Galaxy v22n01 (1963 10)
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OCTOBER- 1963 50c MED SHIP MAN by ON THE GEM PLANET by CORDWAINER SMITH MURRAY LEINSTER 1 by mipm TENN ! ' 1.
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YOURS! THE NEXT BIG ISSUES OF FOR ONLY $4.95 - SAVING YOU $1 85 - IF YOU ACCEPT THIS SPECIAL OFFER If you wonder what happened to the “wonder” In your science-fietion stories — it’s in IF! Every issue packed With new, fast taies of tomorrow and space! THE KIND OF SCIENCE FICTION THAT YOU'VE MISSED FOR YEARS IF brings you new stories by old masters, plus the best of today's new writers-challenging ideas combined with skillful writing and all the adventure and thrills of interstellar space The greatest names in science fiction WRITE FOR IF Del Rey, Clarke, Harmon, Schmitz, Pohl, Davidson, Simak B och, Keyes, Sturgeon, Galouye, Sharkey, McIntosh, Fyfej Dickson — they’re all in IF! ' CUP COUPON AND MAIL TODAY if 421 Hudson St., New York 14, N. Y. "*** IF! I enclose >4.95. (Outside of N. and S. America add $1.35 postage.) Name Address City Use coupon or order by letter if you wish 17 IF ALL STORIES NEW eaLAxy magazine OCTOBER, 1963 • VOL. 22, NO. 1 CONTENTS COMPLETE SHORT NOVEL the men in the walls by William Tenn NOVELEHES ON THE GEM PLANET by Cordwainer Smith A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY by Chandler Elliott MED SHIP MAN by Murray Leinster 8 92 124 156 FREDERIK POHL Editor WILLY LEY Science Editor SOL COHEN Publisher DAVIO PERTON Production Manager ROSEMARIE BIANCHINI Art Director DAVE GELLER ASSOC. Advertising SHORT STORY SWEET TOOTH 145 by Robert F. Young SCIENCE DEPARTMENT FOR YOUR INFORMATION 85 by Willy Ley FEATURES EDITOR’S PAGE 4 by Frederik Pohl FORECAST 83 GALAXY’S FIVE STAR SHELF 119 by Floyd C. Gale Cover by DEMBER GAUXY MAGAZINE Is published bi-monthly by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Main offices: 421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y. 50C per copy. Subscrip- tion: (6 copies) $2.50 per year In the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. Possessions. Elsewhere $3.50. Second-class postage paid at New York, N. Y. Copyright, New York 1963, by Galaxy Publishing Corporation, Robert M. Guinn, President. All rights. Including translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self- addressed stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no re- sponsibility for unsolicited ma- terial. All stories printed In this magazine are fiction, and any similarity between charac- ters and actual persons Is coincidental. Printed in the U. S. A. By The Guinn Co., Inc. N. Y. Title Reg. U. S. Pat. Oft.
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WHAT’S THE SCORE? A N EASY card game for very young children is “Slapjack”. It is played with a 5 2 -card deck, but it doesn’t have much in com- mon with contract bridge or poker. You take a deck of cards, divide it more or less in half and turn the cards up one at a time. Every time a jack turns up, the players try to slap it. First player to get his palm over it wins that round. Tic-Tac-Toe represents a sec- ond stage in complexity. As a game for young children it has several merits, both as a way of passing a rainy day and as a sort of rough-hewn test of intelligence or of maturity, since the age at which the player learns that the outcome of the game can be con- trolled completely — that chance has no part in it, and that all of its strategies can be learned and simply expressed — is also about the age at which he learns that he need not always consider the ordinances of Mommy and Daddy to be Divine Law. Slightly later, and considerably more challenging, checkers gets added to the list. In the Games Theory view of checkers it can be considered as a zero-sum game with finite choices. That is, when one player wins, the other loses; and the number of possible re- spK>nses to any move is rather easily calculated. Chess is still more complex, for, although the 4 GALAXY outcome is unquestionably con- trollable, in practice the human mind is not capable of memo- rizing all of the possible moves and their consequences, so that the expert player falls back on what is called “position evalua- tion.” The strategy of a Botvinnik or a Capablanca is not aimed di- rectly toward winning. It is aimed toward securing a board position and a favorable balance of forces such that winning then becomes inevitable. That may sound at first blush like a distinction with- out a difference; but in fact it is the difference between, say, the single combat of medieval knights and modern war. It doesn’t much matter whether you play chess poorly or well; if you try to play it at all, you are a long way from Slapjack. The history of man’s at- tempt to control his environ- ment — by which we can include everything from pulling a branch over himself in a rainstorm to the framing of the law of con- servation of parity — passes through an evolution rather like the development of an indivi- dual’s mastery of games. Paleo- lithic man was in the Slapjack period: If any feature of his en- vironment gave him trouble, he whanged at it until one of two things happened. Either he sud- denly discovered he had a pretty good obsidian knife, or he gave up. Modern man, or so we like to think, has pretty well caught the hang of the “chess” approach to solving his problems. He is still playing a game. But it is a larger game, in a different con- text. When we say that the jM'Ogress of scientific knowledge is meas- ured by the enlargement of con- texts, we are saying that we ad- vance by learning truths which are more general than the truths we knew before. We frame em- pirical “laws” — the law of Con- servation of Energy — and some- body draws from them still other laws (as did Carnot and the rest of the great mechanist-minded scientists) . . . until some other person, trying to understand why these laws should be so, frames a still more general law (as did Ein- stein) and we find, by gosh, that our first law isn’t really a law at all. Energy can so be created — by transformation from matter; and it can be destroyed by trans- formation in the other direction. This does not mean that the previous laws are false, thus de- stroying the deductions made from them: Carnot’s model of a heat engine still works perfectly. The laws are still true, in terms of the contexts then existing; but now they are only special cases within larger laws. You can, if you like, compare WHAT'S THE SCORE? 5
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this enlargement of contexts with a mastery of increasingly sophisti- cated games. Slapjack to Tic-Tac- Toe: from the planless fumbling of primitive man to the learned- by-rote “medicine”, say, of Hippo- crates. Tic-Tac-Toe to checkers: from the Hippocratic empirical remedies to the experimentation and theorizing of Galen. Checkers to chess: from Galen’s dissection of corpses to antibiotics and the analysis of DNA. All this is analogy and perhaps a little strained, for nothing is more deadly than to force conclu- sions from an analogy. But per- haps it is not just an analogy; for science is itself a sort of game. rpHINK OF science as a game board, and think of a very large, very complex computer across the board from us as our Opponent. The Opponent never cheats. He plays according to our rules. He plays the games we teach him. If we are playing the game called Chemistry, he will go pokerfaced along with the rules — all the rules — including the rule that elements cannot be transmuted one to the other. If you want one of the moves in the game to be the change of uranium into lead, you have to change the game, to one variety or another of the game called Physics. If you are playing the game called Euclidean geometry, the Oppo- nent won’t let you trisect an an- gle. If you want to do that you must switch to the game called algebra, where you can trisect all the angles you like with a simple cubic equation. And behold! that which was impossible, and which everybody knew to be impossible, and which was proved to be im- possible ... is no longer impossi- ble at all. All you have to do is change the game. It is this point that is so hard to get across to the sort of closed mind that says, “We know that ESP is impossible” or “We have proved that no material object can be accelerated past the ve- locity of light in a vacuum.” In fact, we do not know anything of the kind. We only know that the rules of the games we’re play- ing today say so; but we do not know, and can only with difficulty imagine, the rules of the games we may play tomorrow. That, of course, is the thing, or one of the things, that science fiction is all about. A science-fiction story we must admit is only a game, sugar- coated with adventure, touched with humor, scented with ro- mance. Games they are — but who is to say that some day soon we won’t be playing some of them for keeps? — FREDERIK POHL 6 GALAXY THERE are some things that cannot be generally tolA — 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 mind, 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 toaay. 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 H.W.K. send this coupon i Scribe H.W.K. [ 1 The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) [ I San Jose. California i [ Please send me the /reebook, TAeAftfr/ery j I of Ufe, which explains how I may learn to | I use my faculties and powers of mind. ■ I I I Name i ) Address [ 1 City 1 UBe Rosicrucians (AMORO SAN JOSE. CAUFORNIA. U.S A.
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The world was divided between the Men and the Monsters — but which were Monsters and which were Men? THE MEN IN THE WALLS By WILLIAM TENN y Illustrated by FINLAY I lyrANKIND consisted of 128 people. The sheer population pressure of so vast a horde had long ago filled over a dozen burrows. Bands of the Male Society occu- pied the outermost four of these interconnected corridors and pa- trolled it with their full strength, twenty-three young adult males in the prime of courage and alert- ness. They were stationed there to take the first shock of any danger to Mankind, they and their band captains and the youthful initiates who served them. Eric the Only was an initiate in this powerful force. Today, he was a student warrior, a fetcher and a carrier for proven, seasoned men. But tomorrow, tomorrow . . . This was his birthday. Tomor- row, he would be sent forth to Steal for Mankind. When he re- turned — and have no fear: Eric was swift, Eric was clever, he would return — off might go the loose loin cloths of boyhood to be replaced by the tight loin straps of a proud Male Society warrior. He would be free to raise his voice and express his opinions in the Councils of Mankind. He could stare at the women when- GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 9 8
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ever he liked, for as long as he liked, to approach them even — He found himself wandering to the end of his band’s burrow, still carrying the spear he was sharp- ening for his uncle. There, where a women’s burrow began, several members of the Female Society were preparing food stolen from the Monster larder that very day. Each spell had to be performed properly, each incantation said just right, or it would not be fit to eat. It might even be danger- ous. Mankind was indeed fortu- nate: plenty of food, readily available, and women who well understood the magical work of preparing it for human consump- tion. And such women — such splendid creatures! Sarah the Sickness-Healer, for example, with her incredible knowledge of what food was fit and what was unfit, her only gar- ment a cloud of hair that alter- nately screened and revealed her hips and breasts, the largest in all Mankind. There was a woman for you! Over five litters she had had, two of them of maximum size. Eric watched as she turned a yellow chunk of food around and around under the glow lamp hanging from the ceiling of the burrow, looking for she only knew what and recognizing it when she found it she only knew how. A man could really strut with such a mate. But she was the wife of a band leader and far, far beyond him. Her daughter, though, Selma the Soft-Skinned, would probably be flattered by his attentions. She still wore her hair in a heavy bun: it would be at least a year before the Female Society would consider her an initiate and al- low her to drape it about her nakedness. No, far too young and unimportant for a man on the very verge of warrior status. Another girl caught his eye. She had been observing him for some time and smiling behind her lashes, behind her demurely set mouth. Harriet the History-Tel- ler, the oldest daughter of Rita the Record-Keeper, who would one day succeed to her mother’s office. Now there was a lovely, slender girl, her hair completely unwound in testament to full womanhood and recognized pro- fessional status. 'C’RIC had caught these covert, barely stated smiles from her before; especially in the last few weeks, as the time for his Theft approached. He knew that if he were successful — and he had to be successful: don’t dare think of an5Tthing but success! — she would look with favor on ad- vances from him. Of course, Har- riet was a redhead, and therefore, 10 GALAXY according to Mankind’s tradi- tions, unlucky. She was probably having a hard time finding a mate. But his own mother had been a redhead. Yes, and his mother had been very unlucky indeed. Even his father had been in- fected with her terrible bad luck. Still, Harriet the History-Teller was an important person in the tribe for one her age. Good-look- ing too. And, above all, she didn’t turn away from him. She smiled at him, openly now. He smiled back. “Look at Eric!” he heard some- one call out behind him. “He’s already searching for a mate. Hey, Eric! You’ve not even wear- ing straps yet First comes the stealing. Then comes the mating.” Eric spun around, bits of fan- tasy still stuck to his lips. The group of young men loung- ing against the wall of his band’s burrow were tossing laughter back and forth between them. They were all adults: they had all made their Theft. Socially, they were still his superiors. His only recourse was cold dignity. “I know that,” he began. “There is no mating until — ” “Until never for some people,” one of the young men broke in. He rattled his spear in his hand, carelessly, proudly. “After you steal, you still have to convince a woman that you’re a man. And some men have to do an awful lot of convincing. An awful lot, Eric-O.” The ball of laughter bounced back, and forth again, heavier than before. Eric the Only felt his face turn bright red. How dare they remind him of his birth? On this day of all days? Here he was about to prepare himself to go forth and Steal for Mankind . . . He dropped the sharpening stone into his pouch and slid his right hand back along his uncle’s spear. “At least,” he said, slowly and definitely, “at least, my woman will stay convinced, Roy the Runner. She won’t be always open to offers from every other man in the tribe.” “You lousy little throwback!” Roy the Runner yelled. He leaped away from the rest of the band and into a crouch facing Eric, his spear tense in one hand. “You’re asking for a hole in the belly! My woman’s had two lit- ters off me, two big litters. What would you have given her, you dirty singleton?” “She’s had two litters, but not off you,” Eric the Only spat, holding his spear out in the guard position. “If you’re the father, then the chief’s blonde hair is contagious — like measles.” Roy bellowed and jabbed his spear forward. Eric parried it and lunged in his turn. He missed as THE MEN IN THE WALLS 11
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his opponent leaped to one side. They circled each other, cursing and insulting, eyes only for the point of each other’s sjjears. The other young men had scrambled a distance down the burrow to get out of their way. A POWERFUL arm suddenly clamped Eric’s waist from behind and lifted him off his feet. He was kicked hard, so that he stumbled a half-dozen steps and fell. On his feet in a moment, the spear still in his hand, he whirled, ready to deal with this new op- ponent. He was mad enough to fight all Mankind. But not Thomas the Trap- Smasher. No, not that mad. All the tension drained out of him as he recognized the captain of his band. He couldn’t fight Thomas. His uncle. And the greatest of all men. Guiltily, he walked to the niche in the wall where the band’s weapons were stacked and slid his uncle’s spear into its appointed place. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Roy?” Thomas was asking behind him. “Fighting a duel with an initiate? Where’s your band spirit? That’s all we need these days, to be cut down from six effectives to five. Save your spear for Strangers, or — if you feel vety brave — for Monsters. But don’t show a point in our band’s burrow if you know what’s good for you, hear me?” “I wasn’t fighting a duel,” the Runner mumbled, sheathing his own spear. “The kid got above himself. I was punishing him.” “You punish with the haft of the spear. And anyway, this is my band and I do the punishing around here. Now move on out, all of you, and get ready for the council. I’ll attend to the boy my- self.” They went off obediently with- out looking back. The Trap- Smasher’s band was famous for its discipline throughout the length and breadth of Mankind. A proud thing to be a member of it. But to be called a boy in front of the others! A boy, when he was full-grown and ready to begin stealing! Although, come to think of it, he’d rather be called a boy than a singleton. A boy eventually be- came a man, but a singleton stayed a singleton forever. He put the problem to his uncle who was at the niche, inspecting the band’s reserve pile of spears. “Isn’t it possible — I mean, it is possible, isn’t it — that my father had some children by an- other woman? You told me he was one of the best thieves we ever had.” The captain of the band turned to study him, folding his arms across his chest so that biceps swelled into greatness and power. 12 GALAXY They glinted in the light of the tiny lantern bound to his fore- head, the glow lantern that only fully accredited warriors might wear. After a while, the older man shook his head and said, very gently: “Eric, Eric, forget about it, boy. He was all of those things and more. Your father was fa- mous. Eric the Storeroom-Storm- er, we called him, Eric the Laugh- er at Locks, Eric the Roistering Robber of all Mankind. He taught me everything I know. But he only married once. And if any other woman ever played around with him, she’s been careful to keep it a secret. Now dress up those spears. You’ve let them get all sloppy. Butts together, that’s the way, points up and even with each other.” l^UTIFULLY, Eric rearranged ■L' the bundle of armament that was his responsibility. He turned to his uncle again, now examining the knapsacks and canteens that would be carried on the expedi- tion. “Suppose there had been an- other woman. My father could have had two, three, even four litters by different women. Extra- large litters too. If we could prove something like that, I wouldn’t be a singleton any more. I would not be Eric the Only.” The Trap-Smasher sighed and thought for a moment. Then he pulled the spear from his back sling and took Eric’s arm. He drew the youth along the burrow until they stood alone in the very center of it. He looked carefully at the exits at either end, making certain that they were completely alone before giving his reply in an unusually low, guarded voice. “We’d never be able to prove anything like that. If you don’t want to be Eric the Only, if you want to be Eric the something- else, well then, it’s up to you. You have to make a good Theft. That’s what you should be think- ing about all the time now — your Theft. Eric, which category are you going to announce?” He hadn’t thought about it very much. “The usual one I guess. The one that’s picked for most initiations. First category.” The older man brought his lips together, looking dissatisfied. “First category. Food. Well . . .” Eric felt he understood. “You mean, for someone like me — an Only, who’s really got to make a name for himself — I ought to announce like a real warrior? I should say I’m going to steal in the second category — Articles Useful to Mankind. Is that what my father would have done?” “Do you know what your fath- er would have done?” “No. What?” Eric demanded eagerly. “He’d have elected the third THE MEN IN THE WALLS 13
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category. That’s what I’d be an- nouncing these days, if I were going through an initiation cere- mony. That’s what I want you to announce.” “Third category? Monster sou- venirs? But no one’s elected the third category in I don’t know how many auld lang synes. Why should I do it?” “Because this is more than just an initiation ceremony. It could be the beginning of a new life for all of us.” Eric frowned. What could be more than an initiation ceremony and his attainment of full thiev- ing manhood? “There are things going on in Mankind, these days,” Thomas the Trap-Smasher continued in a strange, urgent voice. “Big things. And you’re going to be a part of them. This Theft of yours — if you handle it right, if you do what I tell you, it’s likely to blow the lid off everything the chief has been sitting on.” “The chief?” Eric felt confused. He was walking up a strange bur- row now without a glow lamp. “Whats the chief got to do with my Theft?” ¥¥IS uncle examined both ends of the corridor again. “Eric, what’s the most important thing we, or you, or anyone, can do? What is our life all about? What are we here for?” “That’s easy,” Eric chuckled. “That’s the easiest question there is. A child could answer it: “Hit back at_ the Monsters,” he quoted. “Drive them from the planet, if we can. Regain Earth for Mankind, if we can. But above all, hit back at the Mon- sters. Make them suffer as they’ve made us suffer. Make them know we’re still here, we’re still fighting. Hit back at the Monsters.” “Hit back at the Monsters. Right. Now how have we been doing that?” Eric the Only stared at his uncle. That wasn’t the next ques- tion in the catechism. He must have heard incorrectly. His uncle couldn’t have made a mistake in such a basic ritual. “We will do that,” he went on in the second reply, his voice sliding into the singsong of child- hood lessons, “by regaining the science and knowhow of our fore- fathers. Man was once Lord of all Creation: his science and know- how made him supreme. Science and knowhow is what we need to hit back at the Monsters.” “Now, Eric,” his tmcle asked gently. “Please tell me this. What in hell is knowhow?” That was way off. They were a full corridor’s length from the normal progression of the cate- chism now. “Knowhow is — knowhow is — ” he stumbled over the un- 14 GALAXY familiar verbal terrain. “Well, it’s what our ancestors knew. And what they did with it, I guess. Knowhow is what you need be- fore you can make hydrogen bombs or economic warfare or guided missiles, any of those real- ly big weapons like our ancestors had.” “Did those weapons do them any good? Against the Monsters, I mean. Did they stop the Mon- sters?” Eric looked completely blank for a moment, then brightened. Oh! He knew the way now. He knew how to get back to the catechism: “The suddenness of the attack, the — ” “Stop it!” his uncle ordered. “Don’t give me any of that gar- bage! The suddenness of the at- tack, the treachery of the Mon- sters — does it sound like an ex- planation to you? Honestly? If our ancestors were really Lords of Creation and had such great weapons, would the Monsters have been able to conquer them? I’ve led my band on dozens of raids, and I know the value of a surprise attack; but believe me, boy, it’s only good for a flash charge and a quick getaway if you’re facing a superior force. You can knock somebody down when he doesn’t expect it But if he really has more than you, he won’t stay down. Right?” “I — I guess so. I wouldn’t know.” “Well, I know. I know from plenty of battle experience. The thing to remember is that once our ancestors were knocked down, they stayed down. That means their science and knowhow were not so much in the first place. And that means — ” here he turned his head and looked di- rectly into Eric’s eyes — “that means the science of our ances- tors wasn’t worth one good damn against the Monsters, and it wouldn’t be worth one good damn to us!” Eric the Only turned pale. He knew heresy when he heard it. ¥¥IS uncle patted him on the shoulder, drawing a deep breath as if he’d finally spat out something extremely unpleasant. He leaned closer, eyes glittering beneath the forehead glow lamp and his voice dropped to a fierce whisper. “Eric. When I asked you how we’ve been hitting back at the Monsters, you told me what we ought to do. We haven’t been do- ing a single thing to bother them. We don’t know how to recon- struct the ancestor-science, we don’t have the tools or weapons or knowhow — whatever that is — but they wouldn’t do us a bit of good even if we had them. Be- cause they failed once. They THE MEN IN THE WALLS 15
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i failed completely and at their best. There’s just no point in try- ing to put them together again.” And now Eric understood. He understood why his imcle had whispered, why there had been so much strain in this conversa- tion. Bloodshed was involved here, bloodshed and death. “Uncle Thomas,” he whispered, in a voice that kept cracking de- spite his efforts to keep it whole and steady, “how long have you been an Alien-Science man? When did you leave Ancestor- Science?” Thomas the Trap-Smasher ca- ressed his spear before he an- swered. He felt for it with a gen- tle, wandering arm, almost uncon- sciously, but both of them regis- tered the fact that it was loose and ready. His tremendous body, nude except for the straps about his loins and the light spear-sling on his back, looked as if it were preparing to move instantaneous- ly in any direction. He stared again from one end of the burrow to the other, his forehead lamp reaching out to the branching darkness of the exits. Eric stared with him. No one was leaning tightly against a wall and listening. “How long? Since I got to know your father. He was in an- other band; naturally we hadn’t seen much of each other before he married my sister. I’d heard about him, though: everyone in the Male Society had — he was a great thief. But once he be- came my brother-in-law, I learned a lot from him. I learned about locks, about the latest traps — and I learned about Alien-Sci- ence. He’d been an Alien-Science man for years. He converted your mother, and he converted me.” Eric the Only backed away. “No!” he called out wildly. “Not my father and mother! They were decent people — when they were killed a service was held in their name — they went to add to the science of our ancestors — ” ¥¥IS uncle jammed a powerful hand over his mouth. “Shut up, you damn fool, or you’ll finish us both! Of course your parents were decent people. How do you think they were killed? Your mother was with your father out in Monster terri- tory. Have you ever heard of a woman going along with her hus- band on a Theft? And taking her baby with her? Do you think it was an ordinary robbery of the Monsters? They were Alien-sci- ence people, serving their faith as best they could. They died for it.” Eric looked into his uncle’s eyes over the hand that covered the lower half of his face. Alien- science people . . . serving their faith ... do you think it was an 16 GALAXY ordinary robbery . . . they died lor it! He had never realized before how odd it was that his parents had gone to Monster territory to- gether, a man taking his wife and the woman taking her baby! As he relaxed, his uncle re- moved the gagging hand. “What kind of Theft was it that my parents died in?” Thomas examined his face and seemed satisfied. “The kind you’re going after,” he said. “If you are your father’s son. If you’re man enough to continue the work he started. Are you?” Eric started to nod, then found himself shrugging weakly, and finally just hung his head. He didn’t know what to say. His uncle — well, his uncle was his model and his leader, and he was strong and wise and crafty. His father — naturally, he wanted to emulate his father and continue whatever work he had started. But this was his initiation cere- mony, after all, and there would be enough danger merely in proving his manhoood. For his initiation ceremony to take on a task that had destroyed his fath- er, the greatest thief the tribe had ever known, and a heretical, blasphemous task at that . . . . “I’ll try. I don’t know if I can.” “You can,” his uncle told him heartily. “It’s been set up for you. It will be like walking through a dug burrow, Eric. All you have to face through is the council. You’ll have to be steady there, no mat- ter what. You tell the chief that you’re undertaking the third category.” “But why the third?” Eric asked. “Why does it have to be Monster souvenirs?” “Because that’s what we need. And you stick to it, no matter what pressure they put on you. Remember, an initiate has the right to decide what he’s going to steal. A man’s first Theft is his own affair.” “But, listen, uncle — ” There was a whistle from the end of the burrow. Thomas the Trap-Smasher nodded in the di- rection of the signal. “The council’s beginning, boy. We’ll talk later, on expedition. Now remember this: stealing from the third category is your own idea, and all your own idea. Forget everything else we’ve talked about. If you hit any trouble with the chief. I’ll be there. I’m your sponsor, after all.” He threw an arm about his confused nephew and walked to the end of the burrow where the other members of the band waited. II f^HE tribe had gathered in its central and largest burrow under the great, hanging glow THE MEN IN THE WALLS 17
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lamps that might be used in this place alone. Except for the few sentinels on duty in the outlying corridors, all of Mankind was here. It was an awesome sight to behold. On the little hillock known as the Royal Mound, lolled Franklin the Father of Many Thieves, Chieftain of all Mankind. He alone of the cluster of warriors displayed heaviness of belly and flabbiness of arm — for he alone had the privilege of a sedentary life. Beside the sternly muscled band leaders who formed his im- mediate background, he looked almost womanly; and yet one of his many titles was simply The Man. Yes, unquestionably The Man of Mankind was Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. You could tell it from the hushed, re- spectful attitudes of the subor- dinate warriors who stood at a distance from the mound. You could tell it from the rippling in- terest of the women as they stood on the other side of the great bur- row, drawn up in the ranks of the Female Society. You could tell it from the nervousness and scorn with which the women were watched by their leader, Ottilie, the Chieftain’s First Wife. And finally, you could tell it from the faces of the children, standing in a distant, disorganized bunch. A clear majority of their faces bore an unmistakable resemblance to Franklin’s. Franklin clapped his hands, three evenly spaced, flesh-heavy wallops. “In the name of our ancestors,” he said, “and the science with which they ruled the Earth, I de- clare this council op>ened. May it end as one more step in the re- gaining of their science. Who asked for a council?” “I did.” Thomas the Trap- Smasher moved out of his band and stood before the chief. Franklin nodded, and went on with the next, formal question: “And your reason?” “As a band leader, I call at- tention to a candidate for man- hood. A member of my band, a spear-carrier for the required time, and an accepted apprentice in the Male Society. My nephew, Eric the Only.” As his name was sung out, Eric shook himself. Half on his own volition and half in response to the pushes he received from the other warriors, he stumbled up to his uncle and faced the chief. This, the most important moment of his life, was proving almost too much for him. So many peo- ple in one place, accredited and famous warriors, knowledgeable and attractive women, the chief himself, all this after the shatter- ing revelations from his uncle — he was finding it hard to think 18 GALAXY clearly. And it was vital to think clearly. His responses to the next few questions had to be exactly right. The chief was asking the first: “Eric the Only, do you apply for full manhood?” Eric breathed hard and nodded. “I do.” “As a full man, what will be your value to Mankind?” “I will steal for Mankind what- ever it needs. I will defend Man- kind against all outsiders. I will increase the possessions and knowledge of the Female Society so that the Female Society can increase the power and well-be- ing of Mankind.” “And all this you swear to do?” “And all this I swear to do.” The Chief turned to Eric’s imcle. “As his sponsor, do you support his oath and swear that he is to be trusted?” With just the faintest hint of sarcasm in his voice, Thomas the Trap-Smasher replied: “Yes. I support his oath and swear that he is to be trusted.” There was a rattling moment, the barest second, when the chief’s eyes locked with those of the band leader. With all that was on Eric’s mind at the mo- ment, he noticed it. Then the chief looked away and pointed to the women on the other side of the burrow. “He is accepted as a candidate by the men. Now the women must ask for proof, for only a woman’s proof bestows full man- hood.” The first part was over. And it hadn’t been too bad. Eric turned to face the advancing leaders of the Female Society, Ot- tilie, the Chieftain’s First Wife, in the center. Now came the part that scared him. The women’s part. As was customary at such a moment, his uncle and sponsor left him when the women came forward. Thomas the Trap- Smasher led his band to the war- riors grouped about the Throne Mound. There, with their col- leagues, they folded their arms across their chests and turned to watch. A man can only give proof of his manhood while he is alone; his friends cannot support him once the women approach. It was not going to be easy, Eric realized. He had hoped that at least one of his uncle’s wives would be among the three exam- iners: they were both kindly peo- ple who liked him and had talked to him much about the mysteries of women’s work. But he had drawn a trio of hard-faced females who apparently intended to take him over the full course before they passed him. Sarah the Sickness-Healer opened the proceedings. She THE MEN IN THE WALLS 19
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circled him belligerently, hands on hips, her great breasts rolling to and fro like a pair of swollen pendulums, her eyes glittering with scorn. “Eric the Only,” she intoned, and then paused to grin, as if it were a name impossible to be- lieve, “Eric the Singleton, Eric the one and only child of either his mother or his father. Your par- ents almost didn’t have enough between them to make a solitary child. Is there enough in you to make a man?” ^^HERE was a snigger of ap- preciation from the children in the distance, and it was echoed by a few growling laughs from the vicinity of the Throne Mound. Eric felt his face and neck go red. He would have fought any man to the death for remarks like these. Any man at all. But who could lift his hand to a woman and be allowed to live? Besides, one of the main purposes of this exhibition was to investigate his powers of self- control. “I think so,” he managed to say after a long pause. “And I’m willing to prove it.” “Prove it, then!” the woman snarled. Her right hand, holding a long, sharp-pointed pin, shot to his chest like a flung spear. Eric made his muscles rigid and tried to send his mind away. That, the men had told him, was what you had to do at this moment: it was not you they were hurting, not you at all. You, your rnind, your knowledge of self, were in an- other part of the burrow entirely, watching these painful things be- ing done to someone else. The pin sank into his chest for a little distance, paused, came out. It probed here, probed there; finally it found a nerve in his upper arm. There, guided by the knowledge of the Sickness-Heal- er, it bit and clawed at the deli- cate area until Eric felt he would grind his teeth to powder in the effort not to cry out. His clenched fists twisted agonizingly at the ends of his arms in a paroxysm of protest, but he kept his body still. He didn’t cry out; he didn’t move away; he didn’t raise a hand to protect himself. Sarah the Sickness-Healer stepped back and considered him. “There is no man here yet,” she said grudgingly. “But perhaps there is the beginnings of one.” He could relax. The physical test was over. There would be another one, much later, after he had completed his theft success- fully; but that would be exclu- sively by men as part of his proud initiation ceremony. Under the circumstances, he knew he would be able to go through it almost gaily. Meanwhile, the women’s physi- 20 GALAXY cal test was over. That was the important thing for now. In sheer reaction, his body gushed forth sweat which slid over the bloody cracks in his skin and stung viciously. He felt the water pouring down his back and forced himself not to go limp, prodded his mind into alertness. “Did that hurt?” he was being asked by Rita, the old crone of a Record-Keeper. There was a solicitous smile on her forty-year- old face, but he knew it was a fake. A woman as old as that no longer felt sorry for anybody. She had too many aches and pains and things generally wrong with her to worry about other people’s troubles. “A little,” he said. “Not much.” “The Monsters will hurt you much more if they catch you stealing from them, do you know that? They will hurt you much more than we ever could.” “I know. But the stealing is more important than the risk I’m taking. The stealing is the most important thing a man can do.” Rita the Record-Keeper nodded. “Because you steal things Mankind needs in order to live. You steal things that the Fe- male Society can make into food, clothing and weapons for Man- kind, so that Mankind can live and flourish.” He saw the way, saw what was expected of him. “No,” he contra- dicted her. “That’s not why we steal. We live on what we steal, but we do not steal just to go on living.” “Why?” she asked blandly, ^as if she didn’t know the answer bet- ter than any other member of the tribe. “Why do we steal? What is more important than survival?” Here it was now. The cate- chism. “To hit back at the Monsters,” he began. “To drive them from the planet, if we can. Regain Earth for Mankind, if we can. But, above all, hit back at the Monsters . . . .” He ploughed through the long verbal ritual, pausing at the end of each part, so that the Record- Keeper could ask the proper question and initiate the next se- quence. She tried to trip him once. She reversed the order of the fifth and sixth questions. Instead of “What will we do with the Mon- sters when we have regained the Earth from them?” she asked, “Why can’t we use the Mon- sters’ own Alien-Science to fight the Monsters?” Carried along by mental habit, Eric was well into the passage beginning “We will keep them as our ancestors kept all strange animals, in a place called a zoo, or we will drive them into our burrows and force them to live THE MEN IN THE WALLS 21
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as ive have lived,” before he real- ized the switch and stopped in confusion. Then he got a grip on himself, sought the right answer in his memory with calmness, as his uncle’s wives had schooled him to do, and began again. “There are three reasons why we cannot ever use Alien-Sci- ence,” he recited, holding up his hand with the thumb and little finger closed. “Alien-Science is non-human, Alien-Science is in- human, Alien-Science is anti-hu- man. First, since it is non-human,” he closed his forefinger, “we can- not use it because we can never understand it. And because it is inhuman, we would never want to use it even if we could under- stand it. And because it is anti- human and can only be used to hurt and damage Mankind, we would not be able to use it so long as we remain human our- selves. Alien-Science is the op- posite of Ancestor-Science in every way, ugly instead of beauti- ful, hurtful instead of helpful. When we die, Alien-Science would not bring us to the world of our ancestors, but to another world full of Monsters.” A LL in all, it went very well, despite the trap into which he had almost fallen. But he couldn’t help remem- bering the conversation with his uncle in the other burrow. As his mouth reeled off the familiar words and concepts, his mind kept wondering how the two fit- ted together. Hs uncle was Alien- Science, and, according to his uncle, so had been his parents. Did that make them non-human, inhuman, anti-human? And what did it make him? He knew his religious duty well: he should at this moment be telling all Mankind about his uncle’s horrible secret. The whole subject was far too complicated for someone with his limited experience. When he had completed the lengthy catechism, Rita the Rec- ord-Keeper said: “And this is what you say about the science of our ancestors. Now we will find out what the science of our an- cestors says about you.” She signaled over her shoulder, without turning her head, and two young girls — female appren- tices — pulled forward the large record machine which was the very center of the tribe’s religious life. They stepped back, both smiling shyly and encouragingly at Eric the Only. He knew the smiles meant lit- tle more than simple best wishes from apprentices of one sex to apprentices of the other, but even that was quite a bit at the mo- ment. It meant that he was much closer to full status than they. It meant that, in the opinion of im- 22 GALAXY prejudiced, disinterested observ- ers, his examination was proceed- ing very well indeed. Singleton, he thought fiercely to himself. I’ll show them what a singleton can do! Rita the Record-Keeper turned a knob at the top of the squat machine and it began to hum. She flung her arms up, quivering- ly apart, and all, warriors, women, children, apprentices, even the chief himself, all bowed their heads. “Harken to the words of our ancestors,” she chanted. “Watch closely the spectacle of their great achievements. When their end was upon them, and they knew that only we, their descendants, might regain the Earth they had lost, they made this machine for the future generations of Man- kind as a guide to the science that once had been and must be again.” The old woman lowered her arms. Simultaneously, heads went up all over the burrow and stared expectantly at the wall opposite the record machine, waiting for the magic message. “Eric the Only,” Rita called, spinning the dial on the left of the machine with one hand and stabbing at it randomly with the forefinger of the other. “This is the sequence in the science of our ancestors that speaks for you alone. This is the appointed vision under which you will live and die.” TTE stared at the wall, breath- ing hard. Now he would find out what his life was to be about — now! His uncle’s vision at this moment, years ago, had suggested the nickname he came to bear: the Trap)-Smasher. At the last initiation ceremony, a youth had called forth a sequence in which two enormous airborne vehicles of the ancestors had collided. They’d tried to cheer the boy up, but he’d known his fate was upon him. Sure enough, he had been caught by a monster in the middle of his Theft and dashed to pieces against a wall. Even then, Eric decided, he’d rather have that kind of a se- quence than the awful emptiness of a blank vision. When, every once in a while, the machine went on and showed nothing but a blinding white rectangle, the whole tribe knew that the youth being examined had no possibility of manhood in him at all. And the machine was never wrong. A boy who’d drawn a blank vision inevitably became more and more effeminate as he grew older without ever going out on his Theft. He tended to shun the company of warriors and to ask the women for minor tasks to perform. The machine of the an- cestors looked at a boy and told THE MEN IN THE WALLS 23
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exactly what he was and what he would become. It had been great, that science which had produced this machine, no doubt about it. There was a power source in it which was self- contained, and which was sup- posed to be like the power be- hind all things. It would run al- most forever, if the machine were not tampered with — although who could dream of tampering with it? In its visions were locked, not only the secrets of every in- dividual human being, but enor- mous mysteries which the whole of Mankind had to solve before it could work out its salvation through the rituals and powers of the ancestral science. Now, however, there was only one small part of Mankind that concerned Eric. Himself. His fu- ture. He waited, growing more and more tense as the power hum from the machine increased in pitch. And suddenly there was a grunt of awe from the entire bur- row of people as a vision was thrown upon the wall. He hadn’t drawn a blank. That was the most important thing. He had been given an authentic an- cestral vision. “Scattergood’s does it again!” a voice blared, as the picture pro- jected on the wall showed people coming from all directions, wear- ing the strange body wrappings of the ancestors. They rushed. men, women, children, from the four comers of the glittering screen to some strange stmcture in the center and disappeared into its entrance. More and more poured in, more and more kept materializing at the edges and scrambling toward the structure in the center. “Scattergood’s does it again!” the vision yelled out at them. “The sale of sales! The value of values! Only at Scattergood’s three stores tomorrow. Binocu- lars, tape recorders, cameras, all at tremendous reductions, many below cost. Value, value, value!” Now the vision showed only objects. Strange, unfamiliar ob- jects such as the ancestors used. And at each object appeared, the voice recited a charm over it. Powerful and ancient magic this, the forgotten lore of Ancestor- Science, “Krafft-Yahrmann Exposure Meters, the best there is, you’ve heard about them and now you can buy them, the light meter that’s an eye-opener, a price to fit every pocketbook, eight dollars and ninety-five cents, tomorrow at Scattergood’s, absolutely only one to a customer. “Kyoto Automatic Eight-Milli- meter Movie Cameras with an f 1.4 lens and an electric eye that does all the focusing and gives you a perfect exposure every single time. As low as three dol- 24 GALAXY
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I lars a week. The supply is limited, so hurry, hurry, hurry!” 'C’RIC watched the sequence un- fold, his hands squeezing each other, his eyes almost dis- tended in reverence and concen- tration. This was the clue to his life, to what he might become. This was the sequence that the record machine of the ancestors, turned on at random, had vouch- safed as a prophecy of his future. All knowledge was in that ma- chine — and no possibility of error. But Eric was getting worried. The vision was so strange. Some- times there would be a vision that baffled even the wisest women. And that meant the youth who had called it forth would always be a puzzle, to him- self and all of Mankind. Let it not happen to him! O ancestors, O science, O record machine, let it not happen to him! Let him only have a clear and definite vision so that his per- sonality could be clear and defi- nite for the rest of his life! “Our special imported high- power precision binoculars,” the voice roared on as a man ap- peared in the vision and brought one of the strange objects up to his eyes. “If we told you the man- ufacturer’s name, you’d recognize it immediately. 7 x 50, only four- teen dollars and ninety-five cents, with case. 10 x 50, only fifteen dollars and ninety-five cents, with case. You see further, you see clearer, you pay less. You always pay less at Scattergood’s. Rock- bottom prices! Skyscraper values! Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, at Scattergood’s annual week- after-Hallowe’en Sale!” There was a click as the vision went off abruptly to be replaced by a white rectangle on the wall of the burrow. Eric realized that this was all the clue there was to be to his life. What did it mean? Could it be interpreted? Anxiously, now, he turned to Ottilie, the Chieftain’s First Wife. He turned to her as everyone else in Mankind was now turning, Sarah the Sickness-Healer and Rita the Record-Keeper amongst them. Only Ottilie could read a vis- ion, only short, squat, imperious Ottilie. The Chieftain’s First Wife was her title of honor and her latest title, but long before she had acquired that, long before even she had become Head of the Female Society, she had been Ot- tilie the Augur, Ottilie the Omen- Teller, Ottilie who could walk in her mind from the homey burrow of the present into the dark, labyrinthine corridors of the fu- ture, Ottilie who could read signs, Ottilie who could announce por- tents. 26 GALAXY IT WAS as Ottilie the Augur that she could pick out the one new-born babe in a litter of three that had to be destroyed because, in some way or other, it would one day bring death to its people. It was as Ottilie the Augur that, upon the death of the old chief, she had chosen Franklin the Father of Many Thieves to take over the leader- ship of Mankind since he stimu- lated the most propitious omens. In everything she had been right. And now, once again it was as Ottilie the Augur that she threw her arms over her head and twisted and swayed and moaned as she sought deep inside her- self for the meaning of Eric’s vis- ion, it was as Ottilie the Augur and not as Ottilie the Chieftain’s First Wife, for that she had been only since Franklin had ascended the Throne Mound. The scratches and holes gouged in his body by Sarah the Sickness-Healer had begun to ache badly, but Eric shrugged off their annoyance. Could his vision be interpreted? And how would it be interpreted? Whatever Ottilie saw in the vision would stick to him for the rest of his life, much closer than the dried blood upon his arms and legs and chest. How could you possibly interpret such a vis- ion? Eric the Scattergood? That was meaningless. Eric the Value? No, that was a little better, but it was dreadfully vague, almost as bad as a blank vision. He stared past Ottilia’s writh- ing figure to where his uncle stood, surrounded by his band, a little to the left of the Throne Mound. Thomas the Trap-Smash- er was watching Ottilie and grin- ning with all his teeth. What did he find so funny, Eric wondered desperately? Was there nothing holy to him? Didn’t he realize how important it was to Eric’s future that his vision be readable, that he get a name to be proud of? What was fimny in Ottilia’s agony as she gave birth to Eric’s future? He realized that Ottilie was be- ginning to make coherent sounds. He strained his ears to listen. This, this was it. Who he really was. Who he would be, for all his life. “Three times,” Ottilie mumbled in a voice that steadily grew clearer and louder, “three times our ancestors gave Eric his name. Three repetitions they made. Three different ways they called on him to become what their science needed him to be. And all of you heard it, and I heard it, and Eric heard it too.” Which, Eric puzzled, which among the many strange magical statements had contained his name and his life’s-work? He waited for the Augur to come out THE MEN IN THE WALLS 27
