped us. What’s going to help us now? It’s my babies that have to grow up in a world where there’s ten people for every job and no future for even the ones who get it. The only way they can live is if they make the right friends. And the only way they can meet the A TASTE OF TENURE right friends is to go where they are. And that’s the Pre- serves !” “Josi!” said Tom. “Noth- ing like that’s necessary. 1 hope I’ve made a moderate success of myself in the world. And I can truthfully say I’ve done it by decent, honorable methods!” “You !” she cried. “Oh, you! The great anachronism !” “Josi — ” But she was Be- yond all reasoning. n AS Tom came in through his outer office on his way to his desk the following morning, the rubber plant took his eye again. It grated on his overwrought nerves like a shabby challenge. He was on the verge of bursting out at Christine to get rid of it, when he became suddenly aware of its extraordinarily protected position on a new little ledge, hugging the wall by her desk — now pushed to the farthest possible distance from the desk of Bera Karl- son, who had moved her own equipment in on the opposite side of the room. Abruptly he realized that he had been on the verge of taking out his own unhappiness on an un- derling— a thing he had never before allowed himself to do. He nodded to both wo- men ; and made himself smile. “Good morning,” he said. They answered together — 87

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Bera with a tinge of tension in her voice, Christine almost in a whisper. He went on into his own private office, the door sucking gently closed be- hind him. He dropped in the chair at his own desk; and for a min- ute he sat limply, his eyes closed. The long, unfinished, unclear, unrewarding argu- ment with Josi the evening before had left him drained of energy and clogged with bit- terness. He had gained noth- ing but her promise to let him think this matter of the Pre- serves over for a few days be- fore talking of it again. He straightened with an ef- fort and glanced at his ap- pointment screen. The name of Orval Lasron glowed at him from its gray, opaque surface. He stared at the two words, troubled by some slightly ominous echo at the back of his mind, which they evoked. Surely, he did not know the man? After a mo- ment, he gave up. Buzzing Bera to admit Lasron, he got up and crossed over to the one wall-wide window that looked down to the Executive Wait- ing Lounge, three floors be- low. He heard Bera’s voice speak out over the annunciator down there and a stocky, short man in middle age, with lumpy features, rose from a table. He crossed over to where the angle of the wall below cut him off from Tom’s sight. A TASTE OF TENURE After a second, the man rose into sight on a floating magnetic disk, which came to a stop outside the window. Tom touched the dissolve but- ton and extended his hand. Lasron stepped through the now non-existent window. His handshake was brisk and im- personal. “I interrupted your drink down there,” said Tom. ‘‘May I—” “No, thanks,” said the other. TOM led the way back to his desk and both men seated themselves. Face to face, Lasron was somewhat more impressive than he had been at a distance. There was a hardness to his bunchy fea- tures and his eyes seemed to show the light of a constant, buried anger. “And what can I do for you, Mr. Lasron?” “You don't know me,” stat- ed Lasron. He crossed one thick leg over the knee of the other. “No.” “I’m the local agent for the Secretarial Code,” said Las- ron. “I didn’t know you, eith- er. You were in Sales before, were you ?” “That’s right. Our labor relations were all handled higher up.” “Yes.” Lasron shifted in his chair with an abrupt, im- patient movement. “Well, you’ve got a holdover. Chris- tine Nyall.” 89

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“I know,” said Tom, sober- ing. “A shame that — ” “I don’t think so,” inter- rupted Lasron. “Christine doesn’t think so.v She intends to remain on the Job. Quite happy in it. It’s standard pro- cedure in these cases to drop around on the one in Man- agement responsible. Just as a reminder.” He paused. “You understand.” “No,” answered Tom, sit- ting straighter. “I don’t think I do.” Lasron sighed. “All right,” he said. “Any evidence of prejudice and we’ll slap a writ on you for a fine. Deal with an illegal out- fit and we’ll spend half the money in the treasury, if necessary, to get a felony rap to stick to you.” “Now, wait! Now, look here,” said Tom. “Just a min- ute, Lasron. Just what do you think you’re insinuating? My record is perfectly clean and fair. I know some people on Management Level have the popular reputation of pulling dirty tricks in cases like this. But for your private informa- tion—” Lasron waved one hand, wearily. “I have a code of ethics!” snapped Tom. “No, I don’t pretend I wouldn’t like to see Christine happily retired. But — ” He became suddenly aware that he was talking to a man who was staring out the window, humming a small 90 tune nervously to himself, his fingers beating small, jerky time on the arm of his chair. “Good,” said Lasron, when Tom stopped. He got to his feet. His eyes of buried an- ger burnt briefly and imper- sonally on Tom, as if the man across the desk was some- thing mechanical, trouble- some and potentially danger- ous. “I won't take up any more of your time.” Tom rose also, and punched the dissolve button. “Drop by any time,” he said, defiantly. “You don’t have to make an appointment. Just walk in.” Lasron looked at him brief- ly. He appeared to be about to say something, then turn- ed away. He nodded his head and stepped through the dis- solve window onto the disk which wafted him down and out of sight. Tom was left standing with a feeling of ugly inadequacy. He half-turned to his interof- fice with the intention of call- ing Arm Brewer, to report the agent’s threats. But it would be a bad beginning in the new position to go running for help right off the bat. He turned away again. Then he thought of calling in Christine and challenging her about the agent’s behavi- or. But that was not strictly fair, either. Time, he thought, sitting down at his desk again — time would iron matters out automatically. GORDON R. DICKSON

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TWO days later Josi re- minded him of his prom- ise to consider the move to the Preserves. He put her off, saying he had not had the chance to think, pleading the situation at the office. “Just don’t take too long, Tom,” she said. She said it in such an odd, unusual tone that he looked at her startled, and then look- ed away again before she could catch him staring. He wanted to ask her what she meant; but discovered sud- denly he was afraid to. That night he slept badly, and when he did get to sleep he slept late. It was later than usual when he stepped through the entrance to his outer office. He could feel immediately that there was something wrong. As she answered his good morning, Christine kept her eyes fixed on the surface of her desk ; while Bera, glan- cing deliberately at him, gave him a look of peculiar out- rage, features set and a little pale. Tom shouldered past them both into the security of his own office, hoping to avoid the matter, whatever it was. He was given no choice. On his appointment screen, Bera’s name stood out brilliantly, in the space where his first ap- pointment should have been. Tom hesitated for a moment, to put a small barrier of time between his entrance and A TASTE OF TENURE Bera’s admission; and then pressed her button and sum- moned her in. She came and sat down op- posite him. It was abundant- ly clear that a crisis point had been reached, for as she sat on the edge of her chair her body was rigid with the glass- brittle tension of a woman on the verge of explosion. THEY began calmly enough, but Bera’s low voice quick- ly climbed the scale toward hysteria. She did not want to complain. He knew that she never complained; but — she reminded Tom of all the years she had worked for him. She asked him if he had ever had any reason to complain. She thought that over the years — and so on. Inevitably came the tears. She sat in the big visitor’s chair and cried, a large-boned, not unlovely woman at the end of her thirties; but past the point where tears could look good on her. Tom gave her a drink and waited until the emotion was controlled. He was shocked to discover the whimpering fear that un- derlay her outburst. “Why, Bera,” he said, as soon as she was in fit shape to listen, “what makes you think I’d ever get rid of you? Why, I could no longer get along without you than — ” he hunt- ed for an enormous metaphor and could think of nothing but— “my right arm.” 91

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Bera gulped, “But She has tenure and I haven’t, and you only need one of us.” “Then I’ll just have to put up with both of you,” he said, in a poor attempt to be jocu- lar. “Anything else is ridicu- lous.” He frowned. “Besides, I think after a while she’ll get tired of not having a real job to do around here, and retire.” “No, she won’t — the old bid- dy!” said Bera with sudden viciousness. “She wants to hang on forever.” “Now, you know that’s not true,” said Tom. “She just liked her job. All of us do.” “Well, I don’t care. She doesn’t belong in our office. Why doesn’t she just go?” “Where do you want her to go?” asked Tom, reasonably. “I don’t care. It isn’t as if she’d starve to death. You make as much money retired nowadays as you do working.” “Well, she’s not going to get your job,” said Tom. “Now straighten up, Bera, and for- get this nonsense. As far as I’m concerned, Christine has already retired.” "Then she shouldn’t be al- lowed to clutter up the office with things like that plant of hers.” “Why, it’s not a bad look- ing plant,” said Tom. “I think it’s rather a nice idea, having it there. Hardly anyone keeps flowers or plants around now- adays.” “It gets in my way,” said Bera, sullenly. Tom felt it 92 was time to put his foot down. “I’m sure you can work around it,” he said. “Try it for a few weeks, anyway. If Christine is still here after then, and the plant still inter- feres around the office, we’ll see about getting rid of it. All right?” Tom got to his feet, which forced her to rise as well. “Try and get along with Christine, then, Bera. I’m leaving now. I just dropped by today to take a look at things. You can tell anyone who calls that I won’t be back before tomorrow. Handle them as you like.” “Yes.” She wiped her eyes. “So long, then.” He went out, closing the door on her answering good-by. In the outer office, Christine was sit- ting at her desk, her face ex- pressionless and a sheet of paper filled with aimless dood- lings before her. “Well, I’m off for the rest of the day, Christine,” he said. “Good morning, Mr. Callo- way,” she replied, without looking up. He went out the door. WHEN the tension in the outer office did not im- prove, he took a trip to the other side of the building to talk to Arm. “Tom !” Arm jumped to his feet as Tom entered, and came forward bouncily, his heavy face smiling under its white GORDON R. DICKSON

