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MAY, 1963 Vol. 13, Number 2 fiction

Frederik Pohl, Editor Theodore Sturgeon, Feature Editor Sol Cohen, Publisher David Perton, Production Manager Rose M. Bianchini, Art Director

All New Stories

COMPLETE SHORT NOVEL

THE GREEN WORLD BY HAL CLEMENT .. 7 NOVELETTES DIE, SHADOW! BY ALOIS BUDRYS 61 SINGLEMINDED BY JOHN BRUNNER 81 ANOTHER EARTH BY DAVID EVANS & A L LANDAU 100 TURNING POINT BY PAUL ANDERSON 115 SHORT STORY RUNDOWN BY ROBERT LORY T* * j. ^ r SPECIAL FEATURES THAT THERE OPPOSITION (Editorial) — 4 NONPOt-ITICAL NEW FRONTIERS BY THEODORE STURGEON 97

HUE AND CRY by The Readers mmmmmmmmmmmm•••«•«••• 128

Cover by John Pederson, Jr. from Turning Point

IF published bi-monthly by Digest Productions Corporation, Robert M. Guinn, President, Vol. 13, No. 2, Main Office: 421 Hudson Street, New York 14, New York. 40c per copy. Subscriptions 12 issues $3.60 in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. possessions, elsewhere $4.60. Second-class ostage paid at New York, New York, and at additional mailing offices. Copyright Py Digest Productions Corporation, 1963. All rights including translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All stories are fiction, and any similarity between characters and actual persons is coincidental.

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Printed in the U. S. A. by the Guinn Company, Inc., New York 14, JN. X. IF • Editorial

THAT THERE OPPOSITION

conversation-jockey on a night- entific’ and ‘futuristic’ fantasies con- A time Philadelphia radio show tinues to deluge America. With few said (we can’t quote exactly) that exceptions, these writings are banal

though he used to be a science-fic- and meaningless . . . Having demol- tion reader, he no longer bothers ished, to their own satisfaction, the

with it, because all the things which whole edifice of religious learning, used to excite his imagination have abruptly and unconsciously they ex- become today’s fact. Notice that perience the need for belief in some- “all”. thing not mundane; and so, defying Mr. Russell Kirk, in his good col- their own inductive and mechanistic lection of spooky tales called The premises, they take up the cause of Surly Sullen Bell, includes a disser- Martians and Jovians.” tation on the Gothick tale, in which Time Magazine, which we will “ he «ays (and we quote) : . . . not quote, deposes and says that sf is stories of the supernatural have been suffering from a played-out vein of

supplanted by ‘science fiction’. literary ore, and that it will have to Though the talent of H. G. Wells rest until the average man on the did in that genre nearly everything street becomes a little more familiar worth undertaking, a flood of ‘sci- with science’s more remote and sub-

4 IF j

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

WTe Rosicrucians CAMORO SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.SA*

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tie discoveries, which, Time opines, that sf has and does express all de- are not able to support good story grees of religious devotion, right telling. across the spectrum from Clarke’s

Alfie Bester gives us, in F&SF, an- The Star to Boucher’s Balaam. Can other and apparently final bleat in you accuse Heinlein of atheism? Or his oft-heard, captain-hates-the-sea —well—Sturgeon? Bradbury is one speech; sf doesn’t live up to its re- of the most God-infused human be- sponsibilities and he wants no part ings we have ever met. of it. We become increasingly aware of opposition. These are some, but not all, of the the nature of the To be facets of opposition to sf. To us, the fair, we should say a nature of etc. Philly night-jar was simply saying Have you ever observed the diffi- that he does not read enough sf to culty with which a genuine, intelli- know what he’s talking about; gent, knowledgeable American patri- Time t which never seems to have under- ot discusses and defines American In the articulate por- stood the field, reveals at last that it democracy? tions the radical Right, thinks science fiction is and should of no one be about known science, thereby seems to be able to produce a clear, prin- eliminating all the speculation which simple declaration of aims and of the cler- is really what sf is for, and as for ciples. Devoted members traditionally spend months, and Alfie . . . well, may he find in some gy preferred field the inspiration which months of years, expatiating on the- gave us The Demolished Man, and ological points. a fraction of the awe and honor his The easy definitions come to the unique quality gained him when he opposition. If you want a short was with us. snappy definition of American de- mocracy, ask a Communist. Any left- winger can dispose of all organized r. Kirk, now, voices with some religion with the back of his hand. M passion an opposition to what The entire television industry can be he thinks we believe in; it is diffi- fluffled off by anyone who has nev- cult, after a quarter of a century in er owned a set. the field, to know where he got this In other short sharp words, you conviction. We have never been can define and oppose anything if aware that sf writers, or readers, or you’re ignorant enough, and if you’re indeed scientists, one and all worship ignorant enough, you do, godless materialism. It seems to us THS

6 IP • Complete Short Novel

THE GREEN WORLD

BY HAL CLEMENT

ILLUSTRATED BY GIUNTA *

The planet was an enigma —

and its solution was death!

i The present example was, it must zoo can be a rather de- be admitted, not too good. The ex-

A pressing place, or it can be a hibits were in fairly ordinary cages lot of fun, or it can be so dull as to — barred for the larger creatures, make the mind wander elsewhere in glassed for the smaller ones. No self-defence. In fairness to Emer- particular attempt had been made aude, Robin Lampert had to con- to imitate natural surroundings. The cede that this one was not quite in place looked as artificial as bare the last group. He had been able to concrete and iron could make it. To keep his attention on the exhibits. a person used to the luxuries pro- This was, in a way, surprising; for vided their captive animals by the while a frontier town has a perfect great cities of Earth and her sister right to construct and maintain a planets, the environment might have zoo if it wishes, one can hardly ex- been a gloomy one. pect such a place to do a very good Lampert did not feel that way. job. He had no particular standards of

THE GREEN WORLD 7 what a zoo should be, and he would ert had noticed it already. The num- probably have considered attempts ber was always, it seemed, differ- at reproduction of natural habitat ent, though always in the same a distracting waste of time. He was place, and bore signs of much re- not a biologist, and had only one painting. It bore no relationship to reason for visiting the Emeraude any classification scheme that Lamp- zoo; the guide had insisted upon it. ert knew, and neither of the pale- There was, of course, some jus- ontologists could enlighten him. tice in the demand. A man who was Eventually he turned to McLaugh- taking on the responsibility of caring lin and asked — not expecting a use- for Lampert and his friends in the ful answer, since the man was a jungles of Viridis had a right to re- guide rather than a naturalist. How- quire that his charges know what ever, the tall man gave a 'faint smile they were facing. Lampert wanted and replied without hesitation. to know, himself; so he had read “That’s just the number of human conscientiously every placard on deaths known to have been caused every cage he had been able to find. by that animal this year.” It did not These had not been particularly in- comfort Lampert too greatly to formative, except in one or two learn that the year used was that of cases. Most of the facts had been Viridis, some seventeen times as obvious from a look at the cages* long as that of Earth. For the inhabitants. Even a geophysicist Felodon the number stood at twelve.

could tell that the Felodon , for ex- This was not very much when com- ample, was carnivorous — after one pared to the annual losses from ti- of the creatures had bared a rather gers in India during the nineteenth startling set of fangs by yawning in century. But this reflection was not his face. The placard had told little particularly consoling. The human more. Less, in fact, than McLaugh- population of Viridis was so very lin had already said about the beasts. small compared to that of India.

On the other hand, it had been Lampert examined the creature distinctly informative to read that thoughtfully. It was of moderate a small, salamanderlike thing in one size as carnivores went — some four of the glass-fronted cages was as feet long without the tail — and poisonous as the most dangerous of looked rather harmless as long as it

Terrestrial snakes. There had been kept its mouth shut. It was lying in nothing in its appearance to betray the center of the cage, so it was the fact. It was at this point, in fact, difficult to judge the length of its that Lampert began really to awak- legs. It showed no trace of the tend- en to what he was doing. ency displayed by many captive animals, of lying against a wall or e was aroused all the way in a corner when relaxed; and there H by McLaughlin’s explanation was none of the restless pacing so of a number which appeared on a characteristic of Earth’s big cats good many of the placards. Lamp- under similar circumstances. It sim- 8 IF ” ply lay and stared back at Lampert, bians, without the Capital A, be- so steadily that he never was sure cause they are at home both on whether or not the cold eyes were land and in water. And a dictionary provided with lids. would back me up. I don’t insist “I never liked reptiles back home, that they’re related to those of but I think I like these creatures Earth — any more than a Mayan less.” The voice of Mitsuitei, the pyramid has anything but geometry little archaeologist, cut into Lamp- in common with an Egyptian one.” ert’s reverie. “But I’ve heard—” “Don’t let Hans or Ndomi hear “I’m sure you have, but it’s a you mention them in the same sore subject. I’ll be open-minded if breath with reptiles,” he answered. you like and admit that some Egyp- “Well, I’m not fond of frogs, tian may have been blown across either.” the Atlantic and taught architecture “I’m afraid that wouldn’t make to the Americans, but I don’t regard them much happier. These are not it as proved. What was that remark even amphibians.” of yours — ‘as far as we know’ — “They certainly are. I’ve been in connection with the ancestry of told that they lay eggs in water and the amphibids? That’s being at least have a tadpole stage — as open-minded as I was, I would “I should have said they aren’t say.” Amphibians with a capital A. That is, they don’t belong to the order 4 4Xn a way, yes. I don’t think Amphibia, since they are not genet- A anyone has seriously suggested ically related to the corresponding that these things originated on order on Earth, as far as we know. Earth. However, a puzzle we’re here Sulewayo gets quite peeved at to investigate still exists. How there people who try to lump terrestrial could be life forms corresponding and extraterrestrial creatures in the to those which took a good half same order. I believe that whoever billion years to evolve elsewhere, on decides things for biologists has de- a planet which by geophysical evi- creed thaf on Viridis the dominant dence hasn’t been solid for forty order is to be called Amphibids. It’s million? Someone certainly has sug- a quibble, if you like. But I can see gested that the world was stocked why they insist on it.” from outside. But certainly it hasn’t “Mph. So can I. Even now you been proved. I don’t think anyone sometimes run into people who go has tried very hard, either. And I to great length to make you admit certainly won’t, on a planet with as that there are pyramids both in much radioactivity as this one. Egypt and Mexico — and for that “You think that would account matter on Regulus Six — and infer for high-speed evolution?” from that that their makers had Lampert shrugged his shoulders, something in the way of common and began to stroll toward the next culture. I say these things are amphi- cage. “Ask the paleontologists. My THE GREEN WORLD 9 opinion doesn’t carry much weight.” knew a lot about Viridis, of course.

Mitsuitei nodded, started to fol- He had not only read of it in ordi- low the geophysicist, and then nary reference material, but had turned back to stare once more at done much of the laboratory work the carnivore lying a few feet away. on drill cores brought from the It stared back unblinkingly. planet. His name had been one of The visit to the zoo was one of those attached to the report giving several, which continued until Lamp- the probable age of the planet’s ert, Mitsuitei and the two paleon- crust. At that time, however, the tologists were able to identify each mental picture he held had been of of a dozen animals which were most continent distribution, rock strata, concerned in the death rate of Viri- zones of diastrophic stress and the dis. Apparently McLaughlin was not like. The question of the appearance, the only guide who did this. The or even the existence, of plants, zoo was equipped to give a “final animals and people had simply never examination” in which any creature risen to conscious level in his mind. the guide desired could be seen on That had changed, shortly before a television screen from viewpoints his arrival. The tramp spacer which quite different from those obtained had brought him and his group to in front of the cages. McLaughlin Viridis had had to orbit about the proved hard to satisfy. world in free fall for several hours Lampert did not blame him. He while its obsolete drive elements 10 IF w ;

— loHN 41UNTA ClA “cooled,” and the passengers had really sure of those. For the rest, examine the planet. the planet was a vast, gray-black Lampert, oddly enough, had been circle occulting a portion of the as much impressed by the night side Milky Way. It was not absolutely as by the sunlit hemisphere. The black, either. Its contrast with the latter had shown, ,at twenty thou- background of the galaxy was di- sand kilometers, a fairly standard minished by the glow in the upper land and water pattern. The most atmosphere arising from the re- unusual thing about it had been the combination of water molecules dis- almost perfect uniformity of the sociated during the day by Beta land coloration, a light green which Librae’s fierce ultraviolet light. The bespoke, or at least implied, a vir- center of the circle was darker than tually complete covering of vegeta- the edges, where the line of sight tion. penetrated through more of the By the time the ship had circled luminous gas. to the dark side, however, it was But even this sight, unusual as it much closer to the surface; and was, did not affect Lampert as much Lampert would have expected to as the lack of city lights. He had make out luminous sparks and done field work in lonely, wild patches of towns and cities by the places before, of course; but until hundreds. now he had always had the feeling He saw just two, and was not of being in an island of wilderness THE GREEN WORLD more or less surrounded by civiliza- sometimes be a little too good. Mit- tion. On Viridis it was the civilized suitei, the archaeologist, had once spots which formed the islands. And or twice appeared to resent some of very small islands they were. There the young fellow’s remarks, though was no known native intelligent not to an extent where Lampert had race, and settlements of alien felt the need for introducing his races such as the men from Earth own personality into the matter. were still few and far between. Krendall, nearly twice Sulewayo’s So Lampert was prepared for age, seemed to be a check on the McLaughlin’s care in readying the younger man anyway; he was a group for its trip. He was even glad member of the same profession, and of it, though he would probably not Sulewayo would have been the first have admitted to being at all afraid to admit his respect fdr Krendall’s of the venture. He would simply work in the field. Under the cir- have said that it was nice to have a cumstances, Lampert felt that the guide who took his responsibilities group was well matched. seriously. Whether it would be able to do

the job it had undertaken was an- hat of course, did not mean other matter. The news reports had T that Lampert was intending spoken glibly of the expedition to disavow any of his own responsi- which was going to “solve the mys- bilities. He, like McLaughlin, had teries of Viridis once and for all.” been keeping a careful eye on the Lampert, like any other scientist, other members of the group, looking knew perfectly well that the solu- for the signs of impatience or ill tion of the present crop of mysteries temper which could be the seeds of about the planet would almost cer- serious trouble if the journey were tainly be achieved only at the cost prolonged. He had come to tenta- of creating an even greater number tive conclusions about this during of new ones. Even the guide, who the flight from Earth, but was was admittedly no scientist, had ex- pleased to see that, apparently, men pressed a similar opinion, though who could stand the enforced com- his was based on a general pessimism panionship of a tramp spacer were bred of familiarity with the planet. also able to retain their senses of However, he had undertaken to get humor in the steam-bath environ- them to the sort of country they ment of Viridis. wanted; and from then on the prob- Sulewayo, of course, had seemed lem solving was not his affair. safe from the first. A man who has The scientists, whatever may have spent his formative years in the been their feeling about matters of Congo rain forests where his ances- personal safety, were eager to start, tors had lived for generations was which tended to cause rapid pro- ideal for this world. His sense of gress in McLaughlin’s animal rec- humor was extremely durable. ognition school. Another factor

Lampert suspected that it might tending toward the same result was 12 IF that there was little in Emeraude he jaws of the Felodon ab- for such men to do, except learn. T ruptly stopped moving and its The town was still small. It had a forelegs straightened, bringing the spaceport and airport, which fur- fanged head up and away from the nished little entertainment, docks kill it had just made. which could amuse for a while but If a man had been there he would not indefinitely, and warehouses neither have seen nor heard the which were completely uninteresting disturbing factor, for a Thunder- to geologists, paleontologists and storm a few miles to the west was archaeologists. There was no mu- emitting an almost fcontinous growl seum. The numerous specimens of and the towering trees shut out mineral, animal, and vegetable mat- nearly all the sky. Nevertheless the ter collected on the planet invari- beast appeared to sense something ably wound up on outbound space- out of the ordinary. It twisted its craft. The zoo, which the town short but supple neck ceaselessly, maintained for purely practical rea- rocking its head from side to side sons, was about the only thing that to bring first one eye and tympanic was left. membrane to bear on the jungle

In consequence, not many days roof, then the other. Sometimes it passed before all four scientists froze motionless for a long moment, were able to meet McLaughlin’s re- and a watcher would have sworn quirements. Sulewayo was annoyed that its minute brain was struggling by the guide’s addition of a short with a thought. If this were the case, postgraduate course in edible flora the thought must have been both and fauna, but admitted that the unusual and unpleasant, for under knowledge might well be useful. normal circumstances nothing short However, he made no secret of his of overwhelming force would have satisfaction when McLaughlin fi- driven a Felodon from its meal. nally announced that, as far as he Now, however, the hind legs slowly was concerned, the journey could straightened and the creature came begin at any time. erect. For another moment it stood All four rechecked their equip- motionless, took a step or two away ment — that of Lampert was by far from the body, and stopped again. the bulkiest — and, everyone satis- Abruptly, as though in defiance fied with the group’s ability both to of some impulse, it turned back, live and to work in the steam bath lowered the murderously armed that was the world of Viridis, they head and tore a huge mouthful of watched the harbor on which Emer- flesh from the carcass. Then, like aude was located shrink and blend a child leaving the cookie jar as its into the rest of the shoreline behind mother approaches, it leaped away them. Within a few minutes only into the underbrush, still swallowing. the restless surface of Green Bay Its speed was high and it did not was visible through the ever-present have far to go. The jungle thinned haze. • • in a few hundred meters to the THE GREEN WORLD 13 point where some sky became visi- tic produced no sign of fear when ble, and a short distance further the it finally came. This occurred short- riotous plant growth vanished com- ly after the flying thing passed, while pletely to give place to an open it was still quite close. It moved out beach. Here the creature stopped of the shadow of the great cloud and repeated its search of the hemis- and, as the greenish sunlight struck phere overhead. it, the eyes of the watching crea-

This time it found what it sought. ture were dazzled by a gleam of Along the line of the beach, per- metal. haps a kilometer out to sea, the This was certainly something it thing came flying. It must have been had never seen, for native metal on utterly different from anything the Viridis is just about as common as Felodon could ever have seen, but it was on Earth before men began no sign of fear appeared in the to pry it out of its ores. Viridis has beast’s demeanor. It stood on the an oxygen-rich atmosphere and plen- beach, well away from the shelter ty of moisture, and pure aluminum of the jungle and certainly in full or chromium just doesn’t occur in view from above, its head following that environment. the flying object and a fearful snarl Strange or not, however, the — which might or might not have gleam did not appear to affect the been its normal expression of hun- Felodon’s rudimentary sense of fear. ger — giving its face an almost For just an instant it paused as the mammalian cast. flying thing hummed on into the