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with it. He had almost given up breathing. Her body relaxed now, her hands hanging at her sides, Ottilie was speaking to them in a sharp, authoritative voice as she stared at the wall of the burrow where the vision had appeared. “ ‘A light meter that’s an eye- opener,’ the ancestor-science said,” she reminded them. “And ‘an electric eye that does all the focusing.’ And ‘you see further, you see clearer, you pay less,’ the Record-Machine told us of Eric. What the ancestors want of Eric is unmistakable, what he must be if we are to hit back at the Mon- sters and regain the Earth which is rightfully ours.” ^HANK the record machine, thank each and every an- cestor! At least the message had been unmistakable. But what pre- cisely had it been? Ottilie the Augur, the Omen- Teller, turned to face him now where he stood apart from the rest of eagerly-watching Man- kind. He straightened up and stood stiffly to learn his fate. “Eric,” she said. “Eric the Only, Eric the Singleton, you go out now to make your Theft. If you are successful and return alive, you will become a man. And as a man you will no longer be Eric the Only, you will be Eric the Eye. Eric the Eye, Eric the Es- pier, Eric who seeks out the path for Mankind. Eric who hits back at the Monsters with his eye, his open eye, his electric eye, his further-seeing, clearer-seeing, less- paying eye. For this is the word of the ancestors, and all of you have heard it.” At last Eric could take a deep breath, and he did so now, noisily, in common with the whole of Mankind who had been hanging on Ottilie’s words. Eric the Eye — that was what he was to be. If he was successful . . . and if he lived. Eric the Eye. Eric the Espier. Now he knew about himself. It was fixed, and for all time. It was a good name to bear, a fine personality to have. He had been very fortunate. Rita the Record-Keeper and her daughter> Harriet the History- Teller, rolled the record machine back into its accustomed holy place, the niche in the wall be- hind the Throne Mound. Despite the sacred quality of the act in which she was engaged, the younger woman could not take her eyes off Eric. He was a person of consequence now, or at least would be when he returned. Other young and mating-aged women, he noticed, were looking at him the same way. He began to walk around in a little circle before Mankind, and, as he walked, he strutted. He 28 GALAXY waited until Ottilie, no longer the Augur now, no longer the Omen- Teller, but once more the Chief- tain’s First Wife — he waited un- til she had returned to her place at the head of the Female Soci- ety, before he began to sing. He threw back his head and spread out his arms and danced proudly, stampingly, before Man- kind. He spun around in great dizzying circles and leaped in the air and came down with wrench- ing spasmodic twists of his legs and arms. And as he danced, he sang. He sang out of the pride that racked his chest like a soul cough- ing, out of the majesty of the war- rior-that-was-to-be, out of his sure knowledge of self. And he sang his promise to his fellows: 1 am Eric the Eye, Eric the Open Eye, Eric the Electric Eye, Eric the Further - Seeing, Clearer-Seeing, Less-Paying Eye. Eric the Espier — Eric who finds and points out the way. Are you lost in a strange place? I will show you the path to your home. Does the burrow break off in too many branches? I will pick out the best one and Mankind shall walk through in safety. Are there enemies about, hid- den traps, unthought-of dangers? I will see them and give warn- ing of them in time. I will walk at the head of the line of warriors and see for them, And they shall be confident and they shall conquer — For they have Eric the Espier to lead the way and point the path! QO he sang as he danced before ^ Mankind, under the enor- mous glow lamps of its great cen- tral burrow. He sang of his mis- sion in life as just a few short auld lang synes ago he had heard Roy the Runner, at his initiation, sing of the fleetness and swiftness that he would soon be the master of; as his Uncle Thomas had sung long before that of his coming ability to detect and dismantle traps; as once his own father had sung of the robberies he was to commit, of the storerooms he would empty for the benefit of Mankind. He sang and he leaped and he whirled, and all the while the watching host of Mankind beat time with its feet and hands and played chorus in the litany of his triumph. Then came a loud grunt from Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. The noise stopped. Eric danced to a quivering halt, his body wet all over, his limbs still trembling. “That is what is to be,” Frank- lin pointed out, “once the Theft THE MEN IN THE WALLS 29
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has been made. But first, first comes the Theft. Always before manhood comes the Theft. Now let us speak of your Theft.” “I will go into the very home of the Monsters,” Eric announced proudly, his head thrown back before the chief. “I will go into their home alone, with no com- panion but my own weapons, as a warrior should. I will steal from them, no matter what the danger, no matter what the threat. And what I steal, I will bring back for the use and enjoyment of Man- kind.” Franklin nodded and made the formal reply. “That is good, and it is spoken like a warrior. What do you promise to steal from the Monsters? For your first Theft must be a promise made in ad- vance and kept, kept exactly.” Now they were at it. Eric glanced at his uncle for support. Thomas the Trap-Smasher was staring off in a different direction. Eric licked his lips. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. After all, a youth going off on his first Theft had complete freedom of choice. “I promise to make my theft in the third category,” he said, his voice trembling just a little. The results were much more than he had anticipated. Franklin the Father of Many Thieves yelped sharply. He leaped off the Royal Mound and stood gaping at Eric for a while. His great belly and fat arms quivered with disbelief. “The third category, did you say? The third?” Eric, thoroughly frightened now, nodded. Franklin turned to Chief Wife Ottilie. They both peered through the ranks of Mankind to where Thomas the Trap-Smasher stood in the midst of his band, seem- ingly unconcerned by the sensa- tion that had just been created. “What is this, Thomas?” the chief demanded, all ceremony and formality gone from his speech. “What are you trying to pull? What’s this third category stuff you’re up to?” Thomas the Trap - Smasher turned a bland eye upon him. “What am I up to? I’m not up to a damn thing. The boy’s got a right to pick his category. If he wants to steal in the third cate- gory, well, that’s his business. What have I got to do with it?” The chief stared at him for a few moments longer. Then he swung back to Eric and said shortly: “All right. You’ve chosen. The third category it is. Now let’s get on with the feast.” SOMEHOW it was all spoiled ^ for Eric. The initiation feast that preceded a first Theft — how he had looked forward to it! But he was apparently involved in 30 GALAXY something going on in Mankind, something dangerous and un- savory. The chief obviously considered him an important factor in what- ever difficulty had arisen. Usual- ly, an initiate about to depart on a Theft was the focus of all con- versation as Mankind ate in its central burrow, the women squat- ting on one side, the men on the other, the children at the far ends where light was dim. But at this meal, the chief made only the most necessary ritual remarks to Eric. His eyes kept wandering from him to Thomas the Trap- Smasher. Once in a while, Franklin’s eyes met those of Ottilie, his fa- vored and first wife, across the feast that had been spread the length of the burrow. He seemed to be saying something to her, although neither of them moved their lips. Then they would nod at each other and look back to Eric’s uncle. The rest of Mankind became aware of the strained atmos- phere: there was little of the usual laughter and gaiety of an initiation feast. The Trap- Smasher’s band had pulled in tightly all around him; most of them were not even bothering to eat but sat watchful and alert. Other band captains — men like Stephen the Strong-Armed and Harold the Hurler — had worried looks on their faces as if they were calculating highly complex problems. Even the children were re- markably quiet. They served the food over which the women had said charms much earlier, then scurried to their places and ate with wide eyes aimed at their elders. All in all, Eric was distinctly relieved when Franklin the Fa- ther of Many Thieves belched commandingly, stretched, and lay back on the floor of the bur- row. In a few minutes, he was asleep, snoring loudly. Night had officially begun. IV A T the end of the sleep period, as soon as the chief had awakened and yawned, thus pro- claiming the dawn, Thomas the Trap-Smasher’s band started on its trip. Eric, still officially surnamed the Only, carried the precious loin straps of manhood in the food knapsack the women had provided for a possible journey of several days. They should re- turn before the next sleep period, but when one went on an expedi- tion into Monster territory any- thing might happen. They stepped out in full mili- tary formation, a long, straggling single file, each man barely in THE MEN IN THE WALLS 31
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f sight of the warrior immediately ahead. For the first time in his military career, Eric was wearing only one set of spears — those for himself. Extra weapons for the band — as well as extra sup- plies — were on the back of a new apprentice, a stripling who marched a distance behind Eric, watching him with the same mix- ture of fright and exhilaration Eric himself had once accorded all other warriors. Ahead of Eric, momentarily disappearing as the dim corridor curved and branched, was Roy the Runner, his long, loose-jointed legs purposefully treading down the mileage. And all the way in the lead of the column, Eric knew, was his uncle. Thomas the Trap-Smasher would be striding cautiously yet without any un- necessary waste of time, the large glow lamp on his forehead con- stantly shifting from wall to wall of the uninhabited burrow and then straight ahead, the heavy spear in each brawny hand ready for instant action, his mouth set to call the warning behind him if danger materialized. To be a man — this was what it was like! To go on expeditions like this for the rest of one’s life, glorious, adventure-charged ex- peditions so that Mankind might eat well and have weapons and live as Mankind should. And when you returned, triumphant. victorious, the welcoming dance of the women as they threaded their way through the tired ranks, giving you refreshment and tak- ing from you the supplies that only they could turn into usable articles. Then, after you had eaten and drunk and rested, your own dance, the dance of the men, where you sang and acted out for the tribe all the events of this particular expedition, the dangers you had overcome, the splendid courage you had shown, the strange and mysterious sights you had seen. The sights you had seen! As Eric the Eye, he would probably be entitled to a solo dance any time his band came across any- thing particularly curious. Oh, how high Eric the Eye would leap, how loudly, how proudly, how melodiously, he would sing of the wonders the expedition had encountered! “Eric the Eye,” the women would murmur. “What a fine, fine figure of a man! What a mate for some lucky woman!” TTARRIET the History-Teller this morning, for example, before they started out. She had filled his canteen for him with fresh water as if he were already an accredited man instead of an initiate going out to face his ulti- mate trial. Before the eyes of all Mankind she had filled it and 32 GALAXY brought it to him, her eyes down- cast and light purple blushes on the rosy skin of her face and body. She had treated him the way a wife treats a husband, and many warriors — Eric thought gleefully — many full warriors with their Thefts long behind them had observed that Eric was likely to join the ranks of the Male Society and the married men almost simultaneously. Of course, with her unlucky red hair, her bustling, domineer- ing mother, Harriet was not ex- actly the most marriageable girl in Mankind. Still, there were many full warriors who had not yet been able to persuade a woman to mate with them, who watched Franklin and his three wives with unconcealed hunger and envy. How they would envy Eric, the newest warror of all, when he mated the same night he returned from his theft! Call him Only, then! Call him singleton, then! They would have litter after litter, he and Harriet, large litters, ample litters, four, five, even six at a time. People would forget he’d ever been the product of a singleton birth. Other women, mates of other warriors, would wriggle to attract his attention as they now_ wriggled when they caught the eye of Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. He would make the litters fathered by Franklin look puny in com- parison, he would prove that the best hope for Mankind’s increase lay in his loins and his loins alone. And when the time came to se- lect another chief . . . “Hey, you damned day-dream- ing singleton!” Roy the Runner was calling from the burrow ahead. “Will you wipe that haze out of your face and pay atten- tion to signals? This is an expedi- tion to Monster territory, not a stroll in the women’s quarters. Stay alert, will you? The band captain’s sent down a call for you.” Amid the chuckles ahead and behind him — damn it, even the new apprentice was laughing! — Eric took a firmer grip on his glow torch and sprinted for the head of the column. As he passed each man, he was asked the name of the girl he’d been thinking about and pressed for interesting details. Since he kept his mouth tightly shut, some of the warriors hypothesized out loud. They were painfully close to the truth. His uncle wasn’t much gentler with him. “Eric the Eye!” the Trap-Smasher growled. “Eric the Eyebrow, Eric the Closed Eye- lash, you’ll be known as, if you don’t wake up! Now stay abreast of me and try to act like Eric the Eye. These are dangerous bur- rows and my vision isn’t as sharp as yours. Besides, I have to fill THE MEN IN THE WALLS 33
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you in on a couple of things.” He turned. “Spread out a little far- ther back there,” he called out to the men behind him. “Spread out! You should be a full spear- cast from the backside of the man in front of you. Let me see a real strung-out column with plenty of distance between each war- rior.” Eric, he muttered, once the maneuver had been com- pleted: “Good. Gives us a chance to talk without everyone in the band hearing us. You can trust my bunch, but still, why take chances?” Eric nodded, with no idea what he was talking about. His uncle had become slightly odd re- cently. Well, he was still the best band captain in all Mankind. They marched along together, the light from the strange glow- ing substance on Eric’s torch and his uncle’s forehead spreading a yellowish illumination some hun- dred feet ahead of them. On ei- ther side, underfoot, overhead, were the curved, featureless walls of the burrow. From the center of the corridor, where they inarched, the walls looked soft and spongy, but Eric knew what tremendous labor was involved in digging a niche or recess in them. It took several strong men at least two sleep periods to make a niche large enough to hold a handful of Mankind’s store of artifacts. Where had the burrows come from? Some said they had been dug by the ancestors when they had first begun to hit back at the Monsters. Others claimed the burrows had always been there, waiting for Mankind to find them and be comfortable in them. In all directions the burrows stretched. On and on they went, interminably curving and branch- ing and forking, dark and silent, until human beings stamped into them with glow lamp and glow torch. These particular corridors, Eric knew, led to Monster terri- tory. He had been along them many times as a humble spear carrier when his uncle’s band had been dispatched to bring back the necessities of life for Mankind. Other corridors went off to more exotic and even more dangerous places. But were there any places which had no burrows? What a thought! Even the Monsters lived in burrows, big as they were reputed to be. But there was a legend that Mankind had once lived outside burrows, outside the branching corridors. Then what had they lived in? Just trying to work it out made you dizzy. They came to a place where the burrow became two burrows, each curving away from the other in opposite directions. f “Which one?” his uncle de- manded. Eric unhesitatingly pointed the right. Thomas the Trap-Smasher nodded. “You have a good mem- ory,” he said as he bore in the direction that Eric had indicated. “That’s half of being an Eye. The other half is having a feeling, a knack, for the right way to go. You have that too. I’ve noticed it on every expedition where you’ve been along. That’s what I told those women — Rita, Ot- tilie — I told them what your name had to be. Eric the Eye, I told them. Find a vision for the kind that corresponds to it.” He was so shocked that he al- most came to a halt. “You picked my name? You told them what kind of vision . . . That’s — that’s — I never heard of such a thing!” His uncle laughed. “It’s no dif- ferent from Ottilie the Omen- Teller making a deal with Frank- lin to have a vision showing him as the new chief. He gets to be chief, she becomes the Chief- tain’s First Wife and automati- cally takes over the Female So- ciety. Religion and politics, they’re always mixed up together these days, Eric. We’re not living in the old times any more when Ancestor-science was real and holy and it worked.” “It still works. Ancestor-sci- ence, doesn’t it?” he pleaded. “Some of the tme?” “Everything works some of the time. Only Alien-science, though, works all of the time. It’s work- ing for Aliens, for the Monsters. It’s got to begin working for us. That’s where you come in.” He had to remember that his uncle was an experienced cap- tain, a knowledgeable warrior. Thomas the Trap-Smasher’s pro- tection and advice had brought him, a despised singleton, an orphaned child of parents that no one dared even talk about, to his present estate of almost full thieving status. It was very for- tunate for him that neither of his uncle’s wives had yet pro- duced a son which survived into the initiate years. He still had a lot to learn from this man. “Now,” the Trap-Smasher was saying, his eyes still on the dimly illuminated corridors ahead. “When we get to the Monster burrows, you go in. You go in alone, of course.” Well, of course, Eric thought. What other way was there to make your Theft? The first time you stole for Mankind, you did it all alone, to prove your man- hood, your courage, also the amount of personal luck you en- joyed. It was not like a regular band theft — or organized steal- ing of a large amount of goods 34 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 35
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that would last Mankind many sleep-periods, almost a tenth of an auld lang syne. In a regular band theft, assigned to each band in rotation, a warrior had to be assured of the luck and skill of the warriors at his side. He had to know that each one of them had made his Theft — and proved himself when completely alone. Stealing from the Monsters was dangerous enough under the best of conditions. You wanted only the cleverest, bravest, most fortunate warriors along with you. “Once you’re inside, stay close to the wall. Don’t look up at first or you’re likely to freeze right where you are. Keep your eyes on the wall and move close to it. Move fast.” Nothing new here. Every ini- tiate learned over and over again, before he made his Theft, that it was terribly dangerous to look up when you first entered Mon- ster territory. You had to keep your eyes on the wall and move in the protection of it, the wall touching your shoulder as you ran alongside it. Why this was so, Eric had no idea, but that it was so he had long ago learned to repeat as a fact. “All right,” Thomas the Trap- Smasher went on. “You turn right as you go in. Right, do you hear me, Eric? You turn right, with- out looking up, and run along the wall, letting it brush your shoulder every couple of steps. You run forty, fifty paces, and ' you come to a great big thing, a structure, that’s almost touching the wall. You turn left along that, moving away from the wall, ' but still not looking up, until you pass an entrance in the structure. You don’t go in that first en- trance, Eric; you pass it by. About twenty, twenty-five paces further on, there’ll be a second entrance, a bigger one. You go in that one.” “I go in that one,” Eric re- peated carefully, memorizing his uncle’s words. He was receiving directions for his Theft, the most important act of his life! Every single thing his uncle told him must be listened to carefully, must not be forgotten. “You’ll be in something that looks like a burrow again, but it’ll be darker, at first. The walls will soak up light from your glow lamp. After a while, the burrow will open out into a great big space, a real big and real dark space. Y ou go on in a straight ' line, looking over your shoulder at the light from the entrance and making sure it’s always di- rectly behind you. You’ll hit an- other burrow, a low one this time. Turn right at the first fork as soon as you go in, and there you are.” “Where? Where will I be? What happens then?” Eric de- manded eagerly. “How do I make my Theft? Where do I find the third category?” Thomas the Trap*-Smasher seemed to have trouble continu- ing. Incredible — he was actually nervous! “There’ll be a Stranger there. You tell him who you are, your name. He’ll do the rest.” This time Eric came to a full stop. “A Stranger?” he asked in complete amazement. “Some- one who’s not of Mankind?” His uncle grabbed at his arm and pulled him along. “Well, you’ve seen Strangers before,” he said with a weak laugh. “You know there are others in the bur- rows besides Mankind. You know that, don’t you, boy?” Eric certainly did. From an early age he had ac- companied his uncle and his un- cle’s band on warfare and trading expeditions to the burrows a bit further back. He knew that the people in these burrows looked down on the people in his, that they were more plentiful than his people, and led richer, safer lives — but he still couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. They were nothing but Stran- gers, after all. He was a member of Mankind. It wasn’t just that Mankind lived in the front burrows, those closest to the Monster larder. This enormous convenience might be counterbalanced, he would readily admit, by the dan- gers associated with it — although the constant exposure to dangers and death in every form were part of Mankind’s greatness. They were great despite their inferior technology. So what if they were primarily a source of raw materials to the more popu- lous but less hardy burrows in the rear? How long would the weaponsmiths, the potters and tanners and artificers of these burrows be able to go on with their buzzing, noisy industries once Mankind ceased to bring them the basic substances — food, cloth, metal — it had so gloriously stolen from fear-filled Monster territory? No, Man- kind was the bravest, greatest, most important people in all the burrows. But that still wasn’t the point, of it all. The point was that you had nothing more to do with Stran- gers than was absolutely neces- sary. They were Strangers. You were Mankind. You stayed proudly aloof from them at all times. Trading with them — well, you traded with them. Mankind needed spear-points and sturdy spear-shifts, knapsacks and loin- straps, canteens and cooking ves- sels. You needed these articles 36 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 37
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r and got them in exchange for heavy backloads of shapeless, un- processed stuff freshly stolen. Mating with them — well, of course you mated with them. One was always on the lookout for extra women who could add to the knowledge and technical abilities of Mankind. But these women became a well-adjusted part of Mankind once they were stolen, just as Mankind’s women were complete outsiders and Strangers the moment they had been carried off by a foreign raid- ing party. And fighting with them, warring with them — next to stealing from the Monsters, that was the sweetest, most exciting part of a warrior’s existence. You traded with Strangers, coldly, suspiciously, always alert for a better bargain; you stole Stranger women whenever you could, gleefully, proudly, because that diminished them and in- creased the numbers and well- being of Mankind; and you fought Stranger men whenever there was more to be gained that way than by simple trading — and periodically they came upon you as you lay in your burrow unawares and fought you. But otherwise, for all normal social purposes, they were taboo. Almost as taboo and not-to-be- related-to as the Monsters on the other side of Mankind’s bur- rows. When you came upon an individual Stranger wandering apart from his people, you killed him quickly and casually. You certainly didn’t ask him for advice on your Theft. "I^RIC was still brooding on the unprecedented nature of his uncle’s instructions when they came to the end of their journey, a large, blind-alley burrow. There was a line cut deep into the blank wall here, a line that started at the floor, went up almost to the height of a man’s head, and then curved down to the floor again. The door to Monster territory. Thomas the Trap-Smasher waited for a moment, listening. When his experienced ears had detected no unusual noises in the neighborhood, no hint of danger on the other side, he cupped his hands around his mouth, faced back the way he had come, and softly gave the ululating recogni- tion-call of the band. The four other warriors and the appren- tice came up swiftly and grouped themselves about him. Then, at a signal from their leader, all | squatted near the door. . They ate first, rapidly and si- | lently, removing from their knap- i sacks handfuls of food that the i women had prepared for them and stuffing their mouths full, the j beams from the glow lamps above their eyes darting inces- i santly back and forth along the 38 GALAXY
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arched, empty corridor. This was the place of ultimate, awful dan- ger. This was the place where anything might happen. Eric ate most sparingly of all as was correct for an initiate about to emerge upon his Theft. He knew he had to keep his springiness of body and watch- fulness of mind at their highest possible pitch. He saw his uncle nodding approvingly as he re- turned the bulk of his food to the knapsack. The floor vibrated slightly un- derfoot; there was a regular, rhythmic gurgling. Eric knew that meant they were directly over a length of Monster plumb- ing: upon his return, before the band started homewards, Tho- mas the Trap-Smasher would make an opening in the plumbing and they would refill their can- teens. The water here, nearest to Monster territory, was always the sweetest and best. Now his uncle got to his feet and called Roy the Runner to him. While the other warriors watched, tense and still, the two men walked to the curved line and laid their ears against it. Satisfied, finally, they inserted spear points into the door’s out- line on either side and carefully pried the slab back toward them. They laid it on the floor of the corridor, very gently. A shimmering blur of pure whiteness appeared where the door had been. Monster territory. The strange, alien light of Monster territory. Eric had seen many warriors dis- appear into it to fulfill their man- hood tasks. Now it was his turn. Holding his heavy spear at the ready, Eric’s uncle leaned for- ward into the whiteness. His body twisted as he looked up, down, around, on both sides. He with- drew and came back into the | burrow. j “No new traps,” he said in a ^ soft voice. “The one I dismantled last expedition is still up there i on the wall. It hasn’t been re- i paired. Now Eric. Here you go, boy.” Eric rose and walked with him ; to the doorway, remembering to keep his eyes on the floor. You can’t look up, he had been told again and again, not right away, i not the first time you’re in Mon- ster territory. If you do, you ■ freeze, you’re lost, you’re done for completely. His uncle checked him care- fully and fondly, making certain that his new loin straps were tight, that his knapsack and back- sling were both in the right posi- tion on his shoulders. He took a heavy spear from Eric’s right hand and replaced it with a light : one from the back-sling. “If you’re j seen by a Monster,” he whis- pered, “the heavy spear’s not 40 GALAXY worth a damn. You scuttle into closest hiding-place and throw the light spear as far as you can. The Monster can’t dis- tinguish between you and the spear. It will follow the spear.” Eric nodded mechanically, al- though this too he had been told many times, this too was a lesson he knew by heart. His mouth was so dry! He wished that it weren’t unmanly to beg for water at such a moment. Thomas the Trap-Smasher took his torch from him and slipped a glow lamp about his forehead. Then he pushed him through the doorway. “Go make your Theft, Eric,” he whispered. “Come back a man.” V He was on the other side. He was in Monster territory. He was surrounded by the strange Monster light, the incredible Monster world. The burrows. Mankind, everything familiar, lay behind him. Panic rose from his stomach and into his throat like vomit. Don’t look up. Eyes down, eyes down or yotfre likely to freeze ri^ht where you are. Stay close to the wall, keep your eyes on the wall and move along it. Turn right and move along the wall. Move fast. Eric turned. He felt the wall THE MEN IN THE WALLS brush his right shoulder. He be- gan to rim, keeping his eyes down, touching the wall with his shoulder at regular intervals. He ran as fast as he possibly could, urging his muscles fiercely on. As he ran, he counted the steps to himself. '• Twenty paces. Where did the light come from? It was every- where; it glowed so; it was white, white. Twenty-five paces. Touch the wall with your shoulder. Don’t — above everything — don’t wander away from the wall. Thirty paces. In light like this you had no need of the glow lamp. It was almost too bright to see in. Thirty- five paces. The floor was not like a burrow floor. It was flat and very hard. So was the wall. Flat and hard and straight. Forty paces. Run and keep your eyes down. Run. Keep touching the wall with your shoulder. Move fast. But keep your eyes down. Don’t look up. Forty -five paces. He almost smashed into the structure he had been told about, but his reflexes and the warnings he had received swung him to the left and along it just in time. It was a different color than the wall, he noted, and a different- textured material. Keep your eyes down. Don’t look up. He came to an entrance, like the beginning of a small burrow. Don’t go in that first entrance. 41
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Eric; you pass it by. He began to count again as he ran. Twenty- three paces more, and there was another entrance, a much higher, wider one. He darted inside. It’ll be darker, at first. The walls will soak up light from your glow lamp. Eric paused, gasping. He was grateful for the sucking darkness. After that terrible, alien white light, the gloom was friendly, reminiscent of the familiar bur- rows now so horribly far away. He could afford to take a breath at this point, he knew. The first, the worst part was over. He wasn’t out in the open any more. He had emerged into Mon- ster territory. He had run fast, following instructions until he was safely under cover again. He was still alive. The worst was over. Nothing else would be as bad as this. Monster territory. It lay be- hind him, bathed in its own pe- culiar light. Now. Why not? Now, when he was in a place of comparative safety. He could take a chance. He wanted to take a chance. He turned, gingerly, fearfully. He raised his eyes. He looked. ^^HE cry that tore from his lips -*■ was completely involuntary and frightened him almost as much as what he saw. He shut his eyes and threw himself down 42 and sideways. He lay where he had fallen for a long while, al- most paralyzed. It couldn’t be. He hadn’t seen it. Nothing was that high, nothing ran on and on for such incredi- ble distances! After a time, he opened his eyes again, keeping them care- fully focused on the dark near him. The gloom in this covered place had diminished somewhat as his eyes had grown more ac- customed to it. Yellowish light from his glow lamp was providing illumination now: he could make out the walls, about as far apart from each other as those in a bur- row, but — unlike a burrow’s walls — oddly straight and at right angles to the floor and ceil- ing. Far off there was an im- mense patch of darkness. The burrow will open out into a great big space, a real big and real dark space. What was this place, he won- dered? What was it to the Mon- sters? He had to take another look behind, into the open. One more quick look. He was going to be Eric the Eye. An Eye should be able tb look at anything. He had to take another look. But guardedly, guardedly. Eric turned again, opening his eyes a little at a time. He clamped his teeth together so as not to cry out. Even so, he almost did. He GALAXY L shut his eyes quickly, waited, then opened them again. Bit by bit, effort by effort, he found he was able to look into the great open whiteness without losing control of himself. It was upsetting, overpowering, but if he didn’t look too long at any one time, he could stand it. Distance. Enormous, elongated, unbelievable distance. Space upon space upon space — that white light bathing it all. Space far ahead, space on all sides, space going on and on until it seemed to have no end to it at all. But there, fantastically far off, there was an end. There was a wall, a wall made by giants that finally sealed off the tremen- dous space. It rose hugely from the flat, huge floor and disap- peared somewhere far overhead. And in between — once you could stand to look at it this much — in between, there were ob- jects. Enormous objects, dwarfed only by the greatness of the space which surrounded them, enor- mous, terribly alien objects. Ob- jects like nothing you had ever imagined. 1^0, that wasn’t quite true. That ' thing over there. Eric recog- nized it. A great, squat thing like a full knapsack without the straps. Since early boyhood, many was the time he had heard it de- scribed by warriors back from an expedition into Monster territory. There was food in that sack and the others like it. Enough food in that one sack to feed the entire population of Mankind for unnumbered auld lang synes. A different kind of food in each sack. No sp)ear point possessed by Mankind would cut through the fabric of its container, not near the bottom where it was thickest. Warriors had to climb about half- way up the sack, Eric knew, be- fore they could find a place thin enough to carve themselves an entrance. Then the lumps of food would be lowered from man to man all the way down the sack, warriors clinging to precarious handholds every few paces. Once the pile on the floor was great enough, they would clam- ber down and fill their specially large, food-expedition knapsacks. Then back to the burrows and to the women who alone possessed the lore of determining whether the food was fit for consumption and of preparing it if it were. That’s where he would be at this moment, on that sack, cut- ting a hole in it, if he’d chosen a first category Theft like most other youths. He’d be cutting a hole, scooping out a handful of food — any quantity, no matter how small, was acceptable on an initiatory Theft — and ie pre- THE MEN IN THE WALLS 43
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paring to go home to plaudits from the women and acceptance from the men. He’d be engaged in a normal, socially-acceptable endeavor. Instead of which . . . He found that he was able to stare at the Monster room now from under the cover of his hiding place with only a slight feeling of nausea. Well, that in itself was an achievement. After only a short time, here he was, able to look around and estimate the na- ture of Monster goods like the most experienced warrior. He couldn’t look up too high as yet, but what warrior could? Well and good, but this wasn’t getting him anywhere. He didn’t have a normal Theft to make. His was third category. Monster souvenirs. Eric turned and faced the dark- ness again. He walked rapidly forward into the straight-walled burrow, the glow-lamp on his forehead lighting a yellow path. Ahead of him, the great black space grew steadily larger as he pushed towards it. Everything about his Theft, his initiation into manhood, was extraordinary. Thomas the Trap- Smasher telling the women about his special talents, so that he would be accorded a vision and a name which would fit with them. Visions were supposed to come from the ancestors, through the ancestor-science of the record machine. Nobody was supposed to have the slightest idea in ad- vance of what the vision would be. That was all up to the an- cestors and their mysterious plans for their descendants. ^^ETAS it possible, was it con- ” ceivable, that all visions and names were pre-arranged, that the record machine was set in advance for every initiation? Where did that leave religion? If that were so, how could you continue to believe in logic, in cause and effect? And having someone — a Stranger, at that! — help you make your Theft. A Theft was supposed to be purely and simply a test of your male potential; by definition, it was something you did alone. i But if you could accept the concept of pre-arranged visions, why not pre-arranged Thefts? 1 Eric shook his head. He was | getting into very dark corridors mentally: his world was turning into sheer confusion. But one thing he knew. Mak- ing an arrangement with a Stranger, as his uncle had done, was definitely an act contrary to all the laws and practices of Mankind. Thomas’s uncertain i speech had underlined that fact. It was — well, it was wron^. Yet his uncle was the greatest man in all Mankind, so far as Eric was concerned. Thomas the Trap-Smasher could do no wrong. But Thomas the Trap-Smasher was evidently leaning toward Alien-science.- Alien-science was wrong. But again, on the other hand, his parents, according to the Trap-Smasher, his father and his mother had been Alien-sci- encers. Too much. There was just too much to work out. There was too much he didn’t know. He’d better concentrate on his Theft. The strange burrow had come to an end. The hairs rose on the back of his neck as he walked into the great dark area and sensed enormous black heights above him. He began to hurry, turning every once in a while to make certain that he was staying in a straight line with the light from the entrance. Here, his fore- head glow lamp was almost no use at all. He didn’t like this place. It felt almost like being out in the open. What, he wondered again fev- erishly, was this structure in the world of the Monsters? What function did it have? He was not sure he wanted to know. Eric was running by the time he came to the end of the open space. He hit the wall so hard that he was knocked over back- wards. For a moment, he was badly frightened, then he realized what had happened. He hadn’t taken his bearings for a while: he must have moved off at an angle. Groping along the wall with ex- tended arms, he found the en- trance to the low burrow at last. It was quite low — he had to bend his knees and duck his head as he went up to. It was an un- pleasantly narrow little corridor. But then there was an opening on his right — the fork his uncle had told him about — and he turned into it with relief. He had arrived. There was a burst of light from a group of glow lamps. And there were Strangers, there were sev- eral Strangers here. Three of them — no, four — no, five! They squatted in a corner of this large, square burrow, three of them talking earnestly, the other two engaged in some incompre- hensible task with materials that were mostly unfamiliar. A LL OF them leaped to their feet as he trotted in and deployed instantly in a wide semi-circle facing him. Eric wished desperately he had been holding two heavy spears instead of the single light one. With two heavy spears you had both a shield and a dangerous offensive weapon. A light spear was good for a single cast, and that was that. 44 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 45
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He held it nevertheless in the throwing position above his shoulder and glared fiercely, as a warrior of Mankind should. If he had to throw, he decided, he would spring to one side immedi- ately afterward and try to pluck the two heavy spears from ■ his backsling. But if they rushed him right now — “Who are you?” asked a strong-faced, middle-aged man in the center of the semi-circle, his spear throbbing in an upraised arm. “What’s your name — what’s your people?” “Eric the Only,” Eric told him quickly. Then he remembered to add: “I’m destined to be Eric the Eye. My people are Mankind.” “He’s expected, one of us,” the middle-aged man told the others who immediately relaxed, slung their spears and went back to what they had been doing. ‘Wel- come, Eric the Only of Mankind. Put up your spear and sit with us. I am Arthur the Organizer.” Eric gingerly dropped his spear into the back-sling. He studied the Stranger. A man about as old as his uncle and not nearly as hefty, although well-muscled enough for normal warlike purposes. He wore the loin-straps of a full war- rior, but — as if these were not enough honor for a man — he also wore straps laced about his chest and across his shoulders. though he was carrying no knap>- sack. This was the fashion of | many Strangers, Eric knew, as j was the strap at the back of the head that held the hair in a tight tail away from the eyes instead of letting it hang wild and free ! as the hair of a warrior should. And the straps were decorated with odd, incised designs — an- other weak and unmanlike 1 Stranger fashion. Who but Strangers, Eric thought contemptuously, would group up so in an alien place without setting sentries at either end of their burrow? Truly Man- kind had good reason to despise them! But this man was a leader, he realized, a bom leader, with an ; even more self-assured air than Thomas the Trap-Smasher, cap- ; tain of the best band in all Man- kind. He was studying Eric in turn, with eyes that weighed carefully and then, having de- cided on the measure, made a definite placement, fitting Eric permanently into this plan or that plan. He looked like a man i whose head was full of many plans, each one evolving inexor- ably through action to a pre- determined end. He took Eric’s arm companion- ably and led him to where the others squatted and talked and worked. This was no tribal bur- ■ row of any sort: it was quite ap- 46 GALAXY parently a field headquarters — and Arthur the Organizer was Commander-in-Chief. “I met your uncle,” he told Eric, “about a dozen auld lang synes ago, when he came to us on a trading ex- pedition — back in our burrows, I mean. A fine man, your uncle, very progressive. He’s attended our secret meetings regularly, and there’s going to be an im- portant place for him in the great burrows we will dig, in the new world we are making. He re- minds me a lot of your father. But so do you, my boy, so do you.” “Did you know my father?” Arthur the Organizer smiled and nodded. “Very well. He could have been a great man. He gave his life for the Cause. Who among us will ever forget Eric the — the — Eric the Store- keeper or something, wasn’t it?” “The Storeroom-Stormer. His name was Eric the Storeroom- Stormer.” “Yes, of course. Eric the Store- room-Stormer. An unforgettable name with us, and an unforget- table man. But that’s another story; we’ll talk about it some other time. You’ll have to be get- ting back to your uncle very soon.” He picked up a flat board covered with odd markings and studied it with his glow lamp. “How do you like that?” one of the men working with the un- familiar materials muttered to his neighbor. “You ask him his people, and he says, ‘Mankind.’ Mankind!” The other man chuckled. “A front-burrow tribe. What the hell do you expect — sophistication? Each and every front-burrow tribe calls itself Mankind. As far as these primitives are concerned, the human race stops at their outermost burrow. Your tribe, my tribe — you know what they call us? Strangers. In their eyes, there’s not too much difference between us and the Monsters.” “That’s what I mean. They don’t see us as fellow-men. They are narrow-minded savages. Who needs them?” Arthur the Organizer glanced at Eric’s face. He turned sharply to the man who had spoken last. “I’ll tell you who needs them, Walter,” he said. “The Cause needs them. If the front-burrow tribes are with us, it means our main lines of supply to Monster territory are kept op>en. But we need every fighter we can get, no matter how primitive. Every single tribe has to be with us if Alien-science is to be the domi- nant religion of the burrows, if we’re to avoid the fiasco of the last rising. We need front-bur- row men for their hunting, forag- ing skills and back-burrow men for their civilized skills. We need THE MEN IN THE WALLS 47
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everybody in this thing, especially now.” The man called Walter put down his work and scowled at Eric dubiously. He seemed to be totally unconvinced. These arrogant back-burrow- ers with their ornamented straps and unmilitary manners! Men from different tribes sitting around and talking, when — if they had any sense of propriety at all — they should be killing each other! • Suddenly, the floor shook un- der him. He almost fell. He staggered back and forth, trying to grab at the spears in his back- sling. He finally got used to it, managed to find a solid footing in the upheaval. The spear he held vibrated in his hand. ¥?ROM far away came a series of ear-splitting thumps. The floor swung to their rhythm. “What is it?” he cried, turning to Arthur. “What’s going on?” “You’ve never heard a Mon- ster walking before?” the Organ- izer asked him unbelievingly. “That’s right — this is your Theft, your first time out. It’s a Monster, boy. A Monster’s mov- ing around in the Monster larder, doing whatever Monsters do. They have a right, you know,” he added with a smile. “It’s their larder. We’re just — visitors.” Eric noticed that none of the others seemed particularly con- cerned. He drew a deep breath and reslung his spear. How the floor and the walls shook! What a fantastic, enormous creature that must be! As an apprentice warrior, he had often stood with the rear- guard on the other side of the doorway to Monster territory while the band went in to steal for Mankind. A few times there had been heavy, thumping noises off in the distance, and the walls of the burrow had quivered slightly. But not like this. It had never been remotely as awesome as this. He raised his eyes to the straight, flat ceiling of the bur- row above them. He remembered the dark space further back stretching up limitlessly. “And this,” he said aloud. “This structure we’re in. What is this to them?” Arthur the Organizer shrugged. “A piece of Monster furniture. Something they use for some- thing or other. We’re in one of the open spaces they always leave in the bases of their furniture. Makes the furniture lighter, easier to move around, I guess.” He listened for a moment as the thumps drifted further away and then died out. “Let’s get down to business. Eric, this is Walter the Weapon-Seeker. Walter the Weapon-Seeker of the Miximilian 48 GALAXY people. Walter, what do you have for Eric’s tribe — for, uh, for Mankind?” “I hate to give anything even halfway good to a front-burrow tribe,” the squatting man mut- tered. “No matter how much you explain it to them, they always use it wrong, they botch it up every single time. Let’s see. This should be simple enough.” He rummaged in the pile of strange stuff in front of him and picked up a small, red, jelly-like blob. “All you do,” he explained, “is tear off a pinch with your fingers. Just a pinch at a time, no more. Then spit on it and throw it. After you spit on it, get it out of your hands fast. Throw it as fast and as far as you can. Do you think you can remember that?” “Yes.” Eric took the red blob from him and stared at it in puz- zlement. There was a strange, ir- ritating odor: it made his nose itch slightly. “But what happens? What does it do?” “That’s not your worry, boy,” Arthur the Organizer told him. “Your uncle will know when to use it. You have your third cate- gory theft — a Monster souvenir that no one in your tribe has ever seen before. It should make them sit up and take notice. And tell your uncle to bring his band to my burrow three days — three sleep-periods — from now. That will be the last time we meet before the rising. Tell him to bring them armed with every last spear they can carry.” 'C’RIC nodded weakly. There were so many complex, in- comprehensible things going on! The world was a bigger, more active place than he had ever imagined. He watched Arthur the Or- ganizer add a mark to the flat board on which many symbols were scratched. This was another Stranger practice — made nec- essary, he knew, by the weak Stranger memory, so inferior to that of Mankind. The Weapon-Seeker leaped up and stopped him as he was about to put the red blob into knapsack. “Nothing wet in there?” Walter demanded, opening the bag and rummaging about in Eric’s be- longings. “No water? Remember, get this stuff wet and you’re done for.” “Mankind keeps its water in canteens,” Eric explained irrita- bly. “We keep it here,” he pointed to the sloshing pouch at his hip, “not splashing around loosely with our provisions.” He swung the full knapsack on his back and stepped away with stiff dig- nity. Arthur the Organizer accom- panied him to the end of the burrow. “Don’t mind Walter,” he THE MEN IN THE WALLS 49
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whispered. “He’s always afraid that nobody but himself will be able to use the Monster weapKsns he digs up. He talks that way to everyone. Now, suppose I re- fresh your memory about the way back. We don’t want you to get lost.” “I won’t get lost,” Eric said coldly. “I have a good memory, and I know enough to perform a simple reversal of the directions on the way here. Besides, I am Eric the Espier, Eric the Eye of Mankind. I won’t get lost.” He was rather proud of him- self as he trotted away, without turning his head. Let the Stran- gers know what you think of them. The snobs. The stuck-up bastards. But still, he felt damaged somehow, made less — as when Roy the Runner had called him a singleton before the entire band. And the last comment he had heard behind him — “These primitives: so damned touchy!” — made it no better. He crossed the dark open space, still brooding, his eyes fixed on the patch of white light ahead, his mind engaged in a completely unaccustomed exam- ination of values. Mankind’s free simplicity against the Stranger multiplicity and intricacy. Man- kind’s knowledge of basics, the important foraging basics of day- to-day life, against the Stranger knowledge of so many things and techniques he had never even heard about. Surely Mankind’s way was infinitely preferable, far superior? Then why did his uncle want to get mixed up with Stranger politics, he wondered, as he emerged from the structure? He turned left and, passing the small entrance he had ignored before, sped for the wall which separated him from the burrows. And why did all these Strangers, evidently each from a different tribe, agree in the contempt with which they held Mankind? He had just turned right along the wall, on the last stretch be- fore the doorway, when the floor shook again, jarring him out of his thoughts. He bounced up and down, frozen with fear where he stood. He was out in the open while a Monster was abroad. A Mon- ster had come into the larder again. VI ^AR OFF in the dazzling dis- ^ tance, he caught sight of the tremendously long gray body he had heard about since childhood, hgher than a hundred men stand- ing on each other’s shoulders, the thick gray legs each wider than two hefty men standing chest to chest. He caught just one wide- 50 GALAXY I eyed, fear-soluble glimpse of the thing before he went into com- plete panic. His panic was redeemed by a single inhibition: he didn’t spring forward and run away from the ^all- But that was only because it would have meant running di- rectly toward the Monster. For one thoroughly insane moment, however, he thought of trying to claw his way through the wall against which his shoulders were pressed. Then — because it was the direction he had been running in he remembered the doorway. He must be about thirty, thirty- five paces from it. There lay safety: his uncle, the band. Man- kind and the burrows — the blessed, closed-in, narrow bur- rows! Eric leaped along the wall for the doorway. He ran as he’d never in his life run before, as he’d never imagined he could run. But even as he fled madly, al- most weeping at the effort he was making, a few sane thoughts — the result of long, tiresome drills as an initiate — organized them- selves in his screaming mind. He had been closer to the structure in which the Strangers were hid- ing, the structure which Arthur the Organizer explained was a piece of Monster furniture. He should have turned the other way. towards the structure, gotten be- tween it and the wall. There, un- less he’d been seen as the Mon- ster entered the larder, he could have rested safely until it was possible to make his escape. He had gone too far to turn back now. But run silently, he reminded himself: run swiftly but make no noise, make no noise at all. According to the lessons that the warriors taught, at this distance Monster hearing was more to be feared than Monster vision. Run silently. Run for your life. He reached the door. It had been set back in place! In disbelief and utter horror he stared at the curved line in the wall that showed where the door had been replaced in its socket. But this was never done! This had never been heard of! Eric beat frantically on the door with his fists. Would his knuckles make enough noise to penetrate the heavy slab? Or just enough to attract the Monster’s attention? He twisted his head quickly — a look, a deliberately wasted moment, to estimate the close- ness of his danger. The Monster’s legs moved so slowly: its speed would have been laughable if the very size of those legs didn’t serve to push it forward an in- credible distance with each step. And there was nothing laughable \ THE MEN IN THE WALLS 51