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hair. , “How’s our newest member upstairs here? Have a drink?" “No thanks,” said Tom. “How’ve you been, Arm?” “How could I be? Eighty- seven and sound as the Com- pany’s credit rating!” Arm slapped his wide chest. “Why don’t you and Josi step out with me one of these nights and find out for yourselves? See if the old bachelor can’t outdo you yet?” “I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ll talk to Josi about it,” said Tom, smiling. “Arm, I hate to come funning to you with troubles right away, but I’ve got stuck in a situation.” “That the straight sheet?” Arm punched for a drink and set it on the edge of his desk. “What is it?” “Christine Nyall. Old Walt’s oppppfurv 99 “Christine — ? Oh, the hold- over!” Arm looked at Tom, pulled a long face and rocked abruptly with hearty laugh- ter. “Now, that is rough. If only she’d been some young bounce, huh, Tom?” Tom smiled agreeably, if perfunctorily. “Well, well.” Arm sobered. “So you’ve got old Walt’s girl on your hands. You knew about her and Walt? Yes, I see you did. Well, now, what’s the problem?” “Well, since I brought Bera up with me. I’ve really no need for Christine. But she’s trying to stick it out.” A TASTE OF TENURE “They all do.” “For myself, I don’t mind too much — after all, she’s bound to retire eventually. But it crowds the office, you know how we are for space. And, worst of all, she’s upset- ting Bera.” “Well, now, that is serious,” said Arm. “A good secretary, broken in over the years. I can see why you wouldn't want her disturbed. Why don’t you do something about it?” “But that’s the point. What can I do?” said Tom. “She’s got tenure. The representa- tive of the Secretarial Code was around just a week or so ao-o to remind me of that. What can I do?” Arm looked across the desk at him with a curious expres- sion on his big face. “You haven’t been ap- proached yet, then?” he said, slowly. “Approached? By who?” Arm’s drink had been sit- ting unnoticed all this time. He picked it up now and sip- ped at it. “There’s people,” he said, “who make a point of being useful in just such situa- tions.” “There are?” Tom search- ed his expression for a clue. “In the face of the tenure law? What can they do? Who are they, anyway?” “They contact you.” “But I mean — oh,” said Tom. “Oh, oh I seel” 93

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“I don’t know anything about them myself,” Arm said, sipping on his drink. “Nothing whatsoever. I’ve just heard about them.” “Of course,” said Tom. There was a fumbling mo- ment of silence. “Sure you won’t have a drink, after all?” “Thanks,” said Tom auto- matically. Arm had already punched for a full glass with- out waiting for an answer. Now he handed the drink over. Tom took it, his eyes staring unseeingly through the wall of Aim’s office. Will !” said Josi, meeting him at the front door, when he arrived at home. “Hello, honey.” He kissed her. They went inside. “You’ve been drinking,” she said. “I had a few at the office with Arm,” he answered, as they sat down. “He wants us to go out with him one of these nights.” “That’s nice,” said Josi. “You don’t sound very en- thusiastic,” he said. “No, I suppose not.” “Josi!” he burst out. “Josi, will you snap out of it? Can’t you understand I’ve got a cri- sis brewing in that office of mine? If I don’t handle this right, what do you think my chances of promotion will be?” “I’m just waiting,” she said. 94 “Here I am up to my ears in business troubles — ” “And spending the morn- ing getting drunk with Arm.” It developed into a first class fight. Ill THE outer office had be- come an armed camp. There was no disguising the atmosphere of antagonism that existed there. Tom dodg- ed through it as quickly as he could, and remained buried in the inner office during the hours of his working day. But this was no solution. Bera became more and more unreliable until it became ob- vious, even to Tom, that her work had become clearly sec- ondary to her feud with Christine. On Tuesday, at the beginning of the third week, Tom was disturbed at his desk by what could only be the sounds of a scuffle. He went swiftly to the door of the outer office and jerked it open. The two women were standing facing each other, breathing hard, and the jar which held the plant was clutched with fierce protec- tiveness in the arms of Chris- tine. As the door opened, she turned to look at Tom for a single moment, then turned back and put down the plant once more in its accustomed place. She reseated herself, silently. Bera turned and walked jerkily back to her GORDON R. DICKSON

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own desk and also sat down. Neither one said a word. He waited until they were ostensibly busy again, then walked through the office and out of the front door. He did not say a word to Bera; and the back of his neck was aware that she stared after him with bitter, fearful eyes, while the woman across from her sat silent and depressed, her head down and her eyes hopelessly fixed on her desk. Feeling as if he was chok- ing, Tom made his way out of the building. He avoided the lobby lounge below and took an aircab to a rooftop bar neart>y — the Parisien, it was called. Its small round tables and wire chairs were imita- tive of an old-fashioned side- walk cafe. He ordered a tall scotch and tried to relax. Things, he thought, could not go on like this. Twenty- four hours had been the limit on family quarrels between Josi and himself for years now. But the present one about the move to the Pre- serves seemed to renew itself daily. Softly, he pounded on the white, slick surface of the table with his fist. Trouble at the office. Trouble at home. And the two things feeding on each other to keep them- selves alive. The tension be- tween Josi and himself was blurring his usual decisive- ness so that he was fumbling the office problem. And the office problem wore his A TASTE OF TENURE nerves thin so that one word from Josi was enough to set him off. Why couldn’t Josi be a help instead of a hindrance at a time like this? And why couldn’t Christine be sensible and retire? THE scotch came. He ac- cepted it automatically, indifferent to the anachronism of a live waiter instead of the usual delivery panel set in the table. The truth was, he had started out with a sneaking sympathy for Christine. It was not impossible for him to put himself in her shoes, to feel an empathy with her. He had, therefore, been half-in- clined to let things drift, to let her sit out her remaining days in his office — perhaps even in time to give her small bits and pieces of work to make her feel necessary. He had never imagined such a violent reaction, however, from Bera. Who would have supposed. . . A shadow fell abruptly across his table. He looked up and saw gaz- ing .down at him a distin- guished looking man of his own age. A handsome fellow, slim, writh a touch of easy amusement at the corners of his thin mouth. “Well, Mr. Calloway,” said the man, “you’re a hard per- son to get in touch with.” He sat down. Tom stared at him in astonishment. “Hard?” He looked more 95

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closely at the man. “Do I know you?” “May I introduce myself?” He put the question with such unnatural stilted for- mality that for a second Tom did not realize that it was an actual question, and not a rhetorical one. “Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?” asked Tom. “Joe Smith,” said the other, taking this as permission and offering his hand. “Utility Services.” Tom shook hands automa- tically. “Utility Services?” “Of course you don’t know us. We aren’t listed. In fact,” Joe Smith turned to signal the anachronistic waiter, “le- gally we don’t exist.” A bell rang in Tom’s mind. He sat up straight behind his scotch and looked penetra- tingly at his visitor. “And illegally?” he asked. The man laughed. “We understand you have a problem, Mr. Calloway — thanks—” he accepted his glass from the waiter. “A holdover.” “Who told you?” “Why,” said Smith, “it’s a matter of public record, isn’t it?” He looked at Tom. “We’re prepared to help you out.” “How?” Smith waved a hand. 44T\EPENDS on the difficul- 1 J ty. Once it was merely a matter of offering a job 96 with some dummy firm. But the Secretarial Code is well up on simple tricks like that, lately. In the case of your Christine — let’s see. She was supposed to have been having a long-term affair with her former employer, wasn’t she? Perhaps someone who resem- bled him a great deal could bring about her resignation.” “Now, look here,” said Tom. “Yes, Mr. Calloway?” “I certainly wouldn’t stand for anything like that.” Smith raised his eyebrows. “What did you expect?” He leaned forward over the table, lowering his voice. “I’ll tell you what you expected — a mi- racle. We don’t deal in mira- cles. Just results.” Tom flushed. “All right, Smith,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve got any business to do together.” “I think we have,” said Smith. “Or rather, you have business to do with us. If not now, later. We’re a busi- ness fact of life in this mod- ern world, Mr. Calloway. Ug- ly, if you insist on looking at us that way, but just as un- avoidable as any other fact of life.” “I don’t think so,” said Tom grimly. “Don’t you ?” queried Smith. “Open your eyes, Mr. Callo- way. This isn’t the last cen- tury. It’s the present. There’s no way to hide from the facts of life now.” “I’m not sure I know what GORDON R. DICKSON

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you’re talking about,” said Tom. “But I’ll tell you this. I’ve lived by my own code of ethics all my life. And got along all right. So go peddle your dirty papers someplace else.” . “No, no,” said Smith, shak- ing his head. “It’s all very fine to have ethics, Mr. Callo- way, but they simply don't work in business. They’ve gotten to be a luxury nobody can afford any more. Save your ethics for home. Tell them to the kids for bedtime stories when you tuck them in for the night. But don’t go messing up your career with them. You’ll regret it. Indeed you will, Calloway. People like this Christine ex- pect to get kicked out. They just hang around creating a fuss until they are.” WTF you think you can say •l that — ” Tom checked him- self suddenly, remembering the office as it had been late- ly. Remembering Josi. “My wife — ” he began, without thinking. Then he stopped. “What about your wife?” “None of your business!” “Oh? But I take it,” said Smith, looking at him closely, “you weren’t about to listen to her, either?” Tom shuddered suddenly and quite unexpectedly. “It’s all nonsense,” he said. “Someone walk over your grave?” said Smith, not en- tirely unmaliciously. “You A TASTE OF TENURE ought to know the truth as well as your wife. As well as me, for that matter.” He waved his arm out over the parapet of the rooftops, at the endless buildings sur- rounding them. “Look at that. Full up. Ripe. Starting to rot, wouldn’t you say?” He grinned at Tom. “What’re you talking about?” said Tom. “There’s unlimited frontiers. New worlds. . .” “You want to go? Do I want to go ?” Smith sat back, shaking his head and took a drink from his glass. “Easier to stay here and face facts, Calloway. And the fact you’ve got to face — ” he tapped with his fingernail on the shiny white tabletop, his nail mak- ing a hard clicking sound against it — “is that you must do for this Christine or, indi- rectly, she’s going to do for you. If you don’t get her out of that office, the mess’ll grow. It’ll grow until you find yourself into it too deep to pull yourself out. I’ve seen this sort of thing before.” He got up. “Think about that Calloway. You or her. And the longer you hesitate, the more likely it's going to be both of you.” IT was evening before Tom found Christine Nyall. After Smith left, Tom had tried to call her at the office. Bera hold him the older wo- man had gone for the day. 97