This thing was larger by far than northeast; just once it looked back any flying creature the Felodon toward the point in the jungle where knew — incomparably larger than it had left its kill — a point from the Felodon itself. Its details were which eloquent sounds were now hard to make out through the hazy coming, betraying the presence of air, and would have meant little to carrion-eaters; just one step it took the flesh-eater in any case. The most in that direction. Then it turned noticeable characteristic was the away as abruptly as it had from the steady, whistling hum that proceeded meal a few minutes before. With from it. There was a suggestion of the same purposeful air it had dis- motion, too, which might have been played on the way out of the jungle wings or might not. Actually, the it headed down the beach in the thing was* little more than a dark direction taken by the flying piece dot against the purplish-blue sky. At of metal. the -moment no sunlight was striking Though the animal’s speed was it directly, for it was in the shadow high, the humming soon faded out of the thunderhead. Perhaps this ahead of it. prevented the animal below from However, this did not seem to being bothered by another unusual cause any inconvenience; the Felo- feature it possessed, though even the don moved on, with a gait that might appearance of this last characteris- have been called a fast walk or a 14 IF slow run, never hesitating, never been able to survive for more than pausing. It remained silent. Smaller a day in the jungles of Viridis. After creatures which might have given all, why should they have learned

it a wide berth had they heard the such an art? There were other things hunting call now sprang away al- worth learning, and one could al- most from underfoot. It paid them ways hire McLaughlin if a need to no heed, but continued on its way visit the jungles developed. Since while the green sun settled into the this particular party had done just jungle behind and to its left. The that, they were evidently a fairly fact that its recent kill was now practical crew. little more than a skeleton did not They were not talking very much,

seem to bother it. Perhaps it had which from the guide’s viewpoint forgotten. was an additional point in their fa- vor. They already knew what they II planned to do, and saw no point in repeating what had already been he humming was a little more said. Of course, if they should fail T noticeable in the helicopter to find the area they were seeking, cabin, but not much. John Mc- there would be talk — all of it Laughlin, sprawled as comfortably aimed at McLaughlin; but he had as his two meters of height no fear on that score. There were would permit in its confines, had few enough mountains on Viridis, noticed the sound only at first; and and of those few by far the greater after remarking to himself that they number were volcanic cinder cones. seemed to be building better ion When these scientists had specified turbines since he had left Earth, had a region of tilted-block or folded permitted his thoughts to wander in mountains, the guide had been more other directions. These did not con- than dubious at first. It had taken cern Felodons; the interest there was him time to recall that there was a not, at the moment, mutual. The small area meeting these specifica- rather crowded cabin offered ma- tions less than fifteen hundred miles terial enough for consideration. from the spaceport at Emeraude. McLaughlin was not a scientist He was not himself a geologist, but by training, but neither was he the pictures and diagrams had been used sort of guide that might have been freely in explaining to him just what found in Yukon or Amazon terri- was wanted, and he was quite cer- tory a few centuries back. He did tain that the party would be satisfied not despise people merely because with what he had to offer. they were, by his standards, green- A slight rocking in the hitherto horns. He knew that each of the steady motion of the helicopter other men now sharing this cabin roused him from this line of reverie. with him was an expert in his own They were already several hours field, even though none of them, in from Emeraude, and McLaughlin spite of his training, would have realized that he should have been THE GREEN WORLD 15 paying more attention to the course. o one else saw the beast, He straightened up in his seat and N either. The change in course looked out. had roused most of the party from To the left and ahead was a huge whatever lines of thought they had thunderhead, whose satellite air cur- been pursuing, as it had McLaugh- rents had probably caused the varia- lin, and most of them were looking tion on the helicopter’s flight path. out the windows; but they were in- More important, there was land in terested in what lay ahead, not be- sight. McLaughlin knew that the low. Sometime soon the relative long flight across Green Bay was monotony of jungle and swamp over. He waited, however, before should be relieved by rising ground, saying anything. He had given the indicating the nearness of the moun- pilot full instructions as to the route tains they sought; and the helicop- before take-off, and he wanted to ter’s flight altitude of some two see whether those had been clear thousand feet was low enough to enough. permit any significant rise of terrain Apparently they had. Without to be visible. Sulewayo, the younger asking questions or even looking paleontologist, made a remark to back at the guide, Lampert swung that effect, which passed without comment. Real conversation did not the aircraft from its northerly head- ing onto one which paralleled the start for some minutes. shoreline, a turn of about forty-five “As I understand it, we have degrees to the right, and the heli- one more course change before we copter resumed its steady flight. see the mountains. Isn’t there a McLaughlin did not relax. From river we have to follow for a time, String?” asked the question now on the route was a little more Lampert difficult to follow, and there were without looking back. not too many more hours of day- “That’s right,” McLaughlin re- light. The shadowless night glow plied. “It runs into Green Bay from which made vision relatively easy almost straight north, and about a after sunset did not lend itself to hundred miles inland makes a turn aerial navigation over a very poorly to the east. That’s general direction. mapped world. He kept his eyes on It winds a lot.” the shoreline, watching for the land- “It would, in country as nearly marks he h^d not seen for many peneplaned as this,” muttered Lamp- months — and then not from above. ert under his breath. He did not see the Felodon which “The mountains you want start became so intensely interested in about sixty airline miles from the the helicopter. If he had, he would big bend. If you trust your gyro have attached little importance to compass enough, you can head for the creature’s presence, and he could them directly from the river mouth. not possibly have seen its actions in If you have any doubt about being sufficient detail to catch any pecu- able to hold a line, though, follow liarities in them. the river. I doubt that there are any 16 IP good landmarks otherwise. Of “Actually, I was hoping that these course, I’ve only seen the area from hills didn’t turn out to be so covered the surface and close to the river, with soil that any fossils would be but I’d be very surprised if there yards underground at the best. Do was anything around but the swamp- you recall any places where the rock and-jungle mess we’re over now.” strata themselves were exposed —

“So would I. We’ll stay in sight of steep cliffs, or deep stream gullies, the river, but edge as far east as perhaps?” visibility lets us.” The guide ap- “Definitely yes. The big river cuts proved this plan with a nod, and the right across the range, or else starts conversation lapsed for several min- in it. It comes out from a canyon utes. The silence was finally broken like that of the Colorado on Earth, once more by Sulewayo. though a lot less spectacular. Ac- “I hope these hills we’re looking tually I don’t know anything about for have something of interest. This the country more than a couple of

planet is the most monotonous I’ve miles up that canyon. I was stopped

seen yet. Where it isn’t jungle it’s on the river by rapids, and couldn’t swamp; and the only difference be- get my amphib out on either side.

tween the two is that the jungle For the most part there simply grows higher trees.” McLaughlin’s wasn’t any shore, just cliff.” face crinkled into something like a “Quite a current, I suppose?” smile, and he sat up once more. Lampert cut in. “There’s one other difference,” he “Actually, not very much. I went remarked. swimming in worse, on Earth.” “What’s that?” “In the jungle, dressed and 4 Cnphat hardly ties in with equipped as you now are, you might A steep cliffs and a river cutting live as long as a day. In the swamp, through a mountain range.” five minutes would be an optimistic McLaughlin shrugged. “You’re the estimate.” Sulewayo looked down at geologist. Look it over for yourself.

the shorts and boots which consti- Maybe you’ll just have to add it to tuted his costume, and shrugged. the list of things you don’t under- “I admit the point, but I don’t stand about Viridis.” expect to go out this way. What I “Fair enough.” The pilot-com- actually wear and carry, beside my mander-geophysicist nodded. “I did professional equipment, is up to you. not mean to imply that you were Also, I was referring to appearances. not reporting accurately; but the Beta Lyrae Nine looked almost as situation you have described would dull as this world from above, and be a trifle queer on more planets I’ll bet it was as least as deadly when than Earth, I assure you. Still, with you reached the surface.” McLaugh- luck your cliffs will show fossils. lin had never visited New Sheol, Maybe we’ll solve one problem in

and admitted it, but it took more exchange for another. Life could be than that to stop Sulewayo. worse.” THE GREEN WORLD 17 “Just hope we don’t solve the first dead. Dr. Lampert can figure out one by proving that certain geophys- how old the fossils are if we find icists have been talking through their any, and Take can look for stone hats,” the hitherto silent Krendall axes.” remarked. “Or automobiles, or pieces of “Eh?” space-drive tubes, or other artifacts,” “What would you do if we found Mitsuitei answered the implied dig. a chunk of, say, pegmatite with “I plan to sit back and loaf, unless radioactive inclusions that checked and until one of you lads turns up a out at half a billion years instead of skull that could have held more than the thirty-odd million you lads have half an ounce of brain. I am going been giving us as a time scale for to be very unscientific. I believe this mudball?” that there is nothing on this planet “I should check very carefully for an archeologist to do, and I under what circumstances and in am not going to work myself into a what location you found it. If nec- lather to prove myself wrong.” essary, I would admit that the prob- “You’ve formed an opinion rather lem had disappeared. Half a billion early in the game,” Lampert re- years would account reasonably well marked. “After all, remarkably little for the evolutionary status of this of this world has been explored. planet’s life forms, though actually Why should there not be traces of it took Earth a good deal longer to occupation in unknown areas such reach a corresponding condition. as we are about to visit?” Frankly, however, I do not expect “Because, while most of the planet any such find. We spotted our bor- remains unexplored, a very large ings rather carefully, and should number of places which should have have taken pretty representative furnished traces of habitation have samples.” failed to do so. We’ve surveyed “I’m sure you did. If your results many spots which were, or are, ideal are right, it just means that the for cities based on ocean commerce, problem belongs to Hans and me or market centers for what could be — and String here had better find farm areas, or spaceports. After a us a lot of fossils.” while you get to a point where such_ “You’ll have to find your own finds can be predicted with some bones,” McLaughlin replied. “I’m certainty. As I said, I am far from taking you to the sort of ground certain, and it would be most un- you want. A fossil would have to reasonable to say I was; but in the show its teeth in my face before I’d area we are seeking, I see no reason recognize it — and then I’d prob- to expect anything of interest to my ably shoot before I realized it was profession.” dead.” “All right,” Sulewayo chuckled. ampert shrugged and brought “You take care of the quick, and L his full attention back to Krendall and I will worry about the the controls. The sun was slowly 16 IF sinking, bringing into bolder relief coming in from the sides is so shal- the irregularities of the ground as low that you’d never make progress their shadows lengthened. However, with anything else. I’ve tried most these irregularities were still few, of them in my own croc. Every and the jungle roof was for the time I’ve had to crawl rather than most part evenly illuminated. As float before I was a mile from the McLaughlin had expected, there was river. nothing that could be used as a “How is the ground? Swamp?” landmark. In its own way, the forest “No, it’s fairly solid for the most was as featureless as the ocean. The part. It doesn’t show very well yet pilot kept his gaze riveted ahead, in even with the sun as low as it is, expectation of the river which the but the general ground level is push- guide had told them to expect; and ing up slowly all along here. We’ll presently he saw it. Reflecting the be in sight of your mountains before color of the faintly purplish sky, it too long.” stood out fairly well against the This declaration brought all mem- gray-green of the jungle, once they bers of the group to the windows, were close enough to penetrate the all five pairs of eyes covering the ever-present haze. quadrant of vision below and ahead. With McLaughlin nodding silent The meandering river was now on approval, Lampert swung the heli- their left, but just visible through copter to the left and proceeded the haze ahead of them was the more nearly straight north, angling eastward turn McLaughlin had pre- gradually toward the river. Now dicted. Lampert headed a little the jungle took on a little more fea- more to the right in an attempt to ture, though still nothing that could cut the final corner, but the heli- be used for guidance. At fairly fre- copter reached the winding purplish quent intervals a glint of water be- band before their goal came in sight came visible through the trees di- in spite of this effort. The flyer rectly below them. Evidently num- hummed on. erous tributaries were feeding into The bars of sunlight admitted by the larger stream; but none of these the side ports had been nearly hori- could be seen from any distance. zontal when the turn to the east cut For the most part they were so them off. They were only slightly narrow that the trees growing on more so when McLaughlin gave a each side met above them. satisfied grunt, and nodded forward. “I should think that one could The others followed his gaze. cover a great deal of that territory in a boat,” remarked Mitsuitei, after traight ahead, little could be nearly half an hour in the new di- S seen because of the “bright rection. spot” familiar to every flyer — the “ You’d need an amphib,” replied shadowless area directly opposite the guide. “A boat is all right for the sun, centered on the aircraft’s the main stream, but all that stuff own shadow. To either side, how- THE GREEN WORLD 19 ” ever, the promised hills rose out of chances of a hill equally good on the jungle to heights exceeding the either side of the river?” present flight altitude of the heli- “Maybe a little better to the north. copter. Presumably the canyon from The ground looked higher that way which the river was supposed to when I came out of the canyon.” emerge lay in their path. So, at any Lampert obediently eased the flyer’s rate, Lampert remarked; and Mc- course a trifle to the left, and every- Laughlin confirmed him. one aboard watched the ground as “I’d cruise pretty slowly from here it began to rise toward them. on,” the guide added. “There are a At first the “hills” were merely number of hills on this side of the low mounds, as jungle-covered as range. Even if you’re not worried the level ground; but very quickly about running into one of them, these gave way to higher, steeper you may want to examine them for rises on whose tops the larger trees exposed rocks.” grew very sparsely. One of these “Mightn’t it be better to find a was quickly selected after a brief, spot to park before the sun goes questioning glance from Lampert to down?” countered the pilot. the guide, and the helicopter began

“It might. What I said still holds, to descend. though. You haven’t much chance “We’d better take what we have finding one inside the canyon with- now. ’’.McLaughlin amplified the nod out quite a long search, and it will with which he had answered the be best to stay this side of the range pilot. “This belt of hills is pretty until sunrise. Remember my trouble narrow, and we’d be into the main in finding a beach for the amphib range in another minute or two.” while I was inside.” “Do you know whether the other “All right. Can we land in jungle, side is as abrupt, or whether — though?” Lam pert’s question was cut short “Not unless you want to fold the by an exclamation from Mitsuitei. blades in flight and drop the last “Rob! Hold it a moment!” twenty to fifty feet. Hunt for a Lampert was a good pilot; the fairly high hill. They’re usually some- increase in rotor-blade pitch under what bare on top, and you’ll at his deft fingers brought the heli- least have room for the rotors to copter’s descent to as nearly an in- swing. If you don’t like that, or can’t stant halt as was possible to any- find a suitsfble hilltop, land on the thing airborne. Not until he had also river and tie up to the shore — but checked horizontal drift did he look again, don’t try that in the canyon. in the direction the archaeologist You’re unlikely to find anything to was indicating. By then, everyone tie up to.” else had seen what had attracted “This machine has good lights, I Mitsuitei’s attention. suppose you realize — but then, you Between the hill on which Lamp- know the planet. As far as I’m con- ert had intended to land and the cerned, what you say goes. Are the river were several lower eminences. 20 IF THE GREEN WORLD ”

These were now almost directly voiced. They simply looked — ex- south of the helicopter, and every cept for Sulewayo, who moved to detail upon them was shown in ex- turned a camera on the scene. aggerated relief by shadows stretch- “Rob! Can we land there? Now?” ing to the east. It was one of these Lampert had anticipated this ques- hills which Mitsuitei was examining tion, but could have answered it with the utmost care. without hesitation in any case. It was covered with jungle, like ‘‘Sure — if you don’t mind using the rest; but a curious regularity String’s method of folding the blades was visible. The trees appeared, at and falling in.” The archaeologist this distance, to be of the usual turned to the guide. species; but some of them towered “Will it be hard to gel there on over their fellows by a good thirty foot from this hill we’re heading or forty feet. for?” McLaughlin shrugged. This in itself was not odd. The “From two hours to a day, de- whole jungle was studded with such pending on undergrowth.” projections. However, on this hill “We have torches. We can burn the taller trees seemed to have been our way if the vegetation is dense.” planted in orderly rows. Five solid “Half a day, then. You’ll still have lines of them were visible, extend- to let the steam clear pretty often. ing roughly north and south so There’s little wind below the trees, that their long shadows made them and the air is saturated.” stand out sharply. They were sepa- “Well, that place will be worth rated from each other by perhaps a more than a day of anyone’s time. quarter of a mile. Running at right Maybe tomorrow we can — angles to them were other, less out- “Hold up a moment, Take!” standing rows of vegetation. Lamp- Lampert cut in, before Mitsuitei ert was not quite sure that these could develop his plan further. “If were not the product of his own you take String out to that hill be- imagination, since the trees which fore take-off tomorrow, what do formed them rose little if any above the rest of us do for the day — or the general level. The whole hilltop, week — before you get back? What however, suggested something to we’d better do is note this placepgt? every man who saw it. The archae- on to the canyon, set up camp, get ologist was .the first to give voice the fossil hunting going, and after to the impression. our routine is set up and we know “That was a city!” the more common dangers of the neighborhood, perhaps we can spare o one answered. Some of the McLaughlin for a day or two so N scientists must have thought that you can look over your city — that he was jumping from one if that’s what it is.” opinion to its direct opposite on Lam pert’s last few words ban- the strength of some rather feeble ished the hurt expression from the evidence; but the thought went un- little man’s face. 22 IF ”

“What do you mean — if? What became. The nights could be dan- else could make a pattern like that? gerous. There was quite enough light It must have been streets.” to deceive a man into thinking he “Or a joint system in the rock could see clearly, and an inexperi- below, trapping enough water — or enced wanderer might not realize draining enough off — to permit until too late that details were not superior growth along the joint really distinct and that there was no lines. Or a system of tilted strata clue to direction in the shadowless doing the same thing — glow. McLaughlin himself could use

“If it’s the latter, it’s just the sort the moons, but he doubted that any of thing you want, too. It should other member of the party could bring fossils near the surface.” do so. They — or their motions — The pilot nodded slowly. “You do took knowing. make it sound more attractive. He was pleased to note that there Still, I think we’d better follow the was no general rush to the door as original plan, except that I may the great blades whistled gently to come with you myself when we do a stop. The scientists turned to him, get around to looking that hill over.” but remained where they were. No He turned back to the controls and words were spoken, but Lampert’s resumed their descent. Mitsuitei sub- relinquishment of command was evi- sided once more to his seat. The dent. McLaughlin unfolded his archaeologist realized the wisdom of length from the seat. Lampert’s decision, but did not par- “There are two choices,” he said. ticularly enjoy the enforced wait. “We can sleep in the ’copter, or out- His face showed the fact, until Sule- side. The first will be a trifle wayo opened the camera he had cramped, but the second will require been using and passed him the sheaf either a double circle of charged of prints on which the “city” ap- wire or two armed guards on con- peared. As the young paleontologist stant watch. With no offense meant, had expected, these so occupied the I doubt that anyone but myself in little man’s attention that he did not this group could qualify as a night even notice the landing. guard.” “Why a double circle of wire?” he helicopter settled to the asked Lampert. T hilltop which Lampert had “The wire will stop only an animal chosen, in the center of a quad- in control of its motion when it rangle of trees growing just far makes contact. If a Felodon were enough apart to give clearance to to spring from a little distance, it the rotors. might not like the wire — but it

The sun was nearly gone. It had could hardly stop until it reached vanished in the haze as they dropped the ground, and there should then below flight altitude. McLaughlin be a similar barrier ahead of it.” knew that in all too short a time “We could use a lethal voltage.” it would be as dark as Viridis ever “Even if you want to take the THE GREEN WORLD 23 . ” risk — what is lethal to a Felodon m will be equally so to a man — you’ll have the insulation problem. There’s he men were awake well be- always a darned good chance of T fore sunrise. The human body rain before morning, and — takes a long, long time to accustom “We might as well stay inside, its physiological cycle to a change then. We have the electric equip- in something as fundamental as the ment, but it will take quite a while length of day. But they did not at- to set it up; and it hardly seems tempt to resume flight until the worth the trouble for a one-night green star was once more in the stand. As you say, it will be a little sky. Mitsuitei put forth a tentative crowded here. But we’ve all slept suggestion that the interval be spent under worse conditions. Would any- in a visit to the “city” site he had one rather set up the fence?” seen the night before, but McLaugh-

There was no answer to this ques- lin vetoed it. tion. At Lampert’s direction a meal “Going on foot through the jungle was served and eaten. Then the at night is a fool’s game, though I scientists settled down for the night, admit people sometimes get away some to sleep at once, others to re- with it. I could get you there, but view plans or recheck equipment. even if we turned around and came Mitsuitei occupied himself with back immediately there’d be a lot of making careful measurements of the time wasted. Dr. Lampert went over photographs he had been given; he all that last night. Look, that hill of

was the last asleep. . yours is right by the river. After Scores of miles to the southwest, we’re set up in the main camp, it the Felodon reached the river. It will be relatively easy to drop down

was no longer on the coast; some to it. We have collapsible boats. time since it had swerved inland. A Unless we camp above the rapids, casual compass check would have you won’t even have to fly. Even if

revealed that it was still heading we’re farther upstream and do have straight for the now grounded heli- to use the ’copter, the trip will take copter. Even McLaughlin could not only a few minutes.” have told what led the creature on, Mitsuitei had agreed, though with familiar as he was with the animals evident reluctance. No one else had of Viridis; but no one who had any desire to go out; there was not watched the -thing since the flying enough rock exposed on the hilltop machine had passed could have to excite the paleontologists, the hill doubted its goal. Actually, it was itself presented nothing unusual to now on the same bank of the river Lampert’s geophysical eye, and Mc- as the helicopter; but whatever Laughlin was in no hurry to get to

guided it pointed across the great work. They waited, therefore, until stream. the “Claw” — Lampert had recalled Without hesitating, the amphibid Beta Librae’s Arabic name — had plunged into the water. risen and the skyglow been replaced 24 IF by its emerald brilliance; then the forces left in its crust, in spite of its journey was resumed. generally smooth nature. Apparent- It took, as McLaughlin had said ly this just represents the end of a the night before, only a few minutes. long period of rest, such as the The' hill where they had slept was earth has had several times. As a less than five miles from the face of matter of fact, I have no business the mountain range. Only the haze calling it the end of such a period; of the night before had prevented it might be fifty million years before their seeing it. The river emerged the world will be generally moun- from a canyon some fifteen hundred tainous again.”