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in that long, narrow neck, almost as long as the rest of the body, and the malevolent, relatively tiny head on the end of the neck. And those horrible pink things, all around the neck, just behind the head — It was much nearer than it had been just seconds ago, but whether it had noticed him and was coming at him he had no idea. Beat at the door with the shaft of a spear? That should at- tract attention, that might be heard. Yes, by the Monster too. I 'HERE was only one thing to do. He stepped a few paces back from the wall. Then he leaped forward, smashing his shoulder into the door. He felt it give a little. Another try. The floor-shaking thumps of the Monster’s steps were now so close as to be almost deafening. At any moment, a great gray foot might come down and grind out his life. Eric stepped back again, forcing himself not to look up. Another leap, another bruis- ing collision with the door. It had definitely moved. An indentation showed all around it. Was he about to be stepped on — to be squashed? Eric put his hands on the door. He pushed. Slowly, suckingly, it left the place out of which it had been carved long ago. Where was the Monster? How close? How Close? Suddenly, the door fell over in- to the burrow, and Eric spilled painfully on top of it. He scram, bled to his feet and darted down the corridor. He had no time to feel relief. His mind was repeating its les- sons, reminding him what he had to do next in such a situation. Run a short distance down the burrow. Then stop and wait on the balls of your feet, ready to bolt. Get as much air into your lungs as possible. You may need it. If you hear a hissing, whistling sound, stop breathing and start running. Hold your breath for as long as you can — as long as you possibly can — then suck an- other chestful of air and keep running. Keep this up until you are far away. Far, far away. Eric waited, poised to run, his back to the doorway. Don’t look around — just face the direction yot?ll have to run. There’s only one thing you have to worry about, only one thing you have to listen for. A hissing, whistling sound. When you hear it, hold your breath and run. He waited, his muscles con- tracted for instant action. Time went by. He remembered to count. If you counted up to five hundred, slowly, and nothing happened, you were likely to be all right. You could assume the j^onster probably hadn’t noticed you. So the experienced warriors said, the men who had lived through such an experience. Five hundred. He reached five hundred and, just to be on the safe side, still tense, still ready to run, counted another five hun- dred, up to the ultimate number conceived by man, a full thou- sand. No hissing, no whistling sounds. No suggestion of danger. He relaxed, and his muscles — suddenly set free — gave way. He fell to the floor of the burrow, whimpering with the release of tension. It was over. His Theft was over. He was a man. T¥E had been in the same place as a Monster, and lived through it. He had met Strangers and dealt with them as a repre- sentative of Mankind. Such things as he would have to tell his uncle! His uncle. Where was his uncle? Where was the band? Suddenly fully aware of how much was wrong, Eric scrambled to his feet and walked cautiously back to the open doorway. The burrow was empty. They hadn’t waited for him. But that was another incredi- ble thing! A band never gave an initiate up for lost until at least two full days had gone by. In the chief’s absence, of course, this was measured by the sleep periods of the band captain. Any band would wait two days before giv- ing up and turning homeward. And, Eric was positive, his uncle would have waited a bit longer than that for him. He’d been away for such a short time! Then what had happened? He crept to the doorway and peeped outside. There was almost no dizziness this time. His eyes adjusted quickly to the different scale of distance. The Monster was busy on the other side of the larder. It had merely been cross- ing the room, then, not pursuing and attacking. Apparently it hadn’t noticed him at all. Fantastic. And with all the noise he had made! All that rush- ing back and forth, that battering- down of the door! The Monster turned abruptly, walked a few gigantic steps and hurled itself at the structure in which Eric had met the Strangers. The walls, the floor, ever5dhing, shook mightily in sympathy to the impact of the great organism as it wriggled a bit and became still. Eric was startled until he realized that the creature had done no more than lie down in the structure. It was a piece of Monster furniture, after all. How had that felt to Arthur 52 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 53
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the Organizer and Walter the Weapon-Seeker and the others hidden in the base? Eric grinned. Those Strangers must be a little less haughty, a little more sober at this moment. Meanwhile, he had work to do, things to find out. He got his fingers under the slab of door and tugged it upright. It was heavy! He pushed against it, slowly, carefully, first one side and then the other, walking it back to the hole in the wall. A final push, and it slid into place tightly, only the thin, curved line suggesting its existence. Now he could look aroimd. There had been a fight here — that much was certain. A brief, bitter battle. Examining the area closely, Eric saw unmistakable signs of conflict. A broken spear shaft. Some blood on the wall. Part of a tom knapsack. No bodies, of course. You were not likely to find bodies after a battle. Any people of the burrows knew that the one un- avoidable imperative of victory was to drag the bodies away and dispose of them. No one might ever leave dead enemies to rot where they would foul the corri- dors. CO there had been a battle. He ^ had been right — his uncle and his uncle’s band had not just gone off and left him. There must 54 have been an attack by a superior force. The band had stood its ground for a while, sustained some losses, and then been forced to retreat. But there were a few things which didn’t make sense. First, it was very unusual for a war party of Strangers to come this close to Monster territory. The burrows which were inhabited by Man- kind, the natural goal of a war party, were much further back. At this point, you would not ex- pect to find any group larger than a foraging expedition — a Stran- ger band at most. His uncle’s men, fully armed, operating under battle alert, could easily cope with a single band of weavers, weaponsmiths or traders from the decadent back burrows. They would have driven them off, possibly taking a few prisoners, and continued to wait for him. That left only two possibilities. The unlikely war party — a two or three-band attack — and, even more unlikely, a band from an- other fierce, front-burrow people. But front-burrowers rarely went prowling at random near Monster territory. They would have their own door cut into it and would tend to feel hugely uncertain about one belonging to another people. They too would' head for the inhabited burrows if they were on any business other than GALAXY the important one of stealing for their tribe’s needs. And another thing. Unless his uncle’s band had been wiped out to the very last man — a thought Eric rejected as highly improb- ghle — the survivors were honor- bound, by their oath of manhood, after doing whatever the immedi- ate military situation required, from pursuit to retreat, to return as soon as possible to the spot where an initiate was expected back from his Theft. No warrior would dare face the women if he failed to do this. Possibly the attack had just come. Possibly his uncle’s band was a short distance away, still fighting their way from burrow’s end to burrow’s end; and, once they had gotten clear of the enemy, would make their way back to him. No. In that case, he should be able to hear the battle still going on. And the burrows were dread- fully still. Eric shivered. A warrior was not meant to be abroad without companions. He’d heard of tribe- less Strangers — once, as a child, he remembered enjoying the in- tricate execution of a man who’d been expelled from his own peo- ple for some major crime and who had wandered pathetically into the neighborhood of Mankind — but these people were hardly to be considered human: tribes, THE MEN IN THE WALLS bands, societies, were the sur- roundings of human creatures. It was awful to be alone. It was unthinkable. WITHOUT bothering to eat, though he was quite hungry after his Theft, he began walking rapidly down the corridor. After a while, he broke into a trot. He wanted to get home as soon as possible — to be among his own kind again. He reached into his back-sling and got a sp>ear for each hand. A nervous business going through the corridors all by your- self. They were so empty and so quiet. They hadn’t seemed this quiet when he’d been on expedi- tion with the band. And so fear- fully, frighteningly dim. Eric had never before realized how much difference there was between the light you got from one forehead glow-lamp and the usual band complement of a half-dozen. He found himself getting more and more wary of the unexpected shadows where the wall curved sharply: he picked up speed as he ran past the black hole of a branching burrow. At any one of those places, an enemy could be waiting for him, warned by the sound of his ap- proaching footsteps. It could be the same enemy which had at- atacked his uncle’s band, a hand- ful of cruel and murderous 55
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Strangers, or a horde of them. It could ' be something worse. Ab- ruptly he remembered legends of unmentiohable creatures who lurked in the empty burrows, creatures who fled before the ap- proach of a band of warriors, but who would come noiselessly upon a single man. Big creatures who engulfed you. Tiny creatures who came in their hundreds and nibbled you to pieces. Eric kept jerking his head around to look behind him : at least he could keep his doom from taking him by surprise. It was awful to be alone. And yet, in the midst of his fears, his mind returned again and again to the problem of his uncle’s disappearance. Eric could not believe anything serious had hap- pened to him. Thomas the Trap- Smasher was a veteran of too many bloody adventures, too many battles against unequal odds. Then where had he gone? And where had he taken the band? And why was there no sound of him anywhere, no sign in all this infinity of gloomy, stretch- ing, menace-filled tunnels? Fortunately, he was an Eye. He knew the way back and sped desperately along it without the slightest feeling of doubt. The Record Machine was right: he would never be lost. Let him just get safely back to the companion- ship of Mankind and he would be Eric the Eye. And there it was again: who had been right, the Record Ma- chine or his uncle? The vision that named him had come from the Record Machine, but his uncle claimed that this was reli. gious claptrap. The vision had been selected and his name pro- posed to the women well in ad- vance of the ceremony. And his uncle was an Alien-sciencer, in touch with Strangers who were also Alien-sciencers. . . . So many things had happened in the last two days, Eric felt So much of his world had shifted. It was as if the walls of the bur- rows had moved outward and up- ward until they resembled Mon- ster territory more than human areas. "IJE WAS getting close now. These corridors looked friendlier, more familiar. He made himself run faster, although he was almost at the point of ex- haustion. He wanted to be home, to be officially Eric the Eye, to inform Mankind of what had happened so that a rescue and searching party could be sent out for his uncle. That doorway to Monster ter- ritory: who had replaced it? If a battle had been fought, and his uncle’s band had retreated, still fighting, would the attacker have stopped to put the door neatly back in its socket? No. Could it be explained by a sudden onslaught and the com- plete extermination of his uncle’s band? Then, before dragging the bodies away, the enemy would bave had time to put the door back. A doorway into Monster territory was a valuable human resource, after all, valuable to Mankind and Strangers alike — why jeopardize it by leaving it visible and op>en? But who — or what — could have been capable of such a sud- den onslaught, such a complete extermination of the best-led band in all Mankind? He’d have to get the answer from one of the other band captains or possibly a wise old crone in the Female Society. Definitely within the bounda- ries of Mankind now, Eric forced himself to slow to a Walk. He would be coming upon a sentry at any moment, and he had no desire at all to have a spear flung through him. A sentry would re- act violently to a man dashing out of the darkness. “Eric the Only,” he called out, identifying himself with each step. “This is Eric the Only.” Then he remembered his Theft proudly and changed the identi- fication. “Eric the Eye. This is Eric the Eye, the Espier, the further-seeing, less-paying Eye.' Eric the Eye is coming back to Mankind!” Oddly, there was no returning call of recognition. Eric didn’t understand that. Had Mankind itself been attacked and driven away from its burrow? A sentry should respond to a familiar name. Something was very, in- explicably wrong. Then he came around the last curve and saw the sentry at the other end. Rather, he saw what at first looked like three sentries. They were staring at him, and he recognized them. Stephen the Strong-Armed and two members of Stephen’s band. Evidently he had arrived just at the moment when the sentry on duty was about to be relieved. That would account for Stephen and the other man. But why hadn’t they replied to his shouts of identifi- cation? They stood there silently as he came up, their spears still at the ready, not going down in wel- come. “Eric the Eye,” he repeated, puzzled. “I’ve made my Theft, but something happened to the rest — ” His voice trailed off, as Stephen came up to him, his face grim, his powerful muscles taut. The band captain shoved a spear point hard against Eric’s chest. “Don’t move,” he warned. “Bar- ney. John. Tie him up. We’ve caught the little rat!” 56 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 57
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VII T¥IS spears taken from him, his arms bound securely behind his back by the thongs of his own knapsack, Eric was pushed and prodded into the great central burrow of Mankind. The place was almost unrecog- nizable. Under the direction of Ottilie, the Chieftain’s First Wife, a horde of women — what seemed at first like the entire member- ship of the Female Society — was setting up a platform in front of the Royal Mound. With the great scarcity of any building materials that Mankind suffered from, a construction of this sort was startling and unusual, yet there was something about it that awoke highly unpleasant memo- ries in Eric’s mind. But he was pulled from place to place too fast and there were too many other unprecedented things go- ing on for him to be able to identify the memory properly. Two women who were accred- ited members of the Female So- ciety were not working under Ottilie’s direction, he noticed. Bound hand and foot, they were lying against the far wall of the great central burrow. They were both covered with blood and showed every sign of having un- dergone prolonged and most vicious torture. He judged them to be barely this side of death. As he was jerked past, he ree ognized them. They were the two’ wives of Thomas the Trap-Smash.| er. ' Just wait until his uncle ^o! back! Someone would really pay for this, he thought, more in ah solute amazement than horror. He had the feeling that he must keep the horror away at all costs. Once let it in and it would soak through his thoughts right into the mem- ory he was trying to avoid. The place was full of armed men, running back and forth from their band captains to unknown destinations in the outlying cor- ridors. Between them and around them scuttled the children, fetch ing and carrying raw materials for the hard-working women, There was a steady buzz of com-j mands in the air . . . “Go to — *. “Bring some more — ” “Hurryl with the — ” . . . that mingled' with the smell of many people whose pores were sweating ur-i gency. And it wasn’t just sweat that he smelled. Eric realized as| he was dragged before the Royall Mound. It was anger. The anger and fear of all Mankind. Franklin the Father of Many Thieves stood on the mound, carrying unaccustomed spears in his fat hands, talking rapidly to a group of warriors, band captains and — yes, actually! — Strangers. Even now, Eric found he could 58 GALAXY
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still be astonished at this fantastic development. Strangers in the very midst of Mankind! Walking around freely and bearing arms! As the chief caught sight of Eric, his face broke into a loose- skinned smile. He nudged a Stranger beside him and pointed at the prisoner. “That’s him,” he said. “That’s the nephew. The one that asked for the third category Theft. Now we’ve got them all.” The Stranger didn’t smile. He looked briefly at Eric and turned away. “I’m glad you think so. From our point of view, you’ve just got one more.” I^RANKLIN’S smile faded to an uncertain grin. “Well, you know what I mean. And the damned fool came back by him- self. It saved us a lot of trouble, I mean, didn’t it?” Receiving no answer, he shrugged. He gestured with flabby imperiousness at Eric’s guards. “You know where to put him. We’ll be ready for them pretty soon.” Again the p>oint of a spear stabbed into Eric’s back, and he was forced forward across the central space to a small burrow entrance. Before he could reach it, however, he heard Franklin the Father of Many Thieves call out to Mankind: “There goes Eric, my people. Eric the Only. Now we’ve got the last of the filthy gang!” For a moment, the activity stopf)ed and seemed to focus on him. Eric shivered as a low, drawn-out grunt of viciousness and hatred arose everywhere, but most of all from the women. Someone ran up to him. Harriet the History-Teller. The girl’s face was absolutely contorted. She reached up to the crown of her head and pulled out the long pin held in place by a few knotted scarlet hairs. About her face and neck the hair danced like flames. “You Alien - sciencer!” she shrieked, driving the pin straight at his eyes. “You filthy, filthy Alien-sciencer!” Eric whipped his head to one side; she was back at him in a moment. His guards leaped at the girl and grappled with her, but she was able to get in one ripping slash that opened up al- most all of his right cheek before they drove her away. “Leave something for the rest of us,” one of his guards pleaded the cause of reason as he strolled back to Eric. “After all, he be- longs to the whole of Mankind.” “He does not!” she yelled. “He belongs to me most of all. I was going to mate with him when he returned from his Theft, wasn’t I, Mother?” “There wasn’t Anything offi- cial,” Eric heard Rita the Record- JCeeper admonishing as he tried to stanch the flow of blood by bringing his shoulder up and pressing it against the wound. “There couldn’t be anything offi- cial about it until he’d achieved manhood. So you’ll just have to wait your turn, Harriet, darling. You’ll have to wait until your elders are finished with him. There’ll be plenty left for you.” “There won’t be,” the girl pouted. “I know what you’re like. There won’t be hardly anything left.” Eric was shoved at the small burrow entrance again. The mo- ment he was inside it, one of his guards planted a foot in his back, knocking the breath out of him. The kick propelled him forward, staggering wildly for balance, un- til he smashed into the opposite wall. As he fell, unable to use his arms to cushion himself, he heard laughter behind him in the great central burrow. He rolled on his side dizzily. There was a fresh flow of blood coming down from his cheek. This wasn’t the homecoming he’d imagined after his Theft — not in the slightest! What was go- ing on? He knew where he was. A tiny, blind-alley burrow off Mankind’s major meeting-place, a sort of lit- tle vault used mostly for storage. Excess food and goods stolen from Monster territory were kept here until there was enough ac- cumulated for a trading expedi- tion to the back burrows. Occa- sionally, also, a male Stranger, taken prisoner in battle, might be held in this place until Mankind found out if his tribe valued him enough to pay anything substan- tial for his recovery. And if they didn’t . . . ^RIC remembered the unusual structure that the women had been building near the Royal Mound — and shivered. The memory that he’d suppressed had now come alive in his mind. And it fitted with the way Harriet had acted — and with what her mother, Rita the Record-Keeper, had said. They couldn’t be planning that for himf He was a member of Mankind, almost a full warrior. They didn’t even do that to Strangers captured in battle — not normal Strangers. A warrior was always respected as a warrior. At the worst, he deserved a de- cent execution, quietly done. Ex- cept for — Except for — “TVo!” he screamed. “No\” The single guard who’d been left on duty at the entrance turned around and regarded him humorously. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, defi- nitely yes! We’re going to have a lot of fun with both of you, as soon as the women say they’re 60 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 61
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ready.” He nodded with ominous, emphatic slowness and turned back to miss none of the prepara- tions. Both of you? For the first time, Eric looked around the little stor- age burrow. The place was almost empty of goods, but off to one side, in the light of his forehead glow-lamp (how proud he had been when it had been bestowed on him at the doorway to Mon- ster territory!) he now saw an- other man lying bound against the wall. His uncle. Eric brought his knees up and wriggled rapidly over to him. It was a painful business. His belly and sides were not calloused and inured to the rough burrow floor like his feet. But what did a few scratches more or less matter any more? The Trap-Smasher was barely conscious. He had been severely handled, and he looked almost as bad as his wives. There was a thick crust of dried blood on his hair. The haft of a spear, Eric guessed, had all but cracked his head open. And in several places on his body, his right shoulder, just above his left hip, deep in his thigh, were the oozing craters of serious spear wounds, raw and unbandaged. “Uncle Thomas,” Eric urged. “What happened? Who did this to you?” '^■''HE wounded man opened his eyes and shuddered. He looked around stupidly as if he had expected to find the walls talking to him. And his powerful arms struggled with the knots that held them firmly behind his back. When he finally located Eric, he smiled. It was a bad thing to do. Some- one had also smashed in most of his front teeth. “Hello, Eric,” he mumbled. “What a fight, eh? How did the rest of the band do? Anybody get away?” “I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking you! I came back from my Theft — you were gone — the band was gone. I got here, and everyone’s crazy! There are Stran- gers out there, walking around with weapons in our burrows. Who are they?” Thomas the Trap-Smasher’s eyes had slowly darkened. They were fully in focus now, and long threads of agony swam in them. “Strangers?” he asked in a low voice. “Yes, there were Strangers fighting in Stephen the Strong- Armed’s band. Fighting against us. That chief of ours — Franklin — he got in touch with Strangers after we left. They compared notes. They must have been work- ing together, been in touch with each other, for a long time. Man- kind, Strangers, what difference does it make when their lousy 62 GALAXY Ancestor-science is threatened? I should have remembered.” ‘What?” Eric begged. “What should you have remembered?” “That’s the way they put down Alien-science in the other rising, long ago. A chiefs a chief. He’s got more in common with another chief — even a chief of Strangers than with his own people. You attack Ancestor - science, and you’re attacking their power as chiefs. They’ll work together then. They’ll give each other men, weapons, information. They’ll do eversdhing they can against the common enemy. Against the only people who really want to hit back at the Monsters. I should have remembered! Damn it all,” the Trap - Smasher groaned through his ruined mouth, “I saw that the chief and Ottilie were suspicious. I should have realized how they were going to handle it. They were going to call in Stran- gers, exchange information — and unite against us!” Eric stared at his uncle, dimly understanding. Just as there was a secret organization of Alien- sciencers that cut across tribal boimdaries, so there was a tacit, rarely-used understanding among the chiefs, based on the Ancestor- science religion that was the main prop of their power. And the pow- er of the leaders of the Female Society, come to think of it. All special privileges were derived from their knowledge of ancestor- science. Take that away from them, and they’d be ordinary women with no more magical abilities than was necessary to tell edible food from Monster poison. Grunting with pain, Thomas the Trap-Smasher wormed his way up to a sitting position against the wall. He kept shaking his head as if to jar recollection loose. “They came up to us,” he said heavily, “Stephen the Strong- Armed and his band came up to us just after you’d gone into Mon- ster territory. A band from Man- kind with a message from the chief — who suspected anything? They might be coming to tell us that the home burrows were un- der attack by Strangers. Stran- gers!” He gave a barking laugh, and some blood splashed out of his mouth. “They had Strangers with them, hidden all the way behind in the corridors. Mobs and mobs of Strangers.” I^RIC began to visualize what had happened. “Then, when they were among us, when most of us had reslung our spears, they hit us. Eric, they hit us real godd. They had us so much by surprise that they didn’t even need outside help. I don’t think there was much left of us by the time the Strangers THE MEN IN THE WALLS 63
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came running up. I was do^n, fighting with my bare hands, and so was the rest of the band. The Strangers did the mopping up. I didn’t see most of it. Somebody handed me one hell of a wallop — I never expected to wake up alive.” His voice got even lower and huskier. “I’d have been lucky not to.” The Trap - Smasher’s chest heaved: a strange, long noise came out of it. “They brought me back here. My wives — they were working on my wives. Those bitches from the Female Society — Ottilie, Rita — this part of it is their business — they had my wives pegged out and they worked on them in front of me. I was blanking out and coming to, blanking out and coming to; I was conscious while they — ” He dropped to a bloody mum- ble again, his head falling forward loosely. His voice became clear for a moment, but not entirely rational. “They were good wom- en,” he muttered. “Both of them. Good, good girls. And they loved me. They had their chance to be- come more important. A dozen times Franklin must have offered to impregnate them, and they turned him down every time. They really loved me.” Eric almost sobbed himself. He’d had little to do with them once he’d reached the age of the warrior initiate, but in his child- hood, they’d given him all the mother love he ever remembered. They’d cuffed him and caressed him and wiped his nose. They’d told him stories and taught him the catechism of the ancestral science. Neither had sons of his age who had survived the various plagues and the Monster-inflicted calamities that periodically swept through Mankind’s burrows. He’d been lucky. He’d received much of the care and affection that their own sons might have en- joyed. Their fidelity to the Trap- Smasher had been a constant source of astonishment in Man- kind. It had cost them more than the large, healthy litters for which the chief had a well proven ca- pacity: such eccentric, almost non-womanly behavior had in- evitably denied them the high positions in the Female Society they would otherwise have en- joyed. And now they were dead or dy- ing, and their surviving babies had been apportioned to other women whose importance would thereby be substantially in- creased. “Tell me,” he asked his uncle. “Why did the Female Society kill them? What did they do that was so awful?” He saw that Thomas had lifted his head again and was staring at him. With pity. He felt his own GALAXY body turn completely cold even before the Trap-Smasher spoke. “You still won’t let yourself think about it? I don’t blame you, Eric. But it’s there. It’s being pre- pared for us outside.” “What?” Eric demanded, al- though a distant part of him had already worked out the terrible answer and knew what it was. ‘We’ve been declared outlaws, Eric. They say we’re guilty of the ultimate sacrilege against Ancestor-Science. We don’t be- long to Mankind anymore — ^you, me, my family, my band. We’re outside Mankind, outside the law, outside religion. And you know what happens to outlaws, Eric, don’t you? Anything goes. Any- thing.” VIII Ever since early childhood, Eric remembered looking for- ward to ceremonies of this sort. A Stranger would have been caught by one of the warrior bands, and it would be deter- mined that he was an outlaw. Nine times out of ten, such a man was easy enough to identify. No one but an outlaw, for example, would be wandering the burrows by himself, without a band or at least a single companion to guard his back. The tenth time, when there was the slightest doubt, a request for ransom to his people ^ THE MEN IN THE WALLS would make the prisoner’s posi- tion clear. There would be a story of some unforgivable sacrilege, some particularly monstrous crime that could be punished by nothing but complete anathema and the revocation of all privi- leges as a human being. The man had escaped the punishment be- ing prepared for him. Do with him as you will, his people would say. He is no longer one of us; he is the same as a Monster; he is something non-human so far as we are concerned. Then a sort of holiday would be declared. Out of the bits and pieces of lumber stolen from Monster territory and set aside by the women for this purpose, the members of the Female So- ciety would erect a structure whose specifications had been handed down from mother to daughter for countless genera- tions — all the way back to the ancestors who had built the Record-Machines. It was called a Stage or a Theater, although Eric had also heard it referred to as The Scaffold. In any case, whatever its true name, most of the details concerning it were part of the secret lore of the Fe- male Society and, as such, were no proper concern of males. One thing about it, however, everyone knew. On it would be enacted a moving religious dra- ma: the ultimate triumph of hu- 64 65
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manity over the wickedness of the Monsters. For this, the central character had to fulfill two requirements. He had to be an intelligent crea- ture, as the Monsters were, so that he could be made to suffer as some day Mankind meant the Monsters to suffer; and he had to be non-human, as the Monsters were, so that every drop of fear, resentment and hatred distilled by the enormous swaggering aliens could be poured out upon his flesh without any inhibition of compunction or fellow-feeling. For this purpose, outlaws were absolutely ideal, since all agreed that such disgusting creatures had resigned their membership in the human race. VjiTTiEN an outlaw was caught, work stopped in the bur- rows, and Mankind’s warrior bands were called home. It was a great time, a joyous time, a time of festival. Even the chil- dren— doing whatever they could to prepare for the glorious event, running errands for the laboring women, fetching refreshment for the stalwart, guarding men — even the children boasted to each other of how they would express their hatred upon this trapped representative of the non-human, this bound and shrieking pro- tagonist of the utterly alien. Everyone had their chance. All, from the chief himself to the youngest child capable of reciting the catechism of ancestral sci- ence, all climbed in their turn upon the Stage — or Theater — ■ or Scaffold — that the women had erected. All were thrilled to vent a portion of Mankind’s vengeance upon the creature who had been declared alien, as an earnest of what they would some day do collectively to the Mon- sters who had stolen their world. Sarah the Sickness-Healer had her turn early in the proceedings; thenceforth, she stood on the structure and carefully supervised the ceremony. It was her job to see that nobody went too far, that everyone had a fair and ade- quate turn, and that even at the end there was some life left in the victim. Because then, at the end, the structure had to be com- pletely burned — along with its bloody occupant — as a symbol of how the Monsters must even- tually be turned into ash and be blown away and vanish. “And Mankind will come into its own,” she would chant, while the charred fragments were kicked out of the burrow con- temptuously. “And the Monsters will be gone. They will be gone forever, and there will be nothing upon all the wide Earth but Man- kind.” Afterwards, there was feasting, there was dancing, there was sing- 66 GALAXY ing- Men and women chased each other into the dimmer side corri- dors; children whooped and yelled around the great central burrow; the few old folks went to sleep ^th broad, reminiscent smiles upon their faces. Everyone felt they had somehow struck back at the Monsters. Everyone felt a little like the lords of creation their ancestors had been. Eric remembered the things he himself had done — the things he had seen others do — on these occasions. A tremendous tic of fear rippled through his body. He had to draw his shoulders up to his neck in a tight hunch and tense the muscles of his arms and legs. Finally his nerves subsided. He could think again. Only he didn’t want to think. Those others, those outlaws in previous ceremonies of this sort in auld lang synes long past — was it possible that they had ex- perienced the same sick, be- wildered dread while waiting for the structure to be completed? Had they trembled like this, had they also felt wetness running down their backs, had they felt the same pleading squirm in their intestines, the same anticipatory twinges of soft, vulnerable flesh? T^HE thought had never crossed his mind before. He’d seen them as things completely out- side humanity, the compressed symbol of all that was alien. One worried about their feelings no more than about those of the roaches scurrying madly about here in the storage burrow. One squashed them slowly or rapidly — at one’s pleasure. What differ- ence did it make? You didn’t sympathize with roaches. You didn’t identify with them. But now that he was about to be squashed himself, he realized that it did make a difference. He was human. No matter what Mankind and its leaders now de- clared him to be, he was human. He felt human fears; he experi- enced a desperate human desire to live. Then so had the others been. The outlaws whom he’d helped tear to pieces. Human. Com- pletely human. They’d sat here, just as he did now, they’d sat and waited for the festival and its agonies . . . Only twice in his memory had members of Mankind ever been declared outlaw. Both cases had occurred a long time ago, before he’d even been a warrior-initiate. Eric tried now to remember what they had been like as living peo- ple. He wanted to reach out and feel companionship, some sort of companionship, even that of the dead. The dead were better than this beaten, bloody man next to him who had subsided into half- insane mumbles, his battered THE MEN IN THE WALLS 67
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head on his torn and wound- scribbled chest. What had they been like? It was no use. In the first case, mem- ory brought back only a picture of a screaming hulk just before the fire was lit. No recollection of a man. No fellow-human in Mankind. And in the second case — Eric sat bolt upright, straining against his bonds. The second man to be declared an outlaw had escaped ! How he had done it Eric had never found out: he remem- bered only that a guard was se- verely punished, and that bands of warriors had sniffed for him along far-distant corridors for a long time afterward. Escape. That was it. He had to escape. Once declared an outlaw, he could have no hope of mercy, no remission of sentence. The re- ligious overtones of the ceremony being prepared were too highly charged to be halted for anything short of the disappearance of its chief protagonist. Yes, escape. But how? Even if he could get free of the knots which so expertly and so strongly tied his hands behind his back, he had no weapon to hand. The guard at the entrance would transfix him with a spear in a moment. And if he failed, there were others outside, almost the entire warrior strength of the people. How? How? He forced himselj to be calm, to go over every pos- sible alternative in his mind. He knew there was not much time. In a little while,- the structure would be finished and the leaders of the Female Society would come for him. I^RIC began working on the knots behind him. He worked without much hope. If he could get his hands loose, perhaps he might squirm his way carefully to the entrance, leap up suddenly and break into a run. So what if they threw a spear through him — wouldn’t that be better and quicker than the other thing? But they wouldn’t, he realized. Not unless he were very lucky and some warrior forgot to think straight. In cases like this, when it was a matter of keeping, not killing a prisoner, you aimed for the legs. There were at least a dozen men in Mankind with skill great enough to bring him down even at twenty or twenty-five paces. And another dozen who might be able to catch him. He was no Roy the Runner, after all. Roy! He was dead and sew- ered by now. He found himself regretting the fight he’d had with Roy. A Stranger passed by the stor- age burrow entrance, glancing in with only a slight curiosity. He was followed in a moment by two more Strangers, going the same They were leaving, Eric guessed, before the ceremony be- gan. They probably had cere- monies of their own to attend — ^th their own people. Walter the Weapon-Seeker, Arthur the Organizer — were they at this moment sitting in similar storage burrows awaiting the same slow death? Eric doubted it. Somehow he couldn’t see these men caught as easily as he and his uncle had been. Arthur was too clever, he was certain of that, and Walter, well, Walter would come up with some fantastic wea- pon that no one had ever seen or heard of . . . Like the one he had in his knapsack right now — that red blob the Weapon-Seeker had given him! Was it a weapon? He didn’t know. But even if it wasn’t, he had the impression it could create some kind of surprise. “It should make them sit up and take no- tice,” Walter had said back in Monster territory. Any kind of surprise, any kind of upset and he might have a diversion under cover of which he and his uncle could escape. But that was the trouble. His uncle. With his hands bound as thoroughly as he could now as- certain they were, he needed his uncle’s help to do anything at all. And the Trap-Smasher was ob- viously too far gone to be at all useful. He was talking to himself in a steady, monotonous, argumenta- tive mutter, his upper body slumping further and further across his own lap. Every once in a while, the mutters would be broken by a sharp, almost sur- prised moan as his wounds woke into a clearer consciousness of themselves. Most other men in his condi- tion, Eric judged, would have been dead by now. Only a body as powerful as the Trap- Smasher’s could have lasted this long. And — who knew? — if they could escape, it was possible that his uncle’s wounds, given care and rest, might heal. If they could escape. TNCLE THOMAS,” he said, ^ leaning toward him and whispering urgently. “I think I know a way out. I think I’ve fig- ured out a way to escape.” No response. The bloody head continued to talk in a low, tone- less voice to the lap. Mutter, mut- ter, mutter. Moan. Mutter, mut- ter. “Your wives,” Eric said des- perately. “Your wives. Don’t you want to get revenge for your wives? That seemed to be worth a flicker. “My wives,” said the thick voice. “They were good women. THE MEN IN THE WALLS 69
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Real good women. They never let Franklin near them. They were real good women.” Then the flicker was over and the mutters returned. “Escape!” Eric whispered. “Don’t you want to escape?” A thin, coagulating line of blood dripped out of his uncle’s slowly working jaws. There was no other answer. Eric looked towards the en- trance of the storage burrow. The guard posted there was no longer turning from time to time to glance at the prisoners. The structure outside was evidently nearing completion, and his in- terest in the final preparations had caused him to take a step or two away from the entrance. He was staring off to the left down the great central burrow in abso- lute fascination. Well, that was something. It gave them a chance. On the other hand, it also meant that they had scant moments left to their lives. Any time now, the leaders of the Female Society would be coming to drag them to the torture cere- mony. With his eyes oh the guard, Eric leaned against the rough burrow wall and began scraping the imprisoning knapsack thongs against the sharpest edges he could find. It wouldn’t be fast enough, he realized. If there were only a spear point in this place, something sharp. He looked around feverishly. No, nothing. A few tumbled bags of food over which lazy roaches wandered. Nothing he could use to help him get free. His uncle was his only hope. Somehow he had to rouse the man, get through to him. He squirmed up close, his mouth against the Trap-Smasher’s bat- tered ear. “This is Eric, Eric the Only. Do you remember me. Uncle? I went on the Theft, Uncle Thom- as, I went on the Theft with you. Third category. Remember, I asked for a third category theft, just like you told me to? I did my Theft, I was successful, I made it. I did just what you told me to do. I’m Eric the Eye now, right? Tell me, am I Eric the Eye?” Mutters, mumbles and moans. The man seemed beyond intelligi- bility. “What about Franklin? He can’t do this to us, can he. Uncle Thomas? Don’t you want to es- cape? Don’t you want revenge on Franklin, on Ottilie, for what they did to your wives? Don’t you? Don't you?” He had to cut through his uncle’s confused mist of gathering delirium. In complete desperation, he lowered his head and sank his teeth into a wounded shoulder. 70 GALAXY Nothing, just the steady flow of argumentative gib- berish. And the thin blood drip- ping from the mouth. “I saw Arthur the Organizer. He said he’d known you for a long time. When did you meet him, Uncle Thomas? When did you first meet Arthur the Organ- izer?” The head drooped lower, the shoulders slumped further for- ward. “Tell me about Alien-science. What is Alien-science?” Eric was almost gibbering himself now in his frantic efforts to find a key that would unlock his uncle’s mind. “Are Arthur the Organizer and Walter the Weapon-Seeker very important men among the Alien-sciencers? Are they the chiefs? What was the name of the structure they were hiding in? What is it to the Monsters? They talked about other tribes, tribes I never heard of. How many other tribes are there? Are these other tribes — ” That was it. He had found the key. He had gotten through. Thomas the Trap -Smasher’s head came up waveringly, dim- ness swirling in his eyes. “Other tribes. Funny that you should ask about other tribes. That you should ask.” “Why? What about them?” Eric fought to hold the key in place, to keep it turning. “Why shouldn’t I ask about those other tribes?” “Your grandmother was from another tribe, a real strange tribe in a faroff burrow. I remember hearing about it when I was a lit- tle boy.” Thomas the Trap- Smasher nodded to himself. “Your grandfather’s band went on a long journey, the longest they’d ever taken. And they caught your grandmother and brought her back.” “My grandmother?” For the moment, Eric forgot what was be- ing prepared for him outside. He’d known there was some pecu- liar secret about his grandmother. She had rarely been mentioned in Mankind. Up to now, he’d taken it for granted that this was be- cause she’d had a son who was terribly unlucky — almost the worst thing a person in the bur- rows could be. A one-child litter, after all, and being killed together with his wife in Monster territory. Very unlucky. 46]%/fY grandmother was from another tribe? Not from Mankind?” He knew, of course, that several of the women had been captmed from other peoples in neighboring burrows and had the good fortune now to be con- sidered full-fledged members of Mankind. Sometimes one of their own women would be lost this way, when she strayed too far THE MEN IN THE WALLS 71
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down an outlying burrow and stumbled into a band of Stranger warriors. If you stole a woman from another people, after all, you stole a substantial portion of their knowledge. But he’d never imagined — “Dora the Dream-Singer.” Thomas’s head waggled loosely: he dribbled words mixed with red saliva. “Did you know why your grandmother was called the Dream-Singer, Eric? The women used to say that the things she talked about happened only in dreams, and that she couldn’t talk straight like other people — she could only sing about her dreams. But she taught your father a lot, and he was like her. Women were a little afraid to mate with him. My sister was the first to take a chance — and everyone said she deserved what she got.” Abruptly, Eric became con- scious of a change in the sounds outside the burrow. More quiet. Were they coming for him now? “Uncle Thomas, listen! I have an idea. Those Strangers — Walter, Arthur the Organizer — they gave me a Monster souvenir. I don’t know what it does, but I can’t get at it. I’ll turn around. You try to reach down into my knapsack with the tips of your fingers and — ” The Trap-Smasher paid no at- attention to him. “She was an Alien-sciencer,” he rambled on, mostly to himself. “Your grand- mother was the first Alien- sciencer we ever had in Mankind. I guess her tribe were all Alien- sciencers. Imagine — a whole tribe of Alien-sciencers!” Eric groaned. This half-alive, delirious man was his only hope of escaping. This bloody wreck who had once been the proudest, most alert band captain of them all. He turned for another look at the guard. The man was still staring down the length of the great central burrow. There was nothing to be heard now but a terrifying silence, as if dozens of pairs of eyes were glowing in an- ticipation. And footsteps — were not those footsteps? He had to find a way to make his uncle co- operate. 66^^HOMAS the Trap-Smash- er!” he said sharply, barely managing to keep his voice low. “Listen to me. This is an order! There’s something in my knap- sack, a blob of sticky stuff. We’re going to turn our backs to each other, and you’re going to reach in with your fingers and fish it out. Do you hear me? That’s an order — a warrior’s order!” His uncle nodded, completely docile. “I’ve been a warrior for over twenty auld lang synes,” he mumbled, twisting around. “Six GALAXY of them a band captain. I’ve given orders and taken them, given them and taken them. I’ve never disobeyed an order. What I al- ways say is how can you expect to give orders if you don’t — ” “Now,” Eric told him, bringing their backs together and hunch- ing down so that his knapsack would be just under his uncle’s bound arms. “Reach in. Work that mass of sticky stuff out. It’s right on top. And hurry!” Yes. Those were footsteps com- ing up outside. Several of them. The leaders of the Female Soci- ety, the chief, an escort of war- riors. And the guard, watching that deadly procession, was liable to remember his duties and turn back to the prisoners. “Hurry, ” he demanded. “I told you to hurry, dammit! That’s an order, too. Get it out fast. Fast!” And, all this time, as the Trap- Smasher’s fumbling fingers wan- dered about in his knapsack, as he listened with fright and im- patience to the sounds of the ap- proaching execution party — all this time, somewhere in his mind, there was wonderment at the orders he was rapping out to an experienced band captain and the incredible authority he had man- aged to get into his voice. “Now you’re wondering where your grandmother’s tribe have their burrow,” Thomas began suddenly, reverting to an earlier THE MEN IN THE WALLS topic as if they were having a pleasant conversation after a fine, full meal. “Forget it! Get that stuff out. Just get it out!” “It’s hard to describe,” the other man’s voice wandered on. “A long way off, their burrow is, a long way off. You know the Strangers call us front-burrow people. You know that, don’t you? The Strangers are back- burrowers. Well, your grand- mother’s people are the bottom- most burrowers of all.” Eric sensed his fingers closing in the knapsack. The three women who ruled the Female Society came into the storage burrow. Ottilie the Omen- Teller, Sarah the Sickness-Healer and Rita the Record- Keeper. With them was the chief and two band captains, heavily armed. IX i^TTILIE, the Chieftain’s First Wife, was in the lead. She stopped, just inside the entrance to the burrow and the others came to a halt around her. “Look at them,” she jeered. “They’re trying to free each other! And what do they plan to do if they get themselves untied?” Franklin moved to her side and took a long, judicious look at the two men squatting back to back. “They’ll try to escape,” he ex- 73 72