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Bera did not have Christine’s address, either, so Tom had been forced to go to a pub- lic tracing center. It took the center three hours to come up with a list of places where she might be found. He located her at last, sit- ting at one of the small tables around the wide expanse of dance floor in one of the mid- age groups recreation centers. She sat alone, a barely touch- ed drink in front of her, the glowingly white translucent dance floor throwing a pale illumination on her overpow- dered face. He strode over and sat down opposite Ik “Christine,” he said. She turned from her blank contemplation of the dancing couples on the floor and look- ed at him. As his identity registered, her features slid into the carefully controlled expression he was used to see- ing at the office. “Mr. Calloway,” she mur- mured. “Hello.” He stumbled, sud- denly at a loss for words. "Er -^another drink?” She touched the glass be- fore her. “Thanks, no,” she said. “I see,” he said, “Well, I think I’ll have one.” He press- ed buttons and waited for a few short seconds until a filled glass rose from the slot in the center of the table. He took it, swallowed largely and put it back on the table. “I’ve had a hard time finding you.” 98 The words reminded him immediately of the man nam- ed Smith. He put his drink down with a gesture of revul- sion. He looked at Christine, almost pleadingly. “Look, Christine,” he said, “do you really think you’d feel happier belonging to my office staff than you would, retired ?” She reached for her glass and turned it. “Yes,” she said, “Yes, I do.” “You know,” he said, try- ing to joke, “sooner or later we all have to quit.” She looked up sharply. He saw her eyes were terrified. “Not until retirement age !” she said, “I’ve got tenure!” “Of course, of course. I know you’ve got tenure,” said Tom. “But you do see — you’re just putting off the inevitable, don’t you?” “I only want my rights. That’s all!” TOM took a heavy gulp from his glass. He push- ed it away from him. “Look,” he said, “I want us to be friends. I know how I’d feel if I was — well — put in an awkward position with some years yet to go to re- tirement. I’d like to do what’s best for you. And I know Bera. She can be difficult to get along with.” “I don’t mind,” said Chris- tine carefully. “Oh come now,” said Tom. GORDON R. DICKSON

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“Informally— just between the two of us — I know she’s been raising cain ever since we moved into the new of- fice.” “Bera’s all right,” she an- swered. “I like Bera.” Tom gaped at her. The statement was too monstrous to refute. “Christine!” he burst out, finally. “Let’s be honest, any- way!” She looked stubbornly down at her drink. “Look, if you really want to stay, you can. I’ll talk to Bera. Or the three of us will all get to- gether and thrash this thing out. That is, if you really want to stay.” She glanced up obliquely, almost slyly, at him. “I can stay anyway,” she said.) “My tenure guarantees it” “Of course! Of course you can stay !” cried Tom. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about fitting you in, making a useful place for you.” “That’s all right.” He rais- ed her head to look him squarely in the eye. “You don’t have to bother about me.” “Good Lord !” shouted Tom. “Do you like things the way they are?” “You might as well give up, Mr. Calloway,” she said. “I know what my rights are, and I’m not going to give them up. If you’ve got any questions you can call up the A TASTE OF TENURE Secretarial Code and talk to Mr. Lasron. Of course, I’ll have to report to him you tried to talk to me here, to- day.” For a moment Tom stared at her in amazement. “You stupid woman!” he burst out finally. “Can’t you see I’m trying to help?” Christine’s face went white and frightened. She jerked as if she had been struck. For a moment she sat as if para- lyzed; then she made a small noise in her throat and scram- bled up. She was hurrying off, before Tom could stop her, between the tables. “Christine! Wait!” he call- ed after her. But she was al- ready gone. IT was late when he at last got home. Josi was wait- ing for him in the lounge room. “Had your supper?” she asked a little sharply, as he came in. “I’m not hungry.” He drop- ped into a chair. “Would you like a drink? Or — ” she stood over him — “have you had too many al- ready?” “Josi,” he said wearily, put- ting his head in his hands, “don’t start in on me now.” She sat down opposite him. “I’m sorry, Tom,” she said. “But we’ve got something to talk over. I’ve been waiting for you since this afternoon.” “Can’t it wait?” 99

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“No, Tem.” A note he had never before heard in her voice made him look up. “I’m leaving things up to you, Tom,” she said. “I went down to the tourist agency and told them to go ahead with our reservations.” “Josi!” “You listen to me now. The plans are at a premium. I can’t afford to wait. The Pre- serves may be filled up, or the price increased any day now, to where we can't afford it.” “Josi, listen!” “No. Now I’m doing the talking, Tom,” she said. “I told you I was going through with this. And I meant it. The reservation is in my name. If you won’t come along, then I’m getting a di- vorce. My settlement will pay for the first few years of the plan ; and after that we’ll work things out any way we can. But whether you like it or not, whether you come or not, the boys and I are leav- ing for the Preserves. It’s up to you, Tom.” She i-ose to her feet and left him, sitting in the lounge, numb and old and alone. IV THE next morning found him having breakfast at a poolside restaurant not far from the office. He had slip- ped out of the house to avoid 100 Josi, for reasons that were at the moment unclear to him. He sat at his small table un- der a striped awning, staring out at the early morning swimmers in the pool. The coffee seemed tasteless. He had spent the whole of a wakeful night trying to be- lieve what Josi had told him. Accepting it was something else again. First he had to believe she would do such a thing. It was all the more wildly improbable for the rea- son that he believed Josi still loved him. Only there seem- ed to be some startling and hitherto unsuspected limits to that love. How, he wondered, staring at the pool, had Josi reached such a point? He tried to think back over their discus- sions— well, be honest and call them arguments. Had there been some point at which he had driven her to desperation ? Thinking back, he could remember no such point. In fact, he had never given a definite “no” to* the idea. He had merely been doubting and wanting to put off his decision until he could settle the problem of Chris- tine. That could only mean — he came back to the point not for the first nor even for the hundredth time since the pre- vious evening — that Josi had simply long ago decided to eliminate him from the fam- ily. She had thought not my GORDON R. DICKSON

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husband, our family; but sim- ply my children and I. She had cut him out. Or had he ever belonged? After a while, he got up and went to the office. When he came in this morn- ing, Bera was absorbed in her work ; but Christine looked up at him with a momentary strange, unreadable expres- sion. He brushed past both of them and went on into his own office. He sat down at his desk. He had never been an early morning drinker; but now he punched for Scotch. After a moment, the tall glass rose to the surface of his desk and he took it. It tasted alien and bitter, like the coffee he had drunk earlier. But he forced himself to swallow it. After a little while, the hard edges of his world sof- tened somewhat. He straight- ened up and looked at his ap- pointment screen. There, waiting for him, was the name of Lasron. He got up from his desk and looked out the window, down into the lounge. THERE was Lasron wait- ing. Tom made out the man’s thick body seated alone at a table before a glass from which he was not drinking. His fingers seemed to be drumming on the table top. Impatient. Well, he would just have to wait. Team came back to his desk and pushed the A TASTE OF TENURE button that summoned Chris- tine. She came in hesitantly, closing the door behind her instead of letting it suck shut automatically, and approach- ed his desk. “Sit down,” said Tom. She seated herself careful- ly on the edge of the big vis- itor’s chair. “Christine,” he said, “I wanted to talk to you.” “I know,” she answered. She was watching her own fingers, which she had laced together and was turning, backwards and forwards, in her lap. “You know?” he said. “I’m so terribly sorry, Mr. Calloway,” she said. “I want to apologize — ” He stared at her in startle- ment. But she was hurrying on, tripping over her own words in her haste. “I just couldn’t help it af- ter working here so long. I couldn’t help thinking it was our office — mine and Mr. Onegh’s. And then, when you’re older and you’ve got no one — to be cut loose, to just eat and sleep and die and be forgotten — you go a little crazy, I guess.” “Well, now,” said Tom, “Christine — ” “And they make matters worse for us down at the Sec- retarial Code. They warn us Management will try all sorts of dirty tricks to make us re- sign, when we’ve got tenure. 701

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They get us so worked up, Mr. Calloway, that we can’t trust anyone. And I didn’t trust you. I called Mr. Lasron last night, after you talked to me. It wasn’t until after I punched off the phone, that I thought to remember you hadn’t been anything but kind. You didn’t even com- plain about the plant." Tom found his voice a little hoarse, and cleared it. “No point in being unfair." “I know. I just couldn’t be- lieve it." She twisted her hands. “I want to tell you about that plant, Mr. Callo- way. It — ’’ She hesitated, and her powdered face twisted in- to a slight grotesqueness. “It meant a good deal to me. You must know about me and Mr. Onegh.” “Yes,” said Tom. “A lot of people knew.” She was stroking one blue-veined hand with the fingers of the other, as if in fascination with the process. “They knew I loved him and they guessed — that was before his wife died — that we were getting away for a weekend, now and then. But nobody here knew we once had nearly a whole year together.” TOM jerked his head back from the window. “Yes." She nodded a little. “It was before you came to the Company. There was an underground city supply unit to be set up in the Midlands, 102 on Venus. The Company took the bid. Mr. Onegh was sent out as Management Represen- tative when we got the job. I took a leave of absence; and he pulled some strings to get me an appointment on the Government Inspection Crew. So we both went out, and no one here knew about it.” She stopped. Tom was star- ing at her. She went on. “It was a year,’-’ she said. “We could have stayed on Ve- nus. I wanted to. But Walter — ” Her voice trailed off. “He thought,” said Tom, and was jarred at the sound of his own voice, so strange it sounded, “of his wife and his job here.” “Yes,” she Whispered. Her index finger made lit- tle circles on the arm of the chair. She spoke again. “He was a coward,” she said. Tom started and looked at her with a sort of horror. “I thought you loved him?” “I did.” She raised her head. “He wasn’t a coward when I first met him. It was the years made him that. All the years and the sneaking around corners with me. And the business getting tighter and tighter every year, so that even someone who’d been with the Company as long as he had didn’t feel safe.” “Class A Management. With tenure.” Tom’s throat was dry, suddenly. She smiled sadly at him. “Oh, they've got dirty GORDON R. DICKSON

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tricks for Management level, too,” she said. “When I was working with Walter — ” Her voice trailed off, embarrassed- ly. TOM sat still in his chair. He opened his mouth, closed it again and suddenly, almost with violence, shoved himself to his feet. Turning, he stepped to the office win- dow and looked out. Across from him, over the airy depths of the lounge below, he could make out Arm Brewer, his white thatch vigorously in movement beyond the pane of his window on the opposite side of the lounge. “What about the plant?” Tom said without turning. “You were going to tell me about the rubber plant.” “Well, you know how Venus is,” her voice rang in his ears. “The carbon dioxide blanket, the dust storms, nothing green anywhere. It was against the shipping rules, but he took the plant along when he went to Venus — for me. To make me happy. For that one year it grew in our home.” Out and below Tom, the lounge eddied in its steady movement of continual coming and going. Salesmen, jobhunters, caterers, favor- seekers, representatives like Lasron — the flotsam of the commercial sea. All waiting. All hungry. Yes, thought Tom. A TASTE OF TENURE Just then, through the wide-swinging entrance of the lounge came the tall, thin fig- ure of Mr. Smith. For a mo- ment, Tom hung, not even breathing, staring down at the tall man. Behind him, Christine talk- ed on. But he heard her only as background noise. Smith had just nodded to Lasron, sitting at his table; and Las- ron had lifted a hand in ac- knowledgement. Mr. Smith paused to speak to the receptionist, his ele- gant head a little on one side. He turned and went over the opposite wall soaring up from the lounge. A disk came im- mediately to life on the floor, and he stepped aboard. It bore him upward to the win- dow of Arm’s office, opposite. The window dissolved before him as Arm reached out a hand in greeting. They went inside together and — did their heads turn to look for a mo- ment in the direction of Tom's office as they went? Tom had a sudden diz- zying sensation of falling. It was as if the lounge below reached up with clutching fin- gers to drag him down. He clung to the window drape beside him for a minute, find- ing the heavy metallic cloth slippery in his damp hands. He took a deep breath, straightened and turned. “Yes, yes,” he said, inter- rupting Christine. “I appre- ciate your telling me about 103