feet in depth, a couple of miles to “Why do you say again , Rob?” the south of their eastward course asked Krendall. “According to find- line. ings of your own colleagues, this Lampert, in hopes that the planet has hardly been solid for usual haze might not be too evident forty million years. Could it be this at this hour, climbed above the level flat now if it had ever been marked- of the cliff top to get an idea of the ly mountainous in that time?” mountain range as a whole; but he “Good point. I don’t know, but was disappointed. For nearly an would be inclined to doubt it. Well, hour he cruised over the area, now we’ll cancel the ‘again’ if it will several thousand feet above the make you happy. In any case the western cliffs and then well below block forming this range came up them. It slowly became evident that slowly enough so that even this river, the range represented a single block, with its relatively low cutting power, which had been tilted upward on was able to keep pace with it and the west side. The opposite slopes not be deflected. Probably—” he were very gentle, merging so gradu- glanced at Mitsuitei — “the rock of ally into the general peneplain level which it is made will turn out to be of the continent that it was impos- quite strongly jointed. It looks rather sible to say decisively just where the that way from above — the river range ended. The river did originate course, I mean. A lot of right angle, somewhere beyond the range, cut- or what were once right angle, ting entirely through it, and as the bends.” guide had said, its current was not “We’d better go down and look particularly swift. Lampert had for a camp along the river some- much explaining to do. After all, where,” put in Mitsuitei. “Let’s start water should have drained toward at the cliff end. Then we may wind the low side of the block. up reasonably close to that hill — “It seems evident,” he summed up and I still want to look it over, his ideas as they hovered once more joints or no joints.” over the western cliffs, “that the “Fair enough.” Lampert eased the river was here before this particular helicopter once more downward un- bit of block tilting occurred. This til they were only a few hundred planet does have some diastrophic feet above the jungle, moved along THE GREEN WORLD 25 the cliff face until they reached the conditioning unit installed; sleeping canyon, and, very cautiously, en- and cooking gear were placed in- tered. His caution proved unneces- side. That completed, geologist’s sary. The air currents in no way hammers appeared as though by resembled the treacherous hodge- magic; and McLaughlin realized podge he had expected, at least not that he had better do some explain- over the center of the river. A ing before he lost a scientist or two. steady wind was blowing into the Once more he called them together. canyon mouth, but did not seem to “All right, gentlemen. I admit the be eddying very much even at the necessary camp work has been done, numerous bends. and there should be nothing to keep you from your projects. Still, there o the archeologist’s annoy- are some things you Had better T ance, two sets of rapids were understand. passed before a place was reached “Having canyon walls on all sides where the bank was wide enough for does not make this place safe. Every a camp site. At this point a fairly carnivore and poison lizard on this large side canyon entered the main planet could get to us by way of the one from the north. Where its cen- river — even the ones which look tral stream joined the main river a like land animals. Every one of them gravelly area several acres in extent could swim under water from a offered itself for the purposes of point out of sight in either direction the scientists. Lampert brought the to where you are standing; and if helicopter down on this surface. you think he would have to come The surroundings looked promising; up at least once to judge your posi- the clifls facing both canyons looked tion, guess again. I don’t know how reasonably accessible on foot for they do it, and neither does anyone some distance, at least along their else; but a Felodon could submerge bases. Climbing appeared to be im- around the bend up there, come up practicable for the most part, as behind the helicopter out of sight the rock walls rose sheer except for of any one of us and be waiting the occasional joints which Lampert when we marched around the ma- had predicted; but the material was chine. Therefore, go armed at all certainly sedimentary, and everyone times. I know you want to cover a but the guide tumbled out of the lot of ground, and can’t stick in one flyer with a glow in his eyes which party; but I insist that you do not promised a speedy scattering of the go anywhere alone. Take at least party. one companion. Preferably one who

With some difficulty, McLaughlin is not a member of your own field. got them together. A site, some If you two paleontologists are to- twenty yards square, was selected gether, for example, it seems more against one of the cliffs and fenced than likely that you’ll be found with off. The big, prefabricated sheet- your heads in the same hole in the metal “tent” was erected and its tiny rock. When one of you has to dig, 26 IF make sure the other has his neck on the way it seems to be. a swivel. I know this will slow your “String, perhaps you’d better go work, but not as much as if the with Take and Hans. Set out when work had to wait for a new investi- you’re ready. Be back in —” he gating team from Emeraude — or glanced automatically at the narrow from Earth. strip of purplish-blue sky, then at “You’ve seen most of the danger- his watch —“four hours; then we’ll ous animals in the zoo at Emeraude, compare notes. After that we can so I won’t waste time describing either concentrate on one place or them. Just remember that you won't the other, or break out the boats always hear them coming. You’ll and cross the streams, as indicated.” have to use your eyes. Twenty minutes later the parties “All right, Dr. Lampert. You’re were out of sight of each other and the boss, as far as the scientific the helicopter. Lampert had spent work goes. Who does what, and the first few minutes of the walk where?” wondering whether he had been too obvious in arranging for both the he geophysicist gave no sign guide and Krendall to accompany T of having detected the humor the little archaeologist; but he quick- in the guide’s remark, but began ly convinced himself that McLaugh- speaking at once. lin’s speech had covered the ar- “I should say that the main can- rangements pretty well. yon upstream and the side one in In any case, he would probably the same direction should be covered have been distracted soon enough. first. We’ve already used up a good The cliffs were interesting. Lime- deal of today, and would waste more stone, evidently, as expected — but breaking out the boats. Ndomi and rather dense, at that; maybe some I will go up the main stream; Hans barium replacing the calcium? or and Take can take the other. Don’t was the gravity different enough to hurry. If anything looks good, take destroy his judgement for such a the time to investigate it on the spot. small fragment? Probably not. He Of course, if it is obviously a major was actually using inertia more than job, just mark it and go on. There’s weight in making his estimate. Any- no sense in one man’s trying to ex- way, the stuff was certainly a car- hume a six-foot lizard skull. bonate. It frothed satisfyingly under “Since this region must have been a drop of acid from Lampert’s kit. sea when the limestone was de- And there were fossils. Sulewayo’s posited, there’s not much chance of form was bent over a spot on the land animals. However, we want as cliff face, examining minutely; but complete a chronological series as Lampert could see others from possible, so do the best you can on where he stood. None seemed re- this level. We’ll try for higher forma- markable. Most were rather evident- tions later. There should be plenty ly shellfish. He carefully refrained farther upriver, if this block is tilted from giving them names according THE GREEN WORLD 27 to the genera they resembled in “You watch for ’em, then.” The Earth’s rocks; Sulewayo and his col- pair went to work. leagues frowned on the practice, which could be most misleading. He wo hours out, a little more could not, however, resist the temp- T than one back. There was no tation to think of them as scallops. one at the helicopter when they

“What do you have there, Ndomi?” reached it, but the other group came He knew the other would not have in only a few minutes over the four- spent so long on any shellfish. hour limit which Lampert had im- “Not sure, precisely. Maybe verte- posed. A comparison of notes over brate, maybe not. What could be the meal which had been quickly armor and what could be ribs all prepared indicated that the second mixed up. I think I’ll mark it for group had gone farther in point of future reference.” miles covered, but had accomplished

“I suppose it’ll be another Devon- less work. Krendall had had the ian whatsit, like everything else on same idea as Sulewayo. But he had this planet, when you do decide.” not attempted to carry it out since “Pennsylvanian would better de- his canyon did not cut across the scribe the world as a whole. Barring range, and would presumably not that, you may be right. Rob, if you’d furnish a continous change in forma- give me a hand here we could get tions. some basic work done.” Lampert and Sulewayo, as it hap- “Eh?” pened, had not found any evidence “You say this is a tilted block. In of change themselves. The last fos- lowest formations right now. I’d like sils they had found were at least to get photos and if possible speci- superficially identical with the first. mens of as many different varieties There was the usual evidence of of shellfish as possible, at each level. bedding, and it had been quite evi- Then it may be possible to set up dent geometrically that the walk had some sort of temporal sequence — taken them to originally higher, and and use the things as index fossils presumably later, levels; but in what if animals do evolve on this be- must have been eight hundred feet nighted mudball. If you could get or more of original deposit, there me some radioactive dates at two seemed to have been no significant or three nicely scattered levels, it change in the fossil life. What eight would also help.” hundred feet would mean in point “Thanks,” returned Lampert drily. of time, of course, no one had the “I could use material like that my- least idea. There was not even a self. I can tell you what you prob- good guess as to how fast carbon- ably already know — you’re not ates might be expected to precipitate likely to get anything of the sort in a Viridian ocean. Anyone could from limestone.” compute the carbonate ion equilib- “Well — intrusions are always rium between atmosphere and sea, possible.” but no one knew anything to speak 28 IF of about carbonate-precipitating or- ent river level, or what?" ganisms of the planet. “They’re at least down to it. We Mitsuitei changed the subject couldn’t do any major excavating.” slightly at this point. “If they run much below,” mut- “We found several of the joints tered Lampert, “I’ll join the roster you predicted,” he said to Lampert. of geophysicists who have been “Oh? Very wide? We didn’t spot driven off the rails by this woozy anything that was obviously a joint. world. Well, let’s assume as a work- But there were several small side ing hypothesis that the volcanic ac- canyons — all narrow enough for us tivity is relatively recent. That will to wade or jump their central at least have the advantage of keep- streams — which might have started ing me sane, until something comes life that way.” up to disprove it.” He finished his “Ours were quite narrow, and meal in silence, while McLaughlin bore traces of volcanic ash at the gave a reproving lecture on the mat- bottoms.” ter of wading. “Eh?” “That’s right, Rob. Here’s a bit of here was still a little daylight it I brought back. I thought you T to go when all the men had might want a little corroboration on eaten; and Lampert, Sulewayo and that one.” Krendall handed over a the archaeologist took the helicop- bit of crumbly tuff as he spoke. ter up the main canyon to check on

Lampert examined it with pursed the possibility of walking to any real- lips. ly new deposits. “Maybe we’d better get back in- They were sure, from changes of to the air, and search the neighbor- color already seen at various levels hood for volcanoes,” he said at last. up the cliff face, that these existed.

“I can’t bring myself to believe in But it appeared that the lowest of two full mountain-building cycles on them did not reach river level for this planet — and if I could, I’d have more than a dozen miles. The dis- a hard time swallowing the idea of tance was less mapwise, but the can- these limestone layers coming up, yon, winding back and forth around going down, and coming up again what the geophysicist still felt must unaltered. How deep were these be joint-bounded blocks, went a volcanic deposits?” good two miles in other directions

“Variable. Shallowest in the wider for each one that it led eastward. joints; in the very narrow ones, up Realizing this, the explorers lifted out of sight.” the helicopter and began checking “Suggesting that they’ve been as close to the cliffs as Lampert washing out for some time since the dared at higher levels. In this way original settling. Anything organic they worked back toward the camp in them?” site. Once again it was Mitsuitei “Nothing turned up yet.” who first spotted something of major “Do they extend below the pres- interest. THE GREEN WORLD 29 “Found another city, Take?” “Well, how about letting me down asked Sulewayo at the other’s call. on the ladder? We have a hundred “Not exactly. It’s — well, I guess feet of that, so you could be up it’s really a system of those joints above the next shelf while I went you keep talking about. Still, it looks down. You’d have plenty of blade awfully regular.” He sounded a little clearance. That next level goes back wistful. a couple of hundred feet.” “It does.” The paleontologist “That might be all right.” Lampert nodded slowly. “As you say, it’s spoke hesitantly. “You certainly have probably a joint system. Also, it’s the right to risk your own neck on probably full of volcanic ash, if my the climb if you want to. We won’t eyes don’t deceive me. Rob, what’s try it tonight, though. I’d like to the chance of a landing on one of check with String on the advisability the shelves? There are at least three of your being there alone. The place formations accessible on foot from looks pretty hard to reach for any- that point; and I could get some thing that doesn’t fly, and I don’t more tuff samples to make or break know of any really dangerous flying your peace of mind, while I was do- things on this world; but we’d still ing my own work.” better check.” Lampert examined the area care- “All right with me. I’d just as fully. Like Earth’s Grand Canyon, soon have a full day, anyway.” this one receded from time to time “If Ndomi will be spending a day in shelves where softer layers of alone up here, how about having rock had worn further back, or the String take me to the other place, orogenic processes had paused to and settle that point once and for give the river a longer bite at that all?” asked Mitsuitei as the helicop- level. The cracks Mitsuitei had seen ter eased downward toward the formed a neat crisscross pattern on camp. “That would still leave Hans the top of one of the shelves. Some and you to form another team for of them betrayed their nature by whatever else you want to do.” emerging from its vertical face. It “That should be all right. It’ll de- was admittedly an unusually small- pend, though, on whether String scale joint pattern, at least for this thinks it’s safe for a man to work mountain system, and might well alone on that shelf.” contain readable evidence of the The proposition was put to Mc- forces which had shaped the area. Laughlin as soon as the machine However, they had only one heli- was landed. To Lampert’s surprise, copter. Lampert slowly shook his the guide gave a qualified approval. head in negation. “Remember,” he concluded, “I “I’m afraid not, Ndomi. Your don’t know what lives on the cliffs. shelves may be big enough, but It’s country I’ve never covered. All they’re not level enough. I’d have I’m saying is that no Viridian animal to make a swinging landing, and I know of could get there, except I’m not that good a pilot.” flying ones; and they’re nothing to 30 IF . worry about, especially in the day- poisonous “lizards.” The primary time. I’d like to go with you to look danger, as nearly as Sulewayo could over the place when you take him see, was that something might hap- up tomorrow, and strongly recom- pen to the helicopter. He certainly mend that he carry a communicator could not rejoin the others on foot. as well as a weapon; but unless I He was facing a sheer wall some see something you haven’t men- sixty feet high. A score of yards be- tioned when I do go, I would say hind him the terrace ended in an- it was all right. other straight drop of several hun- Once more the Felodon reached dred feet. A quarter of a mile on the river, but this time it did not either side, the flat surface ended; cross. It was no longer heading to the west, by narrowing until the straight for the helicopter. Hills had two walls became one; at the other not altered its course, but the cliffs end, it was cut off as far as he was had. They formed a wall on its right concerned by a joint penetrating ap- which was too nearly vertical for parently the full depth of the can- its agility and strength. Even this yon. barrier, however, had caused no vis- There were several other cracks ible hesitation or doubt. It had in the wall facing him. Like those swerved, followed the base of the in the tributary canyon explored by wall to the point where the river Krendall and Mitsuitei, these were emerged and plunged in as prompt- packed with volcanic detritus. This ly as it had done before. Few am- was hard to reconcile with the sug- phibians have ever lost the art of gestion that erosion had been long swimming when their larval gills at work. In such a case, the higher vanished; the feeble current meant portions should have washed away nothing to the Felodon. long before the material found at It turned upstream and went on the canyon bottom. its way. Examination at close range sug- gested a possible explanation. The IV tuff at this point was fairly well cemented. It seemed reasonable to domi Sulewayo had pursued suppose that the joints had been N his occupation on terraces of present before the mountains had Earth’s Grand Canyon, on cliffsides started to rise; that a volcanic mud of Fomalhaut Four’s highest range flow had filled them with detritus; and in badlands on the dimly lighted that the new material had then been Antares Twelve. The physical haz- cemented by dissolved material ards of his present position troubled coming from above. This would him little. McLaughlin had agreed make the top levels of the tuff more that the ledge where the paleontol- resistant than those lower down, ogist had been left was inaccessible where the cementing minerals had to the larger carnivores, and had not reached, and account for what merely issued a final warning about had been seen so far. the green world 31 Wm fyviw The hypothesis also implied a work; for the expected fossils proved plentiful supply of fossils. Volcanic to be present in very satisfactory mud flowing into a crack in the numbers. ground should carry plenty with it. Most seemed rather fragmentary. Sulewayo set to work with a ham- Apparently the original creatures mer, and was presently soaking with had been tumbled about rather perspiration. badly before the medium hardened. He was tempted to remove some However, the remains were definite- of his clothing; but this had been ly bones, as he had expected and treated chemically to repel Viridian hoped. For some time Sulewayo was insects and caution prevailed. Mc- occupied alternately digging out Laughlin had not mentioned any more fragments and trying to fit dangerous biters or stingers, and in the more hopeful-looking speci- all probability his blood would not mens together, although he had no be to. the taste of any such crea- success at the latter job. Then evi- tures on this world — but if the dence of a more complete set of re- mosquito or tick did not learn that mains appeared, and he instantly fact until after it had tried, Sulewayo slowed down to the incredibly me- would hardly profit by it. In any ticulous procedure which marks a case the temptation to strip passed paleontologist anywhere in the uni- quickly. In only a few minutes, his verse. attention was fully occupied by his At this time he had cut perhaps 32 IF ” a foot into the tuff for the full the cliffside, the paleontologist re- three-foot width of the crack and luctantly hooked his equipment to from terrace level up to about his his belt and started up the ladder. own height. In spite of its apparent- Five minutes later they were back ly firm texture, the rock was ex- in the camp, with Krendall listening tremely soft; and the old question eagerly to Sulewayo’s description of about erosion was reappearing. Big his find. pockets of extremely crumbly ma- “It’s certainly a vertebrate, Hans. terial had been responsible for most That stuff can’t possibly be shell or of his speed. Now, however, with wood. It’s almost certainly* a land the usual perversity of the inani- dweller — mate, a firmer substance was en- “Likely enough in that sort of countered, apparently encasing the rock, anyway.” “ bones he suspected of existing a little — because I got enough uncov- farther on. This combined with his ered to be nearly certain that it’s increased care to bring almost to a a foot. Certainly a limb that would halt the removal of rock from the not be needed by a swimmer.” cleft. “Like an ichthyosaur?” queried Lampert innocently. Sulewayo he bones were there. Per- grinned. T haps they had been betrayed “Quite possibly. More likely one by a discoloration of the rock too of our ubiquitous amphibids, though. faint for him to have noticed con- Certainly something worth getting sciously; perhaps something more out, since the general idea is to get subtle is involved in the makeup of an evolutionary sequence of some a successful field worker in pale- sort.” ontology, but as flake after flake “I suppose that means you’ll want of the matrix fell away under his me to date the eruption which filled attack a shape gradually took form. all these cracks with detritus, then.” At first a single bone which “Sure. But there’s no hurry. To- might have been an unusually short morrow will do.” Lampert found he digit or an unusually long carpal — had no answer to this, and Mitsuitei or, of course, something totally un- managed to edge into the discussion. related to either — was outlined. He had spent the day with Mc- Then another, close enough to sug- Laughlin, as he had hoped; and mere gest that their lifetime relationship failure to find paving stones had not might have been maintained. And damped his ardor. another — Sulewayo failed to hear “I suppose you and Hans will both the approach of the helicopter un- want to go up the cliff tomorrow,” til its rotor wash from a hundred he remarked. “In that case, Rob feet above lifted the dust about his might as well stay with String and ankles. me. It will speed up the digging Knowing that Lampert would be back at my hill.” having trouble holding that close to “Are you still scraping dirt off THE GREEN WORLD 33 that thing?” asked Sulewayo in mock day under water, part of the time urprise. “Didn’t one day indicate in the canyon fairly close to Lamp- that it was a joint pattern like the ert and Krendall and later down rest?” the stream by the site where the “Not yet. We haven’t gotten down guide and archaeologist had been to rock over any place where your working. At neither place had it cracks should be. The root tangle emerged, or shown the slightest sign of the taller trees slows the digging. of wanting to attack. McLaughlin’s I admit the rock is limestone like reference to the strange instinct of the cliff, but there’s still no evidence the creatures seemed justified. It why those trees grow so regularly.” certainly could not see the men, but “That’s just what we’ve been say- just as certainly was aware of their ing all along; but you keep looking presence. for the remains of a city.” What it was about the alien visi- “I gathered, Ndomi, from your tors which exercised such an influ- recent conversation that you were ence on the minute brain of the digging for a land animal on the carnivore, no one could have said basis of three bones. Either you are — then. Any watcher who had sup- working on hunch, which destroys posed, from its earlier actions, that your right to criticize, or you are it was moved by a desire for new reasoning from knowledge not avail- and different taste sensations would able to the rest of us. In the latter have had to discard the notion now. case, you should be at least open- With the men safely settled down minded enough to credit me with behind their fence, the beast sud- equivalent knowledge in my own denly turned back downstream. It field.” had returned to the camp site at It was Sulewayo’s turn to have the end of the working day. In an nothing to say; he had honestly sup- hour it was in the jungle below the posed that the archaeologist had canyon; in another it had killed, and been taking the “city” hypothesis no was feeding as it had the moment more seriously than the rest. He before the hum of the helicopter apologized at once, and peace was had first attracted its attention. This restored. Lampert sealed it by agree- time it finished the meal in peace; ing to Mitsuitei’s suggestion. and once finished, did not show The rest of the evening was spent immediate signs of its former ob- in detail planning by the two groups. session.