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plained, continuing his wife’s joke. “They’ll have their hands free, they figure, and surely Thomas the Trap-Smasher and his nephew are a match, even bare-handed, for the best spear- men in Mankind!’’ And then Eric felt the search- ing hands come up out of the knapsack to which his own arms were tied. Something fell to the floor of the burrow. It made an odd noise, halfway between a splash and a thud. He twisted around for it immediately with his mouth open, flexing his knees in a tight crouch underneath his body. “You’ve never seen anything like the burrows of your grand- mother’s people,” his uncle was mumbling, as if what his hands had just done was no concern of the rest of him. “And neither have I, though I’ve listened to the tales.” “He won’t last long now,” Sarah the Sickness-Healer com- mented. “We’ll have to have our fun with the boy.” All you do, Walter the Weap- on-Seeker had said, is tear off a pinch with your fingers. Then spit on it and throw it. Throw it as fast and as far as you can. He couldn’t use his fingers. But he leaned down to the red blob and nipped off a piece with his teeth. He brought his tongue against the strange soft substance. lashing saliva into it. And simul- taneously he kicked at the bur- row floor with curved toes, straightening his legs, jerking his thighs and body upward. Unable to use his arms for balance, he tottered erect and turned, sway- ing, to face the leaders of his people. After you spit on it, throw it fast. As fast and as far as you can. “I don’t know what he’s doing,” someone said, “but I don’t like it. Let me through.” Stephen the Strong-Armed stepped ahead of the group and lifted a heavy spear, ready for throwing. Eric shut his eyes, bent his head far back on his neck and took a deep, deep breath. Then he snapped his head forward, flip- ping his tongue hard against the object in his mouth. He forced out his breath so abruptly that the exhalation became a wild, barking cough. The soft little mass flew out of his mouth, and he opened his eyes to watch its course. For a moment, he was unable to find it an3Twhere; then he located it by the odd expression on Stephen’s face and the fearful upward roll of his eyes. There was a little red splotch in the middle of the band cap- tain’s forehead. What was supposed to happen, he wondered? He had followed GALAXY directions as well as he could under the circumstances, but he had no idea what the scarlet stain, made loose and moist by his saliva, was supposed to ac- complish. He watched it, hoping and waiting. Then Stephen the Strong- Armed brought his free hand up slowly to wipe the stuff off. Eric stopped hoping. Nothing was go- ing to happen. Strangers, he had begun to think despairingly, that’s what comes of trusting Strangers — The blast of sound was so tre- mendous that for a moment he thought the roof of the burrow had fallen in. He was slammed backwards against the wall and fell as if he’d been walloped with a spear haft. He remembered the cough with which he’d expelled the bit of red blob from his mouth. Had there been a delayed echo to his cough, a gigantic, ear- splitting echo? He lifted his head from the floor finally, when the reverbera- tions in the little storage burrow had rumbled into a comparative silence. Someone was screaming. Someone was screaming over and over again. It was Sarah. She was looking at Stephen the Strong-Armed from the rear. She had been standing directly behind him. Now she was staring at him and THE MEN IN THE WALLS screaming in sharp steady bursts. Her mouth was open so wide that it seemed she was about to tear her jaws apart. And with each scream she lifted her arm rigidly and pointed to the back of Ste- phen’s neck. She kept lifting her arm and pointing as if she wanted everyone present to know beyond the least doubt why and how she came to be screaming. Stephen the Strong-Armed had no head. His body ended at the neck, and flaps of skin fell down to his chest in an irregular wavy pattern. A fountain of blood bubbled and spurted where his head had been. His body still stood upright, feet planted wide apart in a good warrior’s stance, one arm holding the spear ready for action and the other con- gealed in its upward motion to wipe the red blob away. It stood, incredibly straight and tall and alive. Suddenly, it fell apart. First the spear slid slowly for- ward out of the right hand and clattered to the floor. Then the arms began to fall loosely to the sagging knees and the entire great, brawny body slumped as if its bones had left it. It dropped aimlessly to the floor, an arm poking out here, a leg twisting out there, in a pattern as mean- ingless as if an oddly shaped bag of skin had been flung to one side of the burrow. 74 75
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It continued to twitch for a moment or two, as the bubbling fountain of blood turned into a sluggishly flowing river. At last it lay still, a motionless heap of limbs and torso. Of the missing head there was no trace any- where. CARAH the Sickness - Healer ^ stopped screaming and turned, shaking, to her companions. Their protruding eyes left the body on the floor. Then they all reacted at once. They yelled madly, wildly, fearfully, as if they were a chorus and she the conductor. Still bel- lowing, they made for the narrow entrance behind them. They got through in a pushing, punching scramble that at one point looked like a composite monster with dozens of arms, legs and swinging, naked breasts. They carried the guard outside with them, and with them, too, they carried their uncontrollable panic, screaming it into existence all along the great central burrow. For a little while, Eric could hear feet pounding into the dis- tant corridors. Then there was quiet. There was quiet every- where, except for Thomas the Trap - Smasher’s interminable mumbling. Eric forced himself upright again. He was unable to imagine what had happened. That red blob — the Stranger, Walter, had said it was a weapon, but it didn’t operate like any weapon he had ever in his life heard of. Except possibly in the times of the an- cestors: the ancestors were sup. posed to have had things which could blow an object apart and leave no trace. But this was an alien artifact, a possession of the Monsters which Walter the Weapon - Seeker had somehow found and appropriated. What was it? How had it exploded the head of Stephen the Strong- Armed? That was to be worked out an- other time. Meanwhile, he had his chance. It might not last long: he had no idea when the panic might subside and a patrol of war- riors be sent back to investigate. He stepped carefully across the red stream flowing from the fallen man’s neck. Squatting down in front of the dropped spear, he managed to get a grip on it with his bound hands and rose, holding it awkwardly behind him. No time to cut his bonds. Not here. “Uncle Thomas,” he called. “We can get away. We have a chance now. Come on, get up!” The wounded band captain stared up at him without compre- hension. “ — corridors like you’ve never seen or imagined,” he con- tinued in a low monotone. “Glow lamps that aren’t on foreheads. 76 GALAXY Corridors filled with glow lamps. Corridors and corridors and cor- ridors — ” For a moment, Eric con- sidered. The man would be a heavy liability in fast travel. But he couldn’t desert him. This was his last surviving relative, the only person who didn’t consider him an outlaw and a thing. And, shattered as he was, also still his captain. “Get up!” he said again. “Tho- mas the Trap-Smasher, get up! That’s an order, a warrior’s order. Get up!” As he’d hoped, his uncle re- sponded to the old command. He managed to get his legs under his body, and strained against them, but it was no use. He didn’t have the energy to rise. ^ASTING apprehensive looks over his shoulder at the en- trance to the storage burrow, Eric ran to the struggling man. Work- ing backwards, he managed to get one end of the spear under the crook of his uncle’s arm. Then, using his own hip as a ful- crum, he levered hard at the other end. It was painful, slippery work, since he couldn’t bring all of his muscles into play and it was diffi- cult to see what he was doing. In between efforts, he gasped out or- ders to “Get up, get up, get up, damn you!” At last the end of the spear went all the way down. His uncle was on his feet, stagger- ing, but at least on his feet. Dragging the spear awkwardly, Eric urged and butted him out of the place. The great central bur- row was empty of people. Weap- ons, p)ots and miscellaneous pos- sessions lay strewn about where they had been dropped. The fin- ished structure of the Stage stood deserted in front of the royal mound. And some time before, the bodies of his uncle’s wives had evidently been removed. The chief and the other leaders had bolted to the left once they had clawed their way out of the storage burrow. They had ap- parently run past the scaffold structure and picked up the rest of Mankind in their panic. Eric turned right. His uncle was a problem. Tho- mas the Trap-Smasher kept com- ing to a bewildered halt. Again and again he began the story of his long-ago journey to the bur- rows of the strange, distant tribe. Eric had to push against him to keep him moving. Once they were in the outlying corridors, he felt better. But not until they had made many turns, passed dozens of branches and were well into completely unin- habited burrows, did he feel he could stop and saw himself free of his bonds on the point of the spear. He did the same for his THE MEN IN THE WALLS 77
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uncle. Then, throwing the Trap- Smasher’s left arm across his own shoulders and clutching him tightly about the waist, he started off again. It was slow going: his uncle was a heavy man, but the more distance they could put be- tween themselves and Mankind, the better. But distance where? Where should they go? He pondered the problem as they tottered to- gether down the silent, branching corridors. One place was as good as another. There was nowhere that they would be welcome. Just keep going. He may have muttered his questions aloud. To his surprise, Thomas the Trap-Smasher sud- denly said in an entirely coherent but very weak voice: “The door- way to Monster territory, Eric. Make for the doorway to Mon- ster territory where you went to make your Theft.” “Why?” Eric asked. “What can we do there?” There was no answer. His un- cle’s head fell forward on his chest. He was evidently sliding into a stupor again. And yet, somehow, as long as Eric’s en- circling arm pulled at his body, the man’s legs kept moving for- ward. There was some residual stamina and a warrior’s deter- mination in him yet. Monster territory. Was there more safety for them there now than they could find among hu- man beings? Very well then. The doorway I to Monster territory. They would have to come around in a wide arc through many corridors to get to it, but Eric knew the way. He was Eric the Eye, after all, he told i himself: it was his business al- j ways to know the way. . But was it? He had not en- | joyed the formal initiation into manhood that was the usual after- math of a successful Theft With- out that, perhaps he was still Eric | the Only, still a boy and an ini- tiate. No, he knew what he was. He was Eric the Outlaw, nothing else. j He was an outlaw, without a ; home and a people. And, except for the dying man he pulled ' along, everyone’s hand was hence- forth against him. X ^HOMAS the Trap-Smasher had been badly injured in the surprise attack that had wiped out his band. Ordinarily, he would have had his wounds carefully dressed by the clever- j ness and accumulated experience of Sarah the Sickness-Healer. Un- der the circumstances, however, Sarah had done the reverse. Now, the strain of escape and the forced headlong flight that j followed it had emptied his body 78 GALAXY of its last resources. His eyes were glazed and his strong shoulders hung slack. He was a somnambulist walking jerkily in the direction of death. When they stopped to rest, Eric — after listening intently for any sounds of pursuit — had washed his uncle’s wounds care- fully with water from the can- teens and had bound the uglier gashes with strips torn from a knapsack. It was all he knew how to do: warrior’s first aid. A woman’s advanced therapeutic knowledge was needed for any- thing more complicated. Not that it would have made very much difference by this time. The Trap-Smasher was too far gone. Eric felt desperate at the thought of being left alone for- ever in the dark, uninhabited corridors. He tried to force water and bits of food upon his uncle. The man’s head rolled back, nourishment dribbling carelessly down from both sides of his mouth. He was breathing lightly and very rapidly. His body had grown quite warm by the time they stopped. Eric himself ate ravenously: it was his first meal in a long, long while. He kept staring at his re- cumbent uncle and trying to work out a line of action that would do some good. In the end, he had thought of nothing better than to hitch the man’s arm up over his shoulder again and to keep going in the direction of Monster territory. Once erect, the Trap-Smash- er’s feet began walking again, but with a dragging, soggy quality that became more and more pro- nounced. After a while, Eric had to come to a halt: he had the feeling that he was hauling dead weight. When he tried to lower his uncle to the floor of the burrow, he found that the body had be- come almost completely limp. Thomas lay on his back, his eyes staring without curiosity at the rounded ceiling upon which his forehead glow-lamp outlined a bright circular patch. The heartbeat was very, very faint. “Eric,” he heard a weak voice say. He raised his eyes from his uncle’s chest and looked at the painfully working mouth. “Yes, uncle?” “I’m sorry — about — what I got you into. I had — no right. Your life — after all — your life. You — my wives — the band. I led — death — everyone. I’m sorry.” Eric fought hard to hold back his tears. “It was for a reason. Uncle Thomas,” he said. “We had a cause. It wasn’t just you. The cause failed.” There was a hideous cackle THE MEN IN THE WALLS 79
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from the prone man. For a mo- ment, Eric thought it was a death rattle. Then he realized that it had been a laugh, but such a laugh as he had never heard be- fore. “A cause?” the Trap-Smasher gasped. “A cause? Do you know — do you — know what — the cause was? I wanted — wanted to be chief. Chief. The only — only way I could — do it. — Alien-science — the Strangers — a cause. Everyone — the killings — I wanted to — to be chief. Chiei!” He went rigid as he coughed out the last word. Then slowly, like flesh turning into liquid, he relaxed. He was dead. Tj^RIC stared at the body a long ^ time. It didn’t make any dif- ference, he found. The numbness in his mind remained. There was a great paralyzed spot in the center of his brain that was un- able to think or to feel. In the end, he shook himself, bent down and grabbed the body by the shoulders. Walking back- wards, he dragged it in the di- rection of Monster territory. Something he had to do. The duty of anyone who lived in the burrows when death occurred in his neighborhood. Now it filled time and used up energies that he might otherwise have ex- pended in thoughts which were agonizing. The energies which it de- manded were almost more than he was capable of at this point. His uncle had been a heavy, well built man. Eric found that he had to stop at the end of almost every curving corridor and get his breath back. He finally arrived at the door- way, grateful for the fact that his uncle had died so relatively close to it. He also felt he under- stood why this had been sug- gested as their destination. Thom- as the Trap-Smasher had known he had little time left. His nephew would have the responsibility of sewering him. He had tried to make it as easy for Eric as pos- sible by going the greater part of the distance on his own feet. There was a fresh-water pipe in the wall near the doorway to Monster territory. And wherever there was a fresh-water pipe, the Monsters were likely to have laid a sewer pipe nearby. It was down this, probably, that the men killed in the battle with Stephen the Strong-Armed’s band had been disposed of much earlier. And it was down this that Thomas had known his remains must also go — the closest point at which his nephew could sewer him in comparative safety. This much, at least, he had done for Eric’s benefit. 80 GALAXY Eric located the fresh-water pipe without much difficulty. There was a constant low rumb- ling and gurgling underfoot, and at the spot where it was most pronounced — he found the slab in the floor cut at the cost of infinite labor by some past gen- eration of Mankind. Near it, after the slab was lifted, was another, much thicker pipe, large enough to carry two men abreast. Like the other one, the hard stuff of the burrow floor had been scraped away so that a joint lay exposed. Opening the joint was another matter. Eric had seen it done many times by his elders, but this was his own first attempt. It was a tricky business of tugging a heavy covering plate first right, then left, and getting his fingers under the rim and pulling at just the right moment. ^HE joint opened at last, and the incredible stink of Mon- ster sewage poured out as the liquid swirled darkly by. Death had always been associated in Eric’s mind with this stink, since the pipe carried not only the Monster’s waste matter but also that of Mankind, collected from its burrows every week by the old women who were too feeble for any other work. All that was not alive or useful was carried to the nearest Monster sewer pipe, all that might decay and foul the burrows. And that included, of course, the bodies of the dead. Eric stripped his uncle’s body of all useful gear as he had seen the women do many times. Then he dragged it to the hole in the burrow floor and held it by one arm for a moment as the current of the sewage caught it. He re- peated as much of the ceremony as he could remember, conclud- ing with the words: “And there- fore, O ancestors, I beg you to receive the body of this member of Mankind, Thomas the Trap- Smasher, a warrior of the first rank, a band captain of renown and the father of nine.” There was usually another line or so — “Take him to you and keep him with you until the time when the Monsters have been destroyed utterly and the Earth is ours again. Then shall you and he and all human beings who have ever lived rise from the sewers and joyously walk the surface of our world forever.” But this, after all, was a pure An- cestor-science passage; and his uncle had died fighting Ancestor- science. What was the Alien-sci- ence equivalent? And it likely to be any more potent, any less full of falsehood? In the end, Eric omitted those last two lines. He let go of the stiffening arm. The body shot away and down the pipe. Thomas the Trap- Smasher was gone, he was gone THE MEN IN THE WALLS 81
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for all time, the way Eric reasoned now. He was dead and sewered, and that was that. Eric closed the joint, pulled the slab down and stamped it into place. He was completely alone. An outlaw who could expect nothing from other human beings but death by slow torture. He had no companions, no home, no beliefs of any sort. His uncle’s last words still lay, in all their stern ugliness, at the bottom of his mind. “I wanted to — to be chief.” TT was bad enough to discover that the religion on which he had been raised was a mere prop to the power of the chieftainship, that the mysterious Female So- ciety was completely unable to see into a person’s future. But to find out that his uncle’s thought- ful antagonism to such nonsense was based on nothing more sub- stantial than simple personal ambition, an ambition murder- ously unscrupulous and willing to sacrifice anybody who trusted him — well, what was there left to believe in, to base a life upon? Had his father and mother been any less gullible than the most naive child in the burrows? They had sacrificed themselves — for what? For one super- stition as opposed to another, for the secret p>olitical maneuvers of this person as opposed to that. Not for him. He would be free. He laughed, bitterly and self- consciously. He had to be free. There was no choice: he was an outlaw. Eric walked a few steps and put his hands on the door to Monster territory. To shift it out of its socket was a hard job for one man. He strained and tore his fingers; finally he managed it. The door came away and he deposited it carefully on the floor of the burrow. He stared at it for a while, trying to figure out a way of getting it back after he’d passed through the doorway. No, a single man just couldn’t do that from the other side. He’d have to leave the doorway open, an incredible social crime. Well, he couldn’t commit a crime any more. He was beyond all rules made by human com- munities. Ahead lay the glaring white light that he and his kind feared so much. Into this he would go. Here, where there were no illusions to be found and no help to be expected, here he would make his solitary outlaw home. Behind him lay the dark, safe, intricate burrows. They were tunnels, Eric knew now, in the walls that surrounded Monster territory. Men lived in these walls, and shivered, and were ig- norant, and made fools of each r Q^jier. He could no longer do °j,ese things; he had to face the ' Monsters. He wanted to face them and destroy them. It was like one of the roaches in the storage burrow declaring war on a cook who came in to niake the evening meal for Man- kind. The cook would roar with laughter at such a thought. Who knew what went on in the mind of a roach — and who cared? Yet the roach would enjoy two special advantages. He had once and for all stopped crawling greedily and aimlessly with his own kind; and the enemy he had selected could regard him with nothing more than heavy oblivious contempt. If he could ever for a moment find one usable weapon and one vital area on which that weapon could be used . . . He hefted his two special ad- vantages grimly. Then Eric the Only, the Eye, the Outlaw, Eric the Self-Aware Individual Man, stepped through the doorway in- to Monster territory. — WILLIAM TENN ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ FORECAST Last summer we printed what we said was going to be one of the best-liked science-fiction stories of the year -Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters - and, by gosh, we were right; your letters were enthusiastic, and both the story and the fine Gaughan illustrations that went with it went right on to pick up best-of-the-year nominations. Next issue Vance is back with a big one called The Star King, In The Dragon Masters Vance had one world under observation; here he shows us the baroque and fascinating life of a galaxy, bright with imagin- ative color, brilliant with invention. You'll like this one, too! In the same issue a complete short novel by Fritz Leiber, No Great Magic, and as much more as the type will contain. Which will be somewhat more than heretofore, by the way. Next issue will show a slight change in format — same overall size, same number of pages, same price, but a dif- ferent method of printing and a slightly more compact type -which will make it a bigger bargain than ever. (As you know. Galaxy already contains both more pages and more actual words of science fiction per issue than any other magazine in the world.) We'll tell you one thing for sure: this issue you won't want to missi 82 GALAXY THE MEN IN THE WALLS 83
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Two Great Science-Fiction Novels by JACK WILLIAMSON Author of The Humanoids, Darker Than You Think, etc. TWO COMPLETE NOVELS JACK WILLIAMSON Author of THE HUMANOIDS ASTPWMDWW KMNa PKtlOM THE LEGION OF TIME — He followed her through the ages, into a strange world of the future that might never come to be . . . AFTER WORLD'S END — A story of courage and dazzling science-fiction adventure in a strange world inhabited by strang- er people . . . NOW ON SALE AT ALL NEWSSTANDS • 50^ If you missed Magabook No. 1 — The Sky Is Falling and Badge of Infamy, two complete sf novels by Lester del Rey— send 50^ to Galaxy Publishing Co., 421 Hudson St., N. Y. 14, N. Y. 84 GALAX for your information BY WILLY LEY KING OF THE RATS T^R those who know Tchai- kovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet only from re.cords and have never seen it staged it may be neces- sary to explain that there is a Mouse King on stage. It has many heads — mouse-heads, of course — and for that reason it doesn’t have much to do. But the choreographer’s problems are be- side the point here, as is the fact that the ballet is based on a French rewrite of a story by FOR YOUR INFORMATION 85
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E. T. A. Hoffmann, he of the Tales of Hoffmann. What is to the point is that the Mouse King of the ballet was a Rat King in the original story, and that there is a little known fact of Natural History hiding be- hind the fantasy. Quite a number of years ago, at a Christmas party where the hostess told me that she had taken her children to see the ballet, I tried to tell that fact, but was interrupted with the re- mark that this was “not a nice story.” I just found out that Richard Lydekker, who edited the multi-volume Library of Nat- ural History which was published in New York in 1902, also did not consider it a “nice story”, for while he followed his original, Dr. Alfred Brehm’s Tierleben, quite faithfully, he left out the three pages of the original which deal with the Rat King. A Rat King is not a separate species. One is tempted to say “on the contrary,” for it consists of a number of rats which cannot be separated. The average number of rats forming a “king” is twelve, but larger and smaller numbers have been found. The tails of the ani- mals are intertwined in such a manner that the individuals can- not pull free. The whole thing is about two feet in diameter. All the heads point outward, natu- rally, since the tails are stuck together. Being handicapped in this manner, the animals are not very mobile and in a few cases a dead and dried-out “king” has been found. Evidently the rats had starved to death. But in the majority of the cases the “king” when found was still alive. It often was found because the members composing it were squealing with hunger. A NUMBER of writers have dismissed the Rat King as “legendary” but that seems to be due to a confusion, just as the term Rat King itself is somewhat confused — as I’ll explain short- ly. There is a European legend about a “king of the rats” which is old enough to be untraceable because its roots disappear in the time before printing. But the name was known to Konrad Ges- ner, the great Swiss zoologist of the sixteenth century. In his book on the four-footed animals, which was printed for the first time in 1555, he said in his chapter on the rat — after remarking that rats do not need to be described because “to many they are better known than is pleasing” — that “some say that the rat, in its old age, grows enormously large [so that it can no longer move around] and is fed by the young- er rats; it is called a Rat King by our people.” 86 GALAXY This is a reference to the legend which other writers ex- panded, saying that the younger rats steal red cloth to drape on their king. Many a young Swiss probably gripped his stick more tightly when opening the door of a long unused barn or basement. There might be an enormous rat inside, immobile because of age and size, maybe, but still equipped with long teeth and pos- sibly defended by faithful retain- ers. Of course no rat king of that kind was ever found, though it made fine material for fairy tales. But once in a while peasant lads would find the nearly immobile assembly of rats with their tails stuck together. Was that the rat king’s throne? Or did the king of the rats look different from the fairy tales? In the end linguistic usage decided that it was the Rat King. Two types of rats were com- mon in Europe. In England they are distinguished simply by the color of their fur as Black and Brown rats. The latter goes under the name of Norway Rat in some books. Zoologists know that the, incidentally larger, brown rat is a fairly late immigrant to Europe. The same is believed of the black rat, but the date of immigration was early. The first mention of the black rat can be found in the works of Albert of Bollstadt, bet- ter known as Albertus Magnus, who died in 1280. Whether they arrived, presumably from the East, a centdry or five centuries before Albertus is something no- body knows. But the arrival of the brown rat has even been observed. The German physician Peter Simon Pallas, who explored Russia for the Court in St. Petersburg, re- ported that large numbers of brown rats could be seen travel- ing westward after an earthquake in the area of the Caspian Sea. The date was early autumn of 1727. The brown rat appeared in East Prussia in 1750, in Paris in 1753, in South Germany in 1780 and in Switzerland in 1809. But in the meantime brown rats from the East Indies had reached Eng- land by ship in 1732 and had traveled from England to the United States in 1755. The brown rat is considerably larger than the black rat, and more destructive in the same ratio. It was only a minor consolation that the first victims of the brown rat’s appe- tite were usually the black rats. A ROUND the year 1850, the inhabitants of Denmark, Germany and Switzerland still referred to the two rats as “base- ment rats” and “attic rats”, the smaller black rat (Mus rattus) preferring the roof area, while the larger brown rat (Mus decuman- us) preferred the basements. By FOR YOUR INFORMATION 87
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the end of the nineteenth century the brown rat had won out. The black rat had become rare. And the Reverend J. G. Wood, who near the end of the nineteenth century wrote a book called Ani- mate Creation, was more than slightly wrong in writing that the “conquest had been brought about not by war but by love”, thinking that in interbreeding the characteristics of the brown rat had become dominant. It had been war, plain and simple. This excursion into the history of the two kinds of rats has been necessary for a specific reason. Whatever it is that causes a doz- en or so rats to become a Rat King affects the black rat only, as far as we can tell from old descriptions. It does not seem to touch the brown rat. And since the black rat has become com- paratively rare the chances for forming Rat Kings have dimin- ished too. This must be the reason why there are no recent reports. But since the majority of these reports are old how can we know that they are true? This is in itself a very valid suggestion. But fortunately we have the documents of the equiv- alent of a law suit involving a Rat King. On January 17, 1774, a young man came to the district office of the government of the king of Saxony in Leipzig with a com- plaint. His name, he stated, was Christian Kaiser and he was em- ployed as a helper at the wind- mill at Lindenau, a hamlet within walking distance from Leipzig. A week earlier he had found a live Rat King consisting of 16 rats whose tails were intertwined. He had shown it to his master, the miller Tobias Jaeger. The reason why he bothered the officials was to complain about one Johann Adam Fasshauer, a resident of Lindenau. Said Johann Adam Fasshauer had gone to the afore- mentioned miller Tobias Jaeger and persuaded him to hand over the Rat King to said Fasshauer because he wished to make a painting of it. But in reality Fass- hauer had exhibited the Rat King, charging admission, and petitioner was now petitioning the officials to force said Fass- hauer to return the Rat King, to hand over the money he had earned by its public exhibition and also to pay the expenses for the action of the officials. Before committing themselves on the legal steps to be taken the officials made sure that there was a Rat King. They first questioned Christian Kaiser under oath about details of the capture. He told that he was working in the mill on January 12, 1774, when he heard a noise near a staircase and saw several 88 GALAXY rats looking out at him. Taking a piece of firewood, he killed them, and then took a ladder to see whether there might be more rats on a ledge, this time taking an axe as a weapon. There he found the Rat King. He pulled it off the ledge, using the axe so that it fell to the floor. He counted six- teen rats, fifteen of them with their tails “plaited together” and the sixteenth sticking to the back fur of one of the fifteen. Most of them survived the fall from the ledge and stayed alive for some time. But though they attempted to pull free of each other they did not succeed. rf^HE NEXT step of the officials •*- was to send a doctor to Lin- denau. Then the doctor wrote a protocol, saying that he had ar- rived in Lindenau and had been led to a room in the Posthorn Inn where he had found a Rat King consisting of sixteen dead rats. “Fifteen of them,” the doctor wrote, “had their tails knotted to- gether into a large knot in such a manner that most tails were completely in the knot except for a piece one or two inches in length near their bodies.” He then examined the rats in detail, and summarized the result of his ex- amination in the following four points: “( 1 ) that the bodies, heads and feet of the rats had their natural shapes, “(2) that some of them had the color of gray ashes, some were a little darker and some almost black, “(3) that they measured more than a span in length [this must refer to the length of the head and body without the tail; the normal figure for a black rat is about seven inches], “(4) that the proportions of their thickness to their length in- dicated that they were under- nourished rather than well nour- ished.” His conclusion was that “said sixteen rats were not one organ- ism which is called a Rat King but sixteen individual rats of dif- ferent size and coloration and (in my opinion) different age and sex.” As for the reason, he pointed out that there had been a cold sp>ell prior to the discovery. He thought that the rats had huddled together for warmth but that the urine of other rats hiding at a higher level had dripped down on the interwined tails and had frozen. I am sorry that I can’t report whether the officials decided that Johann Adam Fasshauer had to return the Rat King to Christian Kaiser along with the money he had earned by its exhibition. Since my source is a zoological book, the legal consequences have FOR YOUR INFORMATION 89
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been neglected, but the point is that after all these legalities and investigations the authenticity of the fact involved cannot easily be doubted. The good doctor’s ex- planation of how the Rat King came into being is admittedly weak, but we still don’t know what the actual reason is. Some later investigators have offered the guess that it might be the re- sult of a disease of some kind which is peculiar to the black rat. AT ANY event, the Rat King of Lindenau was not unique. During December, 1822, two Rat Kings were found by three farm hands engaged in threshing grain in the barn of the local forester. The place was the ham- let of Dollstedt, not quite ten miles from the city of Gotha. While doing their work, the men heard the squealing of rats and started a search, aided by the forester’s helper. They finally found that one of the main cross beams had a six-inch-deep hollow in its topside, evidently one that the rats had gnawed. They saw that this hollow was full of rats, and they were somewhat sur- prised that the rats made no at- tempt to run away. The men pushed the rats out, and saw that one was a Rat King of 28 rats and the other one, one of 14 rats. Both sets were de- scribed as consisting of fully grown rats, quite clean but also very hungry. Strangely enough they are also described as having been very docile, which probably means that the rats were in an advanced state of weakness from hunger. After the whole village had marveled at the find, the public spectacle ended by the execution of both Rat Kings, the execution being carried out with the flails. Then two of the men took pitch- forks and tried to pry the bodies of the smaller assembly apart After much effort they succeeded in pulling out a few of the rats. The forester himself looked at them and wrote down that the tails had not been torn off in the process and even had their skin, but they “showed the impressions of the other tails, just like leather straps that had been plaited to- gether for a long time.” A later case has the advantage of having been examined by a man with scientific knowledge. The Rat King was found on Feb- ruary 2, 1880 by a drayman in a room of the abattoir of the city- of Diisseldorf. It was a room which was used for the storage of skins and which was, for this rea- son, not much frequented by peo- ple. The Rat King consisted of eight black rats, of which one was killed when it was discovered. The other seven lived for some time. A Mr. Wilhelm Deckers ac- quired it and went to a taxider- mist to have it preserved. The taxidermist, naturally, cleaned it up so that one cannot tell wheth- ei the intertwined tails were also held together by anything that might act like glue. After Mr. Deckers died, the specimen was donated to the lo- cal High School and examined by the school’s science teacher. Prof. Ahrend. Ahrend wrote that “Gun- termann [the taxidermist] had cleaned the tails of the animals carefully so that only their inter- twined positions were preserved . . . but just looking at the inter- twined tails makes it clear that even the smallest amount of a sticky substance would render the animals inseparable.” The latest case which I could find in a quick survey was re- ported by the German zoologist Dr. Ludwig Heck, who later be- came the director of the Zoologi- cal Garden in Berlin. It refers to a Rat King found in January, 1907, in the village of Capelle, near Hamm in Westphalia. The local pastor, Wigger by name, in- formed the zoologist Reeker, who tried to acquire it for the Pro- vincial Museum of Westphalia. But before Reeker could move, the Zoological Institute of the University of Gottingen had se- cured it for its own collection. It consisted of ten specimens of the black rat. The director of the Zoological Institute, Privy Councillor Ehlers, wrote to Dr. Heck in reply to a question that he could not explain how such a thing could have happened and that the rat’s tails do not show any visible pathological changes. And he added that the Institute’s taxidermist considered it impos- sible that this Rat King might have been made by some prank- sters. Well, this is the story. All the cases have two things in common. It is always the black Mus ratius which produces a Rat King, and they have all been found during the coldest time of the year, in weather which would .make the animals huddle togeth- er for warmth. — WILLY LEY THE NIGHT OF THE TROLLS Gripping complete short science-fiction novel by Keith Laumer — along with stories by Judith Merril, Philip K. Dick and many others — In October WORLDS OF TOMORROW Now on sale 90 GALAXY FOR YOUR INFORMATION 91
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ON THE GEM PLANET 92 GALAXY F By CORDWAINER SMITH Illustrated by WOOD He sought help and a great gift of weaponry. What he found — but could not keep — was level ^ONSIDER the horse. He ^ climbed up through the crev- asses of a cliff of gems; the force which drove him was the love of man. Consider Mizzer, the resort planet, where the dictator Colonel Wedder reformed the culture so violently that whatever had been slovenly now became atrocious. Consider Genevieve, so rich that she was the prisoner of her own wealth, so beautiful that she was the victim of her own beauty, so intelligent that she knew there was nothing, nothing to be done about her fate. Consider Casher O’Neill, a wanderer among the planets, thirsting for justice and yet hop- ing in his innermost thoughts that “justice” was not just another word for revenge. Consider Pontoppidan, that lit- eral gem of a planet, where the people were too rich and busy to have good food, open air or much fun. All they had was dia- monds, rubies, tourmalines and emeralds. Add these together and you have one of the strangest stories ever told from world to world. I TJ^HEN Casher O’Neill came to ™ Pontoppidan, he found that the capital city was appropri- ately called Andersen. ON THE GEM PLANET 93
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This was the second century of the Rediscovery of Man. People everywhere had taken up old names, old languages, old cus- toms, as fast as the robots and the underpeople could retrieve the data from the rubbish of for- gotten starlanes or the subsurface ruins of Manhome itself. Casher knew this very well, to his bitter cost. Re-acculturation had brought him revolution and exile. He came from, the dry, beautiful planet of Mizzer. He was himself the nephew of the ruined ex-ruler, Kuraf, whose col- lection of objectionable books had at one time been unmatched in the settled galaxy; he had stood aside, half-assenting, when the colonels Gibna and Wedder took over the planet in the name of reform; he had implored the Instrumentality, vainly, for help when Wedder became a tyrant; and now he traveled among the stars, looking for men or weapons who might destroy Wedder and make Kaheer again the luxurious, happy city which it once had been. He felt that his cause was hopeless when he landed on Pon- toppidan. The people were warm- hearted, friendly, intelligent, but they had no motives to fight for, no weapons to fight with, no ene- mies to fight against. They had little public spirit, such as Casher O’Neill had seen back on his na- tive planet of Mizzer. They were concerned about little things. Indeed, at the time of his ar- rival, the Pontoppidans were wildly excited about a horse. A horse! Who worries about one horse? Casher O’Neill himself* said so. “Why bother about a horse? We have lots of them on Mizzer. They are four-handed beings, eight times the weight of a man, with only one finger on each of the four hands. The fingernail is very heavy and permits them to run fast. That’s why our people have them, for running.” “Why run?” said the Heredi- tary Dictator of Pontoppidan, “Why ruri, when you can fly? Don’t you have ornithopters?” “We don’t run with them,” said Casher indignantly. “We make them run against each other and then we pay prizes to the one which runs fastest.” “But then,” said Phillip Vin- cent, the Hereditary Dictator, “you get a very illogical situation. When you have tried out these four-fingered beings, you know how fast each one goes. So what? Why bother?” His niece interrupted. She was a fragile little thing, smaller than Casher O’Neill liked women to be. She had clear gray eyes, well- marked eyebrows, a very artificial coiffeur of silver-blonde hair and the most sensitive little mouth he had ever seen. She conformed to the local fashion by wearing some kind of powder or face cream which was flesh-pink in color but which had overtones of lilac. On a woman as old as twenty-two, such a coloration would have made the wearer look like an old hag, but on Genevieve it was pleasant, if rather startling. It gave the effect of a happy child playing grown-up and doing the job joyfully and well. Casher knew that it was hard to tell ages in these off-trail planets. Gene- vieve might be' a grand dame in her third or fourth rejuvenation. He doubted it, on second glance. What she said was sensi- ble, young, and pert: “But uncle, they’re animalsl” “I know that,” he rumbled. “But uncle, don’t you see it?” “Stop saying ‘but uncle’ and tell me what you mean,” growled the Dictator, very fondly. “Animals are always uncer- tain.” “Of course,” said the uncle. “That makes it a game, uncle,” said Genevieve. “They’re never sure that any one of them would do the same thing twice. Imagine the excitement — the beautiful big beings from earth running around and around on their four middle fingers, the big fingernails making the gems jump loose from the ground!” “I’m not at all sure it’s that way. Besides, Mizzer may be cov- ered with something valuable, such as earth or sand, instead of gemstones like the ones we have here on Pontoppidan. You know your flower-pots with their rich, warm, wet, soft earth?” “Of course I do, uncle. And I know what you paid for them. You were very generous. And still are,” she added diplomatically, glancing quickly at Casher O’- Neill to see how the familial piety went across with the visitor. “We’re not that rich on Mizzer. It’s mostly sand, with farmland along the Twelve Niles, our big rivers.” “I’ve seen pictures of rivers,” said Genevieve. “Imagine living on a whole world full of flowerpot stuff!” “You’re getting off the subject, darling. We were wondering why anyone would bring one horse, just one horse, to Pontoppidan. I suppose you could race a horse against himself, if you had a stop- watch. But would it be fun? Would you do that, young man?” Casher O’Neill tried to be re- spectful. “In my home we used to have a lot of horses. I’ve seen my uncle time them one by one.” “Your uncle?” said the Dicta- tor interestedly. “Who was your uncle that he had all these four- fingered ‘horses’ running around? They’re all Earth animals and very expensive.” 94 GALAXY ON THE GEM PLANET 95
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RASHER felt the coming of the low, slow blow he had met so many times before, right from the whole outside world into the pit of his stomach. “My uncle — ” he stammered — “my uncle — I thought you knew — was the old Dictator of Mizzer, Kuraf.” Philip Vincent jumped to his feet, very lightly for so well- fleshed a man. The young mis- tress, Genevieve, clutched at the throat of her dress. “Kuraf!” cried the old Dictator. “Kuraf! We know about him, even here. But you were sup- posed to be a Mizzer patriot, not one of Kuraf’s people.” “He doesn’t have any children — ” Casher began to explain. “I should think not, not with those habits!” snapped the old man. “ — so I’m his nephew and his heir. But I’m not trying to put the Dictatorship back, even though I should be dictator. I just want to get rid of Colonel Wedder. He has ruined my people, and I am looking for money or weapons or help to make my home-world free.” This was the point, Casher O’Neill knew, at which people either started believing him or did not. If they did not, there was not much he could do about it. If they did, he was sure to get some sympathy. So far, no help. Just sympathy. But the Instrumentality, while refusing to take action against Colonel Wedder, had given young Casher O’Neill an all-world travel pass — something which a hun- dred lifetimes of savings could not have purchased for the ordi- nary man. (His obscene old uncle had gone off to Sunvale, on Ttiol- le, the resort planet, to live out his years between the casiho and the beach.) Casher O’Neill held the conscience of Mizzer in his hand. Only he, among the star travelers, cared enough to fight for the freedom of the Twelve Niles. Here, now, in this room, there was a turning point. “I won’t give you anything,” said the Hereditary Dictator, but he said it in a friendly voice. His niece started tugging at his sleeve. The older man went on. “Stop it, girl. I won’t give you anything, not if you’re part of that rotten lot of Kuraf’s, not unless — ” “Anything, sir, anything, just so that I get help or weapons to go home to the Twelve Niles!” “All right, then. Unless you open your mind to me. I’m a good telepath myself.” “Open my mind! Whatever for?” The incongruous indecency of it shocked Casher O’Neill. He’d had men and women and govern- ments ask a lot of strange things from him, but no one before had had the cold impudence to ask him to open his mind. “And why you?” he went on, “What would you get out of it? There’s nothing much in my mind.” “To make sure,” said the He- reditary Dictator, “that you are not too honest and sharp in your beliefs. If you’re positive that you know what to do, you might be another Colonel Wedder, putting y6ur people through a dozen tor- ments for a Utopia which never quite comes true. If you don’t care at all, you might be like your uncle. He did no real harm. He just stole his planet blind and he had some extraordinary habits which got him talked about be- tween the stars. He never killed a man in his life, did he?” “No, sir,” said Casher O’Neill, “he never did.” It relieved him to tell the one little good thing about his uncle; there was so very, very little which could be said in Ku- raf’s favor. “I don’t like slobbering old lib- ertines like your uncle,” said Philip Vincent, “but I don’t hate them either. They don’t hurt other people much. As a matter of actual fact, they don’t hurt anyone but themselves. They waste property, though. Like these horses you have on Mizzer. We’d never bring living beings to this world of Pontoppidan, just to play games with. And you know we’re not poor. We’re no Old North Australia, but we have a good income here.” That, thought Casher O’Neill, is the understatement of the year, but he was a careful young man with a great deal at stake, so he said nothing. The Dictator looked at him shrewdly. He appreciated the value of Casher’s tactful silence. Genevieve tugged at his sleeve, but he frowned her interruption away. i4TF,” said the Hereditary Dic- tator, “if,” he repeated, “you pass two tests, I will give you a green ruby as big as my head. If my Committee will allow me to do so. But I think I can talk them around. One test is that you let me peep all over your mind, to make sure that I am not dealing with one more honest fool. If you’re too honest, you’re a fool and a danger .to mankind. I’ll give you a dinner and ship you off-planet as fast as I can. And the other test is — solve the puzzle of this horse. The one horse on Pontoppidan. Why is the animal here? What should we do with it? If it’s good to eat, how should we cook it? Or can we trade to some other world, like your planet Mizzer, which seems to set a value on horses?” “Thank you, sir — ” said Cash- er O’Neill. “But, uncle — ” said Genevieve. “Keep quiet, my darling, and let the young man speak,” said the Dictator. 96 GALAXY ON THE GEM PLANET 97
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“ — all I was going to ask, is,” said Casher O’Neill, “what’s a green ruby good for? I didn’t even know they came green.” “That, young man, is a Pon- toppidan specialty. We have a geology based on ultra-heavy chemistry. This planet was once a fragment from a giant planet which imploded. The use is sim- ple. With a green ruby you can make a laser beam which will boil away your city of Kaheer in a single sweep. We don’t have weapons here and we don’t be- lieve in them, so I won’t give you a weapon. You’ll have to travel further to find a ship and to get the apparatus for mounting your green ruby. If I give it to you. But you will be one more step along in your fight with Colonel Wedder.” “Thank you, thank you, most honorable sir!” cried Casher O’- Neill. “But uncle,” said Genevieve, “you shouldn’t have picked those two things because I know the answers.” “You know all about him,” said the Hereditary Dictator, “by some means of your own?” Genevieve flushed under her lilac-hued foundation cream. “I know enough for us to know.” “How do you know it, my darl- ing?” “I just know,” said Genevieve. Her uncle made no comment. but he smiled widely and indul. gently as if he had heard that particular phrase before. She stamped her foot. “And I know about the horse, too. All about it.” “Have you seen it?” “No.” “Have you talked to it?” “Horses don’t talk, uncle.” “Most underpeople do,” he said. “This isn’t an underperson, uncle. It’s a plain unmodified old Earth animal. It never did talk.” “Then what do you know, my honey?” The uncle was affection- ate, but there was the crackle of impatience under his voice. “I taped it. The whole thing. The story of the horse of Pon- toppidan. And I’ve edited it, too. I was going to show it to you this morning, but your staff sent that young man in.” Casher O’Neill looked his apol- ogies at Genevieve. She did not notice him. Her eyes were on her uncle. “Since you’ve done this much, we might as well see it.” He turned to the attendants. “Bring chairs. And drinks. You know mine. The young lady will take tea with lemon. Real tea. Will you have coffee, young man?” “You have coffee!” cried Cash- er O’Neill. As soon as he said it, he felt like a fool. Pontoppidan was a rich planet. On most worlds’ exchanges, coffee came 98 GALAXY to about two man-years per [jilo. Here halftracks crunched tjieir way through gems as they ^ent to load up the frequent trad- ing vessels. The chairs were put in place. The drinks arrived. The Heredi- tary Dictator had been momen- tarily lost in a brown study, as though he were wondering about (jis promise to Casher O’Neill. He had even murmured to the young man, “Our bargain stands? Never mind what my niece says.” Cash- er had nodded vigorously. The old man had gone back to frown- ing at the servants and did not relax until a tiger-man bounded into the room, carrying a tray with acrobatic precision. The chairs were already in place. The father held his niece’s chair for her as a command that she sit down. He nodded Casher O’Neill into a chair on the other side of himself. He commanded, “Dim the lights . . .” The room plunged into semi- darkness. Without being told, the people took their places immediately be- hind the three main seats and the underpeople perched or sat on benches and tables behind them. Very little was spoken. Casher O’Neill could sense that Pontop- pidan was a well-run place. He began to wonder if the Heredi- tary Dictator had much real work ON THE GEM PLANET left to do, if he could fuss that much over a single horse. Per- haps all he did was boss his niece and watch the robots load truck- loads of gems into sacks while the underpeople weighed them, listed them and wrote out the bills for the customers. II ^HERE was no screen; this was a good machine. The planet Pontoppidan came into view, its airless brightness giving strong hints of the mineral riches which might be found. Here and there enormous domes, such as the one in which this palace was located, came in- to view. Genvieve’s own voice, girlish, impulsive and yet didactic, rang out with the story of her planet. It was as though she had pre- pared the picture not only for her own father, but for off-world visitors as well. (By Joan, that’s it! thought Casher O’Neill. If they don’t raise much food here, out- side of the hydroponics, and don’t have any real People Places, they have to trade: that does mean visitors, and many, many of them.) The story was interesting but the girl herself was more inter- esting. Her face shone in the shifting light which the images — a meter, perhaps a little more, ‘ 99