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the plant. But I think that in spite of the sentimental at- tachment you have for it, we’ll have to get rid of it.” HER mouth open, she star- ed at him. In her aston- ishment she looked almost im- becilic. “You understand,” he went on, the words coming auto- matically, “I’m a liberal-mind- ed man myself. But I can hardly be expected to put up with a souvenir of this type. After all, this is a business office, not a bedroom. I was a young man once myself — fairly recently, too. And I had my — er — fun. And I rec- ognize that a single woman and a man with a perpetually ailing wife might have their problems op a physical plane. But to flaunt mementos of — well, it seems to me to be a little too much.” She looked up at him with a rabbit-like fascination, as if he had suddenly revealed scales and a moveless eye. He met her look squarely. It was odd. but he felt no need to avoid her. His eyes were heavy as pebbles in his face, and as insensitive to what he gazed at. “So I'll just ask you to put it away somewhere right now,” he said. He paused. “Naturally, I’m going to have to submit a memo on this to the Company psychiatrist. I believe you need help, Chris- tine. Women often do at your 104 age. I’ll do what I can by at- taching a complete account of what you told me about you and Walter — ” With one quick, gasping in- take of breath, she was on her feet. She turned and ran from his office. The imper- sonal machinery of the door closed it politely behind her. Tom sat down at his desk. He felt as if he should be shaking, but he was not. He laid his hands on the desktop but felt nothing. After a while he became aware of the sound of Bera’s buzzer, calling for his atten- tion. But he ignored it. It was not until some little time after that, that the door to his office opened and she came in. Her eyes were wide, showing too much white; and her lips trembled. “What is it?” he asked. “Mr. Calloway — Mr. Callo- way, it’s Christine!” HE looked carefully at her. “What about Christine?” “I’m worried. Perhaps I’ve been — I didn't think.” “Will you tell me,” he said, “what it is? If you don’t mind, Bera!” “She locked herself in the supply closet in our outer of- fice. She won’t come out, and she doesn’t- — doesn't answer.” “Oh?” said Tom. “I see.” He took a slow breath and leaned back in his chair. “I’m scared. She took the plant. Oh, Mr. Calloway, I GORDON R. DICKSON

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The BEMs in your neighborhood won't run off with your books H you put on the inskle front cover of each one a gummed bookplate by EMSH with your name printed on It. YOUR NAME HERE Bookplate No, FINAGLE SAYS... The umteenth corollary of Finaglo's General Law of Dynamic Negatives states: "No books are lost by loaning except the ones you particularly want to keep." AN IDEAL S. F. GIFT IMPRINTED with owner's name: IOO-$4, 200-S6 300-S8 All POSTPAID (Add State Salts Tax, if any) Actual Size 3" x 4" No. CF-614 Order from GALAXY 421 Hudson Street, New York 14. N. Y, A TASTE OF TENURE didn’t mean to be so nasty to her! If she’s— ” “Control yourself, Bera.” Tom got up from his chair. “I’m sure it’s quite all right. Perhaps the door locked ac- cidentally. Perhaps she had a little fainting fit in there. After all, she’s not as young as she once was. Why don’t you run down and get the janitor up here to unlock the door? Don’t make a fuss about it. Just say the door’s locked and we can’t find the key.” “Oh, yes! I’ll run!” said Bera. “I’ll run right away!” She dashed out of the room. After she had gone, Tom sat still for a second. Then he reached out and punched for a private connection to Arm Brewer on the interof- fice phone. Arm’s face sprang into view on its screen. “Who? Oh, Tom. What can I do for you?” “Just give me a few point- ers about something when you’ve got time, Arm,” said Tom. “Josi and I are think- ing of taking one of those perpetual tours around the Preserves — ” “Preserves? Sure!” boom- ed Arm. “I’ve been on them. Tell you all about it, if you want. How’s things down at your end there?” “I’m afraid I’m going to have to let Bera go after all,” said Tom, steadily. “And keep Christine. Bera’s gone all to 105

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.pieces lately. Lets her work go, and spends all her time picking on Christine. Of course, there's no tenure problem with Bera.” “Ah? I hadn’t realized that,” said Arm, raising white eyebrows. “Well, that settles your little problem.” “Yes. I’m afraid so.” Tom sighed. “Too bad. I’d never have considered this if she'd — but, well, this is easier all around. She's been making life hell for Christine.” “Yeah. I heard something about that. Look, talk to you later, okay, Tom? I’ve got a little deal on right now.” “Fine. Thanks, Arm.” “Not at all. Any time.” Tom broke the connection and sat back, waiting for Bera to return. For a while he heard nothing but silence. But then, at last, there was the muffled sound of voices reentering his outer office. For a moment they murmur- ed busily together; then there was the sound of a lock turn- ing. Then silence. — When the scream came, he was expecting it. High and clear in Bera’s voice, he had been expecting it all along. Sitting still at his desk, he did not move. Only the muscles of his body froze all together as if the blood in them had congealed at the sound; and the sweat stood suddenly out on his forehead like living water from the rock. -—END ★ ★ ★ BACK ISSUES! Those back issues you need are probably listed in the 1st BIG issue of “The SATA Trader”. An initial monthly circulation of 3,000 active col- lectors or a refund given. 6 issues for $1, 10 issues for $2. FREE! A 50 word AD ($1 value) with a 10 issue sub- scription. Use a fairly new BLACK typewriter ribbon and type the AD in the form of a rectangle, 5 lines deep by 41 Pica or 50 Elite spaces wide. Charter Subscripers will re- ceive 1 FREE issue with every 5 purchased ait the regular price. YOUR support NOW will make it possible to serve you BETTER in the FUTURE. Send $1 for samples of today’s 3 BEST lithographed fanzines. Send your unwanted S-F to be distributed to fans over- seas. “The SATA Trader”, Dept. 8 PO. Box 400, Los Alamos, N. Mex. ★ ★ ★ 106 GORDON R. DICKSON

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IF • Feature -//. • ' . • • • • ') science briefs WHEN you come right down to it, there are only two things to be done about the deadly unwanted by- prod- ucts of the atomic age — seal them off somehow, or learn to live with them. The Atomic Energy Commission likes the policy of burying atomic wastes underground, in care- fully selected sites where it can be ascertained that there will be no low-level water tables or other opportunity for “leakage”. In spite of the fact that any atomic facility produces vast amounts of "hot” waste, a surprisingly large amount of it can be dis- posed of in a small space. For example, all the low-intensity SCIENCE BRIEFS wastes of Oak Ridge have been buried in a 60-acre area. Commission experts calculate that one 2- to 300 acre site would be enough to bury all the wastes produced in the northwest for the next 20 years. As to airborne radio- activity — well, ways have to be found to live with it. One way is indicated by experi- ments at Georgia Tech, who have been able to cut the radioactive cesium content of milk by feeding cows on grass grown indoors, not in soil but in hydroponic tanks. The cut, measured against a control group of outdoor-pastured cows, was dramatic — about 38%. 107

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Next time you hear anyone talking about modem miracle fabrics, spring this one on them : a new materia} is wov- en from small-diameter wire made of cobalt-chromium and nickel-chromium alloys. It is then run up — but not on Grandma's sewing machine — into re-entry parachutes for use, ultimately, in the recov- ery of manned satellites. Thirsty? Well, stick around. You may be a good deal thir- stier before too long. Fresh- water demand will exceed nat- ural supply by 85 billion gal- lons a day within the next 20 years. The real weird-o of the ele- mental table, helium, is about as snobbish as an element can get. It can’t explode or bum or react with anything or combine with anything. This makes it handy if you have an original copy of the Declara- tion of Independence around and would like to keep it a while. Or if you are a welder and would like your arc to work in an atmosphere where- in nothing will dirty up the metal with oxides. END Kangaroo Quiz Here’s the solution to the problem on page 66. Bar bet- tors and bubblebrains may drop out at this point; others may want to know what the act of solving this one means. If you solved the nine-dot puzzle, you are almost certain- ly a highly creative person. Most people are not, and if you couldn’t; you may comfort yourself with this further proof of your membership in the vast majority. This test was used as a demonstration in a recent seminar at the East Pitts- burgh plant of Westinghouse: subject, creative engineering, or, what makes the bright ideas come, and to whom? One thing common to most highly 108 creative minds, according to the Westinghouse scientists, is the refusal to accept any limitations except those ex- actly stated. Most people, when present- ed with the nine-dot puzzle, fail to solve it because they assume that they must stay within the pattern of dots, or that they must not cross any lines. What’s your excuse? SCIENCE BRIEFS

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I F • V^ovelette THE JUNKMAKERS BY ALBERT TEICHNER ERIC WAS THE BEST ROBOT THEY'D EVER HAD —PERFECTLY TRAINED, EVER THOUGHTFUL. A JOY TO OWN. NATURALLY THEY HAD TO DESTROY HIM ! 1 WENDELL HART had drifted, rather than plunged, into the underground movement. Later, discussing it with other members of the Savers’ Conspiracy, he found they had experienced the same slow, almost casual awaken- ing. His own, though, had come at a more appropriate time, just a few weeks before the Great Ritual Sacrifice. The Sacrifice took place only once a decade, on High Holy Day at dawn of the spring equinox. For days prior to it joyous throngs of work- ers helped assemble old ve- hicles, machine tools and com- puters in the public squares, crowning each pile with used, disconnected robots. In the evening of the Day they roudly made their private eaps on the neat green lawns of their homes. These tradi- tionally consisted of house- hold utensils, electric heaters, air conditioners and the fam- ily servant. 10?