At sunset, all turned in to sleep be- Instead it sought a lair and re- hind the protection of the electri- laxed, blending so perfectly into the fied fence. Even the guide regarded undergrowth and remaining so silent this as an adequate safeguard. that within a few minutes small ani- mals were passing only feet away pparently his opinion was shared from the concealed killer. A by at least one other. The Robin Lampert was only a fair Felodon had spent most of the statistician, but if he had been ac- 34 IF ” quainted with the moves of that If evidence warranted, it would be Felodon during the last few days, abandoned for the slower methods even he would have been willing to of digging. If not, a few hours would take oath that more than chance permit them to learn as much about was involved. He would probably the area as many days of work with have wanted to dissect the animal slower equipment. in search of whatever mechanism The hole Mitsuitei had already was controlling it. dug was part way up the hill, in a But Robin Lampert knew nothing space cleared of underbrush by a of the creature. Neither did Take- flamethrower. Several other such hiko Mitsuitei; and that was rather clearings were in the neighborhood. unfortunate, for the lair it had As the archaeologist had said, he selected was on the same hill as the had made more than one attempt archaeologist’s digging site, and a at digging which had been frustrated scant quarter mile away from the by roots. pit Mitsuitei had left. Somewhat to Lampert’s surprise,

it was possible to tell even from he rising of the green sun ground level the orientation of the T was not visible the next morn- taller trees which had been so prom- ing. The ever-present mist had inent from the air. Even the smaller thickened into a solid layer of cloud, plants showed signs of some under- and hissing rain cut the visibility to ground influence. Between the tall- a few hundred yards. The helicopter est trees, tracing out the straight felt its way down to the hill with lines the men had seen from above, radar, landed on the river, taxied on the underbrush formed an almost its floats to the bank and was impenetrable wall. Elsewhere foot moored. Lampert, McLaughlin and travel was easy, though the surface Mitsuitei emerged, the scientists was by no means barren. Lampert laden with apparatus, and started understood how there might indeed up the hill toward the site. The guide have been difficulty in digging on carried only his weapons. one of the fertile lines, and admitted The equipment was not of the as much. sort Mitsuitei was accustomed to “That’s the trouble,” responded using. It actually belonged to Lamp- Mitsuitei. “I’d like to get down right ert. Normally it would not be used at such a point, to see what’s under- in an archaeological dig, any more neath. It seems to me that paving than it would have been had they might be responsible, if they’d used been fossil hunting; for neither ac- the right materials. Lots of civiliza- tivity takes kindly to any sort of tions have used organic substances automatic digging machinery. which decay to good fertilizer. Then Lampert had suggested its use, how- there might be the remains of a ever, in order to get a rapid idea of sewage system,—which would account the nature of the soil cover, bed for richer soil rock and joint structure of the hill. “After the time which must have THE GREEN WORLD 35 Saun passed since the place was buried?” Lampert nodded and proceeded “Tt has happened. In such a case, to assemble his equipment. The of course, trace elements rather “mole” was a cylinder about five than nitrates or phosphates are re- centimeters in diameter and three sponsible. That’s what I suspect times as long. A cutter-lined mouth here.” occupied one end, while the other

“But wouldn’t it be better to dig was attached to a snaky appendage where you actually have — in the which was wound on a fair sized middle of a block, if that’s what it drum. A set of controls knobs and is? Then you’d be fairly certain to indicators were mounted near the hit a building, which should be rich- center of the drum. er ground than a street.” The geophysicist set the cylinder “Only if you actually strike arti- on the ground mouth downward,

facts. The building itself might be pushing it into the soft earth far much less well preserved than a enough to assure its remaining up- paved street. However, you are the right. Then he turned to his con- one who’s handling that mechanical trols and after a moment, with very mole. Dig where you want, and see little noise, the cylinder began to what you can learn about this hill- sink into the ground. In a few sec-

top. Just get me at least a couple onds it was out of sight, trailing its

of cores from my ‘streets’ before snaky neck after it.

you’re done, please.” The men watched it in silence. 36 IF Perhaps thirty seconds after it dis- the point of being cocky, and Lamp- appeared, there was a minor con- ert let the mole burrow on. The vulsion in the neck, a momentarily second core came in due time, and rising hum from the machinery, and the little man set merrily to work a plug of dirt about two centimeters with tiny chips from the two stone in diameter and five long was cylinders, a pinch of the lowest soil ejected from a port in the center of sample which had been acquired, the drum. This was seized by Lamp- a small comparison microscope and ert and examined briefly, then a kit full of tiny reagent bottles. tossed aside. “The soil is pretty Lampert used the time the tests deep,” he remarked. consumed in reversing the mole and “How far down did that come resetting the equipment on a new from?” asked Mitsuitei. spot. By the time the little mechan- “One meter. That’s the sampling ism had gnawed its way once more interval I’ve set in it, for now. If it to rock, Mitsuitei was forced to ad- meets anything much harder or mit that the formation appeared to easier to penetrate, it will warn me be natural. and I’ll grab them more frequently.” He did not seem as disheartened Conversation lapsed while two more by the discovery as might have been samples arrived and were inspected. expected. He simply waited for Then a light flickered on the panel, more cores, his narrow face reflect- and Lampert reset one of his knobs; ing nothing but the utter absorption and almost immediately a core of Lampert knew he experienced when- light gray limestone was produced. ever a problem arose in his line. “Apparently the same stuff as the In spite of his apparent tendency to cliffs,” said Lampert after examin- jump to conclusions, Takehiko Mit- ing the specimen. “Do you want to suitei was an experienced and re- go any deeper, or drill a few more spected member of his profession. holes to get an idea of the contour?” Lampert knew enough about his “How fast will that thing go record to be perfectly willing to ac- through limestone?” cept his instructions for the present. “A couple of centimeters per minute. It’s too small to pack a real series of holes was drilled, power unit.” A from the original position to- “Give it five minutes, just to make ward one of the “streets” forty yards sure it isn’t a building block.” away from it. After each the archae- “Ten centimeters wouldn’t give ologist admitted with perfect cheer- you a whole building block.” fulness that there was nothing in- “A sample from that far inside consistent with the idea that the hill one would tell me what I want to was a perfectly natural formation. know. You rock-chippers don’t seem He still insisted, however, that the to think that archaeology is a science regular lines of trees, reinforced as yet. Let me have that first core, they were by the undergrowth pat- too.” Mitsuitei looked confident to tern, required explanation. THE GREEN WORLD 37 Lampert admitted this, but felt dence of change in the soil; not, in that he knew what the explanation fact, until his first case had been would be. After all, volcanic residue filled. is more than likely to contain the “Can you stop that thing for a trace elements vegetation requires, moment, Rob?” he asked at this even on Viridis. point. “I don’t want to lose track Finally the time came to get veri- of these, and will have to hold up fication — or the opposite. The while I open a new case.” flamethrower had to be used this “All right. I thought you’d want time, and for several minutes clouds to stop for thought soon anyway.” of steam swirled about the men as “Why?” its blue-white tongue fought the “Because the mole is nearly four sappy, rain-soaked undergrowth. meters down, well below the depth Then the mole and its controls were at which we hit bedrock before, and wheeled into place, and the little is still in soil.” robot once more nosed its way out “Eh? But — but it’s still ordinary of sight. soil; none of your volcanic ash.” “I don’t suppose you want any “Tuff had been eroded out of a samples above the regular rock level, lot of the joints in the cliffs. There’s do you?” asked Lampert as the ma- no reason to expect it to be at the chine disappeared. same level as the surrounding rock.”

“I think it would be best if we “That’s true.” Mitsuitei paused in took them as usual,” was the reply. thought for a moment. “If we keep “For one thing, we should try to on going straight down, we may learn the depth at which the soil just be working into a natural crack, composition changes — we are at as you say Might it not be better least agreed that it changes in some to drill several holes within a few manner, after all.” square yards here, to determine

“True enough.” The geophysicist whether it is a narrow joint such set his controls, and the process as you expect or an actual edge to continued — a process familiar now the rock at this level?” to McLaughlin as well as the scien- “Maybe the edge of a roof, eh?” tists, for the guide had caught nu- Lampert chuckled, but spoke in a merous glimpses of what was going manner which could give no offense. on while he -prowled about the work “I can do better than that. Don’t area on self-imposed guard duty. need to pull up and start over; Mitsuitei took the crumbly soil simply drill horizontally from where cores as they came, examined them we are now. Shouldn’t take long to quickly — they were arriving every get dimensions, if that’s all you few seconds — and filed them in want.” He halted the robot momen- numbered compartments in a speci- tarily, and from a compartment in men case he had opened. Detailed the drum removed something like stratigraphy would come later For a small theodolite mounting. This some time there was no gross evi- he set up on a short tripod over the 38 IF point where the neck of the mole “Different meat; same skeleton,” emerged from the ground, and set replied Lampert. a pointer at right angles to the line “But how about this volcanic ash, of tall trees. Then he started the or mud, or whatever it is, which at digging again. least fills the joints we saw in the cliff? That’s not so usual, is it?” V “Not in my experience. But grant- ing the joints and the volcanoes, our starts in as many differ- there’s nothing really surprising

F ent directions and twenty about it. Incidentally, we don’t know minutes of time showed fairly con- that this crack we’re standing on clusively that the line of vegetation has the same filling. We’d better which had given rise to the “street” bore down again to make sure. At theory was growing along a straight least we may get some idea of the crack, apparently a fairly ordinary date of the volcanic action com- joint, in the limestone. While several pared to that of the orogeny that more holes would have to be drilled tilted the block where we’re camped. to prove it, even Mitsuitei was will- If there’s tuff down here too, it will ing to admit that in all probability substantiate the idea that the vul- the remaining lines would be found canism is the older.” to be over similar cracks. “Why? Couldn’t ash have settled “You must admit, though, that down here as well as up there at the regularity of this joint pattern substantially the same time?” is pretty unusual,” the archaeologist “It could. But I’d bet a fairly said at length. respectable sum that the tuff we “It’s far from being unknown,” saw in the canyon was from a mud Lampert replied. “I got my first flow, not a fall of airborne ash. large taste of it in my student days That could hardly have reached the back on Earth. Fly over the mesa top of the cliffs — actually, the op- country in southwestern North posite slope of the mountains, where America sometime. Most of the Sulewayo is working — and this joints there are invisible from a dis- area simultaneously.” tance, of course; but at the edge of “Maybe from different eruptions? a butte where weathering is most I get the impression that this world prominent the blocks have frequent- has a slight tendency to produce ly started to separate, and the thing volcanic fields rather than individ- looks as though it had been put to- ual cones or flows.” gether from outsize bricks.” “Might be. Chemistry will prob- “Hmph. Seem to remember some- ably settle that question.” During thing of the sort myself, now that the latter part of this discussion you mention it. I did some digging Lampert had directed the mole once in that area, too. I shouldn’t have more downwards, and every half connected that sort of country with meter of travel another core was what we have here, though.” added to the collection. At six and THE GREEN WORLD 39 ” a half meters below the soil the “Let’s see. You’re right. It’s hardly first solid specimen arrived; the an ordinary vein, though your sug- others had been held together only gestion seems a trifle far fetched. by roots. This one, however, caused The paleontologists can probably the two scientists to look at each furnish an idea. Maybe a vine or other. Lampert nodded slowly, with even a worm buried in the mud flow a smile. Mitsuitei gave a shrug, and acted as the precipitating agent for let an expression of resignation play copper salts in the subsequent seep- over his usually impassive features. age — I’ve seen beautiful fossils of The core was tuff, apparently pyrite which had been formed that identical with that in the cliffs to way.” the east. It even contained fossils. “But this shows no trace of struc- ture, except for its exterior shape.” CCT guess this whole dig might “Isn’t a really well preserved 1 as well be taken over by the structure the exception rather than paleontology department,” Lampert the rule in fossils?” commented finally. “I suppose “I suppose so. Still, I’d like to they’ll at least want to compare fos- know just how far, and which way, sils in the tilted and level strata.” this green thread goes. I’d also like “I suppose so.” Mitsuitei was turn- to know whether there are dilute ing the little cylinder over and over copper deposits spread through this in his hand. “Tell me, Rob. what’s rock, which could be concentrated this little speck of green?” in the way you suggest.” “Copper salts of one sort or an- “The first could be learned by other, I suppose.” Lampert was not taking enough cores. The other greatly interested. “A lot of second- would call for some very careful ary minerals form in and under vol- analysis of samples which had been canic detritus. On this world, car- selected with a very sedulous eye bonates like malachite should form kept on the stratigraphy. You know quite readily.” that; you must have done that sort “Why should it form in a regular of thing looking for carbon-four- thread like this?” teen samples, at times.” “You mean a vein? Hard to tell “Yes, I see that. Could you make precisely. Varying rates of water such analyses here?” seepage, varying degrees of oxygen “No, except for the mere presence or carbon dfoxide penetration, vary- of copper. The cores would have to ing degrees of compactness in —the go back to a well equipped lab. Still, rock where the stuff is formed if you want to get them, it’s all “I don’t mean a vein. This is in a right with me. Problems were made cylindrical body going right through to be solved. I’ll admit this one the core from one side to the other, doesn’t seem very exciting to me, as though there had been a copper but I can use your data after you wire there originally which had been finish for work of my own. You attacked by soil acids.” should wind up with material for a 40 IP ” pretty complete geochemical picture from then on. What of it?” of this neighborhood. Shall I get the “Well, the others may have jobs cores for you?” they want to do — “Yes, please.” “Then they can do them! What “Silly question. All right.” The are we here for, anyway? I thought mole was drawn up a short distance, it was to investigate the past of this and sent questing downward once planet! Ndomi and Hans -are doing more at an angle to the original that their own way right now. Why shaft, branching off a short distance can’t I? I’m an archaeologist, and above the level from which the cop- I came along to do any archaeologi- per deposit had come. Again and cal work that presented itself to do; again the process was repeated, this is the only thing of the sort each time at a slightly different bear- anyone’s seen so far. I know what ing from the central hole; and Mit- you’re thinking. Maybe you’re partly suitei examined each core for traces right. I certainly won’t bet any of green. At last he found it, pierc- money that this thread of green is ing the little cylinder of rock as the a fossil telephone wire; but it’s as other had done; and then, at his sug- likely to be that as anything else gestion, Lampert reset the mole to you’ve suggested, and I’m going get a sample in the opposite direc- down to that level and sift the whole tion from the one which had fur- volume. Hans and Ndomi can have nished the new specimen. any fossils I find if that will make you happier — and if one of them his also checked positive; and says he has no use for fossils he T four more samples, taken along didn’t dig himself. I’ll make him eat the same line at various distances, his words. I can identify, locate and all did the same. report on anything that turns up in Apparently the line of green ex- a rock as well as any of those jig- tended for some distance, about saw-puzzle people; and I can do it parallel both to the surface of the in mud, too, which is more than any ground and the trend of the joint in of them could manage.” which it was buried. Mitsuitei was “Don’t get hot under the collar. radiant. If you can help it on this planet. “I’m going down to that level if You sound as though one of the I have to come back with an ex- boys had been giving you a lecture pedition of my own! If that’s a fossil on the importance of knowing what worm, it’s worth getting the whole strata a given series of specimens length anyway — but I don’t believe represent.” it is. I—” “Not one of our boys — they “That will take a lot of time, you have a little more sense. But there know,” Lampert pointed out mildly. was a young paleontologist when I “Certainly I know! Even if I use was covering the Antares worlds your fast excavator down to the whose memory still makes my blood tuff level, I’ll have to do detail work pressure go up. Never mind me; THE GREEN WORLD 41 that’s not important. But I want to relatively quiet specimens under- make this dig.” went a sharp revision. Mitsuitei’s re- “It will tie up machines, however port of the day’s activity at his site freely we can spare time,” Lampert had, it is true, been delivered quite said slowly. “I’ll tell you: how about calmly; but from then on matters this? We spend the rest of the day grew progressively livelier. This was getting cores from other points not caused by opposition to the along these cracks. For one thing, archaeologist’s plans. The others we ought to ^know more about the were all in favor of remaining, for structure of the hill, and for an- their own reasons. However, the other, we might find more of your question of just what was likely to ‘wires.* After all, the chance of our be found gave rise to much rather hitting the only one around is pretty barbed comment on Sulewayo’s part. remote. I can’t quite see a single “I don’t see how you can expect dropped piece of copper wire show- to find any trace of civilized work ing up in the first two days of a here,” he said flatly at one point. project like this.” “The animal and plant life of this “I neither said nor implied that planet is at a stage of evolution this should be the only piece. I don’t corresponding to something like doubt for a moment that there are Earth’s Pennsylvanian age, when others, whether they are wires or the amphibians were the highest worms.” known forms of life. I’m not saying “Sorry. Well, we take these cores that there couldn’t be such a thing back to camp this evening, together as an intelligent amphibian. But I with any others we find of the same do say that the normal set of evolu- sort, and let Hans and Ndomi look tionary forces which, on both Earth them over. If they don’t turn out and Viridis, produced creatures of to be something that the boys rec- the amphibian pattern could have ognize and can classify right off the done that or produced an intelligent bat, we come back tomorrow with fish; not both. If the latter ever all the digging machinery you want, evolved, it failed; for the amphib- and dig until you either find all you ians — pardon me, amphibids — want, satisfy yourself that there’s are here. To get an intelligent am- nothing here or find something phibid on this world will — or which obviously requires more spe- would, if the sun were to last long cialized attention than we can give enough — require another orogenic it. All right?” period with the accompanying cli- “Nothing could be fairer. Let’s matic changes. Then you’d stand a go!” considerably higher chance of get- ting reptiles instead, if the compara- he discussion in camp that eve- tive work done on over four hun- T ning was animated beyond dred planets carries any meaning.” anything the guide had heard. His “I don’t doubt the value of the original estimate of these men as work at all. You are very probably 42 IF ” correct. It did not occur to me to in an attempt to explain a much expect remains of intelligent am- simpler question — why are narrow phibians. I saw no reason to pre- threads of copper compounds to be suppose that anything in the way of found every few feet in the volcanic artifacts which I might find would tuff filling the joints in a certain necessarily be native to this planet.” limestone hill, and why are those “You think there were other visi- threads always nearly horizontal? tors from outside the Beta Librae You and Hans say they are not or- system?” ganic fossils, and I accept your con- “The possibility certainly exists. clusion. Rob says that there is no Here we are.” copper in that rock, detectable with “But for Pete’s sake! Do you really his equipment, except within a few expect that they stayed long enough millimeters of the green threads. I to build a city, or do you think you say nothing except that I have never have the remains of a camp like seen such a thing before. Under the ours, or what?” circumstances, I fail to understand “I don’t think anything. It has where you get the idea that I think been suggested that such people did there is a city built by the people come, and stayed long enough to— who stocked this world thirty mil- “And you think you’ve found lion years ago buried under that hill. them.” I know I said ‘city’ when I first saw