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from the floor — reflected across the room. Casher O’Neill thought that he had never before seen a woman who so peculiarly com- bined intelligence and charm. She was girl, girl, girl, all the way through; but she was also very smart and pleased with being smart. It betokened a happy life. He found himself glancing covert- ly at her. Once he caught her glancing, equally covertly, at him. The darkness of the scene en- abled them both to pass it off as an accident without embarrass- ment. Her viewtape had come to the story of the dipsies, enormous canyons which lay like deep gashes on the surface of the planet. Some of the color views were spectacular beyond belief. Casher O’Neill, as the “appointed one” of Mizzer, had had plenty of time to wander through the non- salacious parts of his uncle’s col- lections, and he had seen pictures of the most notable worlds. Never had he seen anything like this. One view showed a sun- set against a six-kilometer cliff of a material which looked like solid emerald. The peculiar bright sun- shine of Pontoppidan’s small, penetrating, lilac-hued sun ran like living water over the preci- pice of gems. Even the reduced image, one meter by one meter, was enough to make him catch his breath. The bottom of the dipsy had! vapor emerging in curious cylin- drical columns which seemed to erode as they reached two or three times the height of a man. The recorded voice of Genevieve was explaining that the very thin atmosphere of Pontoppidan would not be breathable for an- other 2,520 years, since the set- tlers did not wish to squander their resources on a luxury like breathing when the whole planet only had 60,000 inhabitants; they would rather go on with masks and use their wealth in other ways. After all, it was not as though they did not have their domed cities, some of them many kilometers in radius. Besides the usual hydroponics, they had even imported 7.2 hectares of garden soil, 5.5 centimeters deep, togeth- er with enough water to make the gardens rich and fruitful. They had bought worms, too, at the price of eight carats of diamond per living worm, in order to keep the soil of the gardens loose and living. Genevieve’s transcribed voice rang out with pride as she listed these accomplishments of her people, but a note of sadness came in when she returned to the subject of the dipsies. “ . . . and though we would like to live in them and develop their at- mospheres, we dare not. There is too much escap)e of radioactivity. The geysers themselves may or ffiay not be contaminated from one hour to the next. So we just look at them. Not one of them has ever been settled, except for the Hippy Dipsy, where the horse came from. Watch this next pic- ture. The camera sheered up, up, up from the surface of the planet. VVhere it had wandered among mountains of diamonds and val- leys of tourmalines, it now took to the blue-black of near, inner space. One of the canyons showed (from high altitude) the grotes- que pattern of a human woman’s hips and legs, though what might have been the upper body was lost in a confusion of broken hills which ended in a bright almost- iridescent plain to the North. “That,” said the real Gene- vieve, overriding her own voice on the screen, “is the Hippy Dip- sy. There, see the blue? That’s the only lake on all of Pontoppi- dan. And here we drop to the hermit’s house.” pASHER O’Neill almost felt ^ vertigo as the camera plum- meted from off-planet into the depths of that immense canyon. The edges of the canyon almost seemed to move like lips with the plunge, opening and folding in- ward to swallow him up. Suddenly they were beside a beautiful little lake. A small hut stood beside the shore. In the doorway there sat a man, dead. His body had been there a long time; it was already mummified. Genevieve’s recorded voice ex- plained the matter: “. . . in Nor- strilian law and custom, they told him that his time had come. They told him to go to the Dying House, since he was no longer fit to live. In Old North Australia, they are so rich that they let everyone live as long as he wants, unless the old person can’t take rejuvenation any more, even with stroon, and unless he or she gets to be a real pest to the living. If that happens, they are invited to go to the Dying House, where they shriek and pant with deliri- ous joy for weeks or days until they finally die of an overload of sheer happiness and excitement . . .” There was a hesitation, even in the recording. “We never knew why this man refused. He stood off-planet and said that he had seen views of the Hippy Dipsy. He said it was the most beautiful place on all the worlds, and that he wanted to build a cabin there, to live alone, except for his non- human friend. We thought it was some small pet. When we told him that the Hippy Dipsy was very dangerous, he said that this did not matter in the least to him, since he was old and dying any- 100 GALAXY ON THE GEM PLANET 101
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how. Then he offered to pay us twelve times our planetary in- come if we would lease him twelve hectares on the condition of absolute privacy. No pictures, no scanners, no help, no visitors. Just solitude and scenery. His name was Perino. My great- grandfather asked for nothing more, except the written transfer of credit. When he paid it, Peri- no even asked that he be left alone after he was dead. Not even a vault rocket so that he could either orbit Pontoppidan forever or start a very slow journey to no- where, the way so many people like it. So this is our first picture of him. We took it when the light went off in the People Room and one of the tiger-men told us that he was sure a human conscious- ness had come to an end in the Hippy Dipsy. “And we never even thought of the pet. After all, we had never made a picture of him. This is the way he arrived from Perino’s shack.” A ROBOT was shown in a con- trol room, calling excitedly in the old Common Tongue. “People, people! Judgment needed! Moving object coming out of the Hippy Dipsy. Object has improper shape. Not a cor- rect object. Should not rise. Does so anyhow. People, tell me, F>eo- ple, tell me! Destroy or not des- troy? This is an improper object. It should fall, not rise. Coming out of the Hippy Dipsy.” A firm click shut off the robot’s chatter. A well-shaped woman took over. From the nature of her work and the lithe, smooth tread with which she walked, Casher O’Neill suspected that she was of cat origin, but there was nothing in her dress or in her manner to show that she was un- derpeople. The woman in the picture . lighted a screen. She moved her hands in the air in front of her, like a blind person feeling his way through op>en day. The picture on the inner screen came to resolution. A face showed in it. What a face! thought Casher O’Neill, and he heard the other people around him in the viewing room. The horse! Imagine a face like that of a newborn cat, thought Casher. Mizzer is full of cats. But imagine the face with a huge mouth, with big yellow teeth — a nose long beyond imagination. Imagine eyes which look friendly. In the picture they were rolling back and forth with exertion, but even there — when they did not feel observed — there was nothing hostile about the set of the eyes. They were tame, companionable eyes. Two ridiculous ears stood high, and a little tuft of golden hair showed on the crest of the head between the ears. The viewed scene was comical, too. The cat-woman was as astonished as the viewers. It was lucky that she had touched the emergency switch, so that she not only saw the horse, but had re- corded herself and her own actions while bringing him into view. Genevieve whisp>ered across the chest of the Hereditary Dic- tator: “Later we found he was a palomino pony. That’s a very special kind of horse. And Perino had made him immortal, or al- most immortal.” “Sh-h!” said her uncle. The screen-within-the-screen showed the cat-woman waving her hands in the air some more. The view broadened. The horse had four hands and no legs, or four legs and no hands, whichever way you want to count them. The horse was fighting his way up a narrow cleft of rubies which led out of the Hippy Dipsy. He panted heavily. The oxygen bot- tles on his sides swung wildly as he clambered. He must have seen something, perhaps the image of the cat-woman, because he said a word: W hay-yay-yay-yay-whay-yay! The cat-woman in the nearer picture spoke very distinctly : “Give your name, age, species and authority for being on this planet.” She spoke clearly and with the utmost possible author- ity. The horse obviously heard her. His ears tipped forward. But his reply was the same as before: W hay-yay-yay! Casher O’Neill realized that he had followed the mood of the pic- ture and had seen the horse the way that the people on Pontop- pidan woud have seen him. On second thought, the horse was nothing special, by the standards of the Twelve Niles or the Little Horse Market^ in the city of Kaheer. It was an old pony stal- lion, no longer fit for breeding and probably not for riding either. The hair had whitened among the gold; the teeth were worn. The animal showed many injuries and burns. Its only use was to be killed, cut up and fed to the racing dogs. But he said nothing to the people around him. They were still spellbound by the pic- ture. The cat-woman repeated: “Your name isn’t Whayayay. Identify yourself properly; name first.” The horse answered her with the same word in a higher key. Apparently forgetting that she had recorded herself as well as the emergency screen, the cat- 102 GALAXY ON THE GEM PLANET 103
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woman said, “I’ll call real people if you don’t answer! They’ll be annoyed at being bothered.” The horse rolled his eyes at her and said nothing. The cat-woman pressed an emergency button on the side of the room. One could not see the other communication screen which lighted up, but her end of the conversation was plain. “I want an ornithopter. Big one. Emergency.” A mumble from the side screen. “To go to the Hippy Dipsy. There’s an underperson there, and he’s in so much trouble that he won’t talk.” From the screen beside her, the horse seemed to have understood the sense of the message, if not the words, be- cause he repeated: W hay-yay-whay-yay-yay! “See,” said the cat-woman to the person in the other screen, “that’s what he’s doing. It’s obvi- ously an emergency.” The voice from the other screen came through, tinny and remote by double recording: “Fool, yourself, cat-woman! No- body can fly an ornithopter into a dipsy. Tell your silly friend to go back to the floor of the dipsy and we’ll pick him up by space rocket.” Whay-yay-yay! said the horse impatiently. “He’s not my friend, " said the cat-woman with brisk annoyance. “I just discovered him a couple of minutes ago. He’s asking for help. Any idiot can see that, even if we don’t know his language.” The picture snapped off. ^ I ■'HE next scene showed tiny human figures working with searchlights at the top of an ini- measurably high cliff. Here and there, the beam of the searchlight caught the cliff face; the trans- lucent faceted material of the cliff looked almost like rows of eerie windows, their lights snapping on and off, as the searchlight moved. Far down there was a red glow. Fire came from inside the moun- tain. Even with telescopic lenses the cameraman could not get the close-up of the glow. On one side there was the figure of the hors^; his four arms stretched at impos- sible angles as he held himself firm in the crevasse; on the other side of the fire there were the even tinier figures of men, labor- ing to fit some sort of sling to reach the horse. For some odd reason having to do with the techniques of record- ing, the voices came through very plainly, even the heavy, tired breathing of the old horse. Now and then he uttered one of the special horse-words which seemed to be the limit of his vocabulary. He was obviously watching the men, and was firmly persuaded of 104 GALAXY
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their friendliness to him. His large, tame, yellow eyes rolled wildly in the light of the search- light and every time the horse looked down, he seemed to shud- der. Casher O’Neill found this en- tirely understandable. The bot- tom of the Hippy Dipsy was no- where in sight; the horse, even with nothing more than the en- larged fingernails of his middle fingers to help him climb, had managed to get about four of the six kilometers’ height of the cliff face behind him. The voice of a tiger-man sounded clearly from among the shift of men, underpeople and ro- bots who were struggling on the face of the cliff. “It’s a gamble, but not much of a gamble. I weigh six hundred kilos myself, and, do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever had to use my full strength since I was a kitten. I know that I can jump across the fire and help that thing be more comfortable. I can even tie a rope around him so that he won’t slip and fall after all the work we’ve done. And the work he’s done, too,” added the tiger- man grimly. “Perhaps I can just take him in my arms and jump back with him. It will be perfectly safe if you have a safety rope around each of us. After all, I never saw a less prehensile crea- ture in my life. You can’t call those fingers of his ‘fingers.’ They look like little boxes of bone, de. signed for running around and not much good for anything else.” There was a murmur of other voices and then the command of the supervisor. “Go ahead.” No one was prepared for what happened next. The cameraman got the tiger- man right in the middle of his frame, showing the attachment of one rope around the tiger-man’s broad waist. The tiger-man was a modified type whom the au- thorities had not bothered to put into human cosmetic form. He still had his ears on top of his head, yellow and black fur over his face, huge incisors overlapping his lower jaw and enormous an- tenna-like whiskers sticking out from his moustache. He must have been thoroughly modified inside, however, because his tem- perament was calm, friendly and even a little humorous; he must have had a carefully re-done mouth, because the utterance of human speech came to him clear- ly and without distortion. He jumped — a mighty jump, right through the top edges of the flame. The horse saw him. The horse jumpjed too, almost in the same moment, also through the top of the flame, going the other way. The horse had feared the tiger- 106 GALAXY man more than he did the cliff. The horse landed right in the group of workers. He tried not to hurt them with his flailing limbs, but he did knock one man — a true man, at that — off the cliff. The man’s scream faded as he crashed into the impenetrable darkness below. The robots were quick. Having no emotions except on, off, and hi^h, they did not get excited. They had the horse trussed and, before the true men and under- people had ensured their footing, they had signaled the crane oper- ator at the top of the cliff. The horse, his four arms swinging limply, disappeared upward. The tiger-man jumped back through the flames to the nearer ledge. The picture went off. In the viewing room, the He- reditary Dictator Philip Vincent stood up. He stretched, looking around. Genevieve looked at Casher O’Neill expectantly. “That’s the story,” said the Dic- tator mildly. “Now you solve it.” “Where is the horse now?” said Casher O’Neill. “In the hospital, of course. My niece can take you to see him.” Ill A FTER A short, painful and very thorough peeping of his own mind by the Hereditary Dic- tator, Casher O’Neill and Gene- vieve set off for the hospital in which the horse was being kept in bed. The people of Pontoppidan had not known what else to do with him, so they had placed him under strong sedation and were trying to feed him with sugar-water compounds going di- rectly into his veins. Genevieve told Casher that the horse was wasting away. They walked to the hospital over amethyst pebbles. Instead of wearing his space- suit, Casher wore a surface hel- met which enriched his oxygen. His hosts had not counted on his getting spells of uncontrollable itching from the sharply reduced atmospheric pressure. He did not dare mention the matter, because he was still hoping to get the green ruby as a weapon in his private war for the liberation of the Twelve Niles from the rule of Colonel Wedder. Whenever the itching became less than excruci- ating, he enjoyed the walk and the company of the slight, beauti- ful girl who accompanied him across the fields of jewels to the hospital. (In later years, he some- times wondered what might have happened. Was the itching a part of his destiny, which saved him for the freedom of the city of Kaheer and the planet Mizzer? Might not the innocent brilliant loveliness of the girl have other- ON THE GEM PLANET 107
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wise tempted him to forswear his duty and stay forever on Pontop- pidan? ) The girl wore a new kind of cosmetic for outdoor walking — a warm peachhued powder which let the natural pink of her cheeks show through. Her eyes, he saw, were a living, deep gray; her eye- lashes, long; her smile, innocently provocative beyond all ordinary belief. It was a wonder that the Hereditary Dictator had not had to stop duels and murders be- tween young men vying for her favor. They finally reached the hospi- tal, just as Casher O’Neill thought he could stand it no longer and would have to ask Genevieve for some kind of help or carriage to get indoors and away from the frightful itching. The building was underground. The entrance was sumptuous. Diamonds and rubies, the size of building-bricks on Mizzer, had been set to frame the doorway, which was apparently enameled steel. Kuraf at his most lavish had never wasted money on anything like this door-frame. Genevieve saw his glance. “It did cost a lot of credits. We had to bring a blind artist all the way from Olympia to paint that enamel-work. The poor man. He spent most of his time trying to steal extra gem-stones when he should have known that we pay justly and never allow anyone to get away with stealing.” “What do you do?” asked Casher O’Neill. “We cut thieves up in space, just at the edge of the atmo- sphere. We have more manned boats in orbit than any other planet I know of. Maybe Old North Australia has more, but, then, nobody ever gets close enough to Old North Australia to come back alive and tell.” They went on into the hospital. A RESPECTFUL chief surgeon insisted on keeping them in the office and entertaining them with tea and confectionery, when they both wanted to go see the horse; common politeness pro- hibited their pushing through. Finally they got past the cere- mony and into the room in which the horse was kept. Close up, they could see how much he had suffered. There were cuts and abrasures over almost all of his body. One of his hooves — the doctor told them that was the correct name, hoof, for the big middle fingernail on which he walked — was split; the doctor had put a cadmium-silver bar through it. The horse lifted his head when they entered, but he saw that they were just more people, not horsey people, so he put his head down, very patiently. “What’s the prospect, doctor?” 108 GALAXY asked Casher O’Neill, turning away from the animal. “Could I ask you, sir, a foolish question first?” Surprised, Casher could only say yes. “You’re an O’Neill. Your uncle is Kuraf. How do you happen to be called ‘Casher’?” “That’s simple,” laughed Cash- er. “This is my young-man-name. On Mizzer, everybody gets a baby name, which nobody uses. Then he gets a nickname. Then he gets a young-man-name, based on some characteristic or some friendly joke, until he picks out his career. When he enters his profession, he picks out his own career name. If I liberate Mizzer and overthrow Colonel Wedder, I’ll have to think up a suitable career name for myself.” “But why ‘Casher,’ sir?” per- sisted the doctor. “When I was a little boy and people asked me what I wanted, I always asked for cash. I guess that contrasted with my uncle’s wastefulness, so they called me Casher.” “But what is cash? One of your crops?” It was Casher’s time to look amazed. “Cash is money. Paper credits. People pass them back and forth when they buy things.” “Here on Pontoppidan, all the money belongs to me. All of it,” said Genevieve. “My uncle is trustee for me. But I have never been allowed to touch it or to spend it. It’s all just planet busi- ness.” The doctor blinked respectful- ly. “Now this horse, sir, if you will pardon my asking about your name, is a very strange case. Physiologically he is a pure earth type. He is suited only for a vege- table diet, but otherwise he is a very close relative of man. He has a single stomach and a very large cone-shaped heart. That’s where the trouble is. The heart is in bad condition. He is dying.” “Dying?” cried Genevieve. “That’s the sad, horrible part,” said the doctor. “He is dying but he cannot die. He could go on like this for many years. Perino wasted enough stroon on this ani- mal to make a planet immortal. Now the animal is worn out but cannot die.” Casher O’Neill let out a long, low, ululating whistle. Everybody in the room jumped. He disre- garded them. It was the whistle he had used near the stables, back among the Twelve Niles, when he wanted to call a horse. The horse knew it. The large head lifted. The eyes rolled at him so imploringly that he ex- pected tears to fall from them, even though he was pretty sure that horses could not lachrymate. He squatted on the floor, close ON THE GEM PLANET 109
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to the horse’s head, with a hand on its mane. “Quick,” he murmured to the surgeon. “Gret me a piece of sugar and an underperson-telepath. The underperson-telepath must not be of carnivorous origin.” ^1 ■'HE doctor looked stupid. He snapped “Sugar” at an as- sistant but he squatted down next to Casher O’Neill and said, “You will have to repeat that about an underp>erson. This is not an un- derperson hospital at all. We have very few of them here. The horse is here only by command of His Excellency Philip 'Vincent, who said that the horse of Perino should be given the best of all possible care. He even told me,” said the doctor, “that if anything wrong happened to this horse, I would ride patrol for it for the next eighty years. So I’ll do what I can. Do you find me too talka- tive? Some people do. What kind of an underperson do you want?” “I need,” said Casher, very calmly, “a telepathic underperson, both to find out what this horse wants and to tell the horse that I am here to help him. Horses are vegetarians and they do not like meat-eaters. Do you have a vege- tarian underperson around the hospital?” “We used to have some squir- rel-men,” said the chief surgeon, “but when we changed the air circulating system the squirrel, men went away with the old equipment. I think they went to a mine. We have tiger-men, cat- men, and my secretary is a wolf.” “Oh, no!” said Casher O’Neill. “Can you imagine a sick horse confiding in a wolf?” “It’s no more than you are do- ing,” said the surgeon, very softly, glancing up to see if Genevieve were in hearing range, and ap- parently judging that she was not. “The Hereditary Dictators here sometimes cut suspicious guests to pieces on their way off the planet. That is, unless the guests are licensed, regular traders. You are not. You might be a spy, planning to rob us. How do I know? I wouldn’t give a diamond chip for your chances of being alive next week. What do you want to do about the horse? That might please the Dictator. And you might live.” Casher O’Neill was so stag- gered by the confidence of the surgeon that he squatted there thinking about himself, not about the patient. The horse licked him, seemingly sensing that he needed solace. The surgeon had an idea. “Horses and dogs used to go to- gether, didn’t they, back in the old days of Manhome, when all the people lived on planet Earth?” “Of course,” said Casher. “We no GALAXY still run them together in hunts on Mizzer, but under these new laws of the Instrumentality we’ve run out of underpieople-criminals to hunt.” “I have a good dog,” said the chief surgeon. “She talks pretty well, but she is so sympathetic that she upsets the patients by loving them too much. I have her down in the second underbase- ment tending the dish-sterilizing machinery.” “Bring her up,” said Casher in a whisper. He remembered that he did not need to whisper about this, so he stood up and spoke to Gene- vieve : “They have found a good dog- telepath who may reach through to the mind of the horse. It may give us the answer.” She put her hand on his fore- arm gently, with the approbatory gesture of a princess. Her fingers dug into his flesh. Was she wish- ing him well against her uncle’s habitual treachery, or was this merely the impulse of a kind young girl who knew nothing of the way the world was run? IV The interview went extremely well. The dog-woman was almost perfectly humaniform. She looked like a tired, cheerful, worn-out old woman, not valuable enough to be given the life-prolonging santaclara drug called stroon. Work had been her life and she had had plenty of it. Casher 'O’Neill felt a twinge of envy when he realized that happiness goes by the petty chances of life and not by the large destiny. This dog-woman, with her haggard face and her stringy gray hair, had more love, happiness and sympathy than Kuraf had found with his pleasures. Colonel Wed- der with his powers, or himself with his crusade. Why did life do that? Was there no justice, ever? Why should a worn-out worthless old underwoman be happy when he was not? “Never mind,” she said, “you’ll get over it and then you will be happy.” “Over what?” he said. “I didn’t say anything.” “I’m not going to say it,” she retorted, meaning that she was telepathic. “You’re a prisoner of yourself. Some day you will es- cape to unimportance and happi- ness. You’re a good man. You’re trying to save yourself, but you really like this horse.” “Of course I do,” said Casher O’Neill. “He’s a brave old horse, climbing out of that hell to get back to people.” When he said the word hell her eyes widened, but she said noth- ing. In his mind, he saw the sign ON THE GEM PLANET 111
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of a fish scrawled on a dark wall and he felt her think at him, So you too know something of the “dark wonderful knowledge” which is not yet to be revealed to all mankind? He thought a cross back at her and then turned his thinking to the horse, lest their telepathy be monitored and strange punish- ments await them both. She spoke in words, “Shall we link?” “Link,” he said. Genevieve stepped up. Her clear-cut, pretty, sensitive face was alight with excitement. “Could I — could I be cut in?” “Why not?” said the dog- woman, glancing at him. He nod- ded. The three of them linked hands and then the dog-woman put her left hand on the forehead of the old horse. ^T^HE sand splashed beneath their feet as they ran toward Kaheer. The delicious pressure of a man’s body was on their backs. The red sky of Mizzer gleamed over them. There came the shout: “I’m a horse, I’m a horse, I’m a horse!” “You’re from Mizzer,” thought Casher O’Neill, “from Kaheer it- self!” “I don’t know names,” thought the horse, “but you’re from my land. The land, the good land.” “What are you doing here?” “Dying,” thought the horse. “Dying for hundreds and thou- sands of sundowns. The old one brought me. No riding, no run- ning, no people. Just the old one and the small ground. I have been dying since I came here.” Casher O’Neill got a glimpse of Perino sitting and watching the horse, unconscious of the cruelty and loneliness which he had in- flicted on his large pet by making it immortal and then giving it no work to do. “Do you know what dying is?” Thought the horse promptly: “Certainly. No-horse.” “Do you know what life is?” “Yes. Being a horse.” “I’m not a horse,” thought Casher O’Neill, “but I am alive.” “Don’t complicate things,” thought the horse at him, though Casher realized it was his own mind and not the horse’s which supplied the words. “Do you want to die?” “To no-horse? Yes, if this room, forever, is the end of things.” “What would you like better?” thought - Genevieve, and her thoughts were like a cascade of newly-minted silver coins falling into all their minds: brilliant, clean, bright, innocent. The answer was quick: “Dirt beneath my hooves, and wet air again, and a man on my back.” The dog-woman interrupted: “Dear horse, you know me?” 112 GALAXY “You’re a dog,” thought the horse. “Goo-oo-oo-ood dog!” “Right,” thought the happy old slattern, “and I can tell these people how to take care of you. Sleep now, and when you waken you will be on the way to happi- ness.” She thought the command sleep so powerfully at the old horse that Casher O’Neill and Genevieve both started to fall un- conscious and had to be caught by the hospital attendants. As they re-gathered their wits, she was finishing her commands to the surgeon. “ — and put about 40% supplementary oxygen into the air. He’ll have to have a real person to ride him, but some of your orbiting sentries would rath- er ride a horse up there than do nothing. You can’t repair the heart. Don’t try it. Hypnosis will take care of the sand of Mizzer. Just load his mind with one or two of the drama-cubes packed full of desert adventure. Now, don’t you worry about me. I’m not going to claim any credit, and I’m not going to give you any more suggestions. People-man, you!” she laughed. “You can for- give us dogs anything, except for being right. It makes you feel in- ferior for a few minutes. Never mind. I’m going back downstairs to my dishes. I love them, I real- ly do. Good-by, you pretty thing,” she said to Genevieve. “And good- bye, wanderer! Good luck to you,” she said to Casher O’Neill. “You will remain miserable as long as you seek justice, but when you give up, righteousness will come to you and you will be happy. Don’t worry. You’re young and it won’t hurt you to suffer a few more years. Youth is an extreme- ly curable disease, isn’t it?” She gave them a full curtsey, like one Lady of the Instrumen- tality saying good-by to another. Her wrinkled old face was lit up with smiles, in which happiness was mixed with a tiniest bit of playful mockery. “Don’t mind me, boss,” she said to the surgeon. “Dishes, here I come.” She swept out of the room. “See what I mean?” said the surgeon. “She’s so horribly happy! How can anyone run a hospital if a dishwasher gets all over the place, making people happy? We’d be out of jobs. Her ideas were good, though.” They were. They worked. Down to the last letter of the dog-woman’s instructions. ^ I ''HERE was argument from the council. Casher O’Neill went along to see them in session. One councillor, Bashnack, was particularly vociferous in object- ing to any action concerning the horse. “Sire,” he cried, “sire! We don’t even know the name of the ON THE GEM PLANET 113
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animal! I must protest this action, when we don’t know — ” “That we don’t,’’ assented Philip Vincent. “But what does a name have to do with it?” “The horse has no identity, not even the identity of an animal. It is just a pile of meat left over from the estate of Perino. We should kill the horse and eat the meat ourselves. Or, if we do not want to eat the meat, then we should sell it off-planet. There are plenty of peoples around here who would pay a pretty price for genuine earth meat. Pay no at- tention to me, sire! You are the Hereditary Dictator and I am nothing. I have no power, no property, nothing. I am at your mercy. All I can tell you is to follow your own best interests. I have only a voice. You cannot reproach me for using my voice when I am trying to help you, sire, can you? That’s all I am doing, helping you. If you spend any credits at all on this animal you will be doing wrong, wrong, wrong. We are not a rich planet. We have to pay for expensive de- fenses just in order to stay alive. We cannot even afford to pay for air that our children can go out and play. And you want to spend money on a horse which cannot even talk! I tell you, sire, this council is going to vote against you, just to protect your own interests and the interests of the Honorable Genevieve as Eventual Title-holder of all Pon- toppidan. You are not going to get away with this, sire! We are helpless before your power, but we will insist on advising you ^ — ” “Hear! Hear!” cried several of the councillors, not the least dis- mayed by the slight frown of the Hereditary Dictator. “I will take the word,” said Philip Vincent himself. Several had had their hands raised, asking for the floor. One obstinate man kept his hand up even when the Dictator an- nounced his intention to speak. Philip Vincent took note of him, too: “You can talk when I am through, if you want to.” He looked calmly around the room, smiled imperceptibly at his niece, gave Casher O’Neill the briefest of nods, and then an- nounced: “Gentlemen, it’s not the horse which is on trial. It’s Pontoppi- dan. It’s we who are trying our- selves. And before whom are we trying ourselves, gentlemen? Each of us is before that most awful of courts, his own con- science. 4i¥F WE kill that horse, gentle- men, we will not be doing the horse a great wrong. He is an old animal, and I do not think that he will mind dying very 114 GALAXY r much, now that he is away from the ordeal of loneliness which he feared more than death. After all, he has already had his great tri- umph — the climb up the cliff of gems, the jump across the vol- canic vent, the rescue by people whom he wanted to find. The horse has done so well that he is really beyond us. We can help him, a little, or we we can hurt him, a little; beside the immen- sity of his accomplishment, we cannot really do very much either way. “No, gentlemen, we are not judging the case of the horse. We are judging space. What happens to man when he moves out into the Big Nothing? Do we leave Old Earth behind? Why did civil- ization fall? Will it fall again? Is civilization a gun or a blaster or a laser or a rocket? Is it even a pianoforming ship or a pinlighter at his work? You know as well as I do, gentlemen, that civilization is not what we can do. If it had been, there would have been no fall of Ancient Man. Even in the Dark Ages they had a few fusion bombs, they could make some small guided missiles and they even had weapons like the Kas- kaskia Effect, which we have never been able to rediscover. The Dark Ages weren’t dark be- cause people lost techniques or science. They were dark because people lost people. It’s a lot of work to be human and it’s work which must be kept up, or it be- gins to fade. Gentlemen, the horse judges us. “Take the word, gentlemen. ‘Civilization’ is itself a lady’s word. There were female writers in a country called France who made that word popular in the third century before space travel. To be ‘civilized’ meant for people to be tame, to be kind, to be polished. If we kill this horse, we are wild. If we treat the horse gently, we are tame. Gentlemen, I have only one witness and that witness will utter only one word. Then you shall vote and vote freely.” There was 9 murmur around the table at this announcement. Philip Vincent obviously enjoyed the excitement he had created. He let them murmur on for a full minute or two before he slapped the table gently and said, “Gentlemen, the witness. Are you ready?” There was a murmur of as- sent. Bashnack tried to say, “It’s still a question of public funds!” but his neighbors shushed him. The table became quiet. All faces turned toward the Hereditary Dictator. “Gentlemen, the testimony. Genevieve, is this what you your- self told me to say? Is civilization always a woman’s choice first, and only later a man’s?” ON THE GEM PLANET 115
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I" I I 1 “Yes,” said Genevieve, with a happy, open smile. The meeting broke up amid laughter and applause. V L month later Casher O’Neill sat in a room in a medium- size pianoforming liner. They were out of reach of Pontoppidan. The Hereditary Dictator had not changed his mind and cut him down with green beams. Casher had strange memories, not bad ones for a young man. He remembered Genevieve weeping in the garden. “I’m romantic,” she cried, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of his cape. “Legally I’m the owner of this planet, rich, powerful, free. But I can’t leave here. I’m too important. I can’t marry whom I want to marry. I’m too important. My uncle can’t do what he wants to do — he’s Hereditary Dictator and he always must do what the Council decides after weeks of chatter. I can’t love you. You’re a prince and a wanderer, with travels and battles and justice and strange things ahead of you. I can’t go. I’m too important. I’m too sweet! I’m too nice; I hate, hate, hate myself sometimes. Please, Casher, could you take a flier and run away with me into space?” “Your uncle’s lasers could cut US to pieces before we got out.” He held her hands and looked gently down into her face. At this moment he did not feel the fierce, aggressive, happy glow which an able young man feels in the pres- ence of a beautiful and tender young woman. He felt something much stranger, softer, quieter — an emotion very sweet to the mind and restful to the nerves. It was the simple, clear compassion of one person for another. He took a chance for her sake, be- cause the “dark knowledge” was wonderful but very dangerous in the wrong hands. He took both her beautiful lit- tle hands in hers, so that she looked up at him and realized that he was not going to kiss her. Something about his stance made her realize that she was being offered a more precious gift than a sky-lit romantic kiss in a gar- den. Besides, it was just touching helmets. He said to her, with passion and kindness in his voice; . “You remember that dog- woman, the one who works with the dishes in the hospital?” “Of course. She was good and bright and happy, and helped us all.” “Go work with her, now and then. Ask her nothing. Tell her nothing. Just work with her at her machines. Tell her I said so. Happiness is catching. You might catch it. I think I did myself, a little.” “I think I understand you,” said Genevieve softly. “Casher, good- by and good, good luck to you. Hdy uncle exp>ects us.” Together they went back into the palace. Another memory was the farewell to Philip Vincent, the Hereditary Dictator of Pon- toppidan. The calm, clean-shaven, ruddy, well-fleshed face looked at him with benign regard. Casher O’Neill felt more respect for this man when he realized that ruth- lessness is often the price of peace, and vigilance the price of wealth. “You’re a clever young man. A very clever young man. You may win back the power of your uncle Kuraf.” “I don’t want that power!” cried Casher O’Neill. “I have advice for you,” said the Hereditary Dictator, “and it is good advice or I would not be here to give it. I have learned the political arts well: otherwise I would not be alive. Do not refuse power. Just take it and use it wisely. Do not hide from your wicked uncle’s name. Obliterate it. Take the name yourself and rule so well that, in a few decades, no one will remember your uncle. Just you. You are young. You can’t win now. But it is in your fate to grow and to triumph. I know it. I am good at these things. I have given you your weapon. I am not tricking you. It is packed safely and you may leave with it.” Casher O’Neill was breathing softly, believing it all, and trying to think of words to thank the stout, powerful older man when the dictator added. With a little laugh in his voice: “Thank you, too, for saving me money. You’ve lived up to your name, Casher.” “Saved you money?” “The alfalfa. The horse wanted alfalfa.” “Oh, that idea!” said Casher O’Neill. “It was obvious. I don’t deserve much credit for that.” “I didn’t think of it,” said the Hereditary Dictator, “and my staff didn’t either. We’re not stupid. That shows you are bright. You realized that Perino must have had a food converter to keep the horse alive in the Hippy Dipsy. All we did was set it to alfalfa and we saved ourselves the cost of a shipload of horse food twice a year. We’re glad to save that credit. We’re well off here, but we don’t like to waste things. You may bow to me now, and leave.” Casher O’Neill had done so, with one last glance at the lovely Genevieve, standing fragile and beautiful beside her uncle’s chair. 116 GALAXY ON THE GEM PLANET 117
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TTIS LAST memory was very recent. He had paid two hundred thousand credits for it, right on this liner. He had found the Stop- Captain, bored now that the ship was in flight and the Go-Captain had taken over. “Can you get me a telepathic fix on a horse?” “What’s a horse?” said the Go- Captain. “Where is it? Do you want to pay for it?” “A horse,” said Casher O’Neill patiently, “is an unmodified earth animal. Not underpeople. A big one, but quite intelligent. This one is in orbit right around Pon- toppidan. And I will pay the usu- al price.” “A million Earth credits,” said the Stop-Captain. “Ridiculous!” cried Casher O’Neill. They settled on two hvmdred thousand credits for a good fix and ten thousand for the use of the ship’s equipment even if there were failure. It was not a failure. The technician was a snake-man: he was deft, cool, and superb at his job. In only a few minutes he passed the headset to Casher O’Neill, saying politely, “This is it, I think.” It was. He had reached right into the horse’s mind. The endless sands of Mizzer swam before Casher O’Neill. The ★ ★★★★ SHELF 5 Star Shelf long lines of the Twelve Niles converged in the distance. He galloped steadily and powerfully. There were other horses nearby, other riders, other things, but he himself was conscious only of the beat of the hooves against the strong moist sand, the firmness of the appreciative rider upon his back. Dimly, as in a hallucination, Casher O’Neill could also see the little orbital ship in which the old horse cantered in mid-air, with an amused cadet sitting on his back. Up there, with no weight, the old worn-out heart would be good for many, many years. Then he saw the horse’s paradise again. The flash of hooves threatened to overtake him, but he outran them all. There was the expectation of a stable at the end, a rubdown, good succulent green food, and the glimpse of a filly in the morn- ing. The horse of Pontoppidan felt extremely wise. He had trusted people — people, the source of all kindness, all cruelty, all power among the stars. And the people had been good. The horse felt very much horse again. Casher felt the old body course along the river’s edge like a dream of power, like a completion of ser- vice, like an ultimate fulfilment of companionship. — CORDWAINER SMITH t’DGAR RICE Burroughs bulks too large in the fantasy-ad- venture Hall of Fame to be read- ily crammed into the limited space of a single column such as this, especially since, after a hia- tus of a score of years, an -as- tonishing number of publishers are eager to gamble good money on the ability of his thundering adventures to woo the blase youth of today. So here is a sec- ond roundup of the Master. If the truth be known, I found it a most pleasant chore to reread the beloved fairy tales, even from the vantage point of our present pinnacle of scientific knowledge. Somehow, despite his frequently embarrassing awkwardness of style and the quaintness of his scientific background. Burroughs can still, to employ that over- worked phrase, evoke a “Sense of Wonder”. While Ace Books continues its policy of reissuing the old novels two per month in paperback, sev- eral other publishers have joined them on the Burroughs band- 118 GALAXY 119
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wagon. The most ambitious of these is Canaveral Press. They have already released eleven hardcovers: four Pellucidar books, a couple of Martian novels and a couple of the memorable single shots: The Land That Time Forgot, The Cave Girl, The Mon- ster Men and the first of the Venusian novels, Pirates of Ve- nus. Thuvia, Maid of Mars, The Chessmen of Mars and The Mas- ter Mind of Mars — fourth, fifth and sixth in the Martian series — are all in a fine paperback vol- ume issued by Dover Publica- tions. It is surprising that Dover elected to start the series in the middle but, since only the first three, or John Carter, stories are sequential, nothing is lost. The Dover editors also showed wis- dom in including most of the orig- inal artwork by J. Allen St. John, who was a whiz at depicting Bur- roughs’s muscular men, chaste and voluptuous women and mon- strous monsters. A surprise entry in the Bur- roughs Stakes is Ballantine Books, who have announced their intention to reissue the entire Martian series, one volume per month. Since there are ten books in the series, they will obviously be well occupied for most of a year . . . further plans depending upon the degree of acceptance by their paying public. THE LAND THAT TIME FOR. GOT. Canaveral Press. Canaveral is the only publisher so far to reissue what must be considered the most noteworthy of Burroughs’s singles. Because Burroughs wrote when many areas of the world map re- mained blank, he was always on the lookout for an exotic, un- known region in which to base a story. Caprona, the mythical con- tinent of compass-deflecting met- al that the eighteenth century Italian navigator, Caproni, re- ported as lying deep in South Pacific waters, was a natural for his choice of a locale in which to plant the seed of an intriguing mystery. Burroughs’s huge island, pro- tected from external weather by high sheer cliffs, duplicates eons of evolution by geographical means. The low, steamy atmos- phere of the south is analogous to that of the reptilian eras and, as the land gradually rises to the north, flora and fauna rise cor- respondingly on the evolutionary scale. ERB utilizes this back- ground for a startling concept His island humans evolve outside the womb, traversing the island from south to north and rising from tadpole to full human es- tate. The novel, one of the author’s longest, was written in the fiercely chauvinistic atmosphere of WW I GALAXY but contains sheer, headlong ad- venture that is unusual even for an §RB thriller. A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS. Both Canaveral Press and Ace Books. TO A marked degree, it ap- pears as if Burroughs patterned many of his stories after the Arabian Nights. There are simi- lar exotic environments, almost identical social structures, polyg- amy (practiced only by the bad guys, of course); slavery is nor- mal, and precious jewels and gor- geous silks and tapestries are flaunted before the imaginative eye of the reader. Also, Burroughs’s scientific marvels are seldom woven into the fabric of his cultures, as is the way with modern science fic- tion, but are exploited for their semi-magical shock value ... in much the same manner that the powers of the Jinn were em- ployed to twist a plot in extra- ordinary fashion. The Burroughs stories abound in abductions, and Fighting Man is no exception. Hadron of Has- tor pursues the (polygamous) vil- lains back to Jahar, a country whose cowardly ruler schemes to conquer all of Barsoom through the (semi-magical) twin inven- tions of the paint of invisibility and the ray of disintegration. Burroughs’s choice of a model ★ ★★★★ SHELF was a wise one. The Arabian Nights are corking good adven- ture stories in their own right. THE MONSTER MEN. Both Canaveral Press and Ace Books. CANAVERAL AND Ace have both reissued the above with Ace having an edge both in price and in artwork. The Canaveral editors exercised poor judgment in their choice of Mahlon Blaine as illustrator for several of their books. His delicate, unearthly pictures are eminently suited for stories such as those of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith or James Branch Cabell but not for the muscular fantasy of Bur- roughs. There are rumors, how- ever, that these illustrations are to be redone by Frank Frazetta, who, ironically, illustrated the Ace edition of Monster Men and who captures the essence of the stories to far greater degree. Although this book suffers from some of Burroughs’s worst writing, there is still a lot of excitement in his tale of a subman who dis- covers that he is really a super- man. TARZAN AT THE EARTH’S CORE. Ace Books, Dover Pub- lications, Canaveral Press. DAVID INNES, Emperor of Pellucidar, immured in the dun- geons of Korsar, is in deep trouble (no pun intended) and 120 121
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Tarzan is summoned to the res- cue. The relief expedition that he is asked to join has constructed a giant rigid dirigible of an ex- tremely light and strong metal that Tarzan had conveniently dis- covered in some lost mines, strong enough to contain a vac- uum. T.A.T.E.C. was written shortly after the Italian dirigible, Norge, had safely negotiated a passage over the North Pole in the 1920’s and at a time when rigid lighter- than-air ships appeared to hold the key to massive commercial and military conquest of the air. For convenience, and also to exploit the contemporary lack of contrariwise proof. Burroughs en- visioned a polar opening through which to insert his favorite hero into the mixed-up ecology of the inner world. The gigantic rep- tilian and mammalian carnivores of Pellucidar are far more suit- able adversaries for Tarzan than the badly overmatched denizens of our modern jungles. Burroughs, incidentally, ad- vances the interesting theory, as good as any, that the giant car- nivores might have been the agents of their own destruction on the outer crust by developing intelligence of high enough order to enable them to hunt coopera- tively in concert, hastening the extinction of their natural prey and themselves. THE CAVE GIRL. Canaveral Press. BURROUGHS MUST have writ- ten this story with tongue in cheek. He casts away his hero, a Bostonian with the unlikely name of Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, on a tiny, unchartfed South Pa- cific island to face primitive cave- people and a wild environment more suited to the specialized tal- ents of Tarzan. Smith-Jones fumbles his way, successfully of course, through a typical Burroughs adventure yarn, which is sufficient reason for the ardent Burroughs fan to have made this one of the scarcest of collector’s items during recent dearth of Burroughs books. PIRATES OF VENUS. Dover Publications, Canaveral Press, Ace Books. THREE PUBLISHERS have all taken a crack at this Bur- roughs classic. Ace, in paperback, is of course the bargain of the lot. The hardcover edition, with the powerful advantage of origi- nal illustrations by J. Allen St. John, is by Canaveral, while Dover has coupled it with Lost on Venus as a quality paperback edition. The latter I haven’t yet seen, but Dover assures me that it is as well executed as its Three Martian Novels and will also con- tain a selection of the original St. John illustrations. 122 GALAXY Burroughs turned to Venus for inspiration after he had pretty well exhausted the melodramatic potential of Mars. His hero. Car- son Napier, out-did “Wrong-Way Corrigan” by a considerable stretch both in time and error by aiming for Mars and reaching Venus. Despite his usual pen- chant for coincidence and gratui- tously fortuitous happenstances (whew!), his power of invention in the realm of pure adventure remains keen throughout the Venusian series. In addition to the above, Dover also plan to bring out coupled volumes of other titles. Ballantine, of all the involved publishers, is releasing its vol- umes in sequence, starting with A Princess of Mars, the first in the series, and also the first Bur- roughs novel ever to be published (he used the pseudonym, Norman Bean), and following it with The Gods of Mars, etc. It is surprising how the wheel has suddenly turned, thrusting Burroughs back into prominence after two decades of obscurity. He wrote a total of twenty-four Tar- zan books, ten Martian, four Ve- nusian and five Pellucidarian novels, as well as a large number of single titles. It remains to be seen whether this huge legacy of adventure will be allowed to die for a second, and possibly final time. — FLOYD C. GALE ★ ★★★★ SHELF Found at last! A famous "lost' book by the master of science fiction . . . DR. OX’S EXPERIMENT by Jules Verne Available again after almost a hun- dred years— the astonishing story of Dr. Ox’s mass experiment to prove his unique theory: that oxygen is the prime source of virtue, wit, courage, talent, and imagination! A true science fic- tion “find,” de- signed in a de- lightfully unusual format. Ulus, by William Pene du Bois. In- tro. by Willy Ley. Epilogue by Hu- bertus Strughold. Order your first edition copy! THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Dept. 420, Riverside, New Jersey Please send DR. OX’S EXPERIMENT (62181) for free examination. After 10 days 1 may return it and pay nothing. If I keep it I will remit $3.95 plus shipping. Name Address City/Zone State SAVE SHIPPING! Enclose $3.95 with coupon and WE pay all postage and han- dling costs. Same free examination with refund if not pleased.