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The wealthiest — considered particularly blessed— even had two or three automatic ser- vants beyond the public con- tribution, which they de- stroyed in private. Their more average neighbors crowded in- to their gardens for the awe- some festivities. The next morning everyone could re- turn to work, renewed by the knowledge that the Festival of Acute Shortages would be with them for months. Like everyone else, Wendell had felt his sluggish pulse gaining new life as the time drew nearer. A cybernetics engineer and machine tender, he was down to ten hours a week of work. Many others in the luxury- gorged economy had even smaller shares of the purpose- ful activities that remained. At night he dreamed of the slagger moving from house to house as it burned, melted and then evaporated each group of junked labor-blocking de- vices. He even had glorious daydreams about it. Walking down the park side of his home block, he was liable to lose all contact with the out- side world and peer through the mind’s eye alone at the climactic destruction. Why, he sometimes won- dered, are all these things so necessary to our resurrection? Marie had the right answer for him, the one she had learned by rote in early child- hood : “All life moves in cycles. Creation and progress must be preceded by destruction. In ancient times that meant we had to destroy each other ; but for the past century our in- herent need for negative mo- ments has been sublimated — that’s the word the news broadcasts use — into proper destruction.” His wife smiled. “I’m only giving the moral reason, of course. The practi- cal one’s obvious.” Obvious it was, he had to concede. Men needed to work, not out of economic necessity any more but for the sake of work itself. Still a man had to wonder . . . had begun to visit the Public Library Archives, poring over musty references that always led to maddening- ly frustrating dead ends. For the past century nothing real- ly informative seemed to have been written on the subject. “You must have government authorization,” the librarian explained when he asked for older references. Which, nat- urally, made him add a little suspicion to his already large dose of wonder. "You’re tampering with something dangerous,” Marie warned. “It would make more sense for you to take long- sleep pills until the work cycle picks up.” “I will get to see those early references.” he said through clenched teeth. He did. 110 ALBERT TEICHNER

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All he had needed to say at the library was that his worfc in sociology required investi- gation of some twentieth cen- tury files. The librarian, a tall, gaunt man, had given him a speculative glance. “Of course, you don’t have government clearance . . . But we get so few inquiries in sociology that I'm willing to offer a little encouragement.” He sighed. “Don’t get many inquiries al- together. Most people just can't stand reading. You might be interested to know this — one of the best headings to research in sociology is Con- spicuous consumption .” Then it was Wendell’s turn to glance speculatively. The older man, around a healthy hundred and twenty-five, had a look of earnest dedication about him that commanded re- spect as well as confidence. “Conspicuous consumption? An odd combination of words. Never heard of that before. I will look it up.” The librarian was nervous as he led his visitor into a reference booth. “That’s about all the help I can offer. If any- thing comes up, just ring for me. Burnett’s the name. Uh — you won’t mention I put you on the file without authoriza- tion, I hope.” “Certainly not.” As soon as he was alone he typed Conspicuous consump- tion into the query machine. It started grinding out long bibliographical sheets as well THE JUNKMAKERS as cross-references to Obsoles- cence, Natural; Obsolescence, Technological; Obsolescence, Planned, plus even odder items such as Waste-making, Art of and Production, Stimulated velocity of. How did such dis- parate subjects tie in with each other? BY the end of the afternoon he began to see, if only dimly, to what the unending stream of words on the view- er pointed. For centuries ruling classes had made a habit of conspicu- ously wasting goods and ser- vices that were necessities for the mass of men. It was the final and highest symbol of social power. By the time of Louis XIV the phenomenon had reached its first peak. The second came in the twentieth century when mass production permitted millions to devote their lives to the acquisition and waste of non-essentials. Hart’s twenty-second century sensibilities were repelled by, the examples given. He shud- dered at the thought of such anti-social behavior. But a parallel development was more appealingly positive in its implications. As the technological revolution speeded up, devices were su- perseded as soon as produced. The whole last half of the 1900’s was filled with in- stances where the drawing board kept outstripping the assembly line. Ill

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Hart remembered this last change from early school days but the later, final develop- ment was completely new and shocking to him. Advertising had pressured more and more people to replace goods before they wore out with other goods that were, essentially, no improvement on their pred- ecessors! Eventually just the word “NEW” was enough to trigger buying panics. There had been growing awareness of what was hap- pening, even sporadic resis- tance to it by such varied ideologies as Conservative Thrift, Asocial Beatnikism and Radical Inquiry. But, strangely enough, very few people had cared. Indeed, any- thing that diminished con- sumption was viewed as dan- gerously subversive. “And rightly so!” was his first, instinctive reaction. His second, reasoned one, though, was less certain. The contradiction started to give him a headache. He hur- ried from the scanning room, overtaxed eyes blinking at the rediscovery of daylight. Burnett walked him to the door. “Not feeling well?” he inquired. “I’ll be all right. I just need a few days real work.” He stopped. “No, that's not why. Tm confused. I’ve been read- ing crazy things about obso- lescence. They used to have strange reasons for it. Why, some people even said replace- 112 ments were not always im- provements and were unnec- essary !” Burnett could not complete- ly hide his pleasure. “You’ve been getting into rather deep stuff.” “Deep — or nonsensical!” “True. True. Come back to- morrow and read some more.” “Maybe I will.” But he was happy to get away from the library building. Marie was horrified when he told her that evening about his studies. “Don’t go back there,” she pleaded. “It’s dan- gerous. It’s subversive! How could people say such awful things? You remember that Mr. Johnson around the cor- ner? He seemed such a nice man, too, until they arrested him without giving a reason . . . and how messed up he was when he got out last year. I’ll bet that kind of talk ex- plains the whole thing. It’s crazy. Everyone knows items start wearing out and they have to be replaced.” “I realise that, honey, but it’s interesting to speculate. Don’t we have guaranteed freedom of thought?” She threw up her hands as if dealing with a child. “Nat- urally we have freedom of thought. But you should have the right thoughts, shouldn’t you? Wendell, promise me you won’t go back to that library.” “Well — ” “Reading’s a very risky thing anyway.” Her eyes were ALBERT TEICHNER

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saucer-round with fright. “Please, darling. Promise.” “Sure, you’re right, honey. I promise.” HE meant it when he said it. But that night, toss- ing from side to side, he felt less certain. In the morning, as he went out, Marie asked him where he was going. “I want to observe the prep- arations for the Preliminary Rites.” “Now that,” she grinned, “is what I call healthy think- ing.” For a while he did stand around the Central Plaza along with thousands of other idlers, watching the robot dump trucks assemble the piles of discarded equipment. The crowd cheered loudly as an enormous crane was knock- ed over on its side. “There’s fifty millions worth out there!” a bystander ex- ulted. “It’s going to be the biggest Preliminary I’ve ever seen.” “It certainly will be!” he said, catching a little of the other man’s enthusiasm de- spite his previous doubts. Preliminary Rites were part of the emotion-stoking that preceded the Highest Holy Day. Each Rite was greater and more destructive than those that had gone before. As tokens of happy loyalty, viewers threw hats and watches and stickpins onto the pile just prior to the entry THE JUNKMAKERS of the slaggers. What better way could be found for each man to manifest his common humanity? After a while doubt started assailing him again, and Hart found himself returning al- most against his will to the Library Building. Burnett greeted him cordially. “To- day’s visit is completely le- gal,” he said. “Anyone doing olden time research is auto- matically authorized if he has been here before.” “I hope my thought can be as legal,” Hart blurted out. “Well — that was just a joke.” “Oh, I can recognize a joke when I hear one, my friend.” Hart went to his booth, feel- ing the man’s eyes measuring him more intently than ever. It was almost a welcome re- lief to start reading the ref- erence scanner once more. But not for long. As the wider pattern unfolded, his anxiety state intensified. It was becoming perfectly obvious that many, many re- placements used to be made long before they were needed. And it was still true. I should not be thinking such thoughts, he told himself, I should be outside in the Plaza, being normal and human. But he could see how it had come about, step by step. First there had been pressure from the ruling echelons, many of whose members only main- tained their status through excessive production. Then, 113

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much more important, there had been the willful blindness of the masses who wanted to keep their cozy, familiar tread- mills going. He slammed down the off button and went out to the librarian’s desk. “Do people want to work all the time,’’ he said, “for the sake of work alone?" He immediately regretted the question. But Burnett did not seem to mind. '“You’ve only stated the positive rea- son, Mr. Hart. The negative one could be stronger — the fear of what they would have to do if they did not have to work much over a long peri- od.” "What would it mean?” “Why, they would have to start thinking! Most people don’t mind thought if it’s con- centrated in a narrow range. But if they have to think in a broad range to keep boredom away — no, that’s too high a price for most of them! They avoid it when they can. And under present circumstances they can.” He stopped. “Of course that’s a purely hypo- thetical fiction I’m construct- ing.” Hart shook his head. “It sounds awfully real to be purely — ” He, too caught him- self up. “Of course, you’re only positing a fiction.” Burnett started putting his desk papers away. “I’m leav- ing now. The Preliminary be- gins soon. Want to come?” 114 The man’s face was stolidly blank except for his brown eyes which burned like a zea- lot’s. Fascinated by them, Hart agreed. It would be best to return anyway. Some of the bystanders had looked too curiously at him when he had left. Who would willingly leave a Rite when it was approach- ing its climax? II THE Plaza was now throng- ed and the sacrificial pile towered over a hundred feet in the cleared center area. Then, as the first collective Ah! arose, a giant slagger lumbered in from the east, the direction prescribed for such commencements. Long polar- ity arms glided smoothly out of the central mechanism and reached the length for Total Destruction. “That’s the automatic set- ting,” parents explained to their children. “When?” the children de- manded eagerly. “Any moment now.” Then the unforeseen oc- curred. There was a rumbling from inside the pile and a huge jagged patchwork of metal shot out, smashing both arms. The slagger teetered, swaying more and more violently from side to side until it collapsed on its side. The rumbling grew. And then the pile, like a mechanical cancer, ripped ALBERT TEICHNER