“I think nothing, except that I it, and I still think I was justified in have found, with Rob’s help, some- the opinion; I have now seen evi- thing which neither his professional dence which causes me to admit knowledge, nor mine, nor even that the vegetation pattern was not yours, is able to explain; and I think caused by artificial structures, and an explanation is desirable. I hope I dismiss the original hypothesis. I you won’t consider me discourteous still want to dig there, and in ac- for pointing out that each time you cordance with Rob’s agreement I have tried to accuse me of jumping am going to dig there, with the as- to conclusions, you have been able sistance of anyone who chooses to to do so only by jumping to some help. I know you want to go back yourself. I might further add that to your set of leg bones in the cliff, the suggestion that this planet had and have no objection to your do- been stocked with its present supply ing so. Even I can now see, on the of life types by visitors from space basis of your description, that you was advanced by a paleontologist, are uncovering the fossil of a land not by one of my colleagues. I gath- animal; and I agree that it is of er he could not understand how life great importance to get it out in- could evolve to the state it shows tact, if possible. But if 1 can see the in the thirty-odd million years that importance and even the nature of the planet seems to have been solid. your work, why can’t you do the I neither support nor deride the same for mine?” The little man was idea; I simply want to gather data, leaning forward and staring intense- THE GREEN WORLD 43 . ly into Sulewayo’s face by the time out to be the Viridian equivalent of he finished this harangue, and a horse or chicken. In that case, Ndomi once more felt a trifle we’re about half way between ankle ashamed of himself. Lampert, how- and knee. We certainly have sev- ever, saved him the need of formu- eral feet yet to penetrate before we lating an apology. can outline the whole block, assum-

ing that the specimen is essentially CCT’m sure Ndomi didn’t mean complete. Several days, I would A to ridicule your work in any guess.” way, Take,” he said. “We all realize “Can you use any sort of power perfectly that an underground phe- apparatus for any of your cuts?” nomenon which cannot be explained “I don’t like to, on general prin- at sight either by geology, paleon- ciples, but — yes, we could, with ac- tology or archaeology is something tually very little risk. If you have which requires investigation. T im- some sort of rock saw whose cutting agine that the best plan will be for part can get fine control, I’d be String and me to go with you to- willing to use it for parts of the morrow, while the others continue tunnel away from the actual speci- their stone-cutting. Hans, just how men.” far along are you, anyway?” “I have. We’ll take you up there

The older paleontologist thought first thing in the morning, and I’ll for a moment. go down with you and show you “We don’t really know,” he said how to use it before going on with at last. “Of course, we aren’t trying Take and String.” to get the individual bones com- “Who holds the ’copter in place pletely free of the matrix; that will while you climb down the ladder, take somebody months or years. give your lesson and come back?” We’re uncovering just enough to asked the guide. determine the extent of the speci- “Hmph. I forgot about that. All men, so we can take it all out in one right, I’ll break out the machinery block — or more, of course, if it’s and give the lesson right now.” He too big. So far we can only guess got up and strode to the helicopter. at how big it is. We’ve uncovered McLaughlin covered him from the with certainty two feet, and gone fence to the aircraft, but nothing about h^ilf a meter along one of dangerous appeared. The geophysi- the attached legs. They seem to be cist disappeared inside, and returned extending straight back into the cliff, a moment later with a compact so in effect we’re cutting a tunnel metal case under his arm. The guide beside the thing. Assuming it had holstered his weapon as the gate in two main leg sections, as most of the fence closed once more. . the present animals on both Earth Actually, the Felodon was miles and Viridis appear to have, we’re downstream. It had spent the day about halfway between knee and in its chosen lair, apparently indif- hip joint. Of course, it might turn ferent to the doings of the men a 44 IF few hundred yards away. With the actually cutting from the rain, so at coming of darkness — real darkness first they took turns at this opera- this time, for the rain clouds cut off tion. both the moonlight and the night The cutting machine Lampert had glow from the upper atmosphere — provided was a sort of diamond- it had emerged, hunted, killed and toothed chain saw capable of a two- fed as before, apparently unham- meter extension. Ordinarily it was pered by the lack of light. By mid- not the sort of thing a paleontologist night it was back in the same lair, would consider using so close to a paunch distended, as close to sleep specimen; but the men .were fairly as its coldblooded kind ever came. sure by now of the general extent of the thing they were uncovering. VI Even so, they used the saw only on the side of their tunnel away from

he rain was still falling when the visible remains. They speedily T the clouds lightened once widened the passage enough to per- more to the rising sun. Lam pert was mit them both to get inside and getting used to navigating the can- work on the face of the exposed yon by radar, and was an excellent material; but they still used hand pilot anyway; so he did not have tools whenever there was any sus- too much trouble in locating the picion that a bone might be about shelf where Sulewayo and Krendall to appear. Work proceeded several had been working. Getting the men times as fast as it had the day down to it was not particularly dif- before. ficult, though rather nerve-racking. They tried cutting another tunnel Krendall went first, unburdened ex- on the opposite side of the fossil, cept for his personal equipment. but this proved rather awkward. Then he steadied the ladder for The creature was close to this side Sulewayo who had the cutter of the crack, and they had to cut strapped across his shoulders. The limestone as well as the softer tuff. steadying hand was needed. Climb- The saw proved capable of handling ing down a rope ladder when loaded this — it would have handled granite “top-heavy” can be an extremely without trouble — but went a little awkward bit of activity. Had the more slowly. Eventually, however, pilot above been any less capable, the two men were working on op- it would probably have been im- posite sides of the fossil, each in a possible. tunnel extending some two meters The ledge was wet, but fortunate- into the cliff face. ly not particularly slippery. The men Half a day’s work uncovered the set their equipment on the ground leg bones sufficiently to show that at the point where their cut entered Krendall’s first idea had been right. the crack in the cliff, and without There were only the two major delay set to work. The tunnel was joints, each a trifle shorter than the deep enough now to shelter the one corresponding parts of the human THE GREEN WORLD 45 skeleton. The lower leg was single curred, it had both longitudinal and rather than double, however; knee transverse arches, like yours and and ankle both consisted of ball- mine — which suggests strongly that and-socket joints; and with this fact this thing’s ancestors had been walk- determined the men paused for ing erect on two legs for some hun- thought. dreds of thousands of generations.” “Now why,” mused Krendall Krendall raised his eyebrows at this, aloud, “should any sort of creature and silently examined the bony need that articulation?” structure before them for several “Could that foot be a hand in- minutes. stead?” asked Sulewayo. “I — hadn’t — spotted — that,” Of course, questions like that he said slowly. He looked in silence should have awaited the results of for several more seconds. Then the detailed examination in a labora- two men, moved by a single thought, tory. Equally of course, the two men went to the other end of the exposed proceeded to clear one of the “feet” leg and began to clear the hip joint a little more thoroughly in order to and pelvic region. They worked al- find out for themselves. The answer most in silence, understanding each was not helpful, though. other perfectly, like an experienced “He might have picked up a twig surgical team; and gradually the with it, but he couldn’t have held equivalent of a pelvic girdle and it any more tightly than I can in lower end of a spinal column were my toes,” was Krendall’s verdict. cleared sufficiently to show their “It’s a bigger and flatter foot than general nature. ours. But it’s a foot — nothing It was at this point that the heli- more.” copter returned; but neither man “Maybe a swimming organ on the noticed the fact until McLaughlin side?” suggested Sulewayo cautious- had called several times from the iy open ladder hatch. They climbed “Seems doubtful. If that joint silently and thoughtfully up to the evolved for such a purpose, I should flyer; but Mitsuitei’s first question think there’d be a corresponding started the talk flowing. modification in the foot bones, too It did not end for a long, long — say a flattening such as you see time. in the paddles of some of the Meso- zoic sea reptiles of Earth.” rendall, with difficulty, held in- “Reasonable.” K terruptions of his more volatile “But not necessarily right. That companion. I admit. Anything else strike you?” “There can be only the slightest

“Yes, though it makes the joints doubt that this thing we’re uncover- still more unbelievable.” ing walked erect on two legs,” he “What?” reported. “The feet; the way the “The foot itself Unless some rath- pelvis is modified to support inter- er remarkable distortion has oc- nal organs; the fusing of the lowest 46 IF VQtfH 6«JN TA 6Z

THE GREEN WORLD 47 ” vertebrae with the pelvic girdle to bone. In that it resembles Viridian form a weight carrying foundation land life in general — these animals — they all point the same way. The don’t have the separate tibia and only thing hard to understand is the fibula characteristic of the usual run knee and ankle joints. If we had of Earthly land vertebrates. It real- them, it would be virtually impos- ly proves nothing about what we’re sible for us to hold our legs rigid. all thinking, of course.” Perhaps some really remarkable “I am tempted to work with you musculature — gentlemen tomorrow,” muttered the “Or a cartilage structure which archaeologist. has not been preserved,” cut in Sule- “Why? Didn’t your investigation wayo. pan out?” “Or some such thing as that, “It is harder for me to say than would explain it. I don’t know. The for you, so far. To dig a pit, big creature is good for several Ph.D. enough not only to work in but to theses just as it lies—and probably cover a useful amount of ground, an equal number of nervous col- in a driving rain, is quite a job even lapses when we get it out.” with Rob’s machines — which I “I find myself strongly desirous would never use were I not sure of seeing its skull,” remarked Lamp- that there is nothing of importance ert. Sulewayo glanced at him sharp- above the limestone level. I have ly. gotten down to the rock over an “You, too?” asked the young pale- area three meters square, which is ontologist. “I was hoping I was the very good going; but I shall un- only one crazy enough to have doubtedly find the pit full of water thought of that.” Mitsuitei smiled tomorrow, as we have not yet im- openly, an almost unheard-of act provised a really satisfactory drain- for him. He said nothing for a mo- age system. I cannot — or at least ment, but everyone saw him; and will not — use machines inside the even McLaughlin understood the crack in the limestone; so it will be thought. After a sufficiently long some time before I get down to our pause, he asked a question. mysterious green threads.”

“Have you uncovered enough of “Then it would seem that the best this creature’s structure to guess at we can do is go on as we have,” any evolutionary connection — or said Lampert. “The only change lack of it — with the amphibids we might be if one more man were to already know on this world?” help at Take’s dig. But I don’t sup- “I’d hate to take any oaths,” re- pose either Hans or Ndomi would plied Krendall. “The legs, which care to leave his own job at the mo- we’ve seen most of, are different ment, and actually there’s not much in detail; but they at least corre- more to do at the hill which can be spond in general with what we find done by anyone but Take himself. here. The only really significant I’ll continue to help him as long as point there would be the single shin- it’s a question of moving mud, but 48 IF after that he’ll have to do his own out expeditions to find the planet sifting. String is automatically on they might have come from.” guard duty at the hill, so there’s not “The latter would be something much change we can make. Though of a waste of time,” remarked Mc- I must say I haven’t seen anything Laughlin. “Hunting one planet in the dangerous yet, in that jungle.” galaxy is like hunting one log of “Those animals are like crows,” wood on Viridis.” No one contra- remarked the guide. “We used to dicted this. All had seen the galactic have ’em on the farm, back on star clouds from outside planetary Earth. They’d be all over a freshly atmosphere. planted field, while no one was “It seems to me, speaking as an around. Come out yelling—they amateur in your fields, gentlemen,” don’t move; come out with a gun, said Mitsuitei, “that the mere dis- and they’re gone — unless you’d covery of an intelligent creature in happened to forget to load it; then the Viridian fossil deposits would, they sat and laughed at you. If on the basis of our present knowl- you’re suggesting, Doctor, that I edge of the mechanisms of evolu- should relax the guard duty and lend tion, strongly support the idea that a hand with digging, I veto the idea this world was stocked from others. — and not because I’m afraid of I realize that our knowledge may getting my hands dirty.” not be sufficient to justify us in that conclusion. But it is certainly not C C T won’t say I didn’t have great enough to justify any other.” A some such thought, but I ac- “You seem to have something cept your ruling ” smiled Lampert. there, Take,” admitted Krendall. “If There was silence for a moment; this thing does turn out to have then Krendall reverted to the earlier room for a brain in its skull, I sup- subject. pose the next ten conventions of the “You know,” he said, “if this thing Interstellar Archaeological Society, we’ve found does turn out to have or whatever you call it, will be meet- been intelligent, it will hardly solve ing at Emeraude.” any of the existing problems about “I shouldn’t be at all surprised. So ' Viridis.” far, my profession and yours have “Why not?” asked Sulewayo in not overlapped, due to a consider- some surprise. able factor of difference in the time “We still won’t know whether it’s spans covered. But it is just possible native to the planet or not, unless we that we would be holding joint meet- can establish a relatively complete ings, in the event you describe.” evolutionary sequence leading to this “This meeting is changing from form. If we do that, the question of discussion to speculation,” Lampert speed of evolution here gets worse said drily. “I would be the last to than ever; if we don’t no one will decry the value of imagination; but be sure whether or not we ought to actually we are as likely to face the look for buried spaceports or send need for entirely new hypotheses as THE GREEN WORLD 49 . the result of our work here, as to washed in from the two sides facing find support for any now in exist- the edges of the crack. The other ence. I can speculate with the best two, much better braced by deep- of you, but for goodness sake let’s reaching roots, had held firm. not take any speculation too serious- After some thought, Lampert ly. I don’t really believe that some used the little robot again. He big-headed descendants of Ndomi’s started it at the bottom of the pit on fossil are listening in on me right the downhill side and drove almost now!” horizontally toward the river. The Even Sulewayo admitted that this two hundred meters of “neck” per- was rather unlikely, and the con- mitted the mole to emerge from the versation turned to other matters slope farther down. When it was until darkness fell. withdrawn, a small ‘drain hole was No one had trouble sleeping. The obtained. Several more of these loud drumming of the rain on the were drilled, and the pit lost its metal roof meant nothing to field water fairly rapidly. workers with their experience. If There was still the problem of anything, the sound was soothing, getting into the crack itself, which giving a perpetual reminder that of course would involve digging be- there was a roof. Such protection is low the level of the drain holes. not always available, in that line of Lampert, using the same excavator work. . which had made the pit itself, final- The Felodon seemed to have lost ly provided a fair solution by digging its traveling propensity. Once more a set of ditches around the larger it went out into the utter darkness hole; and since the opening itself solely to get a meal. It accomplished was quite well protected by over- this as quickly as ever, though its hanging trees, Mitsuitei had only eyes must have been useless and the drainage from the surrounding soil hiss and rumble of falling water to contend with. drowned and buried any sounds Two hours after arriving, there- which would have been useful in fore. he had a relatively clear work- tracking. Back in the same lair, full- ing space. The bottom of the pit fed, it drowsed once more. was limestone, exposed by the com- plete removal of the overlying soil, VII some three meters square. Across

it ran the crack, a trifle less than a * itsuitei had been almost right meter wide, still packed with dirt. M in his prediction that the pit Everything was muddy — limestone, would be full of water. Only the projecting roots, and Mitsuitei him- fact that the land sloped a trifle — self. A slender log with branches cut they were not right on top of the to ten-centimeter stubs leaned

little hill — had saved it. As it was, against one corner, forming a rough several feet of water were in the ladder and giving entrance and bottom, and a good deal of mud had egress to and from the site. 50 IF The machinery which had done “All right. Of course, it will be the original digging was at one side. some time before I get that deep

Mitsuitei did not expect to need it anyway; maybe I won’t need it to- again. He was now equipped with a day.” He bent to his work. hand shovel, and seemed about to “But what do I do?” asked Lamp- use it. Lampert, standing at the edge ert. “I can’t go off to attend to my of the pit, felt the incongruity, but own projects, because String has to managed not to laugh. stay here to guard you. I can’t get to “Are you sure there’s nothing I the site where the others are work- can do down there with you?” he ing because I can’t land there. I asked. can’t sit in the helicopter and twiddle

“I’m afraid not. From now on I my thumbs because I’ll go crazy be- want every bit of dirt to pass under fore the day is over.” Mitsuitei my own eyes.” straightened once more, and thought “Are you going to try to throw briefly. it all up here as you finish?” “Is there nothing in the geophysi- “No. That’s the purpose of the cal line you could do within sight ol extra pit area down here. I can get this pit?” he asked finally. “The saw a long way down the joint, simply and digging machine are not the heaping the material on the rock. only apparatus you brought.” It’s damp enough to pile quite steep- “That’s true. I brought some seis- ly, too.” mic gear, though I didn’t plan to use

“How far down do you think you it quite like this. I might map the can get? The crack’s rather narrow formations under this hill. The in- to work in, and you have three and formation will be usable, I should a half meters to go before you hit think, and the joints will give quite tuff. That’s going to be rough shov- a calibrating job. It will keep me eling. I still think you could use the busy, anyway.” machine safely for a little way fur- “Just a minute!” Mitsuitei looked ther, at least.” a trifle perturbed. “Does that mean “No doubt I could, but I’m not you’re going to set off explosives going to. There’s one thing I might around here? I want the sides of use, though.' If you have another of this pit held up by something better those saws, such as the bonemen than roots, if you do.” are using up on the cliff, I could widen this crack as I go — cut steps, ampert chuckled. “No explo- in fact, to help get the mud up to L sives,” he said “This is a nice this level when I’m further down.” little gadget with a robot like the “That’s a good thought, but I don’t core sampler. It puts out waves of have any other. If you really get any type desired from any depth far enough down to need it, though, down to two hundred fifty meters

I could fly up to get it. They were — a sort of subterranean sonar. going to shift over to hand labor You’ll never know it’s working. The anyway.” wave amplitude isn’t enough to THE GREEN WORLD 51 feel.” He turned toward the helicop- “The attached borer,” Lampert ter on the river bank below, and was explained to the guide, “goes down starting to walk toward it when Mc- to any depth I set, up to two hun- Laughlin interrupted. The guide dred fifty meters. It can produce had heard the conversation, and his any of the three normal types of question was purely rhetorical. earthquake wave, singly or in any “You weren’t planning to walk combination, with sufficient inten- down to the flyer alone, were you, sity to be detected at a range of Doctor?” over two kilometers in reasonably “Well, yes, as a matter of fact. well-conducting rock. The small cyl- After all, I won’t be working; I can inders are detectors, equipped not keep my eyes open as I go. You can only to receive and analyze the see me for the greater part of the wave coming through the ground journey from here, too.” but to measure electronically their Rather to his surprise the guide location with respect to each other approved this argument, after a mo- and the main station. I can use as ment’s thought. many of them as I please, up to “All right. But please keep your the full dozen; but they can be gun in your hand as well as your planted only a little way below the head on a swivel. I’d prefer to have surface. There exists equipment for Dr. Mitsuitei come down with us so getting readings at depths compar- we could stay together, but I know able to that of the transmitter, but how he’d react to the interruption, I don’t have it. As it stands, by and I realize you’re not a kid. Just spotting the receivers carefully I be careful.” can get a pretty good picture of Lampert promised; and the the formations for a radius of a guide’s manner had impressed him kilometer and a depth even greater to the point where he was almost with ten minutes measuring — and afraid to make the return journey, ten hours computing.” after reaching the flyer and packing “How far out do you plan to his new equipment. He was rather place these receivers?” the guide surprised to get back to the site asked pointedly. without being attacked, and Mc- “Well — I hadn’t made a detailed Laughlin’s very evident relief at see- plan of that. I’d rather like to have ing him did nothing to ease his them in radiating lines of three, the feelings. lines spreading about fifteen de- He^began to set up the machinery. grees, and the individual cylinders This consisted of an assembly very about two hundred meters apart.” similar to the drilling mole — a “And just how were you going to small delving robot drawing a slen- place them? I gather that someone der tail behind it, the tail wound on has to walk the best part of four a drum which surrounded the con- kilometers — or do these things fly, trol unit. A dozen smaller cylinders in addition to their other abilities?” reposed in attached clips. “Er — someone walks. I thought 52 IF perhaps, since you don't like the a minute it stood; then, with the idea of my going alone through the same air of determination it had jungle, that I might stand guard over shown days before and scores of