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CHANDLER ELLIOTT A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY front seat with him, bucking this frame-up. He’s, so get-off-the-road, and he wasn’t letting this old shyster pass him. He said non- chalant, “Look, Mr. Craik. I’m re- taining you to tight this biased, vindictive judgement, not lecture me on it, to protect my rights.” Craik mugged: “That assumes you’ve left me some rights to pro- tect, Mr. Blaire. You haven’t. You are permanently debarred from operation of any power ve- hicle. I can do nothing further for you.” “Appeal! Fix it! I can pay.” And he sure can. The old moke tightened his mouth: “I infer you made the money by methods to match your driving record, not by grasp of essentials. I’ll try again. This bi- ased, vindictive judgement was handed down by the highest court your case can reach. Can you grasp that?” Those crazy kids the roads — almost as bad their parents! I Sept. 11, 1987 (Earth time) rWANT a record of this to go with the stereos I took. I’ve been in history! So I’ve snake- hipped the dicto-type for “home- work.” I’ll get o'ff the mark at this law- yer’s office. I was there to get shown my Pop was a dust-eater. Wotta laff! I was right up in the GALAXY A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 124 125
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Pop came right back like the great sportsfan he is, “Well, we can contest those two-bit charges I hadn’t time to fight when they were made. I know they can’t de- bar me finally on imcontested stuff.” The old guy looped down his eyelids: “If you’d ever bothered to appear in court yourself, or even read the transcripts, you would also know that all charges have been contested. Apparently you’ve been so cotton-wooled by insurance and connections and smart lawyers, you think you can brush off even child-murder.” Pop bounced up, ready to ditch the moke: “Why, you . . . ! ” “Your failure was no thanks to you. Would you have to kill chil- dren in actual fact to sober you? The commimity is not minded to let you try the experiment. This isn’t 1975, you know.” The two-timing old right-laner! I’d been told to keep my muffler cut, but there’s times when you surge or burst. I surged, “And don’t we ever get to score? A bunch of mokes get him in a jam, and a fresh cop calls us Flight of the Stumblebum — because we have a yellow ’n’ black zoom. Does my Pop have to take that gravel?” Craik looked at me like I was a parking ticket. ‘Well, I suppose a lad should be loyal to his fath- er. Pity it’s not in a better cause. So, yes, my budding Big Shot, he does. On triple probation, he drove with such dashing irresp)on- sibility that he sheared off three steel guard-posts and barely missed a group of children. He’ll take what anyone calls him, and thank them it wasn’t worse.” He swung back at Pop. “I took your case to pay off a favor to Sam Hardy. I consider I’ve paid in full. And the case is closed.” Pop kept a manly silence. Mom took over: “But, Mr. Craik, how can my husband do business without a car? A Plutomat repre- sentative can’t walk up to a pros- pect’s door like a peddler. This destroys my family’s livelihood.” “Your husband should have considered that sooner, Mrs. Blaire.” My rad just boiled to hear her having to take the old honk-honk from minions of the law. I’ve never been much on girls because Mom is my ideal, and only my young sister Judy comes in that custom model. And I was just a skinny Teener, helpless to defend the family honor. But I sneaked a squeeze of her hand. Pop said grimly, “Then these fanatics have ruined me. I have no place to go in this so-called Free World.” Craik shrugged: “Then find a Parallel that will take you, and get Translated, Mr. Blaire. That would solye everybody’s prob- GALAXY lems.” Obviously he was including his own. I p>erked up. Translation, switch to a parallel time, might be good. Pop said, “That costs a for- tune.” Craik shrugged again: “It might cost less than your daunt- less career here. I’ll send my ac- count.” He froze us out like trash. C This record being for poster- i ity, I better give the true facts which are already being sup- pressed. Because I’ve boned up on them. So, this LLL pest started in ’75, the Golden Age of Go. A bunch called the Regular Guys had gotten the laws modemated — “safe and reasonable speed,” ^ nationwide. They backed Bucky ^ Kooznik who’d been framed in a speed-trap, and won in Supreme Court. They backed Senator Smurge for Vice President — the prince who got a national speed law laughed into the wreckers by tacking on an amendment to make the limit ninety — and got him in. Well, this low-octane third party, the Life and Limb League (Lily-Livered Limks, we called them) tried to buck the traffic. Their candidate. Bob Green, had had a kid killed and had sort of blown his tires. Well, sure, like tPop says, it’s too bad but we can’t all live in bungalows because kids fall downstairs. An5rway, LLL got a loud boff and lost all its de- posits. Only Green kept squawk- ing about how hiway deaths jumped from 87,000 in ’76, to 116,000 in ’78; and he signed up relatives and friends of “victims,” and soreheads who’d got bunged up and couldn’t be sports about it, and natural-bom cranks and scaredy-pants. You wouldn’t think people would vote to get themselves traffic tickets. But in ’78, LLL won seats in Congress, and more in ’80. So we stopped laughing and fought back. We sued a paper for a cartoon of Smurge with his arms around a goony driver and a skeleton, saying, “My Buddies!” And the court ratted on us, and it upheld disgusting photos of crashes and libels that said more than “the car went out of con- trol.” So drivers got nervous and the “toll” climbed on. Then, in ’84,. Green got in, and showed what a fanatic at the wheel will do. Laws, laws, laws. We said “They can’t arrest every- body.” Oh, no? Fines, confisca- tions, jail for thousands of re- spectable people. And a Gestapo of Lily-white drivers’d sp)ot you using the old elbow or boomin’ the amber, and you’d get a stink- ing card that you’d lost points. Twenty-five peints got you a fine and a goo-talk about “mental at- A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 126 127
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titudes”. Blah! What about guts and skill and all that? Well, we figured there’d soon be enough people sore to give us a comeback. So LLL claimed they’d saved 30,000 lives in ’85. So what the heck, it wouldn’t have been you anyway. But there aren’t many real fighters like Pop, and the Old Cause was driven to the curb. P had to drive home real humble because if they caught him now, they’d jail him, him, a free citizen. But he was looking stern and unbowed, like a guerrilla hero in Tri-Di. So presently I said, “Pop, let’s do it!” Mogi chimed in, “Yes, Gail, if you can’t work here, let’s at least ask about it.” Mom’s real practi- cal under the hood. Judy was keen too. At four- teen, in Ye Good Olde Daze, she’d have been a zee already. Now, she’d have to wait two years. So Pop got into passing gear. And just a week later he came home with his hat cocked and his heels clicking, and summoned us all to the tridiroom. “Well, keeds,” he said, “they sure picked on the wrong man when they picked on ol’ Buck Blaire. Biggest favor anyone ever did us. It seems there’s a world called Jehu (some crackjaw gibberish in their lan- guage) after some old prophet. Anyway, Plutomat’s granted me planetary franchise. Izzat good or is it? “And tape this, keeds! That planet’s set up for adults. They’re drivin’ fools, wonderful roads, most powerful zooms anywhere, and, get this, nary a traffic law or a traffic court on the planet.” Judy puzzled: “But, Daddy they must have some laws, like which side you drive on . . .” Pop’s always indulged Judy. “Well, honey, that’s rules; and anyone with sense knows when rules do and don’t matter. Like if I drive on the left on an empty street, whose business is it? See, Judy, put deadheads off the road, leave things to skill and experi- ence and you’re safe. Their acci- dent-rate’s just about nil — natu- rally.” “Well, it sounds funny to me. You be careful.” Mom said. “You been skull-scrubbed by Triple-L, keed? You never come out front unless you muscle into openings, like fast That’s the se- cret of all big operators — Cesar, Napoleon, Buck Blaire — split-sec- ond decisions. We’ve gotta take off in a cloud of clamshells, and we can’t wait for a lecture course. But you can vote on it. Now. All in favor of saying Nay, say Aye. Nobody? Carried! Oh, by the way, old Craik ain’t such a bad old moke after all. He tipped me 128 GALAXY off on this Jehu place himself the other day.” “Huh!” I thought. “7 wouldn’t trust that pussy-schnook much.” But Pop took off with his rub- ber scorchin’: Plutomat contract. Translation permit, appointment with the movers. The skids and zees in my gang were cynical; but I knew I’d get my own back, and I just sat tight and soaked up Jehuan by hypnophone. Came The Day. A crew put up a frame around our lot, higher than the house, and into the ground. I asked the foreman if it marked out the block that was going to be swapped with a block of Jehu. “You aren’t as dumb as you look, kid,” he said, “which must be a consolation to your folks. That’s what it does.” “Thanx,” I said and strolled off. Gee, I hate a fresh guy! Sure, a butterfly-collector could have had a field-day in my stomach, when the fresh foreman called all his gang out and began countdown. Mom and Judy were too bunny to come out, but Pop and I stood on the steps. I felt revved up, then, like beating an- other zoom around a curve, and at Minus Five I called to all the skids in the crowd watching, “Here go the Regulars. We will Return!” like that historical guy on tri-di. Pop just stood stern and unbowed. Vj^OTTA zump! Fifty light- years? Gimme a yippee-cart on Thrill-Hill! No stars streaking past, no roar, no icy chill. Just a j utter in your gizzard and there you were on a street like the old one with the houses shuffled. Even the crew to take down the frame looked the same. But not the guy who was there to wel- come us; he had a lah-de-dah coat with wide skirts and lace like in Abe Washington’s time, but he was a big, hard-looking zow like a zoom-bike cop. His zoom was a weirdy, too. Whee enough like an import job and done in this novelty one-tone fin- ish, but no jem-krust trim, no swordfish roof-crest, no flared bumpers; it wouldn’t have helped eggo much. The only real decoration was a leaping red ti- ger on all panels. He said he was to be our Patron, name of Thran- gar Glash. I gave him the old Hi-de-ho and he froze my fuel-line. But when Mom and Judy came out, he swooned them with his bow- ing and oil-pressure. And when Mom was disappointed at the view, he explained, “This is just the Terran suburb. Madam. When I have advised you all on our, ah, driving customs, you can visit the main city.” Pop scowled: “I was told you drove by common sense.” Glash gave him a lopsided A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 129
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look: “True. But common sense differs in different places, sir. Shall we go in?” So we did, and Pal Patron Glash gave us the route-map. And had I been mucho right about old Schnooks Craik! Sure, they had no traffic laws or cops, no penalty points, no fines, no nothing. Sure! Only just this: If you merely annoyed an- other driver, much less bent his tin, he could challenge you to fight him. They fought in a pub- lic arena, on a sort of yippee-cart called a whippet, with sort of bull-whips. You wore leather ar- mor, only the defender got less and darn little if he’d hurt or killed someone. “ ‘Course,” Glash drawled, “even for blood-guilt, the limit’s twenty minutes, and sometimes a dashing player comes off with his life.” “His 1-life?” Mom said. “With whips?” “Oh, a very spirited weapon, ma’am. I’ve dueled little, having been bred to courtesy but — ” he touched his left cheek, which was all scarred — “one keeps in prac- tice with one-cheek affairs, in case one becomes seriously involved.” So he gave us the layout, and they had it set up like some game. Kids, gals, old gaffers, if you drove you were liable. No subs, not for wives or kids or sweeties. Only a Court of Honor appointed one if a bully had fixed a fight on somebody weaker or when an in- nocent guy was killed or disabled. A woman bashed a man’s zoom, she fought. Fair enough. Like pal Thrangar said, “We’re all equal, eh? Well, there’s no chivalry be- tween equals, only courtesy.” And if you didn’t play up you were outlaw and they’d ram you or run you off the road and you had no comeback. All tied up tighter ’n a sales contract. Finally Pop said, “I’ve been framed. I was lied into this.” “Really, sir? Our embassy pro- vided no literature?” Well, who reads literature? The real dope they’ll shove in your face. Pop always says. And they hadn’t. So it was same as lying. Huh? Pop said, “I was told this was a free society.” “My dear Blaire, a society is free only to choose its rules. An aggressive race like yours, or mine, craves to domineer. You’ve got to control that itch from run- ning wild in millions of free spir- its.” “Yeh-yeh, sure. By common sense. Now me . . .” “Ah, yours, naturally. Mine too, I trust. But — everyone’s? No, you’ve just three systems that work: Public law, which irked you; posse law to hunt down pests which — ” he flicked an eye- brow— “irked you even more; or a code of honor.” Pop scowled. He always says, the first freedom oughta be free- dom from preach. Then he hit back: “O-kay! Anything you jok- ers can do, I can pass you.” And I felt proud again. “True sporting spirit, sir. So, study our code and our manners in practice. Get your whippet and join a school of arms. Then I’ll introduce you to our Arena.” And he flourished himself out. Back in the hall. Pop said “Hullo!” and picked up a letter that must have come before we left Earth. Inside was a sheet of letterhead, “Craik, Creak, Croak and Crock,” and on it, in quotes: “When insolence outruneth law, men customarily arm them- selves to chastise offense on the body of the offender. As the prov- erb saith: No courtesy sans valor.” Leon da Milhao. The old speed-trap! He was giving us the razz. But we’ll show him. II Oct. 3, 1987 WELL, we’ve started. At first Pop was sore all the time, like he was stuck behind a squad- car. At dinner he’d burst out, “Ahhh, what yokels! Yap-yap with the horns every move you make, yap-yap. Back-seat driving from other people’s back seats — it’s going to rattle even me into fender-denting. It’s a good thing our Thunderbolt Twelve can ac- celerate out of anything these lunks can mess up.” “Ahh, you’ve been skull- scrubbed by Triple-L. Let ’em try.” As for us, this town’s got noth- ing for Teeners. Whippet-school could be fun. Whippets are like a yippee-cart with a saddle in- stead of a seat, to give you free action; not real fast because you fight in a half-mile arena, but they turn like squirrels. But the teacher red-lights any fun. He has moustaches like wind-swept fenders, and he’s worse than the horn-yappers : “Do that over, young fool. Recover, recover, you’ll get your face opened. With little-stuff brains don’t try to be big stuff.” Spoils your nerve. I’m beginning to catch on. Mom’s slower, and she won’t drive on the street nohow, even with the novice plates. Judy’s real sharp, but Mom won’t let her out either, in spite of her having natural- born driving rights here. But Pop’s a wham, a natural. After lesson 3, he came striding out: “See me clip the pro, keeds? I think I’m gonna like this.” “You’ll feel different if you were risking a real cut, Gail.” “Nyahhh! Steady nerve and ed- ucated reflexes, that’s real safe- ty.” 130 GALAXY A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 131
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Well, on the way home, there’s this traffic signal down past our house. You don’t have to stop, just yield right-of-way which Pop says makes sense, though the other zoom’s gotta be half across for Pop to yield, but Jehuans treat them real bunny. So, this native zoom ahead of us dragged down slow to make the corner just as it changed, like mokes do. Well, we should linger while he played games? Pop whipped the Stumblebum past and across the guy’s front into our drive, spray- in’ gravel, and pulled the foam- ing steeds to their haunches. Ye Olde High Style! So here comes this Jehuan stalking across the lawn, a skin- ny guy in floppy green. He makes a bow to Mom and Ju and a stiff inch to Pop: “Sir, you drive with novice plates.” “A blind cop could see that.” Pop said, “What about it?” “Just this, sir. When you can no longer hide behind them, you will put your hog’s elbow in my face again, and I will bleed your insolence. I will watch for you, believe me.” “Don’t bother,” Pop said. “Gim- me your address, and I’ll drive up and down your block till you come out — if you do.” So the guy gave him a card and bowed himself off. Pop looked after him, jingling his pockets. “He’ll do to start on.” tT^HEN Glash took us to the Arena, in his zoom. I’ll say this for Jehuans, when they go, they Go; so when they do tangle, it’s a dilly. We went down the main drag in a stream of zooms at sixty steady, with Glash giving exhaust about the average being twice the speed in any Earth city, and how he never needed to use his brakes. Sure, but in two blocks I was antsy-pantsy with that old bull-man urge-to- surge, while Glash defaulted chance after chance to Score. So, out where you’d expect a ball-park, was this Arena like the Colossus of Rome. It wasn’t a tenth full, but two guys were looping and lashing, like at the school only more exciting be- cause they had open left cheeks. But neither scored, and another pair took over. Glash looked bored and I lost interest too after five of these quickies and only one guy cut. But people kept trickling in, and Glash said, “Ah! About time for the main event. This high-ridin’ ass, y’know, ran down a child on a back street. City’s been debatin’ how much leather he should get for challenger’s parental negli- gence. I hear it’s only a collar. Minimum. A cut to the larynx or big neck vessels ends a bout without a sportin’ chance.” Pop said real cool, “Well, what chance does that give him? 132 GALAXY “Say fifty to one. Challenger’s a tough whip and deadly angry.” Mom and Ju looked green. They’ve stopped more than once to view a crash but maybe they figured deliberate gore was some- thing else. Mom said, “Well, I don’t think the little girl should see this.” Glash made a fish-mouth: “I cannot agree, madam. If a child isn’t blooded young, it’ll play the fool in emergencies.” Just then, a referee came out on a platform halfway down the arena and the duellers appeared at opposite ends with their sec- onds and doctors, which they have for serious fights. People were piling in till there wasn’t standing room. My heart was going bu-bop bu-bop. Glash drawled, “Ha! They’ve made challenger bare his right arm. That narrows the odds somewhat. This should be a nota- ble Drive.” Yehr, and he’d fixed to have us see the execution. Thanx! Came a pistol-shot that yanked the props out from my stomach. The crowd gasped “Off!” Then not a peep — you could be challenged yourself for a disturb- ance. You could hear the motors snarl, even the sand grunt at swerves. They didn’t come right in, like in spite-fights. Defender swung wide and then, when challenger closed, whipped behind him on two wheels and zipped down the arena. And they kept on swing- in’er big and snappin’er tight till I began to think defender would make it. Then a look at the big arena clock showed only six min- utes gone. Challenger had lashed twice and missed. Then, before I knew it, he did a skid-curve and nicked defender’s shoulder. Not much, but the guy began to bleed, lost his nerve and got two more in two minutes. He pulled himself together and kept clear for a bit again. Then, just half-time, he goofed. He’d got on challenger’s tail, and the old scoring spirit surged, and he took a crack at him. It only hit leather, and a crack costs time. Challenger veered, slam-braked, swiped as the guy shot past and scored an awful slice on his arm. Well, that was it. Defender dropped his whip and just steered. But he was dazed and losing blood. Challenger flicked and flicked. I got all churned up. Here was this guy, could see the arena, and hear the whippets yarrr, and feel his cuts. And if he didn’t do more than he could do, in a couple of minutes he wouldn’t know any- thing. Same time, challenger was coming through like on mental A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 133
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FM: “She’ll never pounce onto the bed with me again. (Crack!) Never have college and a wed- ding. (Crack!) How many thou- sand of your smart tricks was that worth? (Ca-rack!)’’ It made me sick and dry. Defender played so crazy, he hung on for a bit, and I began to wonder again, would he make it. Six to go and my lungs were tied in a bownot. Challenger figure-8ed but reversed in the second loop; defender saw a big body-slash coming, just too late. He banked so tight, he toppled. He kicked the ejector-lever and flung clear. Everybody stood up. He spread-eagled, like in a wreck I saw once, and his whip- pet batted around spinning and scrabbling on its side. Challenger cut around it so sharp, I thought he’d tip too, and headed straight for the guy. Defender tried to heave clear . . . “My little honey!” . . . Ribs crack like wet sticks . . . Nobody talked. Even Garsh didn’t pump any pi-jaw. But when we got home and Mom was hoping that now he wouldn’t take so many chances. Pop said, “Look, keed, in this life you take chances or live in a keg. You just gotta be equal to them.” And the very day the novice plates came off the Stumblebum, he came home whistling and an- 134 nounced he’d fixed a fight with this guy who’d left his address. “Keep me in practice, like Garsh says.” Well, I guess he needs it. So far, they could only yap>-yap when he double-parked at rush- hour, or blocked a side-street, or motor-boated through puddles. Now, he’ll spend half his time in that arena. And some day he’ll outsmart himself into a biggie. Ill Oct. 28, ’87. ^^HE day of his first duel. Pop came home .free-wheeling as a tomcat. Ju and I had the day off from school, but we weren’t going. “No family,” Pop had said. “This new back-seat driving would put me off. I could feel it from ’way up in the stands. Jone- sie and I have arranged to back each other in these deals.” So he had lunch and they took off on their whippets. I got myself into sporting bags for an afternoon all to myself with the zoom, and tip-toed down to the garage. Well, the zoom was gone. That stalled me. Pop had his whippet. Mom still wouldn’t drive a block alone, or let Judy, to Ju’s perma- nent sulk. Maybe Mom and Ju . . .? Then I heard Mom upstairs, and called, “Mom, where’s Ju?” Mom dashed down like beat- G AL AX Y ing an amber. But no Ju any- where. Mom kept breathing, “The little fool! Oh, the little fool!” Then aloud, “She’s your father all over. Oh, if she’s gone in that car . . .” Of course, Ju had. Pop’s fight had revved her up to thiry over the limit, and she’d gone to see. Like that, she was a suicide men- ace. The police just shrugged over the phone: “Driving is private business, madam. We do not in- terfere.” (Pop’s standby!) So, without a car, what could we do? Mom took a calmifier and lay down. I sat on the front steps and strewed cigarette butts. At that, I didn’t see Judy com- ing till she turned up the walk, on foot. She was a mess, all blowsy from crying. If she’d crossed many streets, it was just luck we didn’t have to whip someone for running her down. She blubbered, “Du-don’t start ku-questions, pu-p/ease.” But Mom didn’t swallow that line and shook her till her hair flopped. So she told. She was near the Arena, feel- ing pretty high, when some moke ahead slowed for a right turn, like mokes do. Well, you don’t pass any faster, I guess, but a Regular like Pop swings big left to show his Style and opinion of mokes. So naturally Ju swung and bashed head-on into another A DAY ON DEATH HIGI zoom at these Jehu speeds. She said, “The wu-woman was in the middle, I swear. But she claims she hadn’t room.” Another woman was bad. Even against rules, men often go easy on a girl; a woman, never. This zee claimed injury, and several other drivers were mad enough to swear anything. This wouldn’t be any one-check deal. We were so razzed, we never heard the whipj>et pull in. But I heard Pop clickety- clacking up the path, and got to the tridiroom door as he flipped his hat onto the rack: “Well, well, is this all the victor’s welcome? Where’s Mom and Judy?” Mom pushed by me and stood glaring at him. But Pop never did notice red lights much. He breezed on, “Yezzir! Ol’ Killer Blaire clipped him, and him a thirty-fight veteran. And not a mark on me. Reflexes, like I’ve always told you. Now, how’s about . . .” Well, I’d seen it in boffies but never expected to in real life. Mom smashed a vase-lamp on his head and towered over him. “Well, that’s a mark on you now. Reflex-brains!” . . . and told him the score in about ten words, end- ing, “And I haven’t raised a sweet child to be disfigured because her father’s a retarded Teener.” “Aw right, aw right! No reason to blow your tires at me. What’ve WAY 135
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/ done? We’ll fix it. I suppose you never thought of Clash?” She said, soft, “You fix it. You call Clash, you and your steel nerves. I don’t believe you grasp the situation yet.” He slouched to the phone and I snaked up to the bedroom phone extension. Well, Clash had a big pick-up for Judy, like they all do, but he couldn’t fix the ticket. “Blaire, if defender could substitute, I’d go in for her my- self. What was the woman’s in- signia? . . . Red tornado? Hah! Slada Coy, hard as they come . . . No, you fool! You mention money, you’ll be outlawed . . . You’ve no damn right to be ig- norant of manners, sir.” I’ve never seen Pop so slowed down. Even Mom’s laid off him. Dec. 1, 1987. T’VE NEVER lived through -*• such a grim month. Judy had lessons daily, and then I’d prac- tice her. No bon. She was great in rehearsal, but in that Arena she’d freeze. She knew girls at school who’d been cut. She’d nev- er been really hurt in her life, and got shivering sick just at the idea. It sure dulled her polish; and yet, she was more appealing to me, like when she was a brat and I’d pick her up when her Toddle Typhoon dumped. It wasn’t fair. Pop’s a real hero-type adult to these Teeners. / Was she supposed not to learn off him? And he’d never get touched. Then this Slada’s deputies came, big squaws with muscles in their calves, and tried to right- lane Mom because she’s custom- built and they were trucks. But Mom had evidently boned up on Jehu law, and beat the time down from twelve to ten min- utes, and fixed Judy’s leather so she’d only have one arm exposed besides her cheek, and sent them off bow-legged. I felt real proud of Mom then. But it wouldn’t help Ju. Five minutes would be too much. And a week before the fight, she podded into my room in her bath- robe and plopped on my bed: “Oh Chuck, what’ll I do-oo-oo? We’ll be put off the road here too and Daddy’ll be ruined. Bu-bu- but I can’t fight that awful old woman. I couldn’t even steer.” Well, I’d hoped for a break in the traffic; now I’d have to elbow one. I patted her shoulder: “Opey-dopey, kid. I’ll fix it.” She grabbed me: “How? Dad- dy can’t. Mr. Clash can’t.” “I’m not much bigger’n you. In leathers, nobody’d know the dif- ference. I’ll fight her.” “Oh, but Ghuckie, I beat you all the time at school.” “So who cares if my manly beauty gets marked?” I bet we both slept well that 136 GALAXY night, for just about the first time in weeks. OOTH our leathers had Pop’s charging-quarterback insignia and Ju faked her 4 for my 3 on mine and fixed some of her slacks to fit me. Came the day. I was to drive the whippet to the Arena, while the others followed in the car — Pop’s real expert at getting dead- line repairs done. So, I sneaked off in Ju’s slacks, with makeup and a kerchief to hide my buzz- cut, and parked in the entrance tunnel to Defenders’ End. And right on tick, Ju came out of Lady Defenders’ Dressing Room and dodged around into the pub- lic Ladies’ Room. I skulked after her. We took adjoining booths, and clothes came flying over the partition. And with three minutes to spare, we walked out again, one in slacks and one in leathers. We still damped our mufflers — you never know who might be parked — but Ju threw her arms around me and kissed me on the open cheek. It made me feel pretty brave. Then she shooed me ahead. I mounted and rolled into the arena. A pro mechanic-doctor came with me and checked my stirrups and ejector and stuff, and said good luck, and stood back. I’d cut things close, to avoid idle chat. Then I really began to get Lepidoptera in the viscera. The far end looked five miles off with the stands curving around, and the enemy whippet toy-size — denture-pink and a red tornado on the panels. I’d watched out- side Slada’s house: She was mid- thirties but made up to look older, like mud on a moke’s wind- shield, as if she had more to hide than she really did. That kind’s always proving they’re just as good as ever, which is bad. An- other muscly dame. With swords or something, I might have felt different about fighting a woman. But this was like on the road where she’d ditch you to show her peerless skill. Maybe she was a moo-cow at home, but in a zoom her reality came out and you could drive her into a board with a hammer. So, I was going to do all I could to her — if any. At the pistol, I sure gave my pro a dust-bath. I wanted to get Slada off balance. She was just flipping a cigarette butt — the old Nonchalant Flair like she’d do whipping in and out of lanes with a kid doin’ Ben Hur on the seat beside her — when I was suddener than she’d expected. You know, when there’s a gap two cars could pass in at a hum- ble speed, and you just head for the middle? The other guy’ll con- cede! So did Slada, and nearly dumped swerving. And I cleared A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 137
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the end wall by about two feet, and her pro jumped. Well, she was madded up at being bluffed by any Young Gerl, and began to show her old-hand knowhow, to restore her confi- dence. She’d wear me (Judy) down till she could lay my (Judy’s) face open good. (And it could have been Judy.) And she sure played rough. I could read her far ^ enough ahead to hold her off. And all the time, something was building up in me like those Civil War radio tubes that took hours to get hot. This stuff was great for guys like Pop. (Zowrrr, whacko.) Put ’em in here and let ’em slug it out. (Here she comes.) Or for old-time Indians and Vikings who’d kill anybody for kicks, including themselves. (Zgrrrrunch, whack-crack.) But when those types got too gay, people just abolished them. (Now what . . .?) So why should Judy get her arm crippled or her face ground in the sand? (Whoooom, oofie.) Or even me, dammit? I’d planned just to steer and try to bull through. But sudden- ly it burst on me: In three min- utes, she hadn’t nearly touched me; and when I’d bluffed her at the start, she’d crumpled. (Watchit!) And why could I read her? (Vrooom, missed a- 138 gain.) ’Cause I could read Earth traffic, see? (No ya don’t, sister.) These jokers trained for scientific hell. (Zwoooo, Brrrotherrr.) But I’d been trained dirty. I wasn’t so proud of it now. But this was the time for it if ever. (Grrrrup.) Show ’em how to really play Russian roulette, and if a dumb little punk like me was champ at it, where was the Glory? So when she slowed on a turn, I timed her to a hair, zoom across her bumper (like beating the cross-traffic on a red). I’d have cut her too but she braked so hard she nearly went over her wheel and I only clunked her ka-whack across the helmet. But it sure shook her nerve again, and I got on her tail like a moke who can’t decide to pass, and began clouting her, thunk, whap. Not sportin’? Who cared! To cut her cheek, I’d have had to pull level; but a whip stings and bruises even through leather. And I just glorified! I couldn’t hate my own Pop, but I sure hated her. Show the kids how, huh? Then I gave her the Tech- nique. Foo! Any Grampaw driv- ing to work with his mind on his dyspepsia, can do it by force of habit to score three car-lengths per block. She suddenly slowed to force me ahead, and I surged and cut in front of her, like beat- ing a guy to a red light, and GALAXY braked so she had to swing to pass me, and I clunked her. I snake-hipped her both sides. I crowded her from behind and when she swung away, there I was crowding her on the other side. It’s amazing how much su- premacy you can jam into a few minutes. Only I forgot she wasn’t a Regular or even a good old Earth moke. And sometimes these Jehuans go even Earth one bet- ter, when they’re losing a fight, and do a kamikaze crash. So when she threw her whip away and opened her whippet out full, which is dangerous, I was too terrified to be scared. Geez guys! Those last two minutes were the longest hour I ever lived. We covered a good two miles in tight loops, I swear. Then, twenty sec- onds to go, she swung too tight, that gooey pink thing toppled, and the ejector threw her, all in one gasp. No time to brake. Left, right — I could just feel that I’d hit her whippet and crash; soft bump and snapping bones. I went between with my head and eyes scronched down. I near rammed the wall before I realized neither crash nor bump had happened. Marshals came tearing out, zrowww. But Slada was already rolling over. My muscles sort of melted: For once I’d gotten a closeup of how it’d feel to Get It — or Give It. But I hung on and drove slow to Defenders’ End, just as the gate went up. SOMEHOW, I’d never figured how to get out of that jam. People were helping me down, patting my back, pulling at my helmet. I bolted for the only pos- sible cover, that Ladies’ Dressing Room. I expected a riot, but no- body realized I was a Him. And in my state of mind, the scenery didn’t matter. Then Mom grabbed me: “Darling! You’re all right?” and started on the hel- met. I had to bolt again, for the cubicle she’d come out of. But she caught on fast, and I got another high-octane kiss all in the family. Hot coffee too. But she kept saying, “Now, from now on, Judy — I mean Chuck — no more of your father’s nonsense. Now promise!” Well, all I wanted was to sit with my hands between my knees, but finally I hove up: “Look, Mom, I don’t need to promise. I’m sick of the adept stuff. Judy’ll promise anything right now, but she’ll get yippee- pills in her tank again because she’s a born show-off. And as for Pop ...” I just shrugged. “Well, if your father isn’t im- pressed now . . .” I said, “Mom, the only cure for Pop is breaking his back or going where he can’t drive.” 139 A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY . L
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“Well, Chuckle, I did check, and there’s a place called Bolg- walk where Plutomat wants a man, and they have no roads to speak of, just bogs.” Well, we both knew Pop’d nev- er ride in any such back seat. Just then, Judy burst in. She’d gotten by as “Miss Blaire’s Sis- ter”. And as we switched clothes again, she reported that the fight had been a sensation. (She’d watched, though Mom wouldn’t.) Half the audience was wild over the greatest daredevil show in history, and half was honking mad at my unsporting tactics and wanted Slada to rechallenge. (I bet!) Nuts and bolts to both, halves. Outside, Mom gave the old el- bow to a mob of reporters: “Stand back, there. The girl’s ex- hausted. You can call tomorrow.” And there, at the whippet, was Pop. All month he’d been sulking as if the whole deal were a plot to cramp his style. But now he had that quirk smirk like the guy in the ad: “Drive cautiously with our Triple-Threat Modem Storm- Trooperol.” The newshounds popped some bulbs, and he said, “Okay, keeds. you whisk along. I’ll handle this.” Mom walked at him. “You’ll handle nothing. Get along to the car.” He tempered: “What’s this? I thought we’d celebrate for my famous daughter. So . . . you go home in an armored car if you like. Come on, Judy, you’re a sport anyway. You and me, hey?” But Ju was still scared, even if it was wearing off, and said “No!” in that spoiled-brat voice he always thought was so cute. He sneered like when some moke elbows him in traffic, and ^wung away, beat us out to Spec- tator Parking, legged into the car like forking over his cayuse, whammed the door and roared the engine, all in one snappy ac- tion. He shot out of his stall with one deft whirl of the wheel, fix- ing to surge straight ahead out of the lot. Maybe if he hadn’t been so mad, even he would have seen the other car. But he felt it first, a crash that knocked his hat off. He and the other guy, with a passenger, charged out to inspect the slaughter. Stumblebum had taken it on the rear bumper, but the side of the other looked like a discarded candy-wrapper. Well . . . Pop had hit him. The only good feature was that the other guy, though big, was gray-haired with a high complexion. Pop saw it too and, after they’d all asked couldn’t they look where they were going, he began the old Road Lawyer line: “Well, now. Mister, this isn’t an open street, y’know. How’m I to back blind with you crashing through full speed?” The old guy went turkey-red; “Why, look where you hit me! I was half way past you, sir.” “All right. Challenge if you like. My little girl just made a monkey of a better fighter than you’re likely to be.” The old guy went beet-red. On Jehu, if an old guy doesn’t want to fight, he better drive real hum- 140 GALAXY A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 141
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ble. His jaw stuttered, then he grabbed for his fender, and slumped to the ground, and lay there grunting and not even pink. A doc jumped to him. But the old guy’s passenger grabbed Pop and jerked him around. He looked like a lumberjack fore- man, curly black hair, black- shaved chin, hot black eyes. He snarled, “So now I flay you on behalf of my father, bigmouth,” Pop cased the gU5r’s horse- power, and suddenly he looked all flabby. He did wrench his shoulder loose and try the hard- boiled comeback: “If your father can’t keep his temper, 7’m not liable by your code.” (Like he says, what can you lose? And you often win.) The guy pushed his face an inch from Pop’s: “Code? Why you hog-trough oaf, twenty wit- nesses heard you insult him in a discussion of honor. They will strip your back and I, Slam Hol- licker, will hack it to the bones. If you ever drive again, you will defer even to old men.” He swung away without even bowing. Pop was pinned there till they got old Hollicker into an ambu- lance and towed away his car. Then, Mom got in the driver’s seat of our car, and Pop got in beside her without a peep, and Judy in the back. So I went for the whippet. It sure looks like we’ll need that Planet Bolgwalk Dec. 3, 1987. i^NLY we didn’t do anything of the kind. I didn’t even pump Judy on what happened on that drive home; you owe your father some fenders to hide behind. But when I came in. Mom said, “Chuck, your father has taken a new job and we’re translating again the day after tomorrow.” So I went to borrow back some stuff and see some guys, but wondering why the overdrive. Till I saw Pop. He’d been figur- ing the percentages. Next day he was clearing up at his office. But he was home early fussing around like a pup in traffic, till the frame-building crew told him to go find a park- ing-deck. Then indoors, making sure nobody’d forgotten ansrthing to hold us up come morning. Then out trying to bribe the crew to work overtime. Then, when they said the inspector wouldn’t clear it till morning an3Tway, phoning the inspector to bribe him. Honest, I thought he’d boil his rad. The old impetuous spirit got him down at crack of dawn, too, burning toast and eggs till Mom took the kitchen away from him. Which gained us three hours to stall around in while the crew finished the fence under his steely eye — though he didn’t know any more about it than he does about a carburetor. But at half an hour to zero, Mr. Glash arrived and Pop got onto his rear bumper. They were out by the fence and Pop giving with the old Twenty Questions — why this, why that, with no break for answers — when up pranced this guy in a blue-and-white rig and hollered Pop’s name aloud. Pop winced. “Hey, tone it down. I can hear you. What’s all this?” The guy began reading a paper which boiled down to a demand that Pop desist from running out on his honorable duel. Pop looked like one of these guys who, when they get in a crash, jump out of the car and run. He grabbed Glash. “Hey, this clown can’t stop me moving, can he?” Glash drawled, “This ‘clown’ is Herald of the Courts of Honor. But, no, he can’t stop your mov- ing, as long as it’s off Jehu.” Pop reinflated slightly. ‘Well, not that I want to welsh on an obligation. But Mrs. Blaire was so upset about the girl, and I had this offer. And you know how it is with big deals — split-second decisions.” Glash fluttered his eyelids. “Oh, yes, everyone knows. And as long as Hollicker feels he’s run you off Jehu he’ll be satis- fied. But don’t come back, even for a day for your firm, say. Not healthy.” The inspector arriving at last saved Pop answering that one. Glash bowed with flourishes to Mom and Judy, and slightly to Pop. He drawled, “It’s been, ah, interesting to know you, as a specimen of the, ah, Earth Regu- lars. I trust you find Bolgwalk congenial.” Then suddenly he turned to me. “From what I hear through, ah, a contact at the Arena, you’ll make a man yet, Charles. Get some education — and get rid of the one you have. Good luck.” So we shook hands. Man! But who saw through my game and didn’t squeal? T^UNNY how Pop’s adjusted to Bolgwalk; he fulfills his bull- man ego by betting on the plane- tary whiffle-ball games. He usu- ally loses but it’s comparatively cheap. Judy could be on an aster- oid, for all she cares now, if it had boys on it. No cars — but they make out. Mom treats me real man-to-man. But now I’ve gotten over be- ing a professional teener, I think I’ll take Mr. Glash’s advice. They say the High Vacuum Navy gives you wonderful train- ing. And you can take chances in the line of duty . . . without scooping in civilians. — CHANDLER ELLIOTT 142 GALAXY A DAY ON DEATH HIGHWAY 143
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‘V' ‘ ii hUBm gg CUGARDALE THREE miles, ^ the state highway sign said. Dexter Foote turned into the side road that the arrow indi- cated. He had no way of knowing it at the time, but by his action he condemned his new convertible to a fate worse than death. The side road meandered down a long slope into a wooded hollow where a breeze born of cool bowers and shaded brooks made the July afternoon heat less oppressive. A quantity of the pique that had been with him ever since setting forth from the city departed. There were worse assignments, after all, than writ- ing up a fallen star. Abruptly he applied the brakes and brought the convertible to a screeching halt. His blue eyes started from his boyish face. Well they might. The two Humpty Dumptyish creatures squatting in the middle of the road were as big as heavy tanks and, judging from their “skin tone,” were constructed of similar material. They had arms like jointed cranes and legs like artic- ulated girders. Their scissors-like mouths were slightly open, ex- posing maws the hue of an open hearth at tapping time. Either they were all body and no head, or all head and no body. Which- ever was the case, they had both eyes and ears. The former had SWEET TOOTH 145
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something of the aspect of peek holes in a furnace door, while the latter brought to mind lopsided TV antennae. As Dexter watched, the fore- most of the two metallic mon- sters advanced upon the convert- ible and began licking the chrome off the grill with a long, tong-like tongue. Meanwhile, its companion circled to the rear and took a big bite out of the trunk. There was an awesome CRUNCH! and the convertible gave a convulsive shudder. At this point, Dexter got out and ran. More accurately, he jumped out and ran. A hundred feet down the road, he stopped and turned. He was just in time to see monster No. 1 bite off the right headlight. CRUNCH! Not to be outdone, monster No. 2 bit off the right taillight. CRUNCH- CRUNCH! An acrid odor af- fronted Dexter’s nostrils, and he discerned a faint yellow haze hovering about the convertible. The rear wheels went in two bites. The 250 HP. motor re- quired three. CRUNCH- CRUNCH-CRUNCH! The up- holstery caught fire and began to bum. A gout of flame shot up as the gas tank exploded. Far from discouraging the two mon- sters, the resultant inferno mere- ly served to whet their appetities. CRUNCH-CRUNCH-CRUNCH- CRUNCH! 146 Dexter’s shoulders sagged, and the spot next to his heart that the convertible had shared with his best girl gave a spasmodic twinge. Removing his suitcoat and slinging it over his shoulder, he turned his back on the grisly repast and set out sadly for Sugardale. He had not gone far before his stalled thought-processes got into gear again. rriHE FALLING star he had been assigned by his editor to write up had been an unusu- ally brilliant one according to the report the paper had received. Maybe its unusualness did not stop there. Maybe it was some- thing more than a mere meteor- ite. Certainly the two monsters could not be classified as local woodland creatures. All of which was fine as far as copy was concerned. But it didn’t bring his convertible back. Presently he saw two sizable deposits of slag at the side of the road, and approaching them more closely, he discovered that they were still warm. Could they be the remains of a previously devoured automobile? he won- dered. What an ignominious fate indeed to overtake a car! He looked at the two deposits once more before moving on. All he could think of were two piles of elephant dung. GALAXY L A mile and half later, he emerged in a small valley that sported a handful of houses, a scattering of business places, a church or two and a goodly num- ber of trees. A roadside sign in- formed him that he had reached his destination, that its popula- tion was 350, and that its speed limit was 20 mph. The popula- tion, however, was nowhere in evidence, and the speed limit seemed silly in view of the ab- sence of cars. A scared-looking housewife, upon whose door he knocked, told him he’d probably find the local minion of the law at the Sugardale Inn, “sucking up beer the way he always is when he should be out earning his mon- ey.” The Inn turned out to be a sagging three-story structure in desperate need of a paint-job. There was a model A sedan parked in front of it, the first automobile Dexter had seen. Formerly the establishment had provided a haven for weary travelers. Now it provided a haven for contented cockroaches. Its fin de siecle bar was a col- lector’s item, and standing at it, one foot propped on the brass barrail, was a lone customer. He was tall and thin, and somewhere in his sixties, and he was wear- ing blue denim trousers and a blue chambray shirt There was a lackluster badge pinned on the fading shirtfront, and a beat-up sombrero sat atop the graying head. “Sheriff Jeremiah Smith at your service,” he said calmly when Dexter dashed up to him. He took a sip from the schooner of beer that sat on the bar before him. “Got troubles, have you, young man?” “My car,” Dexter said. “I was driving along the road and — ” “Got ate up, did it? Well, it’s not the first one to get ate up around here.” Jeremiah Smith faced the doorway that led to the lobby. “Mrs. Creasy, get this young man a beer,” he called. A plump middle-aged woman whose dark hair fell down over her eyes like a thicket came into sight behind the bar. She flicked a cockroach off the drain- board with an expert forefinger, drew Dexter a schooner and set it before him. Jeremiah Smith paid for it. “Drink her down, young man,” he said. “I know how I’d feel if my car got ate up.” Manfully, Dexter dispatched half the contents of the schooner, after which he introduced him- self and explained the nature of his mission to Sugardale. “I nev- er figured on an3dhing like this, though,” he concluded. “You must have made it through just before the road- block was set up,” Jeremiah said. “You were lucky.” SWEET TOOTH 147
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Dexter started at him. “Lucky! I lost my car.” “Pshaw. What’s a car to a newspaper man when a Big Story’s in the air? Take this newspaper fellow I saw on TV Saturday night. He — ’’ “Big Stories went out long ago,” Dexter said. “Newspaper- men work for a living the same as anybody else. Get back to my car. Aren’t you going to do any- thing about it?” Jeremiah looked hurt. “I’ve al- ready done everything I can do. The minute I saw those tanks I knew it was a job for the army, and the state police agreed with me. So we notified them, after which we advised everybody to stay indoors and to keep their cars under lock and key. All we can do now is wait.” Jeremiah sighed. “Crazy, if you ask me. Tanks eating automobiles!’ > “I imagine,” Dexter said thoughtfully. “that our diet would give them pause too. Where did this star of yours fall?” , “In Ed Hallam’s north timber lot. Take you there, if you like. There’s not much to see, though — just a big hole in the ground.” Dexter finished his beer. “Come on,” he said. 'T’HE MOriEL A parked in front of the Inn turned out to be Jeremiah’s. They took off down the road at a brisk pace, wound through woods, dales, pas- tures and fields. Dexter hadn’t the remotest idea where he was when at last Jeremiah pulled up beside a grove larger and darker than the others. The old man squinted into the lengthening shadows. “Seems to me them auto-eating tanks ought to make better reading than a common ordinary falling star.” Halfway out of the car, Dexter stared at him. “You mean to tell me you don’t see the connec- tion?” “What connection?” Dexter got the rest of the way out. “Between the automobile- eaters and the spaceship, of course.” Jeremiah stared at him. “What spaceship?” “Oh, never mind,” Dexter said. “Show me the fallen star.” It was in a clearing deep in the woods. Or rather, the crater-like hole it had made was. Peering down into the hole, Dexter saw the dark, pitted surface of what could very well have been an or- dinary, if unusually large, mete- orite. There was nothing that suggested an opening of any kind, but the opposite wall of the crater did look as though some heavy object had been dragged — or had dragged itself — up to the level of the clearing. The underbrush showed signs of hav- 148 GALAXY ing been badly trampled in the recent past. He pointed out the signs to Jeremiah. “See how those sap- lings are flattened? No human being did that. I’ll bet if we fol- lowed that trail, we’d come to the remains of the first car they con- sumed. Whose car was it, by the way?” “Mrs. Hopkins’s new Buick. She’d just started out for the city on one of her shopping trips. She was so scared when she came running back into town her hair was standing straight out behind her head. Maybe, though, it was because she was running so fast.” Abruptly Jeremiah leaned for- ward and squinted at the ground. “Looks almost like a big foot- print right there, don’t it.” He straightened. “But if the darn thing is a spaceship like you say, how come it buried itself?” “Because whoever or whatever was piloting it didn’t — or could- n’t — decelerate enough for an orthodox landing,” Dexter ex- plained. “Lucky it hit the clear- ing. If it had hit the trees, you’d have had a forest fire on your hands.” Jeremiah looked worried. “Maybe we’d better be getting back to the road. I feel kind of guilty leaving my model A sit- ting there all alone.” Dexter followed him back through the woods and climbed into the front seat beside him. The road took them to the main highway, and not long thereafter Jeremiah turned off the highway into another road — a familiar road heralded by a familiar sign that said, SUGARDALE THREE MILES. Two slag deposits marked the spot where once Dexter’s proud convertible had stood. He gazed at them sadly as they passed. SUDDENLY Jeremiah brought ^ the model A to a screeching halt. The two desecrators of the American Dream Incarnate were in the midst of another repast. The victim this time, judging from the still-visible star and the O.D. color scheme, was an army staff car. The grill and the motor were already gone, and half of the roof was missing. Yellow haze enshrouded the sorry scene, and the countryside was resound- ing to a series of horrendous CRUNCHES. “Do you think if I sort of zoomed by, we could make it?” Jeremiah asked. “I hate to go all the way around the other way.” “I’m game if you are,” Dexter said. ZOOOOOOMMMMMMM! The two monsters didn’t even look up. “You’d think my model A wasn’t good enough for them,” Jeremiah said peevishly. SWEET TOOTH 149