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the stagger apart and then absorbed it. The panicking crowd fell back. Somewhere a child be- gan crying, provoking more hubbub. “Sabotage!” people were crying. “Let’s get away !” Nothing like this had ever happened before. But Hart knew instantly what had caus- ed it. Some high-level servo mechanisms had not been thoroughly disconnected. They had repaired their damages, then imposed their patterns on the material at hand. A second slagger came rush- ing into the square. It dis- charged immediately ; and the pile finally collapsed and dis- integrated as it was supposed to. The crowd was too shocked to feel the triumph it had come for, but Hart could not share their horror. Burnett eyed him. “Better look indig- nant,” he said. “They’ll be out for blood. Somebody must have sabotaged the setup." “Catch the culprits !” he shouted, joining the crowd around hint. “Stop anti-social acts !” “Stop anti-social acts!” roared Burnett ; and, in a whisper : “Hart, let’s get out of here.” As they pushed their way through tile milling crowd, a loudspeaker boomed out : “Re- turn home in peace. The in- stincts of the people are good. Healthy destruction forever! The criminals will be tracked down ... if they exist.” “A terrible thing, friend,” a woman said to them. “Terrible, friend,” Burnett agreed. “Smash the anti-social elements without mercy!” Three children were cluster- ed together, crying. “I wanted to set the right example for them,” said the father to any- one who would listen. “They'll never get over this!” Hart tried to console them. “Next week is High Holy Day,” he said, but the bawling onlv increased. The two men finally reached a side avenue where the crowd was thinner. “Come with me,” Burnett ordered, “I want you to meet some people.” HE sounded as if he were instituting military disci- pline but Hart, still dazed, willingly followed. “It wasn’t such a terrible thing,” he said, listening to the distant up- roar. “Why don’t they shut up!” “They will — eventually.” Burnett marched straight a- head and looked fixedly in the same direction. “The thing could have gob- bled up the city if there hadn’t been a second slagger!” said a lone passerby. “Nonsense,” Burnett mut- tered under his breath. “You know that, Hart. Any self- regulating mechanism reaches a check limit sooner than that.” “It has to.” THE JUNKMAKERS 115

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They turned into a large building and went up to the fiftieth floor. “My apartment,” said Burnett as he opened the door. There were about fifteen people in the large living room. They rose, smiling, to greet their host. “Let’s save the self - congratulations for later,” snapped Burnett. “These were merely our own preliminaries. We're not out of the woods yet. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our newest recruit. He has seen the light. I have fed him basic data and I’m sure we’re not making a mistake with him.” Hart was about to demand what was going on when a short man with eyes as in- tense as Burnett’s proposed a toast to “the fiasco in the Plaza.” Everyone joined in and he did not have to ask. “Burnett, I don’t quite un- derstand why I am here but aren’t you taking a chance with me?” “Not at all. I've followed your reactions since your first visit to the library. Others here have also — when you were completely unaware of being observed. The gradual shift in viewpoint is familiar to us. We’ve all been through it. The really important point is that you no longer like the kind of world into which you were born.” “That’s true, but no one can change it.” “We are changing it, said a thin-faced young woman. “I work in a servo lab and — “Miss Wright, time enough for that later,” interrupted Burnett. “What we must know now, Mr. Hart, is how much you’re willing to do for your new-found convictions? It will be more work than you've ever dreamed possible.” He felt as exhilarated as he did in the months after High Holy Day. “I’m down to under ten hours labor a week. I’d do anything for your group if I could get more work.” Burnett gave him a hearty handshake of congratulation . . . but was frowning as he did so. “You’re doing the right thing — for the wrong reason. Every member of this group could tell you why. Miss Wright, since you feel like talking, explain the matter.” “Certainly. Mr. Hart, we are eng ged in an activity of so-called subversion for a pos- itive reason, not merely to avoid insufficient work load. Your reason shows you are still being moved by the values that you despise. We want to cut the work-production load on people. ' We want them to face the problem of leisure, not flee it.” “There’s a heart-warming paradox here,” Burnett ex- plained. “Every excess even- tually undermines itself. Everybody in the movement starts by wanting to act for their beliefs because work ap- pears so attractive for its own ALBERT TEICHNER 116

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sake. I was that way, too, un- til I studied the dead art of philosophy.” “Well — ” Hart sat down, deeply troubled. “Look, I de- plore destroying equipment that is still perfectly useful as much as any of you do. But there is a problem. If the de- struction were stopped there would be so much leisure peo- ple would rot from boredom.” BURNETT pounced eagerly on the argument. “Instead they’re rotting from artificial work. Boredom is a tempo- rary, if recurring phenome- non of living, not a permanent one. If most men face the dif- ficulty of empty time long enough they find new prob- lems with which to fill that time. That’s where philosophy showed me the way. None of its fundamental mysteries can ever be solved but, as you pit yourself against them, your experience and capacity for being alive grows.” “Very nice,” Hart grinned, "wanting all men to be phi- losophers. They never have been.” “You shouldn’t have brought him here,’ growled the short man. “He’s not one of us. Now we have a real mess.” . “Johnson, I’m leader of this group!” Burnett exploded. “Credit me with a little un- derstanding. All right, Hart, what you say is true. But why? Because most men have THE JUNKMAKERS always worked too hard to achieve the fruits of curios- ity.” “I hate to keep being a spoil-sport, but what does that prove? Some men who had to work as hard as the rest have been interested in things be- yond the end of their nose.” They all groaned their dis- approval. “A good point, Hart, but it doesn’t prove what you think. It just shows that a minority enjoy innate capacities and environmental variations that make the transition to phi- losopher easier.” “And you haven’t proven anything about the incurious majority.” “This does, though: when- ever there was a favorable period the majority who could, as you put it, see beyond the ends of their noses increased. Our era is just the opposite. We are trapped in a vicious circle. Those noses are usu- ally so close to the grindstone that men are afraid to raise their heads. We are breaking that circle!” “It’s a terribly important thing to aim for, Burnett, but — ” He brought up another doubt and somebody else an- swered it immediately. For the next half hour, as one uncertainty was expressed after another, everybody join- ed in the answers until in- exorable logic forced his sur- render. “All right,” he conceded, “I 117

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will do anything I can — not to make work for myself, but to help mankind rise above it." 'C'XCEPT for a brief, trium- ■Ijphant glance in Johnson’s direction, Burnett gave no further attention to what had happened and plunged imme- diately into practical matters. To halt the blind worship of work, the Rites had first to be discredited. And to discredit the Rites, the awe inspired by their infallihle performance had to be weakened. The sab- otage of the Preliminary had been the first local step in that direction. There had been a few similar, if smaller, epi- sodes, executed by other groups, but they had received as little publicity as possible. “Johnson, you pulled one so big this time that they can’t hide it. Twenty thousand wit- nesses ! When it come3 to get- ting things done you're the best we have!" The little man grinned. "But you're the one who knows how to pick recruits and organize our concepts. This is how it worked. I re-fed the emptied cryotron memory box of a ro- bot discard with patterns to deal with anything it was like- ly to encounter in a destruc- tion pile. I kept the absolute- freeze mechanism in working order, but developed a shield that would hide its activity from the best pile detector.” He spread a large tissue sche- 118 matic out on the floor and they all gathered around it to study the details. “Now, the impor- tant thing was to have an ex- ternal element that could re- sume contact with a wider cir- cuit, which could in turn start meshing with the whole robot mechanism and then through that mechanism into the pile. This little lever made the con- tact at a pre-fed time.” Miss Wright was enthusias- tic. “That contact is half the size of any I’ve been able to make. It’s crucially import- ant,” she added to Hart. “A large contact can look sus- picious.” While others took minipho- tos of the schematic. Hart studied the contact carefully. “I think I can reduce its size by another fifty per cent. Al- loys are one of my specialties — when I get a chance to work at them.” “That would be ideal,” said Burnett. “Then we could set up many more discarded ro- bots without risk. How long will it take?” “I can rough It out right now.” He scribbled down the necessary formulas and every- one photographed that too. “Maximum security is now in effect,” announced Burnett. “You will destroy your copies as soon as you have trans- ferred them to edible base copies. At the first hint of danger you will consume them. Use home enlargers for study. In no case are you to ALBERT TEICHNER

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make permanent blowups that would be difficult to destroy quickly.” He considered them sternly. “Remember, you are running a great risk. You’re not only opposing the will of the state but the present will of the vast majority of citi- zens.” “If there are as many other underground groups as you indicate,” said Hart, “they should have this information.” “We get it to them,” an- swered Burnett. “I’m going on health leave from my job.” “And what will be your ex- cuse?” Wright demanded an- xiously. “Nervous shock,” smiled their leader. “After all, I did see today’s events in the Plaza.” WHEN Hart reached home his wife was waiting for him. “Why did you take so long, Wendell. I was worried sick. The radio says anti-so- cials are turning wild servos loose. How could human be- ings do such a thing?” “I was there. I saw it all happen.” He frowned. “The crowd was so dense I couldn’t get away.” “But what happened? The ways the news was broadcast I couldn’t understand any- thing.” He described the situation in great detail and awaited Marie's reaction. It was even more encouraging than he had hoped for. “I understand less 120 than before! How could any- thing reactivate that rubble? They put everything over five years old into the piles, and the stuff’s supposed to be de- crepit already. You'd almost think we were destroying wealth before its time, because if those disabled mechanisms reactivate — ” She came to a dead halt. “That’s madness! Oh, I wish High Holy Day were here already so I could get back to work and stop this empty thinking /” Her honest face was more painfully distorted than he had ever seen it before, even during the universal pre-Rite doldrums. “Only a few more days to go," he consoled. “Don’t worry, honey. Every- thing’s going to be all right. Now I’d like to be alone in the study for a while. I've been through an exhausting time.” “Aren’t you going to eat?” The last word triggered the entry of Eric, the domestic robot, pushing the dinner cart ahead of him. “No food to- night," Hart insisted. The shining metal head nodded its assent and the cart was wheel- ed out. “That’s not a very humane thing to do,” she scolded. “Eric’s not going to be serv- ing many more meals — ” “Good grief, Marie, just leave me alone for a while, will you?” He slammed the study door shut, warning him- self to display less nervous- ALBERT TEICHNER