Take in the pit while you set them kilometers away, it began to thread out.” its way through the underbrush to- “Hmm.” The guide did not ex- ward the river — and the digging plode, to Lampert’s relief. It had site. not occurred to the scientist that s the job of wandering around a hole 44TT1 stand where you suggested, in the ground waiting for animals A and never take my eyes off which never came might get a little the pit,” Lampert promised. boring to a man of McLaughlin’s “Then I’ll come back to find you background. “Let’s go over first and missing,” replied the guide. “You’re see how Dr. Mitsuitei is getting guarding yourself too, remember. along. I guess you could stand over Don’t keep your eyes on anything. him with a gun for half an hour. Keep them moving.” Of course, the cover runs danger- He finished distributing the little ously close to the pit. Maybe we’d cylinders in the various pockets of better burn it off to a safer dis- his outer clothing, and moved off tance — still, I guess that won’t be in the direction Lampert had in- necessary. You can stand out here dicated. He looked back frequently, where it’s relatively clear, and see but each time saw the scientist alert. all the approaches to the pit. Some- When the underbrush finally cut off thing might jump in without your the view, he refused to worry too having time to hit it, and you’d at much. least see it and could get there fast Actually, McLaughlin had gone enough to do any shooting neces- to considerable pains to make the sary.” jungles of Viridis sound more dan- They approached the hole and gerous than they really are. His looked in. Mitsuitei was working conscious motive was to make the busily. A fair quantity of earth lay inexperienced members of the party spread on the rock, and some two alert enough for their own safety. thirds of the length of the crack It was quite true that a man could had been excavated to a depth of be killed in quite a variety of ways perhaps a quarter of a meter. The in those rain forests. There was a geophysicist attracted the little distinct possibility, however, that he man’s attention and told him of the also wanted to impress them with plan; Mitsuitei nodded and bent the importance of his services. once more to his work. He did not, therefore, suffer The Felodon was becoming rest- much from anxiety during his walk, less. It could hardly be hungry as though on the other hand he wasted yet; but it was on its feet, snarling no time. He had, of course, only a silently as it had when the helicopter rough idea of the distance he had first entered its ken. For perhaps traveled, though he was able to keep THE GREEN WORLD 53 his direction with a small impulse- “Don’t tell me a bug got through compass tuned to the seismic ap- one of these suits!” paratus and forming part of its “Worse, if possible. I told you regular equipment. this foreleg — ” both had been care- He dropped three of the cylind- fully avoiding the use of such words ers at the required intervals, as as “arms” — “was sticking out side- nearly as he could guess, forcing ways, so that I was afraid we might each a little way into the ground as have cut off part of it in digging Lampert had shown him; then he the tunnel.” turned at right angles, walked what Krendall nodded. “I remember. he hoped was the right distance and Did we?” started back toward the site, plant- “I don’t know.” ing equipment as he went. Out “Eh? How come? I should think again, in again; and the last of the there’d be no doubt, one way or the dozen tubes was in the ground. other, if you have that much of the Mitsuitei’s shovel scraped deeper. limb clear.”

Lampert, glancing up and around “Well, I haven’t. I got as far as every few seconds, made minute ad- the bone goes — and right there I justments to the controls of his seis- run out of tuff and into the lime- mic apparatus. Its little mole robot stone. If there’s anything more, it’s had started on its downward trip. in an entirely different kind of rock, The Felodon lurked thirty yards which is a trifle unlikely; but I’m from the point where Lampert was going to have to check the blocks standing, protected from his sight we cut from this part of the tunnel by the undergrowth and by one of in order to make sure, and I don’t the piles of dirt thrown up by the look forward to the job at all.” machine which had dug the pit. It Krendall, properly sympathetic, seemed to be looking through the came around to Sulewayo’s side to soil at the spot where the man was. look, and agreed that the search The snarl was still on its face, but was necessary. The bone the younger no muscle moved in its long body man had been clearing ended in a ft had been there for minutes with- joint of the type they had come to out moving; it had frozen similarly regard as typical of the creature’s when McLaughlin had passed it on limbs; and this had occurred almost his way out. Now it simply stood exactly at the surface they had left and waited. when first outlining the block with On a cliffside kilometers away, the saw. Ndomi Sulewayo gave utterance to Sulewayo, with a grunt of dis- the first profanitv Krendall had ever gust, dropped his tools and went heard him use. They were on op- out into the rain, where the blocks posite sides of the block containing cut from the cliff had been piled; the fossil, so neither could see the Krendall, nobly sacrificing his per- other Krendall, naturally, asked sonal inclinations, went along with what was wrong. him. 54 IF he search lasted for a long “What then?” T time; for a long time, in fact, “Well,” Lampert smiled, “after after it became evident that it was that the usual procedure is to pick going to be useless, for the chance up the receivers and place them in of a perfect specimen is not easily a similar pattern in a new direction. thrown away. Finally, however, If the field crew doesn’t go on strike, Krendall straightened up with a we take the whole circle about the sigh. transmitter.” “I guess we’ll have to be satisfied “I was afraid of that,” grunted with a restoration on one side,” he McLaughlin, as he stopped by the said wearily. “I hope someone fifty machine. “Well, let’s go.” The two years from now doesn’t find another men bent over the controls in a and discover that it’s a sort of verte- silence broken only by the scraping brate fiddler crab, with one fore- of Mitsuitei’s shovel a dozen meters limb ending in a paw or claw some- away. Lampert pressed his shot but- thing like five times the size of the ton, and a light on the panel flashed one on the other.” white momentarily. Below their feet, Sulewayo gave a gloomy assent, unfelt, the pulse of sound energy and the two went back to work in raced outward, echoing from the their respective tunnels. walls of deepstriking joints, from Lampert saw McLaughlin the in- the boundaries between rocks of dif- stant the underbrush made it pos- fering densities or elastic constants, sible, a fact which the guide later from the walls of caverns deep in admitted was to the scientist’s credit. the limestone; some tiny portion of He had, of course, been eagerly the energy from time to time en- awaiting that return, for the trans- countering and affecting one of the mitter was down to its first set depth tiny receivers McLaughlin had and awaiting only the word that all buried. receivers were in place. He called As each receiver gathered its bit eagerly the moment the guide came of data, it retransmitted the infor- within earshot. mation to the master unit; and “Everything down?” McLaughlin everything was recorded on a single nodded. ' sheet as the milliseconds sped by. “Everything down, as nearly as Long before a full second had I could tell the way you said. How passed, the first of the pulses had long will the readings take?” damped out as heat energy, and

“Only a few minutes. I’ll take a enough had been transmitted for couple of calibration shots from ten, the machine to obtain an adequate fifteen and twenty meters depth; averaging record. The light blinked then ones at fifty, a hundred and out again. Lampert nodded in satis- so on down as far as the mole will faction, and sent the mole down- go. The shooting takes practically ward once more. no time. It’s the drilling that will “Look, good. Now the next set,” hold us up.” he remarked. THE GREEN WORLD 33 .

s that pulse of seismic energy buried transmitter, and then a third, A went forth, the Felodon rose each from a point a few meters to its full height, almost showing deeper than the last. Lampert’s at- itself over the pile of dirt which tention, of course, was centered on was now its sole protection from the his controls. McLaughlin’s eyes were view of the men. The snarl on its once more sweeping restlessly over face seemed to grow fiercer, if that the surrounding landscape. Both were possible. For just an instant it heard the sounds coming from the seemed tom by conflicting desires. pit, but neither interpreted them as But that was for just an instant; any anything more than the scraping of tendency to flee was smothered be- Mitsuitei’s shovel. Neither, of fore it could take full form. There course, considered them conscious- were two men now to worry about, ly. Their attention was finally at- and correspondingly less chance for tracted by something decidedly the opportunity it had been await- more noticeable. ing. But the opportunity came. For The Felodon did not — or could just a moment the guide looked not? — remain at its meal for more down at the panel which was ab- than a few moments. Its apparent sorbing Lampert’s full attention. In indifference to the other men that moment a green-and-lavender changed once more to what seemed streak flowed over the heap of soil like an internal struggle. An observ- in a single leap and vanished into er would have been sure, up to the pit. It must have been timed now, that it was using its peculiar and guided by the mysterious sense sense to avoid the sight of men with McLaughlin had mentioned. It could guns; but that hypothesis failed see none of the men when it now. leaped, yet it timed the act for the As Lampert started the mole ro- moment none were looking, and bot downward once more, the Fe- landed directly on Mitsuitei. lodon leaped out of the pit toward The little archaeologist never the two men — regardless of the knew what hit him. He died with- fact that McLaughlin was facing to- out a sound, and the killer, as ward it. though nothing lived anywhere in the neighborhood, settled down to VIII its meal.

In this it nlust have been disap- cLaughlin saw the fanged pointed. The chemicals in the cloth- M head emerge, and his reflexes ing designed to repel Viridian in- took over instantly. A streak of sect were equally obnoxious to the flame passed beside the leaping carnivore, and it made no serious carnivore, exploding into a white- attempt to get through them. How- hot blossom of blazing gas as it con- ever, not all of the body was pro- tacted the pile of dirt on the far tected in this way. . side of the pit. The guide ducked A second pulse went from the and rolled frantically sideward as 56 IF another spring carried the creature dirt which had been left by the dig- toward him. Claws raked the air ging machinery at the far lip of the past his shoulder, and he fired again pit, and scattered most of it to the before the roll was complete and four winds. Perhaps half a ton had without any sort of aim. slid back into the hole from which Men and beast alike were spat- it had originally been removed. tered with white-hot droplets of There was no telling, from above, metal from the seismic recorder as what the Felodon had done to Mit- the second shot caught it squarely; suitei. The upper half of the archae- and this seemed to be enough for ologist’s body was buried complete- the carnivore. Its next leap was ly, and the rest so liberally sprinkled away from the men instead of to- with dirt that it was not at once ward them. A geyser of steam and identifiable. mud erupted beside it as Lampert The guide, using language strange finally got his weapon into action, even to the widely-traveled Lamp- and before the vapor had been ert, leaped the three meters down- beaten down once more by the rain ward without bothering to use the the animal was out of sight behind ladder, seized a projecting leg and the undergrowth. Both men sent tried to draw the little man clear several shots in the direction of the of the soil. Lampert, equally aware crackling bushes, but accomplished of the possible value of time but nothing except the felling of a tree feeling that he would do little good or two and the starting of a bon- with a broken leg, made the descent fire which failed to make any head- in the normal manner. way against the rain. By the time he reached the bot- Convinced that the Felodon had tom, McLaughlin had succeeded in gone, the men ran to the pit. Lamp- dragging Mitsuitei almost complete- ert did not even take time out to ly clear. Lampert started forward glance at the wreckage of his equip- to clear the mud from the still hid- ment. There was just enough dis- den face; then he stopped, and his tance to cover to let each one realize stomach abruptly heaved, as he that he had' no idea how long the realized that the face was not hidden. carnivore had been inside, and what It was gone. the “scraping” sound might have Mitsuitei had removed the head- been. Both slowed down as they ap- gear and gloves from his protective proached the edge, not relishing suit for the normal reason — to see what they expected to see. But this and manipulate better. The exposed did not prove to be what they had head and hands had formed the Fei- expected. McLaughlin’s face, al- odon’s hasty meal. ready grim, turned gray as he saw that his first shot had not merely he paleontologists saw the heli- missed the animal at which it was T copter approaching this time, aimed. for they were working outside The bolt had struck the pile of the tunnel. Between them on the THE GREEN WORLD 57 . ledge lay a block of stone some pilot, though neither realized then five feet long, two high and four the personal responsibility that wide — over two tons of material, Lampert felt over the incident. all told, which had been worked out Krendall pulled a small fragment of of the hole rather ingeniously by tuff from his pocket, and looked at the men. Partial undercuts had been it thoughtfully. made, rollers worked out of stone Nothing further was said until the by the cutter placed underneath, helicopter landed once more on the and the undercutting completed river near the “city.” McLaughlin along a plane which sloped slightly and the bundle which held what was upward into the tunnel. Of course left of Takehiko Mitsuitei were the block had run off the rollers waiting on the bank, and * were once it was out in the open, and the loaded aboard without a sound. men could no more shift it another “It’s early. We’ll take him back centimeter than they could return to Emeraude tonight, and come to Emeraude without the helicopter; back for your work tomorrow,” but at least it was more or less ac- Lampert said, and lifted into the air cessible by air. They were chipping without waiting for agreement. waste rock from the corners when “All right,” replied Krendall, “as the flyer appeared. long as we come back. I don’t think Sulewayo was first up the ladder, he’d have wanted us to stop. I’m unburdened this time. They ex- going to find out about those green pected to have further use for the threads of his, too.” Lampert nodded cutter. He noted that Lampert was in approval. He had already formed alone in the machine, and promptly a similar determination. For half an asked the question the geophysicist hour they flew on in silence. had been dreading. The Felodon, half submerged in “Where’s Take? We’ve found swamp water a kilometer down- something for him!” stream from the hill, heard the heli- “I’m afraid he won’t appreciate copter hum overhead. It seemed to- it. He was killed a couple of hours tally disinterested. For just a mo- ago by a Felodon.” The news si- ment its fanged head pointed up- lenced even Sulewayo, and the ex- ward, then settled back again. There pression on his junior’s face actually was a burn under its jaw, which startled Krendall when he climbed had been inflicted by metal spraying through the hatch. — from the ruined seismic apparatus. “Ndomi! What in ” Lampert It was more comfortable to keep cut in with the same news he had it under water. . given a moment before. Krendall “What was it you found, Ndomi, reacted similarly; then slowly low- that you thought Take would want ered himself into a seat. to see?” Lampert broke the long He did not ask for details. Both silence. men could see that this was not the “It was when we were undercut- time to put such a question to the ting to get the block out of the '58 IF ” tunnel,” Sulewayo answered. “It*s and a deadline, even if it’s a report just some more of his green threads, that’s due in only fifty years and in the tuff below the fossil. I brought needs about two hundred for a real a chunk of the rock showing them conclusion. I’d sooner do it all my- — here.” Lampert nodded without self than have some of you loose taking his main attention from fly- thinkers butting in! But if I’m to ing. give my whole attention to it so I “Maybe that fossil of yours was can produce something that won’t be intelligent after all, then,” he said. “It laughed at from here to the Ma- b seems to have died under very sim- gellanic Clouds, how about some of ilar circumstances to Take — just you watching what goes on on this above a set of those green threads. planet? I didn’t know those crea-

Maybe it was a member of a party tures were poking around until they like ours.” began cutting sensor lines! Thirty, “Maybe. It certainly walked erect. the protective life we’ve bred on the The whole body structure shows surface was your idea; why didn’t that. If its brain were large enough you put it to work?” and it had some sort of manipulating The answering words tried to appendage I’d say it was virtually be soothing. — human — in capacity, that is. It “Thirty was working was more of an amphibian anatom- “Dreaming, you mean!” ically.” “But I put one of the guardians

“You have the block out in the on the job for him; it stopped the open. Haven’t you been able to digging, didn’t it?” study the head and limbs?” “Sure, after a lot of damage had “No, damn it.” Krendall took over been done. Do you want to come from his junior. “That was the big out in the open and repair my wir- disappointment of the whole find. ing — with those space travelers The specimen seems to be perfect poking around? If they find you at except for missing skull and hands. it, the Council won’t just laugh at Not a trace of either.” us; they’ll excommunicate us and let The helicopter wavered slightly this new species of intelligence clean in its path, then steadied as Lamp- us out. Why did it take so long for ert forced his attention back to his the guardian to do anything?” job. No one said anything for a long “Well, I—” time, but everyone was thinking. “Well, you were dreaming too,

weren’t you. Blast it, you’re here to omeone else was thinking too, but do constructive thinking, not just to S wasn’t keeping his thoughts to entertain yourself. Haven’t you any himself. They were being spoken, self-respect? They actually dug out and virtually dripped with the think- Sixteen!” er’s fury. “What difference will that make? “You sloppy, lazy parasites! I He’s been dead too long to mind it don’t mind being stuck with a job himself, and anyway his brain and THE GREEN WORLD 59 sensor connections were decently they’re not the only intelligences on burned.” this world. I don’t know when “But they wouldn’t have had to they’ll be back any better than you dig much deeper to get someone do, so you’ll have to guess at your who’s not dead, would they, Ninety- own time limit. You can booby-trap Five, my young friend? I suppose your canyon with landslides or any- when they cut one or two of your thing else to keep yourself from be- sensors you decided it was time to ing dug out, but if you fail in either do something. Don’t interrupt! problem and either of us looks like- I’m talking! This planet is sup- ly to be found I personally guaran- posed to be a quiet place where peo- tee you’ll be found in the same shape ple can expect to spend a decent as Sixteen. Now get to work, and number of centuries at a time think- let me think. If you think you can ing, without being disturbed. If get help or sympathy from anyone you’re too young or too lazy or just else on the planet, good luck to too stupid to do any real thinking you.” yourself, at least you can devote a A wave of agreement spread little time from your casual amuse- along the countless miles of sensor ments to making sure that other wiring that extended through Virid- people can . Shut up! You’ll do some is* crust, but Twenty-Five didn’t thinking now or find yourself in real feel or hear it. He had already taken trouble! Here’s a problem for you the myriad of tendrils that termin- to solve, and see that you solve it! ated his arms away from the mo- “You will get my sensors re- saic console that formed the end of paired, making sure not only that the vast bundles of greenish you’re not caught at the job by threads coming through the walls of these space travelers but also that his cave, and had settled back in his they don’t realize it’s been done. In lounging chair. That report — only other words, don’t just neatly fill in fifty years to have it thought out the hole they made after you’ve fin- — his full attention went back to it. ished. so they can’t help knowing END

In the April Galaxy— THE VISITOR AT THE ZOO

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40 IF 9 Novelette

) DIE, SHADOW!