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“Count your blessings. Look, there’s someone up ahead.” The “someone” turned out to be a two-star general, a chicken colonel and an enlisted man. Jer- emiah stopped, and the trio climbed into the back seat. “Ate your staff car, did they. Gen- eral?” he chuckled, taking off again. “Well, that’s the way it goes.” “The name,” said the general, whose middleaged face had a greenish cast, “is General Long- combe, and I was on my way to Sugardale to reconnoiter the sit- uation before committing any troops to the area. This is my aide. Colonel Mortby, and my driver. Sergeant Wilkins.” “Sheriff Smith at your service,” said Jeremiah. “This here’s Dex- ter Foote, who came to Sugar- dale to do a Big Story on our falling star.” “Tell me about these VEMs of yours, sheriff,” General Long- combe said. Jeremiah twisted around. “VEMs?” “ ‘Vehicle-Eating Monsters’,” Colonel Mortby interposed. He was a small man with a pleasant youthful face. “It’s standard army operating procedure to give an object a name before investigat- ing it.” “Oh.” Jeremiah twisted back again, saved the model A from going into the ditch with a Her- culean yank on the wheel. “Well, Dexter here seems to think that our falling star is a spaceship and that they landed in it, and I’m inclined to believe he’s right.” “After seeing the VEMs in per- son, I’m inclined to believe he’s right myself,” Colonel Mortby said. “I think that what we have to do with here,” he went on pres- ently, when the general made no comment, “is a form of metal- based life capable of generating an internal temp)erature of at least three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The acrid odor they give off while ‘feasting’ probably arises from a substance analo- gous to our gastric juices which their heat-resistant stomachs sup>- ply to accomplish ‘digestion,’ only in this case ‘digestion’ con- sists primarily in melting down the metal they consume and in isolating its waste matter, after which the pure metal is repro- cessed into ‘body tissue’ and the waste matter is thrown off in the form of slag. I think we might go so far as to call them a couple of animate open hearths.” Dexter had turned around in the front seat and was looking at the colonel admiringly. “I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head, sir,” he said. General Longcombe was scowl- ing. “We’re here to survey the situation. Colonel, not to jump to conclusions.” He addressed the 150 GALAXY back of Jeremiah’s weather- beaten neck. “I trust we’ll have no trouble finding suitable ac- commodations in Sugardale, sheriff.” “Mrs. Creasy’ll be glad to put you up at the Inn, if that’s what you mean,” Jeremiah said. Mrs. creasy was more than glad. Indeed, from the way she looked at the two officers and the NCO through her thicket of hair, you would have thought they were the first roomers she’d had in months, discounting the cockroaches, of course. The general said petulantly, “Let’s get down to business. Colonel. I want an armored com- pany brought up immediately, and I want the fallen-star area put off limits at once. Have the sheriff show you where it is.” He turned to Sergeant Wilkins. “Ser- geant, get on the phone as soon as the colonel gets off it, and ar- range for my personal Cadillac to be delivered here first thing.” After phoning his paper, Dex- ter headed for the dining room and sat down beside General Longcombe. “Anything new on the VEMs, General?” he asked. General Longcombe sighed. There were shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks showed signs of saggihg. “They’re still in cir- culation. Scared the wits out of a couple of teenagers and ate their hot-rod. We’ve got them under constant surveillance, of course, and what with all the under- brush they trample it’s easy e- nough to track them. But we can’t stop them. They eat our gas grenades and our fragmenta- tion grenades, and they’re imper- vious to our tank killers and our antitank mines. A small A-bomb would take care of them nicely, but even assuming there’s an area around here large enough and isolated enough to permit us to use an A-bomb, there’s no way of herding them into it.” “It just so happens that there is such an area,” Jeremiah Smith said. “Tillson Valley — about ten miles south of here. You’d have to vacate Old Man Tillson, of course, but he’d be glad to go if you made it worth his while. He hasn’t grown a thing but weeds anyway since he got his pension. Just sits around all day and sucks up beer.” “But there’s still no way of get- ting the VEMs out there,” Gen- eral Longcombe objected. “Tell me, general,” Dexter said, “have they eaten any of your jeeps or trucks or personnel car- riers?” General Longcombe shook his head. “They’ve had plenty of op- portunity to, too.” “I have a theory,” Dexter said. The look that promptly settled on General Longcombe’s face SWEET TOOTH 151
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made no bones about what he thought of presumptuous young reporters with theories. Colonel Mortby, however, was consider- ably less biased. “It won’t do any harm to listen to what he’s got to say, sir,” he pointed out, “and it may even do some good. It’ll be at least a day before the ship is excavated and even then we may not know any more about the sort of life forms we’re deal- ing with than we do now.” I^EXTER NEEDED no fur- ther invitation. “I think it’s pretty clear by now,” he began, “that our two visitors from Plan- et X aren’t attracted by metal in just any old form at all, but by metal in the form of new, or near- ly new, automobiles. This strong- ly suggests that their landing was unpremeditated, because if it had been premeditated they would have come down in a section of the country where such metallic concoctions are in plentiful sup- ply — near a city or a 'large town, or close to a heavily trav- eled throughway. “But what is it about these new cars of ours that they find so irresistible? Let’s try an anal- ogy. Suppose that one of us has gone into a bakery to buy a birthday cake and that money is no object. Which cake is he most likely to buy? The answer is ob- vious: the one with the most vis- ual appeal. To return to our visitors from Planet X. Suppose that all their lives they’ve been eating metal in various but unin- spired ingot forms — the metal- lic equivalents, let’s say, of beans and bread and hominy grits. Now suppose they find their way to another planet where visual ap- peal in metallic creation is a ma- jor occupation, and suppose that shortly after disembarking from their spaceship they come upon a new convertible. Wouldn’t they react in the same way we would react if all our lives our diet had been confined to beans and bread and hominy grits and we trav- eled to another planet, disem- barked and came upon a delicious birthday cake just begging to be eaten? Wouldn’t they make pigs of themselves and start looking for more cakes?” “But if it’s the ornate nature of our late-model cars that attracts them, why did they eat the staff car?” Colonel Mortby asked. “And why did they eat the teen- ager’s hot rod, and our gas and fragmentation grenades?” “I suggest,” Dexter said, “that they ate the staff car because at the moment there weren’t any other cars immediately available. As for the teenager’s hot rod, I imagine it was loaded down with enough chrome accessories to sink a battleship. And as for the grenades — your men threw 152 GALAXY them at them first, did they not?” Colonel Mortby nodded. “I see what you mean. Sort of like throwing candy to a baby. I’ll buy your theory, Mr. Foote.” “And now, if I may,” Dexter continued, “I’d like to propose a means of getting rid of our un- wanted visitors from Planet X.” General Longcombe sighed. “Very well, Mr. Foote. Go on.” “You mentioned earlier, sir, that there was no way of herding the VEMs into an isolated area. However, I think there is a way. Suppose we were to remove all of the automobiles from the vi- cinity with the exception of one, and suppose we were to park that one in the middle of Tillson Valley as bait, with a remote- controlled A-bomb underneath it?” “But how would they know that the bait was there?” “Through association,” Dexter said. “All of the automobiles they’ve consumed thus far were in operation shortly before they began to eat them, so by now they must have established an vmconscious relationship between the sound of the motors and the taste of the metal. Therefore, if we keep the bait idling and set up a P.A. system to amplify the sound, eventually they’ll hear it, their mouths will salivate and they’ll come running.” General Longcombe offered no comment. He app>eared to be deep in thought. “My car is in West Virginia,” Colonel Mortby said. “My car was eaten,” Dexter said. General Longcombe opened his mouth. “My car — ” he began. Sergeant Wilkins entered the room and saluted smartly. “The general’s Cadillac has just ar- rived, sir,” he said. I^LD MAN Tillson co-operated readily enough, once he was assured that he would be in- demnified not only for his ram- shackle house but for the young mountain of beer bottles that stood in his back yard, and the command post was moved forth- with to the lip of the valley. Jeremiah Smith was allowed to go along as an observer, and Dexter was accorded a similar favor. By evening, everything was in place. The colonel’s Cad- illac, parked in the valley’s cen- ter, had something of the aspect of a chrome-bedizened lamb rest- ing on an altar of crab grass, but- tercups and mustard weeds. Sur- rounding it were half a dozen floodlights, suspended over it was a microphone, standing next to it was a pole supporting three P.A. speakers, and located sev- eral hundred feet away was a TV camera. Beyond this imprqs- SWEET TOOTH 153
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sive display, Old Man Tillson’s homestead could be discerned, and beyond the homestead rose his mountainous collection of beer bottles. Colonel Mortby came out of the command-post tent and walked over to where Dexter and Jeremiah were standing, looking down into the valley. He handed each of them a pair of cobalt- blue glasses. “If you watch the blast, make sure you wear these,” he said, raising his voice above the amplified purring of the Cad- illac’s motor. “You’ll be glad to hear that the two VEMs are al- ready on their way, Mr. Foote — our walkie-talkie squad just called in. However, the creatures move so slowly that they prob- ably won’t be here before dawn.” Dexter came out of a brown study. “One thing still bugs me,” he said. “Why should two mem- bers of a race of extraterrestrials technically intelligent enough to build spaceships behave like a pair of gluttonous savages the minute they land on another planet?” “But you explained that,” Jer- emiah pointed out. “They just can’t resist eating American au- tomobiles.” “I’m afraid I got carried away by my analogy. Civilized beings simply don’t go running across the countryside the minute they land, and start grabbing up ever- ything that strikes their eye. They make contact with the au- thorities first, and then they go running across the countryside and start grabbing up everyrthing that strikes their eye.” Colonel Mortby grinned. “You’ve got a good point there, Mr. Foote. Well, I’m going to see if I can’t grab forty winks or so — it’s been a trying day.” “Me too,” Jeremiah said, head- ing for his model A. Left alone, Dexter wedged a flashlight in the fork of a little tree, sat down in its dim radi- ance, got out pen and notebook, and began his article. The Solid Cheese Cadillac, he wrote, by Dexter Foote . . . Dawn found him dozing over page 16. “There they are!” some- one shouted, jerking him awake. “The filthy fiends!” The “someone” was General Longcombe. Joining him, Dexter saw the two VEMs. They were moving relentlessly across the valley floor toward the helpless Cadillac. Jeremiah came up, rub- ing his eyes. Colonel Mortby could be discerned through the entrance of the command-post tent, leaning over a technician’s shoulder. The two VEMs reached the Cadillac and began licking off the chrome with their long, tong-like tongues. General Longcombe went wild. He waved his arms. 154 GALAXY “Monsters!” he screamed, “I’ll blow you to Kingdom Come per- sonally!” and stomped into the tent. Dexter and Jeremiah started to put on their cobalt-blue glas- ses. Abruptly thunder sounded, and a shadow darkened the land. Looking skyward, Dexter saw it — The ship. The saucer. Which- ever word you cared to apply to it. But whichever noun you chose, you had to prefix it with the adjective “gigantic,” for the ventral hatch alone, which had just yawned open, was large e- nough to accommodate the Sugardale Methodist Church. In the command-post tent, the general, as yet unaware of the UFO’s presence, was giving the countdown in an anguished voice. “Two — ” In the valley, the two .VEMs were trying vainly to extricate themselves from a huge metallic net that had dropped over them. “One — ” On the lip of the valley, Dex- ter Foote was grappling with an insight. “Zero — ” Pfft! . . . 6iTT WASN’T a dud after all,” General Longcombe said. “They cancelled out the chain- reaction with some kind of a ray. I wonder . . .” He shook his head wistfully. “What a weapon, though.” He and Colonel Mortby and the tech were standing by the chrome-stripped carcass of the Cadillac. Dexter and Jeremiah had just come up. “My theory turned out to be a little bit off- center,” Dexter said. “You see, I overlooked the possibility that our children aren’t necessarily the only galactic small fry who run away from home and get themselves in Dutch. My birth- day-cake analogy still holds true, but I would have done better to have compared our late-model automobiles to appetizing candy bars, or Easter baskets filled with jelly beans and chocolate chick- ens.” The general regarded him blankly. “I’m afraid I don’t fol- low you at all, Mr. Foote.” “Did you ever turn a pair of hungry kids loose in a candy store, sir?” Understanding came into Gen- eral Longcombe’s eyes then, and he turned and gazed sadly at his chromeless Cadillac. “I wonder if they have castor oil on Planet X,” he said." “I bet they have its equiva- lent,” grinned Dexter Foote. — ROBERT F. YOUNG SWEET TOOTH 155
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I J His work was healing the sick — but this planet was already dead! MED SHIP MAN By MURRAY LEINSTER Illustrated by ENSH ^ALHOUN regarded the com- ^ municator with something like exasperation as his taped voice repeated a standard ap- proach-call for the twentieth time. But no answer came, which had become irritating a long time ago. This was a new Med Service sec- tor for Calhoun. He’d been as- signed to another man’s tour of duty because the other man had been taken down with romance. He’d gotten married, which ruled him out for Med Ship duty. So now Calhoun listened to his own voice endlessly repeating a call that should have been answered immediately. Murgatroyd the tormal watched with beady, interested eyes. The planet Maya lay off to port of the Med Ship Esclipus Twenty. Its almost circular disk showed full size on a vision screen beside the ship’s control board. The image was absolutely clear and vividly colored. There was an ice cap in view. There were conti- nents. There were seas. The cloud system of a considerable cyclonic disturbance could be noted off at one side, and the continents looked reasonably as they should, and the seas were of that muddy, indescribable tint which indicates deep water. Calhoun’s o\yn voice, taped an hour earlier, sounded in a speaker 156 GALAXY MED SHIP MAN 157
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as it went again to the communi- cator and then to the extremely visible world a hundred thousand miles away. “Calling ground,” said Cal- houn’s recorded voice. “Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling ground to report arrival and ask coordi- nates for landing. Our mass is fifty standard tons. Repeat, five- oh tons. Purpose of landing, planetary health inspection.” ^1 ■'HE recorded voice stopp>ed. There was silence except for the taped random noises which kept the inside of the ship from feeling like the inside of a tomb. Murgatroyd said: “Chee?” Calhoun said ironically, “Un- doubtedly, Murgatroyd. Un- doubtedly! Whoever’s on duty at the spaceport stepped out for a moment, or dropped dead, or did something equally inconvenient. We have to wait until he gets back or somebody else takes over.” Murgatroyd said “Chee!” again and began to lick his whiskers. He knew that when Calhoun called on the communicator, another human voice should reply. Then there should be conversation, and shortly the force-fields of a land- ing-grid should take hold of the Med Ship and draw it planet- ward. In time it ought to touch ground in a spaceport with a gi- gantic, silvery landing-grid rising skyward all about it. Then there should be people greeting Cal- houn cordially and welcoming Murgatroyd with smiles and pet- ting. “Calling ground,” said the re- corded voice yet again. “Med Ship Esclipus Twenty — ” It went on through the formal notice of arrival. Murgatroyd waited in pleasurable anticipa- tion. When the Med Ship arrived at a port of call humans gave him sweets and cakes, and they thought it charming that he drank coffee just like a human, only with more gusto. Aground, Mur- gatroyd moved zestfully in soci- ety while Calhoun worked. Cal- houn’s work was conferences with planetary health officials, politely receiving such information as they thought important, and tact- fully telling them about the most recent developments in medical science as known to the Interstel- lar Medical Service. “Somebody,” said Calhoun darkly, “is going to catch the devil for this!” The communicator loudspeak- er spoke abruptly. “Calling Med Ship,” said a voice. “Calling Med Ship Esclipus T wenty! Liner Candida calling. Have you had an answer from ground?” Calhoun blinked. Then he said curtly; “Not yet. I’ve been calling all 158 GALAXY of half an hour, and never a word out of them!” “We’ve been in orbit twelve hours,” said the voice from empti- ness. “Calling all the while. No answer. We don’t like it.” Calhoun flipped a switch that threw a vision screen into circuit with the ship’s electron telescop>e. A starfield appeared and shifted wildly. Then a bright dot cen- tered itself. He raised the magni- fication. The bright dot swelled and became a chubby commer- cial ship, with the false ports that passengers like to believe they looked through when in space. Two relatively large cargo ports on each side showed that it car- ried heavy freight in addition to passengers. It was one of those workhorse intra-cluster ships that distributed the freight and pas- sengers the long-haul liners dumped off only at established transshipping ports. Murgatroyd padded across the Med Ship’s cabin and examined the image with a fine air of wis- dom. It did not mean anything to him, but tormals imitate human actions as parrots and parrakeets imitate human speech. He said, “Chee.’” as if making an observa- tion of profound significance, then went back to the cushion and again curled up. “We don’t see anything wrong aground,” the liner’s voice com- plained, “but they don’t answer MED SHIP MAN calls! We don’t get any scatter- signals either. We went down to two diameters and couldn’t pick up a thing. And we have a pas- senger to land. He insists on it!” "OY ordinary, communications between different places on a planet’s surface use frequencies the ion-layers of the atmosphere either reflect or refract down past the horizon. But there is usually some small leakage to space, and line-of-sight frequencies are gen- erally abundant. It is one of the annoyances of a ship coming in to port that space near most planets is usually full of local signals. “I’ll check,” said Calhoun curt- ly. “Stand by.” The Candida would have ar- rived off Maya as the Med Ship had done, and called down as Cal- houn had been doing. It was very probably a ship on schedule and the grid operator at the spaceport should have expected it. Space commerce was important to any planet, comparing more or less with the export-import business of an industrial nation in ancient times on Earth. Planets had elab- orate traffic-aid systems for the cargo-carriers which moved be- tween solar systems as they’d once moved between continents on Earth. Such traffic aids were very carefully maintained. Cer- tainly for a spaceport landing- 159
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grid not to respond to calls for twelve hours running seemed ominous. “We’ve been wondering,” said the Candida querulously, “if there could be something radically wrong below. Sickness, for ex- ample.” The word “sickness” was a sub- stitute for a more alarming word. But a plague had nearly wiped out the population of Dorset, once upon a time, and the first ships to arrive after it had broken out most incautiously went down to ground, and so carried the plague to their next two ports of call. Nowadays quarantine regu- lations were enforced very strict- ly indeed. “I’ll try to find out what’s the matter,” said Calhoun. ‘We’ve got a passenger,” re- peated the Candida aggrievedly, “who insists that we land him by space-boat if we don’t make a ship landing. He says he has im- p)ortant business aground.” Calhoun did not answer. The rights of passengers were extrava- gantly protected, these days. To fail to deliver a passenger to his destination entitled him to puni- tive damages which no spaceline could afford. So the Med Ship would seem heaven-sent to the Candida’s skipper. Calhoun could relieve him of responsibility. The telescope screen winked and showed the surface of the planet a hundred thousand miles away. Calhoun glared at the image on the port screen and guided the telescope to the space- port city — Maya City. He saw highways and blocks of buildings. He saw the spaceport and its landing-grid. He could see no motion, of course. He raised the magnification. He raised it again. Still no mo- tion. He upped the magnification until the lattice-pattern of the telescope’s amplifying crystal be- gan to show. But at the ship’s distance from the planet, a ground-car would represent only the fortieth of a second of arc. There was atmosphere, too, with thermals; anything the size of a ground-car simply couldn’t be seen. But the city showed quite clearly. Nothing massive had hap- pened to it. No large-scale physi- cal disaster had occurred. It sim- ply did not answer calls from space. ALHOUN FLIPPED off the screen. “I think,” he said irritably into the communicator microphone, “I suspect I’ll have to make an emergency landing. It could be something as trivial as a power failure — ” but he knew that was wildly improbable — “or it could be — anything. I’ll land on rock- ets and tell you what I find.” 160 GALAXY ! The voice from the Candida said hopefully: “Can you authorize us to re- fuse to land our passenger for his own protection? He’s raising the devil! He insists that his business demands that he be landed.” A word from Calhoun as a Med Service man would protect the spaceliner from a claim for dam- ages. But Calhoun didn’t like the look of things. He realized, dis- tastefully, that he might find practically anything down below. He might find that he had to quarantine the planet and him- self with it. In such a case he’d need the Candida to carry word of the quarantine to other planets and thus to Med Service sector headquarters. “We’ve lost a lot of time,” in- sisted the Candida. “Can you authorize us — ” “Not yet,” said Calhoun. “I’ll tell you when I land.” “But — ” “I’m signing off for the mo- ment,” said Calhoun. “Stand by.” He headed the little ship down- ward, and as it gathered velocity he went over the briefing sheets covering this particular world. He’d never touched ground here before. His occupation, of course, was seeing to the dissemination of medical science as it developed under the Med Service. The Ser- vice itself was neither political nor administrative. But it was im- portant. Every human-occupied world was supposed to have a Med Ship visit at least once in four years to verify the state of public health. Med Ship men like Calhoun offered advice on public-health problems. When something out of the ordinary turned up, the Med Service had a staff of researchers who hadn’t been wholly baffled yet. There were great ships which could carry the ultimate in labo- ratory equipment and specialized personnel to any place where they were needed. Not less than a dozen inhabited worlds in this sector alone owed the survival of their populations to the Med Ser- vice, and the number of those which couldn’t have been colo- nized without Med Service help was legion. Calhoun reread the briefing. Maya was one of four planets in this general area whose life sys- tems seemed to have had a com- mon origin, suggesting that the Arrhenius theory of space-travel- ing spores was true in some limited sense. A genus of ground- cover plants with motile stems and leaves and cannibalistic ten- dencies was considered strong evidence of common origin. The planet had been colonized for two centuries now, and pro- duced organic compounds of great value from indigenous plants, most of which were used MED SHIP MAN 161
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1 in textile manufacture. There were no local endemic infections to which men were susceptible. A number of human-use crops were grown. Cereals, grasses and grains, however, could not be grown because of the native ground-cover motile-stem plants. All wheat and cereal food had to be imported, which fact severely limited Maya’s population. There were about two million people on the planet, settled on a peninsula in the Yucatan Sea and a small area of mainland. Public-health surveys had shown a great many things about a great many sub- jects . . . but there was no men- tion of anything to account for the failure of the spaceport to respond to arrival calls from space. Naturally! The Med Ship drove on down, and the planet revolved beneath it. As Maya’s sunlit hemisphere enlarged, Calhoun kept the tele- scope’s field wide. He saw cities, and vast areas of cleared land where native plants were grown as raw materials for the organics’ manufacturies. He saw very little true chlorophyll green, though. Mayan foliage tended to a dark olive color. A T FIFTY miles he was sure that the city streets were empty even of ground-car traffic. There was no spaceship aground 162 in the landing-grid. There were ^ no ground-cars in motion on the ^ splendid, multiple-lane highways. At thirty miles altitude there were still no signals in the atmo- i sphere, though when he tried * amplitude-modulation reception 1 he picked up static. But there I was no normally modulated sig- I nal on the air at any frequency, f At twenty miles — no. At fifteen I miles, broadcast power was avail- able, which proved that the land- Ij ing-grid was working as usual, I tapping the upper atmosphere for electric charges to furnish power for all the planet’s needs. j From ten miles down to I ground-touch, Calhoun was busy. ^ It is not too difficult to land • a ship on rockets, with reason- i ably level ground to land on. But 1 landing at a specific spot is some- i thing else. Calhoun juggled the ship to descend inside the grid , itself. His rockets burned out pen- j cil-thin holes through the clay ; and stone beneath the tarmac. He cut them off. Silence. Stillness. The Med Ship’s outside microphones picked up small noises of wind blowing over the city. There was no other sound at all. — No. There was a singularly deliberate clicking sound, not loud and not fast. Perhaps a click — a double click — every two seconds. That was all. Calhoun went into the airlock, GALAXY with Murgatroyd frisking a little in the expectation of great social success among the people of this world. When Calhoun cracked the outer airlock door he smelled something. It was a faintly sour, astringent odor that had the qual- ity of decay in it. But it was no kind of decay he recognized. Again stillness and silence. No traffic-noise; not even the almost inaudible murmur that every city has in all its ways at all hours. The buildings looked as buildings should look at daybreak, except that the doors and windows were open. It was somehow shocking. A ruined city is dramatic. An abandoned city is pathetic. This was neither. It was something new. It felt as if everybody had walked away, out of sight, within the past few minutes. Calhoun headed for the space- port building with Murgatroyd ambling puzzledly at his side. Murgatroyd was disturbed. There should be people here! They should welcome Calhoun and ad- mire him — Murgatroyd — and he should be a social lion with all the sweets he could eat and all the coffee he could put into his expandable belly. But nothing happened! Nothing at all. “Chee?” he asked anxiously. “They’ve gone away,” growled Calhoun. “They probably left in ground-cars. There’s not one in sight.” There wasn’t. Calhoun could look out through the grid founda- tions and see long, sunlit and ab- solutely empty streets. He ar- rived at the spaceport building. There was — there had been — a green area about the base of the structure. There was not a living plant left. Leaves were wilted and limp. The remains had become almost a jelly of collapsed stems and blossoms of dark olive-green. The plants were dead; but not long enough to have dried up. They might have wilted two or three days before. Calhoun went in the building. The spaceport log lay open on a desk. It recorded the arrival of freight to be shipped away — undoubtedly — on the Candida now uneasily in orbit somewhere aloft. There was no sign of dis- order. It was exactly as if the people here had walked out to look at something interesting, and hadn’t come back. Calhoun trudged out of the spaceport and to the streets and buildings of the city proper. It was incredible! Doors were opened or unlocked. Merchandise in the shops lay on display, ex- actly as it had been spread out to interest customers. There was no sign of confusion anywhere. Even in a restaurant there were dishes and flatware on the tables. The food in the plates was stale, as if three days old, but it hadn’t MED SHIP MAN 163
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yet begun to spoil. The appear- ance of everything was as if people at their meals had simply, at some signal, gotten up and walked out without any panic or disturbance. Calhoun made a wry face. He’d remembered something. Among the tales that had been carried from Earth to the other worlds of the galaxy there was a completely unimportant mystery story which people still sometimes tried to write an ending to. It was the story of an ancient sailing ship called the Marie Celeste, which was found drifting aimlessly in the middle of the ocean. Tliere was food on the cabin table, and the galley stove was still warm. There was no sign of any trouble, or terror, or disturbance which might cause the ship to be abandoned. But there was not a 164 ( GALAXY the century, Murgatroyd, I don’t like this. I don’t like it a bit!” living soul on board. Nobody had ever been able to contrive a be- lievable explanation. “Only,” said Calhoun to Mur- gatroyd, “this is on a larger scale. The people of this city walked out about three days ago, and didn’t come back. Maybe all the people on the planet did the same, since there’s not a com- municator in operation anywhere. To make the understatement of II ON THE way back to the Med Ship, Calhoun stopped at an- other place where, on a grass- growing planet, there would have been green sward. There were Earth-type trees, and some native ones, and between them there should have been a lawn. The trees were thriving, but the ground-cover plants were col- lapsed and rotting. Calhoun picked up a bit of the semi-slime and smelled it. It was faintly sour, astringent, the same smell he’d noticed when he opened the airlock door. He threw the stuff away and brushed off his hands. Something had killed the ground-cover plants which had the habit of killing Earth-type grass when planted here. He listened. Everywhere that humans live, there are insects and birds and other tiny creatures which are essential parts of the ecological system to which the human race is adjusted. They have to be carried to and estab- lished upon every new world that mankind hopes to occupy. But there was no sound of such living creatures here. It was probable that the bel- lowing roar of the Med Ship’s MED SHIP MAN 165
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emergency rockets was the only real noise the city had heard since its people went away. The stillness bothered Murga- troyd. He said, “Chee!” in a sub- dued tone and stayed close to Calhoun. Calhoun shook his head. Then he said abruptly: “Come along, Murgatroyd!” He went back to the building housing the grid controls. He didn’t look at the spaceport log this time. He went to the instru- ments recording the second func- tion of a landing-grid. In addition to lifting up and letting down ships of space, a landing-grid drew down power from the ions of the upper atmosphere and broadcast it. It provided all the energy that humans on a world could need. It was solar power, in a way, absorbed and stored by a layer of ions miles high, which then could be drawn on and dis- tributed by the grid. During his descent Calhoun had noted that broadcast power was still avail- able. Now he looked at what the instruments said. The needle on the dial showing power-drain moved slowly back and forth. It was a rh5dhmic movement, going from maximum to minimum power-use, and then back again. Approximately six million kilowatts was being taken out of the broadcast every two seconds for half of one second. Then the drain cut off for a sec- ond and a half, and went on again for half a second. Frowning, Calhoun raised his eyes to a very fine color photo- graph on the wall above the pow- er dials. It was a picture of the human-occupied part of Maya, taken four thousand miles out in space. It had been enlarged to four feet by six, and Maya City could be seen as an irregular group of squares and triangles measuring a little more than half an inch by three-quarters. The de- tail was perfect. It was possible to see perfectly straight, infinitely thin lines moving out from the city. They were multiple-lane highways, mathematically straight from one city to another, and then mathematically straight — though at a new angle — until the next. Calhoun stared thought- fully at them. “The people left the city in a hurry,” he told Murgatroyd, “and there was little confusion, if any. So they knew in advance that they might have to go. They were ready for it. If they took any- thing, they had it ready packed in their cars. But they hadn’t been sure they’d have to go be- cause they were going about their businesses as usual. All the shops were open and people were eating in restaurants, and so on.” Murgatroyd said, “C/iee!” as if in full agreement. “Now,” demanded Calhoun, 166 GALAXY “where did they go? The ques- tion’s really where could they go! There were about eight hundred thousand people in this city. There’d be cars for everyone, of course, and two hundred thou- sand cars would take everybody. But that’s a lot of ground-cars! Put ’em two hundred feet apart on a highway, and that’s twenty- six cars to the mile on each lane. Run them at a hundred miles an hour on a twelve-lane road — using all lanes one way — and that’s twenty-six hundred cars per lane per hour, and that’s thirty- one thousand . . . two highways make sixty-two . . . three high- ways . . . With two highways they could empty the city in un- der three hours, and with three highways close to two. Since there’s no sign of panic, that’s what they must have done. Must have worked it out in advance, too. Maybe they’d done it before it happened . . . whatever it was that happened.” TTE searched the photograph which was so much more de- tailed than a map. There were mountains to the north of Maya City, but only one highway led north. There were more moun- tains to the west. One highway went into them, but not through. To the south there was sea, which curved aroxmd some three hun- dred miles from Maya City and put the human colony on Maya on a peninsula. “They went east,” said Calhoun presently. He traced lines with his finger. “Three highways go east; that’s the only way they could go quickly. They hadn’t been sure they’d have to go but they knew where to go when they did. So when they got their warning, they left. On three high- ways, to the east. And we’ll follow them and ask what the hell they ran away from. Nothing’s visible here!” He went back to the Med Ship, Murgatroyd skipping with him. As the airlock door closed be- hind them, he heard a click from the outside-microphone speakers. He listened. It was a doubled clicking, as of something turned on and almost at once turned off again. There was a two-second cycle, the same as that of the power drain. Something drawing six million kilowatts went on and immediately off again every two seconds. It made a sound in speakers linked to outside micro- phones, but it didn’t make a noise in the air. The microphone clicks were induction; pick-up; like cross-talk on defective telephone cables. Calhoun shrugged his shoul- ders almost up to his ears. He went to the communicator, “Calling Candida — ” he began, MED SHIP MAN 167
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and the answer almost leaped down his throat. “Candida to Med Ship. Come in! Come in! What’s happened down there?” “The city’s deserted without any sign of panic,” said Calhoun, “and there’s power and nothing seems to be broken down. But it’s as if somebody had said, ‘Every- body clear ouf and they did. That doesn’t happen on a whim! What’s your next port of call?” The Candida’s voice told him, hopefully. “Take a report,” commanded Calhoun. “Deliver it to the public health office immediately you. land. They’ll get it to Med Ser- vice sector headquarters. I’m go- ing to stay here and find out what’s been going on.” He dictated, growing irritated as he did so because he couldn’t explain what he reported. Some- thing serious had taken place, but there was no clue as to what it was. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t certainly a public health affair. But any emergency the size of this one involved public health factors. “I’m remaining aground to in- vestigate,” finished Calhoun. “I will report further when or if it is possible. Message ends.” “What about our passenger?” “To the devil with your pas- senger!” said Calhoun peevishly. “Do as you please!” TTE CUT off the communicator and prepared for activity outside the ship. Presently he and Murgatroyd went to look for transportation. The Med Ship couldn’t be used for a search op- eration; it didn’t carry enough rocket fuel. They’d have to use a ground vehicle. It was again shocking to note that nothing had moved but sun shadows. Again it seemed that everybody had simply walked out of some door or other and failed to come back. Calhoun saw the windows of jewelers’ shops. Treasures lay unguarded in plain view. He saw a florist’s shop. Here there were earth-type flowers apparently thriving, and some strange beautiful flowers with olive-green foliage which throve as well as the Earth- plants. There was a cage in which a plant had grown, and that plant was wilting and about to rot. But a plant that had to be grown in a cage . . . He found a ground-car agency, perhaps for imported cars, per- haps for those built on Maya. He went in and from the cars on display he chose one, an elaborate sports car. He turned its key and it hummed. He drove it carefully out into the empty street, Murga- troyd sitting interestedly beside him. “This is luxury, Murgatroyd,” said Calhoun. “Also it’s grand 168 GALAXY theft. We medical characters can’t usually afford such things. Or have an excuse to steal them. But these are parlous times, so we take a chance.” “Cheer said Murgatroyd. “We want to find a fugitive population and ask what they ran away from. As of the moment, it seems that they ran away from nothing. They may be pleased to know they can come back.” Murgatroyd again said, “CheeP’ Calhoun drove through vacant ways. It was somehow nerve- racking. He felt as if someone should pop out and say “Boo!” at any instant. He discovered an elevated highway and a ramp leading up to it At a cloverleaf he drove eastward, watching sharply for any sign of life. There was none. He was nearly out of the city when he felt the chest impact of a sonic boom, and then heard a trailing away growling sound which seemed to come from farther away as it died out. It was the result of something traveling faster than sound, so that the noise it made far away had to catch up with the sound it emitted nearby. He stared up. He saw a para- chute blossom as a bare speck against the blue. Then he heard the even deeper-toned roaring of a supersonic craft climbing skjrward. It could be a space- liner’s lifeboat, descended into atmosphere and going out again. It was. It had left a parachute behind, and now went back to space to rendezvous with its parent ship. “That,” said Calhoun impa- tiently, “will be the Candida’s pas- senger. He was insistent enough.” He scowled. The Candida’s voice had said its passenger de- manded to be landed for business reasons. And Calhoun had a prej- udice against some kinds of busi- ness men who would think their own affairs more important than anything else. Two standard years before, he’d made a plane- tary health inspection on Texia II, in another galactic sector. It was a llano planet and a single giant business enterprise. Illimit- able prairies had been sown with an Earth-type grass which de- stroyed the native ground-cover — the reverse of the ground-cover situation here — and the entire planet was a monstrous range for beef cattle. Dotted about were gi- gantic slaughterhouses, and cat- tle in masses of tens of thousands were shifted here and there by ground-induction fields which acted as fences. Ultimately the cattle were driven by these same induction fences to the slaughter houses and actually into the chutes where their throats were slit. Every imaginable fraction of a credit of profit was extracted MED SHIP MAN 169
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from their carcasses, and Calhoim had found it appalling. He was not sentimental about cattle, but the complete cold- bloodedness of the entire opera- tion sickened him. The same cold- bloodedness was practised toward the human employees who ran the place. Their living quarters were sub-marginal. The air stank of cattle murder. Men worked for the Texia Company or they did not work. If they did not work they did not eat. If they worked and ate, — Calhoun could see nothing satisfying in being alive on a world like that! His report to Med Service had been biting. He’d been prejudiced against businessmen ever since. T>UT A parachute descended, ^ blowing away from the city. It would land not too far from the highway he followed. And it didn’t occur to Calhoun not to help the unknown chutist. He saw a small figure dangling be- low the chute. He slowed the ground-car as he estimated where the parachute would land. He was off the twelve-lane highway and on a feeder road when the chute was a hundred feet high. He was racing across a field of olive-green plants that went all the way to the horizon when the parachute actually touched ground. There was a con- siderable wind. The man in the harness boimced. He didn’t know how to spill the air. The chute dragged him. Calhoun sp>ed ahead, swerved and ran into the chute. He stoppjed the car and the chute stopp>ed with it. He got out. The man lay in a hopieless tangle of cordage. He thrust un- skilfully at it. When Calhoun came up he said suspiciously: “Have you a knife?” Calhoun offered a knife, polite- ly opjening its blade. The man slashed at the cords and freed himself, There was an attache case lashed to his chute harness. He cut at those cords. The at- tache case not only came clear, but opened. It dumpjed out an incredible mass of brand new, tightly packed interstellar credit certificates. Calhoun could see that the denominations were one thousand and ten thousand cred- its. The man from the chute reached under his armpit and drew out a blaster. It was not a service weapon. It was elaborate, practically a toy. With a dour glance at Calhoun he put it in a side pocket and gathered up the scattered money. It was an enormous sum, but he packed it back. He stood up. “My name is Allison,” he said in an authoritative voice. “Arthur Allison. I’m much obliged. Now I’ll ask you to take me to Maya City.” 170 GALAXY I “No,” said Calhoun p>olitely. “I just left there. It’s deserted. I’m not going back. There’s nobody there.” “But I’ve important bus — ” The other man stared. “It’s de- ■serted? But that’s impossible!” “Quite,” agreed Calhoun, “but it’s true. It’s abandoned. Unin- habited. Everybody’s left it. There’s no one there at all.” The man who called himself Allison blinked unbelievingly. He swore. Then he raged profanely. But he was not bewildered by the news. Which, upjon consider- ation, was itself almost bewilder- ing. But then his eyes grew shrewd. He looked about him. “My name is Allison,” he re- p>eated, as if there were some sort of magic in the word. “Arthur Allison. No matter what’s hap- pened, I’ve some business to do here. Where have the people gone? I need to find them.” “I need to find them too,” said Calhoun. “I’ll take you with me, if you like.” “You’ve heard of me.” It was a statement, confidently made. “Never,” said Calhoun politely. “If you’re not hurt, suppose you get in the car? I’m as anxious as you are to find out what’s hap>- pjened. I’m Med Service.” A LLISON MOVED toward the car. Med Service, eh? I don’t think MED SHIP MAN 1 much of the Med Service! You pjeople try to meddle in things that are none of your business!” Calhoun did not answer. The muddy man, clutching the attache case tightly, waded through the olive-green plants to the car and climbed in. Murgatroyd said cor- dially, “Chee-c/iee!” but Allison viewed him with distaste. “What’s this?” “He’s Murgatroyd,” said Cal- houn. “He’s a tOTtnal. He’s Med service p>ersonneL” “I don’t like beasts,” said Alli- son coldly. “He’s much more iniportant to me than you are,” said Calhoun, “if the matter should come to a test.” Allison stared at him as if ex- pjecting him to cringe. Calhoun did not. Allison showed every sign of being an important man who expjected his importance to be recognized and catered to. When Calhoun stirred impatient- ly he got into the car and growled a little. Calhoun took his place. The ground-car hummed. It rose on the six columns of air which took the place of wheels and slid across the field of dark- green plants, leaving the para- chute deflated across a number of rows, and a trail of crushed- down plants where it had moved. It reached the highway again. Calhoun ran the car up on the highway’s shoulder, and then sud- 171
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denly checked. He’d noticed something. He stopped the car and got out. Where the ploughed field ended, and before the coated surface of the highway began, there was a space where on another world one would expect to see green grass. On this planet grass did not grow; but there would normally be some sort of self-planted vege- tation where there was soil and sunshine and moisture. There had been such vegetation here, but now there was only a thin, repel- lent mass of slimy and decaying foliage. Calhoun bent down to it. It had a sour, faintly astringent smell of decay. These were the ground-cover plants of Maya of which Calhoun had read. They had motile stems, leaves and flowers, and they had canniba- listic tendencies. They were the local weeds which made it im- possible to grow grain for human use upon this world. And they were dead. Calhoun straightened up and returned to the car. Plants like this were wilted at the base of the spaceport building, and on an- other place where there should have been sward. Calhoun had seen a large dead member of the genus in a florist’s, that had been growing in a cage before it died. There was a singular coincidence here: humans ran away from something, and something caused the death of a particular genus of cannibal weeds. It did not exactly add up to anything in particular, and cer- tainly wasn’t evidence for any- thing at all. But Calhoun drove on in a vaguely puzzled mood. The germ of a guess was forming in his mind. He couldn’t pretend to himself that it was likely, but it was surely no more unlikely than most of a million human be- ings abandoning their homes at a moment’s notice. Ill ^^HEY came to the turnoff for a town called Tenochitlan, some forty miles from Maya City. Calhoun swung off the highway to go through it. Whoever had chosen the name Maya for this planet had been interested in the legends of Yuca- tan, back on Earth. There were many instances of such hobbies in a Med Ship’s list of ports of call. Calhoun touched ground reg- ularly on planets that had been named for countries and towns when men first roamed the stars, and nostalgically christened their discoveries with names suggested by homesickness. There was a Tralee, and a Dorset, and an Eire. Colonists not infrequently took their world’s given name as a pat- tern and chose related names for seas and peninsulas and moimtain 172 GALAXY chains. On Texia the landing-grid rose near a town called Corral and the principal meat-packing settlement was named Roundup. Whatever the name Tenochit- lan would have suggested, though, was denied by the town itself. It was a small, with a pleasing local type of architecture. There were shops and some factories, and. many strictly private homes, some clustered close together and others in the middles of consider- able gardens. In those gardens also there was wilt and decay among the cannibal plants. There was no grass, because the plants prevented it, but now the motile plants themselves were dead. Ex- cept for the one class of killed growing things, however, vegeta- tion was luxuriant. But the little city was deserted. Its streets were empty, its houses untenanted. Some houses were apparently locked up here, though, and Calhoun saw three or four shops whose stock im trade had been covered over before the owners departed. He guessed that either this town had been warned earlier than the spaceport city, or else they knew they had time to get in motion before the highways were filled with the cars from the west. Allison looked at the houses with keen, evaluating eyes. He did not seem to notice the ab- sence of people. When Calhoun swung back on the great road beyond the little city, Allison re- garded the endless fields of dark- green plants with much the same sort of interest. “Interesting,” he said abruptly when Tenochitlan fell behind and dwindled to a speck. “Very inter- esting! I’m interested in land. Real property, that’s my business. I’ve a land-owning corporation on Thanet Three. I’ve some holdings on Dorset, too, and elsewhere. It just occurred to me: what’s all • this land and the cities worth, with the people all run away?” “What,” asked Calhoun, “are the people worth who’ve run?” Allison paid no attention. He looked shrewd. Thoughtful. “I came here to buy land,” he said. “I’d arranged to buy some hundreds of square miles. I’d buy more if the price were right. But — as things are, it looks like the price of land ought to go down quite a bit. Quite a bit!” “It depends,” said Calhoun, “on whether there’s anybody left alive to sell it to you, and what sort of thing has happened.” Allison looked at him sharply. “Ridiculous!” he said authori- tatively. “There’s no question of their being alive!” “They thought there might be,” observed Calhoun. “That’s why they ran away. They hoped they’d be safe where they ran to. I hope they are.” MED SHIP MAN 173