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ness in the future as he lis- tened to her pacing outside. Then she went away. The projector gave him a good-sized wall image to con- sider. He spent most of the night calculating where he could place tiny self-activators in the “obsolescent” robots that were to be donated by his plant. Then he set up the instruction tapes to make the miniature contacts. Produc- tion then would be a simple job, only taking a few min- utes, and during a working day there were always many periods longer than that when he was alone on the produc- tion floor. But thinking the matter out without computers was much more difficult. Human beings ordinarily filled their time on a lower abstracting level. When he unlocked the study door in the morning he was startled to see Marie bustling down the corridor, pushing the food service cart herself. That did not make sense, espe- cially considering last night’s statement about Eric. “I thought you’d want breakfast early,” she coughed. “You didn’t have to bother, honey. Eric could have done it.” If she had been prying, the cart might have been a prop to take up as soon as he came out. On the other hand, what could she in her technical ig- norance make of such mat- ters anyway? THE JUNKMAKERS It was best not to rouse any deeper suspicions by openly noticing her wifely iiosiness. At breakfast they pretended nothing had happened, devot- ing the time to mutually dis- approved cousins, but all day long he kept wondering wheth long he kept wondering whether ignorant knowledge couldn’t be as dangerous as the knowing kind. THE next morning, after a long sleep, he went to the factory for the first of his semi-weekly work periods. He sat before a huge con- sole, surveying scores of dials, at the end of a machine that was over five hundred yards long. Today it was turning out glass paper the color of wat- ered blood, made only for Rit- ual publications, packing it in sheets and dispatching them in automatic trucks; but the machine could be adjusted to everything from metal sheet- ing to plastic felts. At the far end sat another man, dimin- ished by distance, busily tend- ing more dials that could real- ly take care of themselves. After a while the man went out for a break. Hart ran a hundred yards to a section that was not working. He snapped it into the alloy sup- ply and fed in the tape. In a minute, several dozen tiny contacts came down a chute. He pocketed them and discon- nected the section just before his fellow worker reappeared. 121

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The man walked down the floor to him, looking curious. “Anything the matter?” he asked, hopeful for some break in routine. “No, just felt like a walk.” “Know what you mean — I feel restless too. Too bad this plant’s only two years old. Boy, wouldn’t she make a great disintegration!” He grinned, slapping a fender affectionately. Hart joined in the joke. “Gives us something to look forward to in ten years.” “A good way to look at things,” said the other man. At home he locked the con- tacts in a desk drawer. To- morrow he would deliver most of them to Burnett’s apart- ment. But the next morning an emergency letter came from his group leader, warning him not to appear there. I am go- ing completely underground. I think they may suspect my activities. The dispersion plan must go into effect. You know how to reach Johnson and Wright and they each in turn can get to two others. Good luck! He had just put the letter in his pocket when Eric an- nounced the arrival of a Ritu- als Inspector. The man had nervous close- set eyes and seemed embar- rassed by his need to make such a visit. Hart took the offensive as his best defense. “I don’t understand this, In- 122 spector,” he protested. “You people should be busy with High Holy preparations. Are you losing your taste for work?” “Now, now, Mr. Hart, that's a very unkind remark. I dis- like this nonsense as much as anyone.” His square jaw chewed into each word as he opened his scanning box. “It’s the anti-social sabotage.” “Do you mean to say I am under suspicion?” Marie was now loitering in the doorway, worse luck. “Oh, no. Nothing so insult- ing. This is strictly imper- sonal. The Scanning Center has picked apartments at com- plete random and we’re to make spot checks.” The eye at one end of the box blinked wickedly, waiting for an information feed. “Now, sir, if you'll pardon me, I’ll just take the records from one of those desk draw- ers — any drawer — and put them in the box.” Hart slid open a drawer. “No, sir, I think I’ll try the next one. It’s regulation not to accept sug- gestions.” With a hand made deft by practise he scooped out all the sheets and tapes and put them in the box. The scanner’s fin- gers rapidly sorted them past the eye. Hart exhaled, reliev- ed that an innocuous drawer had been selected, and the in- spector handed back the ma- terial to him. “Well, Inspector, that’s that.” ALBERT TEICHNER

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“Not quite.” The Inspector selected another drawer at the other end of the desk and dumped everything before the scanner. His examination was speeding up and that was not good; he would have time to take more sample readings. “Now if you’ll empty your left pocket — ” H, this is too much!” Vr Marie exploded. “My husband struggles all night on secret work, studying to find ways to stop the anti- socials, and you treat him like one of them!” “You’re working on the problem?” the Inspector said respectfully. “What are you doing?” Frying pan to fire. Hart preferred the pan and pulled open a drawer. “It’s too com- plicated, too much time need- ed to explain!” The Inspector glanced at his watch. “I’m falling behind schedule.” He closed up his box. “Sorry, but I have to leave. Heavy time sheet to- day.” As soon as he was gone, Hart breathed easier. Nothing incriminating would be fed into the Central Scanner. Marie became apologetic. "I'm sorry I said it, Wendell, but I couldn’t keep quiet. All I did last night was peek in once or twice.” He shrugged. “I’m just on a minor project.” “Every bit counts.” She THE JUNKMAKERS shook her head. “Only you have to wonder — I mean, don’t think I’m treasoning, but while I was shopping an hour ago a lot of women said you have to think — how come all that obsolescent junk could work so well, after being thor- oughly wrecked, too? You al- most wonder whether some of it was too good for disinte- gration.” Wendell pretended to be shocked. “Just a fluke of cir- cumstance. If something like that happened again you'd be right to wonder. But it could not ever happen again.” “Don’t get me wrong, Wen- dell. None of the women at- tacked anything. It was more like what you just said. They said if it happened again, then you’d have to wonder. But of course it couldn’t happen again.” How well the tables had turned! Not only had Marie’s ignorant knowledge proven helpful but she had now given him a positive idea also. When he met Wright and Johnson at the latter’s apart- ment that evening he explain- ed it to them. “We can propa- gate ‘dangerous’ thoughts and yet appear completely loyal. We can set up the reaction to next High Holy Day.” “How?” demanded Johnson. “That’s having your cake and eating it.” “Nothing’s impossible in the human mind,” Wright said. “Let's listen.” 123

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“Here's the point. Wher- ever you go there will be peo- ple tsk-tsking about the Pre- liminary fiasco. Just reassure them, say it meant nothing at all by itself. If it ever hap- pened again, then there would be room for doubt but, of course, it could not happen again!” Wright smiled. “That's al- most feminine in its subtlety." He smiled back. “My wife inspired it. Don’t get nervous — it was unconscious, sheerly by acident." “Whatever the cause, it’s the perfect result,” Johnson conceded. “We’ll spread it through the net.” “Along with this, I hope.” Wendell dumped the contacts on a table top. “It’s the small- est size possible. A lot should get by unnoticed. Find cell members who can set up cry- otrons with a wide range of instructions to cope with any- thing in the piles. Some weird- ly alive concoctions of ‘ob- solescent’ parts ought to re- sult.” “Some day the world’s go- ing to know what you’ve done for it,” said Johnson solemnly. “That could happen too soon!” Miss Wright’s face, honest and open in its horse- like length, broke into a wide grin. “Amen,” said Hart, adding the private hope that Marie, blessed with superior looks, might be able to show as much superior wisdom some day. 124 T HE hope was not immedi- ately fulfilled. When he reached home Marie was in a tizzy of excitement. “You’re just in time, darling. They just caught three subversives. One of them was a woman,” she added as this were compound- ing an improbability with an impossibility. “They're going to show them.” He gripped his belt tightly. “A woman?” “That’s right. There she is now.” A uniformed officer was gently helping a pale little old woman sit down before the camera, as if she were more an object of pity than of fear. Hart relaxed. “ — caught red-handed with the incriminating papers,” shouted an offstage announc- er. “Handbills asserting ob- jects declared obsolescent could actually last indefinite- ly!” “What do you have to say for yourself?” the officer ask- ed gently. “You must realize, of course, that such irreligious behavior precludes your mov- ing in general society for a long time to come.” “I don’t know what came over me,” she sobbed -in a tired voice. “Curiosity. Yes, curiosity, that’s what it was. I saw these sheets of paper in the street and they said we should stop working so hard at compulsory tasks and start working to expand our own interests and personalities.” ALBERT TEICHNER

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“Self - contradictory non- sense!” said the voice. “Yes, I know that. But it made me curious and I took it home to read, and it said our compulsory tasks were artifi- cially manufactured and, if you didn’t believe that, look at the pile that reactivated itself the other day.” She stopped, reorganizing her thoughts. “Of course, though, that thing in the Plaza was unique, you know. I don't think it could mean a thing . . . unless it happened a few times. And the fact is it won’t ever hap- pen again.” “Well, that much makes very good sense,” said Marie. “You said the same thing, Wendell. I don't think that poor woman knew what she was doing — just a dupe for subversive propaganda.” “ — a dupe for subversive propaganda,” the announcer was saying. “See, exactly what I said.” “Yes. dear.” How swiftly the decentral- ized underground was work- ing! Hart could not tell wheth- er the old woman was an ac- tive member or just a passive responder, but it did not mat- ter. She was now spreading the seeds for future doubt across the land. Two old men were brought in and they mumbled the same disconnected story as their sister. “We have intensively in- terrogated these prisoners,” THE JUNKMAKERS boomed the announcer, “and know there is nothing more to the rumored anti-social plot than this stupid chatter. Re- main vigilant and you have nothing to fear!” “You are sentenced to five years isolation from general society,” said the officer, in a voice dulcet enough to sell ad- vance orders for replacement products that had not yet been made. “Our intention is to protect you from bad influ- ences. Our hope is that others will take your lesson to heart.” “God bless you,” said the woman and her brothers join- ed in effusive thanks. “Makes you proud to be a human being,” Marie said. “I was getting some stupid doubts myself, dear. I must admit it. But that’s all past. I can hardly wait for the Highest Holy Day.” “Neither can I,” sighed her husband. IV THE next day at noon Eric came to him, functioning on the final set of servo in- structions that had been in- stalled in him at the factory of his birth eight years be- fore. He shook hands with the two of them and said: “Now I am prepared for death.” Marie was tearful. “I will miss you, Eric. If you were only under five years old your span could be extended.” “Everything that happens 125

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is right,” Eric said impas- sively. He clambered on to the operation table, instinctively knowing which flat surface was for him, and, breaking all his major circuits, gave up the ghost that only man could re- store to him. Hart found his wife’s grief easy to bear. The day after tomorrow she would join in the general exultation of High Holy Day, with Eric well for- gotten. He methodically began smashing the surface of the limbs and torso; the greater the visible damage, the great- er the honor redounding to the sacrifice donor. “This will be our gift to the general pile,” he said. “I thought we could keep him for our garden sacrifice,” Marie protested meekly. “Most people do.” “But the other way is the greater sacrifice.” There was no reply, because she knew he spoke for the deeper, more moving custom. But suddenly he began to act depressed himself. “I know we say it every ten years, but Eric was really the best com- panion we ever had.” He ges- tured toward the table. “I want to sit here with him for a while — alone.” “That’s carrying things too far, Wendell. A little grief is proper — but this much is actually morbid.” “It’s all within my rights.” She tossed her head petu- 126 lantly. “Well, I’ve done my ‘'are. I can’t stand any more. It makes a person think and get depressed. I don’t care what you’re going to do. I’m going out to enjoy a Prelimi- nary.” “Can’t blame you for that,” he nodded. When she had gone he start- ed to work on new instruction tapes for activating the servo- cryotron. Nothing could be surrendered to chance. Every possible circumstance in the pile had to be anticipated. There had to be instructions for action if Eric was crushed below fifty feet of metal, for assembling any kind of scram- bled wiring, for adapting all types of parts in its immedi- ate surroundings, for using these parts to absorb parts further away and for timing the operation to the start of the Highest Rite. Some tapes had been pre- pared earlier, so it was pos- sible to put everything in the cryotron box before Marie re- turned, as well as to attach the tiny contact that would reach out from the box until it reached its first external scrap of wire or metal. “You poor darling,” she pouted. “You missed the most wonderful thing ! They demol- ished a whole thirty-story building !” His blood, atavistically ef- fected, pulsed faster until his new creed came to grips with his old emotions. “They usu- ALBERT TEICHNER