BY ALGIS BUDRYS

ILLUSTRATED BY FINLAY

He began as a hero. Eons later and a universe away, he became instead a god!

i manned rocket on his flight — would smash down to its doom on *ve come a long, long way to a planet no man had ever walked. die alone, David Greaves thought Battered and tossed in his seat by

as Defiance •> tumbled through the the ship’s crazy tumbling, Greaves misty shroud of Venus, hope- tensed the oak-hard muscles of his lessly torn apart by the explo- arms and thrust himself up to his sion in her engines. On the console feet. He wasn’t dead yet. He wasn’t in front of him, the altimeter was dead and, if the slim chance paid one of the last few meaningful in- off, he’d still be present to laugh struments, and it told him there in the government’s face when the were only a few tortured miles re- first, safe, cautious official venture maining before the ship he had finally made its way across the brought this far — had spent his emptiness between Earth and the fdrtune in building when no govern- Sun’s second planet. ment would yet consider risking a Dragging himself irom handhold

DIE, SHADOW! 41 to handhold, his tendons cracking to build the ship, to sacrifice for it with the strain, he levered himself the personal fortune he had built up toward the Crash Capsule, forced in his meteoric rise from obscurity open its hatch and pulled himself to being one of the world’s most through, while the winds of Venus dynamic and certainly youngest in- tore at the shattered hull and the dustrialists — had been marked by scream of Defiance’s passage his fanatical persistence and dedica- through the murky sky rose to a tion. But that dream had come first, savage howl. and the fortune second — the sole Outside the cloud-lashed hull purpose of his career, from its very there were no stars. Below, no one beginnings when he was only an- knew what sort of jungle, or sea, or other engineer test pilot, had simply desert of whipping poison sand been to accumulate the .means so might lie in wait. Greaves had not Defiance could be built. But the cared when he set out, and did not ship had been three-quarters com- care now. If men had always waited plete when he conceived the idea to be sure, if all the adventurers of for the capsule. He could not even mankind had waited until the sign- now remember exactly when or posts had gone up, the cave bears how he had decided that he must would still be the dominant form of have some device aboard that would life on Earth, and races undreamed protect him from a crash and — of might never know such a thing here was the vital thing he insisted as man to contest their sway over upon — keep him alive, no matter the Universe. how injured, no matter how long I’ll live to see my share of that, might be necessary, until rescuers Greaves thought as he pulled the could reach him. capsule’s hatch shut and dropped For him to even think in terms into the special padding that, in of rescuers — of depending on theory, would cushion much of the others — was totally uncharacter- impact. Or else I’ll know I tried. istic. For him to divert a major He tripped the lever that would portion of his dwindling resources flood the capsule with Doctor Eck- from work on the ship itself, and strom’s special anesthetic — the ex- push toward the elaborate design of perimental compound that might — the capsule, was, in some lights, just barely, might — offer a chance. again uncharacteristically foolish.

But he had done it, and now. . .

s the hiss of the yellow- . . . Now the anesthetic created by A tinged. acrid gas became loud- the man some said was a medical er and louder in his ears. David genius and some said was a quack Greaves thought again of the al- had flooded over him. most obsessive lengths to which he He could feel the first effect — had gone in making sure that there the calm, the drowsy peace. By the would be such a thing as the capsule. time the Defiance smashed into the The entire project — the decision ground — very soon now — his 62 IF mm

jjarife . . metabolism would have slowed to ling the flow from the illogically a carefully metered rate. It would copious supply of anesthetic snapped take hours for his heart to beat off cleanly. David Greaves* lungs once. To him it would seem as if jolted to the impact as a century’s each day was only a few minutes. dosage of the high-pressure gas de- The jagged nerve-flashes of pain livered its one giant hammerblow would be only a faraway slow tingle; of sleep. . .Of sleep like death. . the blink of an eye would encom- Of sleep so slow, so majestic, that pass hours of actual time, and he only the eternally ageless body would lie here, safe, asleep, until might testify to life. Of sleep with- the hatch was opened and he was out end, without motion, until. . taken out into the air, where slowly the effects would wear off. II Meanwhile, there was more than enough gas compressed into the he woman — the sensuous capsule’s tanks to keep him perfect- T ivory-skinned woman with ly relaxed for a hundred years. The eyes like dark jewels and hair like valve — a simple device he had midnight framing her red-lipped sketched out in five minutes, as if face — kissed him again and then the design had been part of his mind drew back to touch his cheek. for years — would continue to “Wake,” she whispered softly. meter out the supply at the optimum “Wake, sleeper.” rate and pressure. David Greaves looked up at her It was only now — perhaps a through slowly dawning eyes. The hundred feet from impact, perhaps scent of spices was in his nostrils. only a hundred hairs-breadths — As the woman’s hair brushed his that he suddenly saw the flaw in the face again, the fragrance increased. design. “My name is David Greaves,” he He struggled to reach the valve, said, and looked up at the sky and in a useless reflex, for there would then around him. have been nothing he could have There was now no envelope of done, no matter how much time re- cloud to hide the face of this planet mained. Then he fell back, a twisted from the Sun; no such shroud as

grin on his face. I’ve come a long , had concealed the Venus of his day long way to frap myself, he laughed in dazzling white without and muf-

in his drowsing mind, as the ship fled it in somber black within. This crashed, and the capsule, torn from sky was ruddy, ruddy with the light Defiance’s side, rebounded like a of the day’s last moments, and the cannon shell from Heaven upon the clouds through which the sunset outraged soil of Venus, and the burned were only crayon-strokes of overhead clouds sprang into flamed ochre across the orange sky. reflection from the blast of De- He lay in state, facing that sun- fiance’s end. set, on some sort of black metal In the capsule, the valve control- couch which supported him on a 64 IF multitude of sweeping, back-bent breath might take a thousand yean arms. Beneath him, a dozen low — ten thousand? broad steps of olive-green polished stone led down to a long forum, ut he was not done with flagged with the same gold-veined, B studying his surroundings. He masterfully fitted paving.. Around had heard sound when he turned his the court ran a low wall, again of head. Now the sound was a rising stone; friezed, and burnished to a murmur as he lifted his shoulders dull glow. From the wall, tall slim to look down the length of the pillars thrust into the air. court of monsters toward the far And atop each pillar, cast and end. There were people there. They carved in black metal washed by the had been seated on stone tiers that lingering light, crouched a monster. rose up toward a collonaded temple. No single artist could have There he could see an altar through created such a bestiary of gargoyles. the open sides and, on that altar, a Some he could trace in their evolu- flame that burned bright and un- tion — the vulpine, the crustacean, winking against the outline of the the insectile. Fangs and pincers slit lowering Sun. the cool, invigorating breeze that The people were rising to their flowed over the court. Antennae feet. From them came an open- quivered and hummed in the air, throated murmur that became a cry and a myriad legs were poised in of savage joy — of unbearable ten- tension, forever prepared to leap. sion finding release. Others were beyond any creation “Who are they?” he asked the he knew of — limbs and wings con- woman as he sat up and felt his torted into shapes that had, un- body stretch with power cramped doubtedly, been taken by living too long, as he squared back his things ... in lives unimaginable to shoulders and peered through the any man. And all of them, imagin- twilight in the court of monsters. able or not, faced toward him for- “Your worshippers, David ever. Greaves,” she said, standing beside At the foot of each pillar, mount- him among the many arms of his ed in a cresset on the wall at its couch. “The people whose last hope base, burned a torch. And so, when you are.” She added softly: “My night fell, then the shadows of all name, though you did not ask, is these monsters would be cast up- Adelie.” She paused. “I, too, am one ward onto the stars, and he would of your worshippers. Wherever lie sleeping in the pooled light of there are human beings, throughout the torches, while all around him the Universe, you are worshipped.” these creatures stood watch. He looked at her more closely. How many nights had he lain There was a lift to one black-winged here? How many centuries to wash eyebrow that was less reverent than the fog of sleep out of every nook a god might like, though a man and cranny of his lungs, when each could have no quarrel with it. She

DIE, SHADOWI . stood gracefully on sandaled feet, couch with his knuckles. “This dressed in a single white garment tended you in your sleep. It is made girdled around her waist by a belt in the shape of the most ferocious made of the same metal in which race that ever rivaled Man. It is the monsters were cast. He saw that now extinct — as are all those the clasp was shaped into a profile others up there, for the same rea- of his own face. And he saw from son.” the wear that it showed that it was The thin young man — very pale, old — older than she could be, older very long of limb — stretched his perhaps than this court. This . . broad, tight mouth into a smile that shrine? He wondered how many covered half his face without mirth. priestesses had worn that belt. "Not the most ferocious, Vigil.” How many of his priestesses. “Your kind will learn about that,” He frowned and got down, feel- the old man snapped. ing the touch of the day-warmed “Not from you and yours,” the stone on his bare feet. He was slim man said lightly. dressed, he saw, in a black kilt and Greaves turned to Adelie, who nothing else. He returned his glance waited, poised, while old Vigil and to the worshippers and saw that the young man quarreled. “Tell me the men were dressed similarly, and the situation,” Greaves said. that the women wore flowing, calf- Adelie’s lips parted. But the old length, translucently light robes like man interrupted. Adelie’s. “The situation is that you have There was motion at one corner been awakened needlessly and of his eye, and he turned his head would best go back to sleep at once. sharply to see the arms of the couch My daughter and these fanatical sweeping down, folding and bend- sheep —” he waved an angry arm ing against its sides. Now he saw at the standing worshippers — that he had been cradled in the “have forced me to permit this. But arms of a great black metal beast. in fact Humanity neither needs you It crouched atop the dais. Its head nor wants you awake.” was bent supplicatingly, bright oily “Oh, on the contrary,” the young metal barely visible at the joinings man said. “Humanity needs its gods of its mechanical body. very badly at this hour. But you are He glanced quickly up at the only a man, not so?” monsters atop their columns. “Are Greaves looked from one to the they all like that?” he asked Adelie. other — the leather-skinned old An old man’s gruff voice answer- man with his mop of ringleted ed him from the other side of the white hair, the young one who was beast-couch. “They won’t spring human in appearance but somehow down to devour you — you needn’t claimed some other status. “Who ” be afraid of that Two men came are you two?” into view, one old, one young and “I am Vigil,^ your guardian, and ” very slim. The old one rapped the this is — 66 IF “I am Mayron of The Shadows,” “That would depend on what was the young man said, and he held expected of me at this moment,” himself as carelessly as before, but Greaves said. his face looked directly into “This moment?” Mayron chuck- Greaves’s. “See my eyes.” led. “At this moment, nothing.” There was nothing there. Only “In that case, get out of my court darkness speckled by pinpoints of and come back when there’s some- light; thick, sooty darkness like oil thing to do.” smoke, and sharp lights that burned Mayron laughed, throwing his through it without illuminating it. head back, the laughter high and “Mayron that was First of Men,” insolent. “How like a god! How very Vigil said bitterly. like the real thing.” “Mayron that is First of Shad- Greaves frowned. “If you were ows,” the empty-skinned thing re- a man, once, you might remember plied proudly, and began to weep how that feels.” But the laugh had great, black tears that soon emptied bothered him. it, so that the skin drooped down into “Oh, I remember, I remember. a huddle on the pave and a black And tomorrow we fight, man.” cloud in the shape of a man stood Laughing, Mayron bent and picked sparkling in the dusk before up the skin he had discarded. He Greaves. “Mayron that will again crumpled it by the waist in one fist, be First of Men, when all men are and brandished it negligently at the shadows. Mayron that is already worshippers. They shrank back with First of many men. And which of a moan of horror as he strode to- us is a god, David Greaves?” ward the far wall. At the wall, he flipped the white, fluttering thing delie’s face glowed with ex- over, and as a cloud passed through A citement. Her red lips were the stone. Perhaps on the other side parted breathlessly. The crowd on he put on his human form again. the tiers had loosed a great, wailing Greaves could not tell. The sun was moan, which hung over the court down, and only a little light glowed of conquered .monsters as the first on the far horizon. The torches stars became visible on the far guttered in the court of monsters, horizon. and the worshippers were hurrying Greaves took a deep breath. He up the steps, out through the temple could feel his body tensing itself, and away. the muscles rippling, as though his hide needed comfort. Ill “Which of us is a god, man?” Mayron repeated softly, his voice reaves, Adelie and Vigil stood coming from the entire cloud. “What G beside the beast-couch. “All is it you can do against me, you right,” Greaves said. “Now there are whose entire virtue rests on doing things I want to know, and I want nothing?” no quarrels, Vigil.” DIE, SHADOWI «7 “And by what right do you order no harm. It may have done some me around?” the old man growled. good. Of course, the chuckleheads “You may be a god to some, but took it all literally. And so — thanks you are not my god.” to Man’s stupid persistence in breed- “You owe it to me, atheist. If I ing idiots as well as men with some was awakened today, at this pat mo- brains, you, whoever you are, what- ment, I could have been awakened ever kind of filibustering bravo you before. I wasn’t. You kept me actually were, have become the asleep, guardian, when I could have focus of a cult populated by the been free as any other man. So credulous, the neurotic and those you owe me.” who profit by them. I hope you are The old man grunted. “You’re grateful for your legacy!”' brave with Mayron and brave with Greaves looked up at the stars. me. But all men are brave, each in There were some constellations that his own way. We need no gods.” might have been the ones he knew, “But you have one.” distorted by his transit to another Adelie touched his arm. “You viewpoint ... or by time. He was have lived from the beginning of no astronomer. a human history. And you were Vve come a long way , he thought, great hero. That much the legends and 1 wonder what the end of it tell us. You were braver than any will be. “Those who profit from the man, and for your bravery, you credulous, hmm?” he said to Vigil. could not die. While other heros con- “I am your guardian and I quered the stars and, in their time, guarded you. As many others have died, you lived on. While enemy done before me, from various mo- after enemy was beaten by Man, tives. This is not your first court, and the victorious men died, you nor your tenth. The ritual around lived on. The stars and all worlds you is compounded from thousands became ours. Men loved and begat, of years of hogwash, as witness my and men died, but you lived on. It worshipful daughter who inherits a seemed to us that as long as you post from some time when every lived, all men would have something venturing hero had to have a leman to remember — how great Man is; patiently awaiting his return. My what the reward of courage can be. duties no doubt were originally It seemed ' only fitting that we medical. But the couch has been should bring to you the trophies of attending to that — with some ex- our achievements. It seemed only ceptions — for centuries. And you right to believe that you had sur- may be assured, Man’s history has vived to some purpose — that a not been one unbroken triumph, day would come when Man wo.uld nor his civilization any steady up- need his greatest hero.” ward climb. But we built while you “Precisely,” Vigil snorted. “Man slumbered. I had thought to pre- worships nothing but himself. You vent your besmirching Man’s great- were a convenient symbol. It did ness with your cheap legend.” 43 IT ”

“Or perhaps he was afraid of the “Quiet,” Greaves said mildly. “He god he denies,” Adelie murmured, was telling me something.” her eyes glowing warmly. “That I was,” Vigil said angrily, Greaves looked from her to her while his daughter’s look at Greaves father. “So she believes in me and was the least sure it had ever been, you do not,” he said to Vigil. “But “and for all the need you have of it may be you’re not entirely sure it, I might as well not. But if I may

— and from the looks she gives say it once and get it safd, I can me, it may be she isn’t, either.” He then go to my meal and the two grinned crookedly. “Man may have of you will be free ‘to amuse your- climbed, but I assure you he hasn’t selves. Mayron discovered the Shad- changed.” ows, when his machines touched some continuum beyond this one, e smiled at the looks on and the Shadows ate him. But like H both their faces. Divinity was the fox that lost his tail in the trap new to him, but humanity was not. and then cozened other foxes with If these two had thought perhaps the lie that it was better so and they had some dull-witted barbarian fashionable besides, Mayron made here — the one for his faith in his a virtue of his slavery. Those who faithlessness, the other for her pleas- give themselves up to the Shadows ures — it had been time their error never rest and never hunger. They was corrected. know no barrier. And no love. No “Old man, god or not I have been true joy. No noble sorrow. An un- called out . . . whether it pleases tailed fox is safe from catching by you or not. And I won’t willingly the tail. A Shadow has no spirit, no lay me down to sleep again until / humanity, no — soul. But there are think it's time. So you had better always dunderheads. Mayron has tell me what all this is about, or I them, and down in that city of hit will blunder around and perhaps down there —” the old man waved break something you’re fond of.” a hand at the horizon, but all Adelie laughed. Greaves could see from where he Vigil swung his arm sharply to- stood were the glowing tops of what ward hfer. “This — this would-be he took to be three fitfully active courtesan was once Mayron’s great volcanoes — “he has a city full of love, when he was First of ns all. dunderheaded shadows who go to Because he could find nothing to some temple he has built and enter conquer for her in all the Universe, the Shadow chamber to be changed. he began dabbling beyond it for a The admission is easily gained; the worthy prize. And he found it. Oh, price of freedom from human care he found it, didn’t he, my child?” is humanity.” “Be careful, Father,” Adelie spat. “And up here,” Greaves said, “The worshippers follow me now “other dunderheads come to gain that I’ve wakened him as promised, what in exchange for what?” and you — “Gain at least some sort of af-

DIE, SHADOW! <9 ” firmation at the cost of remaining quickly down the length of the men!” the old man growled. "If they court of the conquered monsters. are simple, at least they are human! And for the first time since their And even an intelligent man can creation the pillared gargoyles did see the value in what is embodied not have to bear the sight of Man. here.” "As witness yourself. Yes.” he scent of Adelie’s fragrance "/ didn’t want to wake you! We T was in Greaves nostrils again know enough so you could have as they followed the old man been awakened centuries ago. But through the temple, past the altar to what purpose? To turn another where the eternal flame burned hooligan loose to upset civilization, bright enough to sting. He said and lose the symbol of that precious nothing to her. She volunteered no thing? When Man himself can res- words of her own. But she walked cue himself? But, no, this one, this close enough to brush his thigh with supersition-ridden tramp I wish I’d hers. Greaves smiled appreciatively. strangled in her cradle — she stirred Vigil led them to a small chamber the worshippers up, she arranged in one wing of the temple. He flung the combat between yourself and open the door with a clatter of Mayron, she — bolts in a concealed lock, and "When and where?” pointed inside. "Look —the two of "What?” you. It’s not just Mayron who can "This fight Mayron and you have dabble with machines. For every both spoken of.” clever man, there is another just as "Tomorrow at noon. In the city. clever.” But there’s no need for it. Tomor- A gun of green metal was mount- row Mayron dies, and the other ed on a pedestal in the center of the Shadows die. You can watch or not chamber. Slim and graceful as a — as long as you stay out of the wading bird with one extended leg, way.” it poised atop its mount and sang Greaves looked at Adeiie. "Your quietly of power and intent to kill. daughter, Vigil, does not look much The friezed walls of the chamber impressed.” hummed in harmonic response to "Impressed! Impressed!” The old the idle melody of the gun. Greaves man was very nearly dancing with felt his hackles rising unreasonably, rage. "I’ll show you! Come with me.” and he very nearly growled with

Vigil turned without looking back outrage at the sight of it. and pattered rapidly down the steps "Tomorrow at noon,” Vigil said of the dais, his calloused feet slap- in a high, triumphant voice, "the ping indignantly on the time-buffed weapon will be swung to point stones. through that window and down up-

Greaves frowned after him. Then on Mayron ’s city. And when it is he jerked his head to Adeiie. "Come done, there will not be a single on,” he said, and they, too, walked Shadow alive down there.” 70 IF ” ”

Greaves walked to the window in to do what to them?” he asked. the chamber’s far wall and looked “Kill them.” down. But it was dark below; noth- “I know that. How?” Greaves ing to mark the outlines of a city stared at the old man through nar- as cities had been in the time he rowing eyes. remembered. The temple apparently “A beam of power, made of the stood atop a high hill, with the city stuff that spins within all things — in a great valley at its foot, but the pure force of this continuum.” again all Greaves could see were “You mean this thing is some kind three glowing mountaintops across of particle emitter — an electron the way, and, beyond them, the or photon gun?” night sky. Then suddenly one of the vol- 44/^vur science need not con- canos flared for an instant, and the v>^cern itself with crudities like few overhead clouds reflected redly names, barbarian. This gun was down into the valley. made as a song or a poem is made Greaves caught his breath. The — in the mind of a man who city had emerged black and im- dreams weapons where another man mense, extending for miles, its light- might dream bridges . . . and when less towers like the spine-bones of the gun finds its fruition, tomorrow a beast half-eaten and rotting in a when Mayron expects no mightier tidal pool. Then the light was gone, enemy than you, then the beam will and once again there was nothing sweep that city, and when it stops visible down there — if the undead Mayron’s city will be a tomb for beast had chosen to bestir itself and empty skins. And Man will build an- stealthily move on some errand of other First City, and those who fled the night, no one standing here shall have a place again, and — could have known until it was too “Who built — who dreamed — late. this piece of ironmongery?” Greaves “So that’s the city of the Shad- growled. “Who was the poet — ows,” Greaves said. you?” “The city that was once the First “Yes! Why not? Do you—think be- City of Man,” Vigil said bitterly. cause 1 am an old man “That Mayron has made into an “A heedlessly spiteful one who outpost of Hell. Where no man hasn’t stopped to think.” dares live; where they say that those “Stopped to think! Look!” Vigil with Shadows, once they were in seized the torch at the doorway and sufficient number, dragged women lifted it high. “Did you think I wasn’t and children into the Chamber of sure? That the weapon has not been Shadows so that their men, heart- tested?” broken, joined them when their Now Greaves could see why the Shadow-children returned to plead gun sang rather than rested in quiet with them.” patience. A Shadow hung against “And this gun of yours is going the far wall, supported by its out-