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Allison ignored the comment. His eyes remained intent and shrewd. He was not bewildered by the flight of the people of Maya. His mind was busy with contemplation of that flight from the standpoint of a man of busi- ness. ^1 ■'HE CAR went racing onward. The endless fields of dark green rushed past to the rear. The highway was deserted, just three strips of surfaced road, mathematically straight, going on to the horizon. They went on by tens and scores of miles, each strip wide enough to allow four ground-cars to nm side by side. The highway was intended to allow all the produce of all these fields to be taken to market or a processing plant at the highest possible sp>eed and in any imagin- able quantity. The same roads had allowed the cities to be de- serted instantly the warning — whatever the warning was — ar- rived. Fifty miles beyond Tenochit- lan there was a mile-long strip of sheds containing agricultural ma- chinery for crop culture and trucks to carry the crops to mar- ket. There was no sign of life about the machinery, nor in a further hour’s run to westward. Then there was a city visible to the left. But it was not served by this particular highway, but another. There was no sign of any movement in its streets. It moved along the horizon to the left and rear. Presently it disap- peared. Half an hour later still, Murga- troyd said: “Chee!” He stirred uneasily. A moment later he said “Chee!” again. Calhoun turned his eyes from the road. Murgatroyd looked un- happy. Calhoun ran his hand over the tormaVs furry body. Murga- troyd pressed against him. The car raced on. Murgatroyd whim- pered a little. Calhoun’s hand felt the little animal’s muscles tense sharply, and then relax, and after a little tense again. Murgatroyd said almost hysterically: “Chee-chee-chee-cheel” Calhoun stopped the car, but Murgatroyd did not seem to be relieved. Allison said impatiently, “What’s the matter?” “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Calhoun. He felt Murgatroyd’s pulse. The role of Murgatroyd in the Med Ship Esclipus Twenty was not only that of charming com- panion in the long, isolated runs in overdrive. Murgatroyd was a part of the Med Service. His tribe had been discovered on a planet in the Deneb sector, and men had made pets of them, to the high satisfaction of the tormals. Pres- ently it was discovered that vet- 174 GALAXY erinarians never had tormals for patients. They were invariably in robustuous good health. They contracted no infections from other animals; they shared no infections with anybody else. The Med Service discovered that tor- mals possessed a dynamic immu- nity to germ and bacteria-caused diseases. Even viruses injected into their bloodstreams only pro- voked an immediate, overwhelm- ing development of antibodies, so that tormals couldn’t be given any known disease. Which was of infinite value to the Med Service. Now every Med Ship that could be supplied with a tormal carried a small, affectionate, whiskered member of the tribe. Men liked them, and they adored men. And when, as sometimes happened, by mutation or the simple enmity of nature, a new kind of infection appeared in hu- man society — why — tormals defeated it. They produced spe- cific antibodies to destroy it. Men analyzed the antibodies and syn- thesized them, and they were available to all the humans who needed them. So a great many millions of humans stayed alive, because tormals were pleasant little animals with a precious ge- netic gift of good health. I^ALHOUN LOOKED AT his ^ sweep-second watch, timing the muscular spasms that Murga- troyd displayed. They coincided with irregularities in Murga- troyd’s heartbeat, coming at ap- proximately two-second intervals. The tautening of the muscles lasted just about half a second. “But I don’t feel it!” said Cal- houn. Murgatroyd whimpered again and said, “Chee-chee!” “What’s going on?” demanded Allison with the impatience of a very important man indeed. “If the beast’s sick, he’s sick! I’ve got to find — ” ■ Calhoun ojjened his med kit and went carefully through it until he found what he needed. He put a pill into Murgatroyd’s mouth. “Swallow it!” he commanded. Murgatroyd resisted, but the pill went down. Calhoun watched him sharply. Murgatroyd’s diges- tive system was delicate, but it was dependable. Anything that might be poisonous, Murgatroyd’s stomach rejected instantly and emphatically. The pill stayed down. “Look!” said Allison indignant- ly. “I’ve got business to do! In this attache case I have millions of interstellar credits, in cash, to pay down on purchases of land and factories. I ought to make some damned good deals! And I figure that that’s as important as an3Tthing else you can think of! It’s a damned sight more impor- MED SHIP MAN 175
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tant than a beast with a belly- ache!” Calhoun looked at him coldly. “Do you own land on Texia?” he asked. Allison’s mouth dropped open. Extreme suspicion and unease ap- peared on his face. As a sign of the unease, his hand went to the side coat pocket in which he’d put a blaster. He didn’t pluck it out. Calhoun’s left fist swung around^ and landed. He took Alli- son’s elaborate pocket blaster and threw it away among the monot- onous rows of olive-green plants. He returned to absorbed observa- tion of Murgatroyd. In five minutes the muscular spasms diminished. In ten, Murg- atroyd frisked. But he seemed to think that Calhoun had done something remarkable. In the warmest of tones he said: “Chee!” “Very good,” said Calhoun. “We’ll go ahead. I suspect you’ll do as well as we do — for a while.” The car lifted the few inches the air columns sustained it above the ground. It went on, still to the eastward. But Calhoun drove more slowly now. “Something was giving Murga- troyd rhythmic muscular spasms,” he said coldly. “I gave him medi- cation to stop them. He’s more sensitive than we are, so he re- acted to a stimulus we haven’t noticed yet. But I think we’ll no- tice it presently.” Allison seemed to be dazed at the affront given him. It appeared to be unthinkable that anybody mighf lay hands on him. “What the devil has that to do with me?” he demanded angrily. “And what did you hit me for? You’re going to pay for this!” “Until I do,” Calhoun told him, “you’ll be quiet. And it does have the devil to do with you. There was a Med Service gadget once — a tricky little device to pro- duce contraction of chosen mus- cles. It was useful for re-starting stopped hearts without the need of an operation. It regulated the beat of hearts that were too slow or dangerously irregular. But some businessman had a bright idea and got a tame researcher to link that gadget to ground induc- tion currents. ! suspect you know that businessman!” “I don’t know what you’re talk- ing about,” snapped Allison. But he was singularly tense. “I do,” said Calhoim unpleas- antly. “I made a public health in- spection on Texia a couple of years ago. The whole planet is a single, gigantic, cattle-raising en- terprise. They don’t use metal fences — the herds are too big to be stopped by such things. They don’t use cowboys — they cost money. On Texia they use ground-induction and the Med 176 GALAXY , Service gadget linked together to ‘ serve ' as cattle fences. They act ^ like fences, though they’re pro- jected through the ground. Cattle become uncomfortable when they try to cross them. So they draw back. So men control them. They move them from place to place by changing the cattle fences, which are currents induced in the ground. The cattle have to keep moving or be punished by the moving fence. They’re even driven into the slaughterhouse chutes by ground-induction fields! That’s the trick on Texia, where induction fields herd cattle. I think it’s the trick on Maya, where people are herded like cat- tle and driven out of their cities so the value of their fields and factories will drop, — so a land buyer can find bargains!” “You’re insane!” snapped Alli- son. “I just landed on this planet! You saw me land! I don’t know what happened before I got here! How could I?” “You might have arranged it,” said Calhoim. A LLISON assumed an air of offended and superior digni- ty. Calhoun drove the car onward at very much less than the head- long pace he’d been keeping to. Presently he looked down at his hands on the steering wheel. Now and then the tendons to his fin- gers seemed to twitch. At rhyth- mic intervals, the skin crawled on the back of his hands. He glanced at Allison. Allison’s hands were tightly clenched. “There’s a ground-induction fence in action, all right,” said Calhoun calmly. “You notice? It’s a cattle fence and we’re running into it. If we were cattle, now, we’d turn around and move away.” “I don’t know what you’re talk- ing about!” said Allison. But his hands stayed clenched. Calhoun slowed the car still more. He began to feel, all over his body, that every muscle tended to twitch at the same time. It was a horrible sensation. His heart muscles tended to contract too, simultaneously with the rest, but one’s heart has its own beat rate. Sometimes the normal beat coincided with the twitch. Then his heart pounded violently — so violently that it was painful. But equally often the imposed contraction of the heart muscles came just after a normal con- traction, and then it stayed tight- ly knotted for half a second. It missed a beat, and the feeling was agony. No animal would have pressed forward in the face of such sen- sations. It would have turned back long ago. No animal. Not even Man. Calhoun stopped the car. He looked at Murgatroyd. Murga- MED SHIP MAN 177
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troyd was completely himself. He looked inquiringly at Calhoun. Calhoun nodded to him, but he spoke — with some difficulty — to Allison. “We’ll see — if this thing — builds up. You know that it’s the Texia — trick. A ground — in- duction unit set up — here. It drove people — like cattle. Now we’ve — run into it. — It’s hold- ing people — like cattle.” He panted. His chest muscles contracted with the rest, so that his breathing was interfered with. But Murgatroyd, who’d been made uneasy and uncomfortable before Calhoun noticed anything wrong, was now bright and frisky. Medication had desensitized his muscles to outside stimuli. He would be able to take a consider- able electric shock without re- sponding to it. But he could be killed by one that was strong enough. A savage anger filled Calhoun. Everything fitted together. Alli- son had put his hand convenient to his blaster when Calhoun men- tioned Texia. It meant that Cal- houn suspected what Allison knew to be true. A cattle-fence unit had been set up on Maya, and it was holding — like cattle — the people it had previously driven — like cattle. Calhoun could deduce with some precision exactly what had been done. The first experience of Maya with the cattle fence would have been very mild. It would have been low- power, causing just enough un- easiness to be noticed. It would have moved from west to east, slowly, and it would have reached a certain spot and there faded out. And it would have been a mystery and an uncomfortable thing, and nobody would under- stand it on Maya. In a week it would almost be forgotten. But then there’d come a stronger dis- turbance. And it would travel like the first one; down the length of the peninsula on which the colony lay, but stopping at the same spot as before, and then fading away to nothingness. And this also would have seemed mys- terious. But nobody would sus- pect humans of causing it. There would be theorizing and much questioning, but it would be con- sidered an unfamiliar natural event. Probably the third use of the cattle fence would be most dis- turbing. This time it would be acutely painful. But it would move into the cities and through them and past them, and it would go down the peninsula to where it had stopped and faded on two previous occasions. The p>eople of Maya would be disturbed and scared. But they considered that they knew it be- gan to the westward of Maya City, and moved toward the east 178 GALAXY at such-and-such a speed, and it went so far and no farther. And they would organize themselves to apply this carefully worked out information. It would not occur to any of them that they had learned how to be driven like cattle. ^ALHOUN, of course, could only reason that this must have happened. But nothing else could have taken place. Perhaps there were more than three uses of the moving cattle fence to get the F>eople prepared to move past the known place at which it al- ways faded to nothingness. They might have been days apart, or weeks apart, or months. There might have been stronger mani- festations followed by weaker ones and then stronger ones again. But there was an inductive cat- tle fence across the highway here. Calhoun had driven into it. Every two seconds the muscles of his body tensed. Sometimes his heart missed a beat at the time that his breathing stopped, and some- times it pounded violently. It seemed that the symptoms be- came more and more unbearable. He got out his med kit, with hands that spasmodically jerked uncontrollably. He fumbled out the same medication he’d given Murgatroyd. He took two of the pellets. “In reason,” he said coldly, “I ought to let you take what this damned thing would give you. But — here!” Allison had panicked. The idea of a cattle fence suggested dis- comfort, of course, but it did not imply danger. The experience of a cattle fence, designed for huge hoofed beasts instead of men, was terrifying. Allison gasp>ed. He made convulsive movements. Cal- houn himself moved erratically. For one and a half seconds out of two, he could control his muscles. For half a second at a time, he could not. But he poked a pill into Allison’s mouth. “Swallow it!” he commanded. “Swallow!” The ground-car rested tranquil- ly on the highway, which here went on for a mile and then dipped in a gentle incline and then rose once more. The totally level fields to right and left came to an end here. Native trees grew, trailing prejKisterously with long fronds. Brushwood hid much of the ground. That looked normal. But the lower, ground-covering vegetation was wilted and rotting. Allison choked upon the pellet. Calhoun forced a second upon him. Murgatroyd looked inquis- itively at first one and then the other of the two men. He said: “Chee? Chee?” Calhoun lay back in his seat, breathing carefully to keep alive. But he couldn’t do anything MED SHIP MAN 179
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about his heartbeat. The sun shone brightly, though now it was low, toward the horizon. There were clouds in the reddened sky. A gentle breeze blew. Everything, to outward appearance, was peaceful and tranquil and com- monplace upon this small world. But in the area that human be- ings had taken over there were cities which were still and silent and deserted, and somewhere — somewhere! — the population of the planet waited uneasily for the latest of a series of increas- ingly terrifying phenomena to come to an end. Up to this time the strange, creeping, universal affliction had begun at ode place, and moved slowly to another, and then diminished and ceased to be. But this was the greatest and worst of the torments. And it hadn’t ended. It hadn’t dimin- ished. After three days it con- tinued at full strength at the place where previously it had stopped and died away. The people of Maya were 180 GALAXY L. frightened. They couldn’t return to their homes. They couldn’t go anywhere. They hadn’t prepared for an emergency to last for days. They hadn’t brought supplies of food. It began to look as if they were going to starve. o IV ^ALHOUN was in very bad shape when the sports car came to the end of the highway. First, all the multiple roadways of the route that had brought him here were joined by triple ribbons of road-surface from the north. For a space there were twenty- four lanes available to traffic. They flowed together, and then there were twelve. Here there was evidence of an enormous traffic concentration at some time now past. Brush and small trees were crushed and broken where cars had been forced to travel off the hard-surface roadways and through undergrowth. The twelve lanes dwindled to six, and the un- paved area on either side showed that innumerable cars had been forced to travel off the highway altogether. Then there were three lanes, and then two, and finally only a single ribbon of pavement where no more than two cars could run side by side. The dev- astation on either hand was astounding. All visible vegeta- tion for half a mile to right and left was crushed and tangled. And then the narrow surfaced road ceased to be completely straight. It curved around a hil- lock — and here the ground was no longer perfectly flat — and came to an end. And Calhoun saw all the MED SHIP MAN 181
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ground-cars of the planet gath- ered and parked together. There were no buildings. There were no streets. There was noth- ing of civilization but tens and scores of thousands of ground- cars. They were extraordinary to look at, stopped at random, their fronts pointed in all directions, their air-column tubes thrusting into the ground so that there might be trouble getting them clear again. Parked bumper to bumper in closely placed lines, in theory twenty-five thousand cars could be parked on a square mile of ground. But there were very many times that number of cars here, and some places were un- suitable for parking, and there were lanes placed at random and there’d been no special effort to put the maximum number of cars in the smallest place. So the sur- face transportation system of the planet Maya spread out over some fifty sprawling square miles. Here, cars were crowded closely. There, there was much room be- tween them. But it seemed that as far as one could see in the twi- light there were glistening vehi- cles gathered confusedly, so there was nothing else to be seen but an occasional large tree rising from among them. Calhoun came to the end of the surfaced road. He’d waited for the pellets he’d taken and given to Allison to have the effect they’d had on Murgatroyd. That had come about. He’d driven on. But the strength of the inductor field had increased to the intol- erable. When he stopped the sports car he showed the effects of what he’d been through. Figures on foot converged upon him instantly. There were eager calls. “It’s , stopped? You got through? We can go back?” Calhoun shook his head. It was just past sunset and many brilliant colorings showed in the western sky, but they couldn’t put color into Calhoun’s face. His cheeks were grayish and his eyes were deep)-sunk, and he looked like someone in the last stages of exhaustion. He said heavily: “It’s still there. We came through. I’m Med Service. Have you got a government here? I need to talk to somebody who can give orders.” TF he’d asked two days earlier there would have been no answer, because the fugitives were only waiting for a disaster to come to an end. One day earli- er, he might have found men with authority busily trying to arrange for drinking water for something like two millions of people, in the entire absence of wells or pumps or ways of making either. And if he’d been a day later, it is rather 182 GALAXY likely that he’d have found sav- age disorder. But he arrived at sundown three days after the flight from the cities. There was no food to speak of, and water was drastically short, and the fu- gitives were only beginning to suspect that they would never be able to leave this place — and that they might die here. Men left the growing crowd about the sports car to find indi- viduals who could give orders. Calhoun stayed in the car, resting from the unbearable strain he’d undergone. The ground-inductor cattle fence had been ten miles deep. One mile was not bad. Only Murgatroyd had noticed it. After two miles Calhoun and Allison suffered; but the medication strengthened them to take it. But there’d been a long, long way in the center of the induction-field in which existence was pure tor- ment. Calhoun’s muscles defied him for part of every two-second cycle, and his heart and lungs seemed constantly about to give up even the pretense of working. In that part of the cattle-fence field, he’d hardly dared drive faster than a crawl, in order to keep control of the car when his own body was uncontrollable. But presently the field strength lessened and ultimately ended. Now Murgatroyd looked cor- dially at the figures who clustered about the car. He’d hardly suf- fered at all. He’d had half as much of the medication as Cal- houn himself, and his body weight was only a tenth of Calhoun’s. He’d made out all right. Now he looked expectantly at what be- came a jammed mass of crowd- ing men about the vehicle that had come through the invisible barrier across the highway. They hoped desperately for news to produce hope. But Murgatroyd waited zestfully for somebody to welcome him and offer him cakes and sweets, and undoubtedly presently a cup of coffee. But nobody did. It was a long time before there was a stirring at the edge of the crowd. Night had fully fallen then, and for miles and miles in all directions lights in the ground cars of Maya’s inhabitants glowed brightly. They drew upon broadcast power, naturally, for their motors and their lights. Off to one side someone shouted. Cal- houn turned on his headlights for a guide. More shoutings. A knot of men struggled to get through the crowd. With difficulty, pres- ently, they reached the car. “They say you got through,” panted a tall man, “but you can’t get back. They say — ” Calhoun roused himself. Alli- son, beside him, stirred. The tall man panted again; “I’m the planetary president. What can we do?” MED SHIP MAN 183
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“First, listen,” said Calhoun tiredly. He’d had a little rest. Not much, but some. The actual work he’d done in driving three hun- dred-odd miles from Maya City was trivial. But the continuous, and lately violent, spasms of his heart and breathing muscles had been exhausting. He heard Mur- gatroyd say ingratiatingly, “Chee- chee-chee-chee,” and put his hand on the little animal to quiet him. “The thing you ran away from,” said Calhoun with effort, “is a type of ground-induction field using broadcast power from the grid. It’s used on Texia to confine cattle to their pastures and to move them where they’re wanted to be. But it was designed for cattle. It’s a cattle fence. It could kill humans.” XJE WENT on, his voice gain- ing strength and steadiness as he spoke. He explained, pre- cisely, how a ground-induction field was projected in a line at a right angle to its source. It could be moved by adjustments of the apparatus by which it was pro- jected. “But — but if it uses broad- cast power,” the planetary presi- dent said urgently, “then if the power broadcast is cut off it has to stop! If you got through it coming here, tell us how to get through going back and we’ll cut off the power broadcast ourselves! We’ve got to do something im- mediately. The whole planet’s here. There’s no food! There’s no water! Something has to be done before we begin to die!” “But,” said Calhoun, “if you cut off the power you’ll die anyway! You’ve got a couple of million people here, and you’re a hundred miles from food. Without power you couldn’t get to food or bring it here. Cut the power and you’re still stranded here. Without pow- er you’ll die' as soon as with it.” There was a sound from the listening men around. It was partly a growl and partly a groan. “I’ve just found this out,” said Calhoun. “I didn’t know until the last ten miles exactly what the situation was, and I had to come here to be sure. Now I need some people to help me. It won’t be pleasant. I may have enough medication to get a dozen people back through. It’ll be safer if I take only six. Get a doctor to pick me six men. Good heart action. Sound lungs. Two should be electronics engineers. The others should be good shots. If you get them ready. I’ll give them the same stuff that got us through. It’s desensitizing medication, but it will do only so much. And try and find some weapons for them.” Voices murmured all around. Men hastily explained to other men what Calhoun had said. The 184 GALAXY ! creeping disaster before which they’d all fled, — it was not a natural catastrophe, but an arti- ficial one! Men had made it! They’d been herded here and their wives and children were hungry because of something men had done! A low-pitched, buzzing, hum- ming sound came from the crowd about the sports car. For the mo- ment, nobody asked what could be the motive for men to do what had been done. Pure fury filled the mob. Calhoun leaned closer to Allison. “I wouldn’t get out of the car if I were you,” he said in a low tone. “I certainly wouldn’t try to buy any real property at a low price!” Allison shivered. There was a vast, vast stirring as the explana- tion passed from man to man. Figures moved away in the dark- ness. Lighted car windows winked as they moved through the ob- scurity. The population of Maya was spread out over very many square miles of what had been wilderness, and there was no elaborate communication system by which information could be spread quickly. But long before dawn there’d be nobody who didn’t know that they’d fled from a man-made danger and were held here like cattle, behind a cattle fence, apparently aban- doned to die. ALLISON’S teeth chattered. He was a business man and up to now he’d thought as one. He’d made decisions in offices, with attorneys and secretaries and clerks to make the decisions practical and safe, without any concern for any consequences other than financial ones. He saw possible consequences to himself, here and now. He’d landed on Maya because he con- sidered the matter too important to trust to anybody else. Even riding with Calhoun on the way here, he’d only been elated and astonished at the success of the intended coup. He’d raised his aim. For a while he’d believed that he’d end as the sole proprie- tor of the colony on Maya, with every plant growing for his profit, and every factory earning money for him, and every inhabitant his employee. It had been the most grandiose possible dream. The de- tails and the maneuvers needed to complete it flowed into his mind. But now his teeth chattered. At ten words from Calhoun he Would literally be torn to pieces by the raging men about him. His at- tache case with millions of credits in cash — it would be proof of whatever Calhoun chose to say. Allison knew terror down to the bottom of his soul. But he dared not move from Calhoun’s side, even though a single sentence in MED SHIP MAN 185
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the calmest of voices would de- stroy him, and he’d never faced actual, understood, physical dan- ger before. Presently men came, one by one, to take orders from Calhoun. They were able-bodied and grim- faced men. Two were electronics engineers, as he’d specified. One was a policeman. There were two mechanics and a doctor who was also amateur tennis champion of the planet. Calhoun doled out to them the pellets that reduced the sensitiveness of muscles to exter- nally applied stimuli. He gave in- structions. They’d go as far into the cattle fence as they could reasonably endure. Then they’d swallow the pellets and let them act. Then they’d go on. His stock of pellets was limited. He could give three to each man. Murgatroyd squirmed disap- pointedly as this briefing went on. Obviously, he wasn’t to make a social success here. He was an- noyed, and he needed more space. Calhoun tossed Allison’s attache case behind the seats. Allison was too terrified to protest. It still did not increase the space left on the front seat between Calhoun and Allison. Four humming ground cars lifted eight inches off the ground and hovered there on columns of rushing air. Calhoun took the lead. His headlights moved down the single-lane road to which two 186 joining twelve-lane highways had shrunk. Behind him, other head- lights moved into line. Calhoun’s car moved away into the dark- ness. The others followed. Brilliant stars shone overhead. A cluster of thousands of suns, a hundred light-years away, made a center of illumination that gave Maya’s night the quality of a vivid if diffused moonlight. The cars went on. Presently Calhoun felt the twitchings of minor mus- cular spasms. He was riding into the field which had been first de- vised for purposes remote from the herding of cattle or humans, but applied to the first use on the planet Texia, and now applied to the second here. The road became two, and then four, and then eight lanes wide. Then four lanes swirled off to one side, and the remaining four presently doubled, and then widened again, and it was the twelve-lane turnpike that had brought Calhoun here from Maya City. T>UT the rhythmic interference with his body grew stronger. Allison had spoken not one single word while Calhoun conferred with the people of Maya beyond the highway. His teeth chattered as they started back. He didn’t attempt to speak during the be- ginning of the ride through the cattle-fence field. His teeth chat- GALAXY L tered, and stopped, and chattered again, and at long last he panted despairingly: “Are you going to let the thing kill me?” Calhoun stopped. The cars be- hind him stopped. He gave Alli- son two pellets and took two him- self. With Murgatroyd insistently accompanying him, he went along the cars which trailed him. He made sure the six men he’d asked for took their pellets and that they had an adequate effect. He went back to the sports car. Allison whimpered a little when he and Murgatroyd got back in. “I thought,” said Calhoun con- versationally, “that you might try to take off by yourself, just now. It would solve a problem for me. Of course it wouldn’t solve any for you. But I don’t think your problems have any solution, now.” He started the car up again. It moved forward. The other cars trailed dutifully. They went on through the starlit night. Calhoun noted that the effect of the cattle fence was less than it had been before. The first desensitizing pellets had not wholly lost their effect when he added to it. But he kept his speed low until he was certain the other drivers had endured the anguish of passing through the cattle-fence field. Presently he was confident that the cattle field was past. He sent his car up to eighty miles an hour. The other cars followed faithful- ly. To a hundred. They did not drop behind. The car hummed through the night at top speed — a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles an hour. The three other cars’ headlights faith- fully kept pace with him. Allison, said desperately, “Look! I — don’t understand what’s happened. You talk as if I’d planned all this. I — did have advance notice of a — a research project here. But it shouldn’t have held the people there for days! Something went wrong! I only believed that people would want to leave Maya. I’d only planned to buy as much acreage as I could, and control of as many factories as possible. That’s all! It was business! Only business!” Calhoun did not answer. Alli- son might be telling the truth. Some businessmen would think it only intelligent to frighten people into selling their holdings below true value. Something of the sort happened every day in stock ex- changes. But the people of Maya could have died! For that matter, they still might. They couldn’t return to their homes and food so long as broadcast power kept the cattle- fence in existence. But they could not return to their homes and food supplies if the power broad- cast was cut off, either. MED SHIP MAN 187
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Over all the night surface of the world of Maya there was light only on one highway at one spot, and a multitude of smaller, lesser lights where the j>eople of Maya waited to find out whether they would live or die. V ^ALHOUN considered coldly. ^ They were beyond what had been the farthest small city on the multiple highway. They would go on past now-starlit fields of plants native to Maya, passing many places where trucks loaded with the plants climbed up to the roadway and headed for the factories which made use of them. The fields ran for scores of miles along the highway’s length. They reached out beyond the ho- rizon, — perhaps scores of miles in that direction, too. There were thousands upon thousands of square miles devoted to the grow- ing of the dark-green vegetation which supplied the raw materials for Maya’s space exports. Some hundred-odd miles ahead, the small town of Tenochitlan lay huddled in the light of the distant star-cluster' Beyond that, more highway and Maya City. Beyond that — Calhoun reasoned that the pro- jector to make the induction cat- tle fence would be beyond Maya City, somewhere in the mountains the photograph in the spaceport building showed. A large highway went into those mountains for a limited distance only. A ground-inductor projector field always formed at a right angle to the projector which was its source. It could be adjusted — the process was analogous to focusing — to come into actual being at any distance desired, and the distance could be changed. To drive the p)eople of Maya City eastward, the projector of a cattle fence — about which they would know nothing; it would be totally strange and completely mysteri- ous — the projector of the cattle fence would need to be west of the people to be driven. Logically, it would belong in the mountains. Practically, it would be con- cealed. Drawing on broadcast power to do its work, there would be no large power source needed to give it the six million kilowatts it required. It should be quite easy to hide beyond any quick or easy discovery. Hunting it out might require weeks of searching. But the people beyond the end of the highway couldn’t wait. They had no food, and holes scrabbled down to ground-water by men digging with their bare hands simply would not be ade- quate. The cattle fence had to be cut off immediately — while the broadcast of power had to be con- tinued. 188 GALAXY Calhoun made an abrupt grunt- ing noise. Phrasing the thing that needed to be done was practically a blueprint of how to do it. Sim- ple! He’d need the two electronics engineers, of course. But that would be the trick . . . He drove on at a hundred thrity miles an hour with his lips set wrily. The three other cars came behind him. Murgatroyd watched the way ahead. Mile after mile, half-minute after half- minute, the headlights cast bril- liantly blinding beams before the cars. Murgatroyd grew bored. He said, “Chee!” in a discontented fashion and tried to curl up be- tween Allison and Calhoun. There wasn’t room. He crawled over the seat-back. He moved about, back there. There were rustling sounds. He settled down. Presently there was silence. Undoubtedly he had draped his furry tail across his nose and gone soundly off to sleep. Allison spoke suddenly. He’d had time to think, but he had no practice in various ways of think- ing. “How much money' have you got?” he asked. “Not much,” said Calhoun. “Why?” “I — haven’t done anything il- legal,” said Allison, with an un- convincing air of confidence, “but I could be put to some inconveni- ence if you were to accuse me be- fore others of what you’ve ac- cused me personally. You seem to think that ! planned a criminal act. That the action I know of — the research project I’d heard of — that it became — that it got out of hand is likely. But I am entirely in the clear. I did noth- ing in which I did not have the advice of counsel. I am legally unassailable. My lawyers — ” ii^^HAT’S none of business,” Calhoun told him. “I’m a medical man. I landed here in the middle of what seemed to be a serious public health situation. I went to see what had happ>ened. I’ve found out. I still haven’t the answer, — not the whole answer an3Tway. But the human popula- tion of Maya is in a state of some privation, not to say danger. I hope to end it. But I’ve nothing to do with anybody’s guilt or in- nocence of crime or criminal in- tent or anything else.” Allison swallowed. Then he said with smooth confidence: “But you could cause me in- convenience. I would appreciate it if you would — would — ” “Cover up what you’ve done?” asked Calhoun. . “No! I’ve done nothing wrong. But you could simply use dis- cretion. I landed by parachute to complete some business deals I’d arranged months ago. I will go through with them. I will leave on MED SHIP MAN 189
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the next ship. That’s perfectly open and above board. Strictly business. But you could make a ^ an unpleasing public image of me. Yet I have done nothing any other business man wouldn’t do! I did happen to know of a research project — ” “I think,” said Calhoun without heat, “that you sent men here with a cattle-fence device from Texia to frighten the p>eople on Maya. They wouldn’t know what was going on. They’d be scared; they’d want to get away. So you’d be able to buy up practically all the colony for the equivalent of peanuts. I can’t prove that,” he conceded, “but that’s my opinion. But you want me not to state it. Is that right?” “Exactly!” said Allison. He’d been shaken to the core, but he managed the tone and the air of a dignified man of business dis- cussing an unpleasant subject with fine candor. “I assure you you are mistaken. You agree that you can’t prove your suspicions. If you can’t prove them, you shouldn’t state them. That is sim- ple ethics. You agree to that!” Calhoun looked at him curi- ously. “Are you waiting for me to tell you my price?” “I’m waiting,” said Allison re- provingly, “for you to agree not to cause me embarrassment. I won’t be ungrateful. After all, I’m a person of some influence. I could do a great deal to your benefit. I’d be glad — ” “Are you working around to guess at a price I’ll take?” asked Calhoun with the same air of curiosity. He seemed much more curious than indignant, and much more amused than curious. Allison sweated suddenly. Calhoun didn’t appear to be bribable. But Allison knew desperation. “If you want to put it that way — yes,” he said harshly. “You can name your own figure. I mean it!” “I won’t say a word about you,” said Calhoun. “I won’t need to. The characters who’re op>erating your cattle fence will do all the talking that’s necessary. Things all fit together, — except for one item. They’ve been dropping into place all the while we’ve been driving down this road.” “I said you can name your own figure!” Allison’s voice was shrill. “I mean it! Any figure! Any!” Calhoun shrugged. “What would a Med Ship man do with money? Forget it!” He drove on. The highway turnoff to Tenochitlan appeared. Calhoun went steadily past it. The other connection with the road through the town apjjeared. He left it behind. Allison’s teeth chattered again. The buildings of Maya City be- gan to appear, some twenty min- 190 GALAXY utes later. Calhoun slowed and the other cars closed up. He opened a window and called: “We want to go to the landing- grid first. Somebody lead the way!” A car went past and guided the rest assuredly to a ramp down from the now-elevated road, and through utterly dark streets, of which some were narrow and winding, and came out abruptly where the landing-grid rose sky- ward. At the bottom its massive girders looked huge and Cyclo- pean in the starlight, but the higher courses looked like silver lace against the stars. They went to the control building. Calhoun got out. Murgatroyd hopped out after him, dust clinging to his fur. He shook himself, and a ten-thou- sand-credit interstellar credit cer- tificate fell to the ground. Murga- troyd had made a soft place for sleeping out of the contents of Allison’s attache case. It was as- suredly the most expensive if not the most comfortable sleeping cushion a tormal ever had. Allison sat still as if numbed. He did not even pick up the certificate. “I need you two electronics men,” said Calhoun. Then he said apologetically to the others, “I only figured out something on the way here. I’d believed we might have to take some drastic action. come daybreak. But now I doubt it. I do suggest, though, that you turn off the car headlights and get set to do some shooting if anybody turns up. I don’t know whether they will or not.” He led the way inside. He turned on lights. He went to the place where dials showed the amount of power actually being used of the enormous amount available. Those dials now showed an extremely small power drain, considering that the cities of a planet depended on the grid. But the cities were dark and emp- ty of people. The demand needle wavered back and forth, rhyth- mically. Every two seconds the demand for power went up by six million kilowatts, approxi- mately. The demand lasted for half a second, and stopped. For a second and a half the power in use was reduced by six million kilowatts. During this period only automatic pumps and ventilators and freezing equipment drew on the broadcast power for energy. Then the six-million-kilowatt de- mand came again for half a sec- ond. “The cattle fence,” said Cal- houn, “works for half a second out of every two seconds. It’s in- termittent or it would simply paralyze animals that wandered into it. Or people. Being intermit- tent, it drives them out instead. There’ll be tools and parts for MED SHIP MAN 191
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equipment here, in case some- thing needs repair. I want you to make something new.” The two electronics technicians asked questions. , “We need,” said Calhoun, “an interrupter that will cut off the power broadcast for the half-sec- ond the ground-induction field is suppKJsed to be on. Then it should turn on the broadcast power for the second and a half the cattle fence is supposed to be off. That will stop the cattle-fence effect, and I think a ground car should be able to work with power that’s available for three half-seconds out of four.” The electronics men blinked at him. Then they grinned and set to work. Calhoun went exploring. He found a lunch box in a desk with three very stale sandwiches in it. He offered them around. It appeared that nobody wanted to eat while their families — at the end of the highway — were still hungry. The electronics men called on the two mechanics to help build something. They explained ab- sorbedly to Calhoun that they were making a cutoff which would adjust to any sudden six- million-kilowatt demand, no mat- ter what time interval was in- volved. A change in the tempo of the cattle-fence cycle wouldn’t bring it back on. “That’s fine!” said Calhoun. “I wouldn’t have thought of that!” He bit into a stale sandwich and went outside. Allison sat limply, despairingly, in his seat in the car. “The cattle fence is going off,” said Calhoun without triumph. “The people of the city will prob- ably begin to get here around sunrise.” “I — I did nothing legally wrong!” said Allison, dry- throated. “Nothing! They’d have to prove that I knew what the — consequences of the research proj- ect would be. That couldn’t be proved! It couldn’t! So I’ve done nothing legally wrong . . .” Calhoun went inside, observing that the doctor who was also ten- nis champion, and the policeman who’d come to help him, were keeping keen eyes on the city and the foundations of the grid and all other places from which trouble might come. There was a fine atmosphere of achievement in the power-con- trol room. The power itself did not pass through these instru- ments, but relays here controlled buried massive conductors which supplied the world with power. And one of the relays had been modified. When the cattle-fence projector closed its circuit, the power went off. When the ground- inductor went off, the power went on. There was no longer a barrier across the highways leading to 192 GALAXY the east. It was more than prob- able that ground cars could run on current supplied for one and a half seconds out of every two. They might run jerkily, but they would run. ALF AN HOUR later, the amount of power drawn from the broadcast began to rise smoothly and gradually. It could mean only that cars were begin- ning to move. Forty-five minutes later still, Calhoun heard stirrings outside. He went out. The two men on guard gazed off into the city. Something moved there. It was a ground-car, running slowly and without lights. Calhoun said un- disturbedly: “Whoever was running the cat- tle fence found out their gadget wasn’t working. Their lights flickered, too. They came to see what was the matter at the land- ing-grid. But they’ve seen the lighted windows. Got your blasters handy?” But the unlighted car turned and raced away. Calhoun only shrugged. “They haven’t a prayer,” he said. “We’ll take over their ap- paratus as soon as it’s light. It’ll be too big to destroy, and there’ll be fingerprints and such to iden- tify them as the men who ran it. And they’re not natives. When the police start to look for the strangers who were living where the cattle-fence projector was set up . . . They can go into the jungles where there’s nothing to eat, or they can give themselves up.” He moved toward the door of the control building once more. Allison said desperately: “They’ll have hidden their equipment. You’ll never be able to find it!” Calhoun shook his head in the starlight. “Anything that can fly can spot it in minutes. Even on the ground one can walk almost straight to it. You see, something happened they didn’t count on. That’s why they’ve left it turned on at full power. The earlier, teasing uses of the cattle fence were low-power. Annoying, to start with, and uncomfortable the second time, and maybe some- what painful the third. But the last time it was full power.” He shrugged. He didn’t feel like a long oration. But it was obvious. Something had killed the plants of a certain genus of which small species were weeds that destroyed Earth-type grasses. The ground-cover plants — and the larger ones, like the one Cal- houn had seen decaying in a florist’s shop which had had to be grown in a cage — the ground- cover plants had motile stems and leaves and blossoms. They MED SHIP MAN 193
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were cannibals. They could move their stems to reach, and their leaves to enclose, and their flow- ers to devour other plants, even perhaps small animals. The point, though, was that they had some limited power of motion. Earth- style sensitive vines and flycatch- er plants had primitive muscular tissues. The local ground-cover plants had them too. And the cat- tle-fence field made those tissues contract spasmodically. Powerful- ly. Violently. Repeatedly. Until they died of exhaustion. The full- power cattle-fence field had ex- terminated Mayan ground-cover plants all the way to the end of the east-bound highway. And inevitably — and very conveni- ently — also up to the exact spot where the cattle-fence field had begun to be projected. There would be an arrow-shaped nar- rowing of the wiped-out ground- cover plants where the cattle-field had been projected. It would nar- row to a point which pointed pre- cisely to the cattle-fence project- or. “Your friends,” said Calhoun, “will probably give themselves up and ask for mercy. There’s not much else they can do.” Then he said: “They might even get it. D’you know, there’s an interesting side effect of the cattle fence. It kills the plants that have kept earth- type grasses from growing here. Wheat can be grown here now, whenever and as much as the people please. It should make this a pretty prosperous planet, not having to import all its bread.” ground cars of the inhabit- ants of Maya City did begin to arrive at sunrise. Within an hour after daybreak, very savage- ly intent persons found the pro- jector and turned it off. By noon there was still some anger on the faces of the people of Maya, but there’d been little or no damage, and life took up its normal course again. Murga- troyd appreciated the fact that things went back to normal. For him it was normal to be wel- comed and petted when the Med Ship Esclipus Twenty touched ground. It was normal for him to move zestfully in admiring hu- man society, and to drink coffee with great gusto. And while Murgatroyd moved in human society, enjoying him- self hugely, Calhoun went about his business. Which, of course, was conferences with planetary health officials, politely receiving such information as they thought important, and tactfully telling them about the most recent de- velopments in medical science. What else was a Med Ship man for? — MURRAY LEINSTER 194 GALAXY DON'T CLIP THE COUPON- - if you want to keep your copy of Galaxy intact for permanent possession!* Why mutilate a good thing? But, by the same token ... if you’re devotee enough to want to keep your copies in mint condition, you ought to subscribe. You really ought to. For one thing, you get your copies earlier. For another, you re sure you'll get them! Sometimes newsstands run out -the mail never does. (And you can just put your name and address on a plain sheet of paper and mail it to us, at the address below. We'll know what you mean... provided you enclose your check!) In the past few years Galaxy has published the finest stories by the finest writers in the field — Bester, Heinlein, Pohl, Asimov, Sturgeon, Leiber and nearly everyone else. In the next few years it will go right on, with stories that are just as good ... or better. Don’t miss any issue of Galaxy. You can make sure you won’t. Just subcribe today. *(lf, on the other hand, your habit is to read them once and go on to something new — please — feel free to use the coupon! It's for your convenience, not ours.) GALAXY Publishing Corp., 421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y. (SO' additional , . I per 6 issues Enter my subscription for the New Giant 196-page Galaxy (U. S. Edition only) for: 6 Issues @ $2.50 12 Issues @ $4.50 24 Issues @ $8.50 m
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Sealed, 1- to r.: Bennett Cerf, Faith Baldwin, Bergen Evans, Bruce Cation, Photo by Philippe Halsman Mignon G. Eberhart, John Caples, J. D. RatclifT Standing; Mark Wiseman, Max Shulman, Rudolf Flesch, Red Smith. Rod Serling 12 famous authors start a new kind of writing school If you have writing talent worth developing, here’s an opportunity never before available: Twelve of America’s most famous authors have created a school of professional writing to help you develop your skill, talent and craftsmanship , . , and to pass on to you their secrets of achieving success and recognition. This unique home-training program is su- pervised by Rod Serling, winner of five Em- mys for TV writing; Pulitzer Prize historian Bruce Catton; best-selling novelist Faith Baldwin; humorist Max (Dobie Gillis) Shul- man; publisher-columnist Bennett Cerf; famed sportswriter Red Smith; Rudolf Flesch, top authority on readable writing; noted lan- guage expert Prof. Bergen Evans; famous mystery novelist Mignon G. Eberhart; J. D. Ratcliff, called by Time “America’s No. 1 craftsman in the field of non-fiction"; and top ad men John Caples and Mark Wiseman. These famous authors have developed a remarkable series of textbooks, lessons and writing assignments that present — in a clear and stimulating way — what they have learned in their long, hard climb to the top. The School’s instructors are themselves professional writers. Under the supervision of the 12 Famous Writers, these instructors work with students by mail, just as magazine and book editors work with many established authors. And they spend up to several hours on each assignment completed by a student . . . revising, correcting, and advising. The Famous Writers School is less than three years old. Its first students are not due to graduate until later this year. Yet, many have sold their writings to such varied publi- cations as The Reader’s Digest, Redbook, Popular Science, True Story. To select people with writing talent worth developing, the 12 Famous Writers have de- signed a revealing Talent Test. The coupon will bring you a copy, along with a brochure about the School. Your completed Test will be graded without charge or obligation by one of the School’s instructors. If your Test indicates writing talent, you are then eligible to enroll in the School, You are, however, un- der absolutely no obligation to do so. Famous Writers School Dept. 6307, Westport, Connecticut I am interested in finding out whether I have writ- ing talent worth developing. Please mail me, with- out obligation, the Famous Writers Talent Test. Mr. Mrs Age Miss Street City Zone County State The School is accredited by the Accrediting Com- mission of the National Home Study Council.