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ally don’t bother with build- ings for the Rites.” “I know — that’s what was so wonderful! The State has decided to make this one the biggest Day of all time. We’ll have enough work to fill the whole ten years! Everybody was so happy.” “I'm sure they were.” He caught himself in mid-sar- casm and said, “I’m sorry I missed it.” “And I'm sorry I’ve been so selfishly self-centered.” She frowned. “I forgot about it, but there were people in the crowd boasting they had been assigned to fight anti-social movements. I had to boast back that my husband had been honored too.” He tensed. “Oh? What did they say to that?” “Frankly, they laughed.” “I should think so. The Cen- tral Scanner didn’t pick up anything except a lot of inef- fective propaganda. The sab- otage business was all hy- steria.” “That’s just what they said — the assignments were an empty honor.” She coldly con- sidered Eric. “I want to wreck him too.” “I’ve smashed the insides,” he said. “You’d better just work the surface.” “That’s all I want to do,” she answered, starting to scratch traditional marks all over the dead robot. It gave her a full afternoon of happy, busy labor. THE JUNKMAKERS THE next day a large open truck came around and the street echoed to the appeal for contributions. Festival spirit was running high everywhere and when the neighborhood crowd saw the young robot porters carry Eric out there was a loud cheer of apprecia- tion. “My husband decided on a major contribution right away,” Marie announced to them. “It’s the least we could do,” he said modestly. Many onlookers, swept away by their example, rush- ed indoors to bring out addi- tional items of sacrifice. But only two others gave up their robots. The rest clung to them for private Holy Night cere- monies. Soon Eric disappeared under the renewed deluge of egg-beaters and washers. “The best collection I have seen today,” said the inspector accompanying the truck. “You people are to be congratulated for your exceptional patrio- tism.” “Destroy!” they shouted back joyously. "Make work!” At dawn the Central Plaza was already crowded and new hordes kept pouring in from outlying areas. Wendell and his wife had been among the first to arrive. They waited, impatient in their separate ways, on the borderline five hundred yards from the ten- story pyre. Martial music roared from 127

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loudspeakers, interrupted by tiie mellifluous boom of a mer- chandising announcer: “New product! Better models! One hundred years of High Holy Days! New! New! NEW!” “Destroy !” came the return- ing shout. “Make work ! Work ! Work!” All the sounds echoed back and forth until baffled away by the open area across the Plaza, where one large struc- ture had already been destroy- ed. Three others were slated for collapse today. “The biggest Holy Day ever,” a restless old woman said to Marie. “I’ve seen all nine of them.” “Eric’s in there,” Marie chatted back, superficially sad, deeply happy. “Who?” “Our house robot.” “Imagine that! Did you hear that?” People gathered round them and cheered. The good-natured jostling contin- ued until someone said : “Five minutes to go!” Wendell checked his watch. Somewhere in the pile at least one element was coming to life, a metal arm reaching out for brother metal to engulf in its cybernetic sweep. “They’re coming!” A line of six shiny new slaggers came rumbling into the open with military precision. They moved along slowly, prolong- ing the pleasures of anticipa- tion, then broke rank, each seeking its assigned point 128 around the pile of appliances gathered for destruction. “The latest improved mod- els,” said the loudspeakers. “They will first perform fif- teen minutes of automatic ma- neuvers.” The military music resumed and each slagger turned, as if circling a coin, in clanking rhythm to it. “The three hundred and six- ty degree turn. Next, making a box on the Plaza floor . . .” The voice stopped, appalled. AN avalanche of metal slid down one side of the pile and the crowd gasped. The downward movement viscous- ly slowed ; then the metal, sud- denly alive with the capacity to defy gravity, circled up- ward. Jagged limbs started flailing about. “Disintegrator attack!” screamed the loudspeakers. “Attack!” The maneuvers stopped. For one brief moment prior to changeover the Plaza was dead still, except for the deaf- ening rumble in the pile. The slaggers broke the spell, rush- ing full speed toward the pile, evaporator beams working. One by one they faltered and were sucked into the de- structive pyre. The crowd fell further back. The whole pile came alive like a mineral octupus. Then the squirming thing collapsed, ev- ery makeshift circuit irrepar- ably broken and dead. Every- thing had been happening too ALBERT TEICHNER

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fast for any pronounced re- action to accompany it; but now the world went crazy. “Stand firm!” pleaded the loudspeakers. “We will get re- inforcements as soon as cele- brations are finished else- where.” A barrage of enormous boos came from the disintegrating mob. “Never again! Fakes! It's finished, done for!” “Stand firm!” But the breakup down side avenues continued. “I don’t understand,” Marie shudder- ed. “Everything’s crazy. We’ve been deceived, Wendell. Who’s been deceiving us?” “Nobody — unless it’s our- selves.” “I don't understand that either.” Saucer-eyed she watched a great clump of dis- gruntled people push past. “I have to think!” Suddenly, as they came around a corner, they were facing Burnett. Hart tried to disregard him but the group leader would have none of that. He rushed up to Hart. “Good to see a friendly face. Shocking devel- opments !” His face was grim, but tiny wrinkles at the cor- ners of his eyes betrayed an amusement that could only be discovered by those who look- ed for it. “Mr. Burnett,” he explained to Marie. “A librarian at the main building. Mr. Burnett, my wife Marie.” “I am most happy to meet THE JUNKMAKERS you, Mrs. Hart. Have you heard the latest?” “No, Mr. Burnett.” “The same tilings have been happening everywhere! They announced it on the radio and they’re saying it’s due to anti- social elements. Shocking!" She shook her head stub- bornly. “I don’t know what to think. Maybe we shouldn’t be shocked, maybe we should be. I just don’t know, Mr. Bur- nett. I came to enjoy myself and look how it’s ended.” She bravely held back a sob. “May- be we’d have been better off if we’ve never heard about High Holy Days!” Burnett looked about with feigned apprehension. “You have to be careful what you say. The government says there’s even talk — subver- sive handbills — about trying to rehabilitate some of the stuff in the piles.” “The government ought to keep quiet!” she exploded. “They said this couldn’t hap- pen. You can’t believe any- thing they say any more. The people decide and the govern- ment will have to listen, that's what I say! And I'm a pretty typical person, not one of your intellectual kind. No criticism of present company intended.” “None taken, Mrs. Hart. Our human future,” said Bur- nett, exchanging a grin with his aide, “remains, as it al- ways has really been. Inter- esting— to say the least!” END 129

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HUE AND CRY WELL, here we are, month after month trying to do the best we can in the way of producing an IF you’ll like, and it’s sometimes like drop- ping words down a well. We know you’re out there because somebody buys all those mag- azines! But, specifically, who are you? One of you is Lawrence Crilly of Elizabeth, New Jer- sey, who writes: Is is too much to ask for a letter-col ? It'd convince the fans that you’re actually trying to please them — while capturing the attention of casual readers — and the promise of egoboo if their names appeared in print would compel a large number of readers to comment on the stor- ies, who normally do not — my- self included. You ought to give this serious consideration. We did. Sounds like a good deal . . . so . . . consider this the letter-col; and if it’s brief this time, it’s because we don’t have much more that we can publish. But you can remedy that! Just get down to your type- writers ! And while you’re writing, check us out on a couple of basic assumptions we’re mak- ing. For instance: Assumption Number One : There’s space in the science fiction field . . . somewhere be- tween the childish adventure and the Prophets of Doom . . . for a magazine that’ll give the reader stories to enjoy — as well as something to think about. We think, in other words, that although science-fiction has come a long way, there is still a lot that the long-time “Great Names” of science fiction have to give us. (For which reason we’re proud to welcome back, in near-future issues, the likes of Lester del Rey, E. E. “Skylark” Smith and a dozen more all-time favorites.) What we aim for in IF is all the color of the old days, and all the stimula- tion of the new. Assumption Number Two : The readers are entitled to a share in making the decisions. Accordingly, we’ll try to do what you want — asking only that you tell us what it is ! Assumption Number Three : That “progress” is sometimes spelled M-I-S-T-A-K-E. We’ll try to do what you want — but if we goof, tell us so! As a starter, next issue will have a slightly different for- mat— a more compact type and therefore, we hope, more story-content. We’ll be look- ing forward to knowing what you think of that — and every- thing else ! END 130

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mr ^Cuinr iHrrr 100 for $4; 200, $6; 300, $8 with owner's name imprinted All Postpaid. Add state sales tax, if any YOUR NAME HERE No. GF-614 by Emsh No. GF-612 by Emsh FINAGLE SAYS — The umpteenth corollary of Finagle's General Law of Dynamic Negatives says: "No books are ever lost by loaning except ones you particularly want to keep." YOUR NAME HERE The BEMs in your neighborhood won't run off with your books if you put inside the front cover of each book... a gummed bookplate with your name printed on it! Your Name Here No. GM-12 by Cullen Rapp A ,> > No. GX-57 by Lynd Ward ACTUAL SIZE, all designs, 3x4 inches The designs shown above arc the only ones we offer i Order from 1 1 MAGAZINE 421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y.

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a i With your literally thousands of letters you have proven that Galaxy is the most widely read science-fiction magazine on Earth (see above for evidence of our foreign editions). Subscribing to Galaxy is similar to a profit-sharing arrangement; for the more you invest, the greater your dividends. And this, as you’ve seen, and will go on seeing, is truly voting stock. (No need to cut up this attractive copy. Your order on any sheet of paper will convey the same vote and privilege .O VJ. V • • v pj GALAXY Publishing Corp., 421 Hudson Street, »Sc\v York 14, N. Y. Is foreign postage)