DIE, SHADOW1 71 — . . stretched arms, its hands sunken scarlet edge of the fury he had wrist-deep in the stone. And though turned on the gun. it jerked its legs and struggled feebly “Close your mouth!” Greaves to be free, the hands remained commanded him. “I have to go fight trapped. Under the sound of the Mayron tomorrow, and I don’t idling gun, he could distinguish a want another word out of you. Go quiet, thin, whimpering. find something useless to do. Adelie, Adelie laughed softly to herself. I want a bath, some food and drink. Vigil crowed: “He cannot move Right now!” — what little strength remains to him is needed for bare existence . . IV 4 if I were to touch that control

“The weapon is at its lowest set- uring the night, he asked ting — it has incomparably more D Adelie: “I’m supposed to fight power than that; it has the power him with my hands, is that it? Or of all the Universe in it — and with simple weapons of some kind? look what it can do when it is bare- And this will prove to the worship- ly tapped in to its source of power!” pers all over the Universe or to Greaves rumbled in his throat. the Shadows that either my or Suddenly the gun’s song was more Mayron’s way of life is right?” than he could stand. He barely “Yes,” she said. “And you are seemed to move, but Vigil had time very strong. I’m sure you will win. to shout, the outraged cry beginning I was sure when I suggested it to to echo in the chamber when sud- Mayron. He’s so completely con- denly there came the snap of rend- fident — I knew I could trick him ing metal, and a choked stammer into it.” from the gun. And then Greaves Later, he asked her: “Tell me — had the gun in his hands, complete- was there a famous weapon poet ly torn from its pedestal. He threw in First City?” And he took her it out into the night in a bright hand, not letting go of it. When flash of fire that bathed them all she asked him, once, hesitantly, in a thunderclap of light. Greaves why he had broken the gun, he an- stared after it, his teeth bared, the swered honestly: “Because it seemed horrid sound of his hatred still hateful.” And other than that, they rumbling within him When that had said very little to each other during dwindled, leaving him with his that night, and whatever they did heavy chest heaving for air, the say had about as much truth in it trapped Shadow had vanished, no as all the things they had said or doubt to tell Mayron that Human- he had been told from the first mo- ity’s godling had gone insane. ment of his awakening. He did not Adelie was very pale. Vigil was sleep. For one thing, he felt no trying to speak. need of it. For another, he was And that from the old man was frightened. He did not want to be

enough .to bring back the first a Shadow. . n IF

In the morning he had forgotten never dreamed that gun. Not you fear. Steps led from the temple to — you may be foolish, but you a pathway that wound down toward don’t hate this Universe.” the city. He stood for a moment at Vigil was blinking at him. “What their head, with the altar burning — ?” behind him, and then stepped out Adelie laughed. “Last night, fa- into the morning, with Adelie and ther. He asked me about weapon Vigil folowing. posts. There’s no use trying to lie There were people waiting out out of it.” there. They lined the path, mur- Greaves smiled at her. “That’s muring among themselves. As he right. I asked you, and from that strode along they fell in behind him, moment on you knew I was cleverer leaving behind the temporary shel- than Mayron thinks. But you never ters they had put up when they fled got away to tell him that, did you? from the city and took refuge here. You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Sheep,” Vigil snorted as he “you’d better hope I win today. padded through the dust beside Mayron won’t be too fond of you Greaves. “All right, let them see you if I give him any more shocks.” brought down. I’ll make another Adelie grinned. “I thought of gun — if your stupidity hasn’t that. But if you win, he dies. And ?” robbed me of the time I need — if you die . . . .” “You will have had your glory and then they’ll see. . “I’m sure that if I lose today, anyway? You will have engineered Mayron will give you all the time the battle of the gods, and dabbled you need. Maybe he’ll even send in other pleasures, too?” Greaves that same Shadow poet back to you was still smiling, but Adelie’s eyes with whatever story you’ll believe grew wider. “Maybe it’ll be that this time.” simple, Adelie. But who can tell “What — ?” Vigil stammered. the minds of gods, hmm?” “What did he tell you? That he And so David Greaves strode in- would create the gun for you be- to the city of Shadows, followed cause he hated the Shadows, even by a fearful multitude and two bad- though he was a Shadow? Did he ly shaken people. He walked down tell you how he remembered how a broad avenue at whose end some- fine it was. to be a man? Is that thing black bulked and glimmered, the story you believed? You simple, while things with black-filled eyes credulous murderer! And you re- stood watching thin-lipped. And as paid him by testing it on him. As he walked he showed none of his he well suspected you might. It’s not fear. only humans who can be brave. Or sacrifice themselves for the e stopped at the end of the ferocity of their race. Or were you H avenue, with the tall towers too busy taking Humanity’s name looming over him, and stood facing in vain to ever consider that? You the Temple of Shadows. There was 74 IF ” no sign of life in the square black to realize that.” He glowered at the opening that served as a door for Shadow, feeling the rage, feeling the featureless stone block, dark the onrush of the bright white ex- but not as dark as a Shadow. altation when the body moves too He threw back his head and fast for the brain to speak, when called: “Mayron!” what directs the body is the reflex The worshippers huddled around founded on the silent knowledge of him. Vigil, like them, was throwing the brain’s deep layers, where the anxious looks over his shoulders as learning has no words. the city’s Shadows crowded closer. Mayron frowned. I-fis head was Adelie murmured: “There he is.” cocked to one side. If he had had And he was, trotting lightly down eyes, he would have been peering the steps, smiling. He wore his hu- at Greaves* face. But he said noth- man skin as naturally as if it were ing; he had lost the moment, and

more than a cloak, and Greaves now Greaves used it. had to look hard to see that when “You scum,” Greaves said, his he smiled his lips stretched but no voice booming through the Temple teeth showed. square for all the Shadows to hear. “Well, Man in all your pride. “A weapon that drains the power of Are you ready?” this continuum! You leech — you “Ready as any man. How do you would have had that doddering old propose to go about this?” man put all my stars out!”

“Adelie didn’t tell you?” And now the moment was at its “She told me as much as I asked. peak, and Greaves screamed with I didn’t ask much. Could you sug- rage, so that the faces of the towers gest any way I could have refused were turned into sounding boards the conditions, no matter what they and the shout crackled in the air are? That loses the fight right there. like thunder. He jumped forward, Wasn’t I supposed to understand one sweeping arm tossing Mayron that? Do you think politics is a out of his way and flailing for bal- recent invention?” ance, while Greaves sprang into the “Fierce, fierce,” Mayron mur- Temple and charged the Chamber mured. “Well spoken.” He chuckled. of Shadows. “When I was a man, I would have liked you.” nd now the fear—the great de- “Get to the business, Mayron.” A vouring fear that came like The Shadow held up his hand. fangs in his belly but did not “Not so fast. Perhaps we can arrive stop him. Now the fear as he at some — burst through the acolytes and into “Arrive at nothing. Put up or shut the black, light-shot sphere that up. Vigil no longer has that mon- quivered at the focus of Mayron’s strous gun and there’s no point in machine. And he stood there, feel- this for you today. But there is for ing the suck not of one voracious me, and you don’t have much time universe but many — all the uni-

DIE, SHADOWI 75 . verses that had eaten the over- which Man himself had made stood curious Mayron and sent back a blazing his fury in the Chamber of Judas goat in his skin to conquer Shadows, and the Universe of Man what belonged to Man. Feeling the was free and safe. But in the places icy cold, and the energy-hunger that of the Shadows there was no hope, could suck Man’s Universe dry and no joy, no place of refuge. Man- still leave a hunger immeasurable. kind was come forth, and galaxies But the rage — the rage that were dying. came to him, that came to the god One last snap of the fangs — one uncounted generations of men had moment when the death-spurred made while David Greaves lay Shadows almost had their greatest sleeping but his deepest mind lay prize of all — and then it was over. awake, feeling, feeling the faith, Greaves turned and strode out of the knowing the splendor of what Man blasted Chamber, and the acolytes had done — The rage that could cowered, covering their eyes, not make a god, that could give a crea- yet realizing that once more they ture like David Greaves the power had eyes. to create, to dream a man — to make a David Greaves who would avid Greaves appeared on the lie waiting, ready to become a D temple steps, and began walk-

god. . ing slowly down, his legs shak- That rage went forth. ing with exhaustion. Adelie watched And in parallel continuums of him coming toward her. Around life unimaginable, the dawn of her, Shadows that had once been Apocalypse burst upon suns un- men were men again, but at her nameable and worlds unheard-of — feet Mayron lay without his skin, upon all the universes which were and though her father had fled, she the true Shadows. The god who was did not dare go without learning David Greaves again, when the what the look on David Greaves’ rage had passed — that image face meant for her. END

In the next issue of IF: Beginning THE REEFS OF SPACE An exciting novel of tomorrow's frontiers by Jock Williamson & Frederik Pohl MIGHTIEST QORN A Relief story by Keith Laumer IN THE ARENA by Brian W. Aldlss 8 And many more!

76 IF • Short Story RUNDOWN

BY ROBERT LORY

All panhandlers ask for dimes—but this one had a very special purpose!

he subway train announced its wards everything but its one objec- T arrival with a screech of grat- tive—to get on. ing steel. The man was shoved from They came at him all at once, the car onto the platform by the forming a pushing, elbowing, curs- eight p.m. crowd. The noise and the ing, jarring mass of humanity. He abrupt handling of his body brought glanced off one to collide with an- him to awareness. other. He escaped the punishment by a lunge to one side which ended with Not that he had been asleep or a crash to the cold cement floor. unconscious. Although he might have been. He didn’t know for sure. He regained some semblance of steadiness on his feet and looked at He found it hard to concentrate, the sign. It was still Westboro. It but soon a sign over the platform still meant nothing to him. came into focus: He was lost. WESTBORO What was worse, he couldn’t re- member where he was lost from. It meant nothing to him. The sec- He turned to walk, he didn’t know ond thing he became aware of did. exactly where, when he smashed into Another train had replaced his, a little boy eating an apple. front of him and directly in was an The boy reacted in a strange army of people, dispassionate to- manner.

RUNDOWN 77 “Leave me alone, you dirty man, The feel of the coins brought ev- you/* the boy said. He dropped his erything back. apple and ran off. Scared. Quickly he felt his pulse. It was The man flushed with embarrass- slower than he had ever known it ment, but the boy’s remark made to be. Sure, there were times before him look down at himself. when . . . but then the doctor always He saw a dirty man. Filthy. His had been nearby. And this time, the white shirt—it had been white most serious time of all —he looked once—was torn at the elbow and up at the Westboro sign—he was was covered with grime, his shoes lost. Perhaps, up on the streets, he at the toes were white where the would recognize something. black polish had worn completely He began to take the stairs at a off his pants reflected no evidence run, but his breath came too hard, of ever having been pressed and the and he walked the rest of the way to right leg was ripped from the knee the turnstile. The arm caught tight down. as he started to go through and a Two girls in their teens passed sharp pain want through his groin. and giggled. “That’s the way you go in, pal,” He was aware that others had no- somebody offered, and the man ticed him. winced at the few laughs he had “Hey, lookit the bum,” a fat jolly- drawn. He saw the exit sign and rover called out to his three on-the- walked quickly toward it. towning cronies. The night lights were just ahead “Bum,” the man thought, and as he collided with a woman loaded reached to his back pocket. with bundles. They spilled. “Sorry,” No wallet But not long ago he he said, leaving her to her indigna- had one, he was sure, because the tion, and at a faster pace he walked feel of its absence was there. Some- outside into the cool night air. body must have taken it, or he might have lost it. In that crowd or e had stopped walking and was on the subway or before ... He H leaning against the door of the couldn’t remember where he had Inn of Six Horses, which proudly been before. displayed its name and namesakes in The feeling of not remembering blue and white neon. seemed familiar, and he tried hard He had recognized nothing. to think.* But there was nothing He had tried getting to the doc- static in his mind that he could tor’s by cab. but no driver would hold on to. His mind wasn’t blank listen to him without first seeing anymore, it was a jumble. He some- the fare, even though he assured how recalled he had been looking them all that he could get it from for his money. He fumbled through the doctor. his other pockets. A policeman had told him to He found a dirty handkerchief move along or suffer the conse- and two cents. quences of a thick nightstick.

78 IF ”

A drugstore proprietor had an- high-class place. Beer costs fifteen swered his request to use the phone cents here.” by threatening to call the policeman Shorty joined in with a snort. with the thick nightstick. “Maybe he wants to call his girl.” A dime. One dime! “I need the dime,” the man said, He remembered his Shakespeare. leaning on the bar for support. kingdom for a ... horse? My “A matter of real life and death, Six horses. just maybe, at Maybe, huh?” George said. the Inn of Six Horses . . . “Yes. Look . . . here, I have two A short man at the bar, com- cents, you take them.”* half of the clientele, was posing one Pete looked suspiciously at the calling the bartender’s attention to two coins. “We don’t sell nothing six horses outside the fact that the that costs two cents.” outnumbered the customers. “You take the two cents, but ” “Go to blazes,” the bartender give me a dime. Please commented on the short man’s ob- “Sharp businessman,” noted servation. George.

“I should,” said the short one. “This is rich,” said Pete. “Do you “Then George here would be really expect to buy a dime for two Uncas, the last of the Mohicans, cents?” riding your six old white stallions.” Shorty said, “He just noticed how “How do you know they’re stal- well you’re doing. He figures you lions?” George said. He was lean, can afford the loss.” mean and weary, looking as if he “Boy, it burns me up,” said Pete. had just returned from a hard day “These professional bums make of peddling vacuum cleaners. more in a week than I see in a The door banged shut and three month.” pairs of eyes focused on a dirty “You keep talking that way, and man. this clown will want to buy your “Here comes a touch,” said Pete. business for the two cents,” Shorty “Please,” said the man, his voice said. “Ain’t worth it,” George said shaky and weak. and banged his glass down. “Fill “Before you go into your act, it,” he directed Pete. pal,” Pete said, “understand this: As Pete turned, the man made a Nobody gets nothing free here, this lunge for George’s change on the ain’t no mission or nothing. This is bar. a business like any place else.” “Watch him,” warned Shorty. “A real thriving business,” George needed no warning. He mocked Shorty. had seen the man eying his money, “Please,—a dime, I need a dime, and he had hoped for just such a that’s all I move. With a right fist to the side “A dime?” George laughed. “For of the man’s head, George took re- what, a cup of coffee? This is a venge for a bad day’s work. RUNDOWN 79 The man lay very still on the He pressed the dime into the floor. man’s hand. * * *

44TTThat a paste,” said Shorty, “Holy cow,” said Shorty. It was V admiringly. “You could the first sound any of the three had have killed him like that.” made after the man had left, fifteen minutes before. “He sure ain’t doing much mov- George stared into the mirror be- ing,” said Pete, coming around the hind the bar, seeking some mighty end of the bar. “I’d better take a truth in his own reflection. “He says look.” . . . he says Unbutton my shirt, and “Man, I didn’t hit him that hard.” then ...”

“Well, man , he sure asked for it,” George fondled some coins in his said Shorty. “And me and Pete will hand. “Then he takes that crazy dime, a plain old, regular, crazy be right here to tell the cops that dime ...” and tried to the guy was a crook Pete poured himself a Scotch. rob your money. Right, Pete?” “What kind of guy is it, anyway,” “George, this guy’s got no pulse,” he said, “who walks around with a Pete said. slot in the middle of his chest that “Watcha gonna do, George?” he puts dimes into?” Shorty said. “Yeah,” said George, “and who

“Just shut up and wait a minute,” ticks , yet?” END Pete said. “1 think he’s trying to say something.” MINT SETS FOR SALE The man’s eyes pleaded with each of the three. His lips quietly 1. UNKNOWN Complete; fine to mint condition. Price $200.00 formed then message: 2. AMAZING STORIES MONTHLY. “Dime.” Fine to mint condition; complete April 1928 (Vol. 1 No. 1) to 1931—1st “Wow, talk about persistence,” 6 years $400.00 3. AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY said Shorty. plus ANNUAL. Complete 1927-1934, George looked at his change on fine to mint condition. $200.00 4. “Seven Worlds to Conquer” (Bur- the bar. roughs novel). Complete excerpt from He picked up a dime. Argosy — back to Stone Age. $10.00 5. “Resurrection of Jimberjaw” (Bur- “Hey,” said Shorty, “what are you roughs novelette). Excerpt from Ar- gosy. $25.00 doing?” 6. “Carson of Venus” Burroughs nov- “Shut up,” said Pete. “George’s el from Argosy — excerpt. — $10.00 SPECIALIST IN money is George’s money. What he COMPLETE SETS does with it is his business.” Astounding, Galaxy, Wonder, etc. “Look,” George said, “1 didn’t Send your want list. All orders F.O.B Brooklyn. New York. mean to hit you so hard. 1 mean, I hit you so hard my whole hand JAY'S CORNER hurts. So here, you can have the 6401 24th Ave. Brooklyn 4, N.Y. dime, i won’t miss it”

IF F • Novelette

SINGLEMINDED

BY JOHN BRUNNER

ILLUSTRATED BY FRANCIS

The Enemy had a secret. Every courageous man would find a way

to steal it, no it , matter what cost his conscience — or world!

T It crunched like an eggshell and he ship went down staggering the engines died, leaving its pilot T on a lopsided stilt of fire, stranded but alive. among the rugged foothills of the Not that that made much differ- Lunar Urals. ence. He had about twelve hours’ Despite the terrifying brilliance oxygen in his suit tanks and a liter of the bands crossing the exhaust of fortified liquid in his nutriment — which showed that the cause of reserve. But he was lost, he was the trouble was a resonance insta- some hundreds of kilometers from bility, apt to shake the entire vessel the nearest American base, and he to bits like blows from a vast ham- was not even sure that he had been mer — the engines went on firing watched down by the radar there. after a fashion till one of the land- For a while he occupied himself ing legs touched on an outcropping with petty things — salvaging what rock and tipped the ship over. instruments had survived the crash, SINGLEMINDED SI hunting for any oxybottles not his own shadow they began to broken open in the crash, soaking prickle with cold, while his shoul- inflammable material in the fast- ders and scalp perspired. drying liquid from the hydraulic He did not mind loneliness very shockabsorbers in the hope that he much. He would never have been could fire a beacon when someone entrusted with single-handed lunar came to look for him. He considered ferry flights if he had shown any climbing a nearby peak to set up a sign of breaking down from mere radio and try to beam a line-of- isolation. But once the extra factor sight signal, but had to concede that of approaching death entered his even if he got up far enough for mind, he found it gnawing at him, the extra height to be useful he rat-wise. would use more oxygen and might To die so much alone, with not not have enough to get down again. even a sight of Earth to comfort He could stay with the ship, and him — that was the intolerable part that was that. of it. He could die when he chose, Within an hour of the crash, he or when he had to: crack the suit, was learning that he was very much or wait for the oxygen meters to afraid to die. hit zero. But he had to die. Four hours of waiting, then five, Not ours then six, and he was beginning to But all are “ now as we are” break. He could feel himself going, Others to rescue like a piece of fatigued steel; he No one else knows exactly where knew he must not, should rather in thousands of square kilometers endure to the eleventh hour and

Suffering follows awareness if we beyond, and yet his control slipped leave him away until he began to whimper Agreed impossible but do what involuntarily. Avoid contamination Enough of that! He put his mind There is the cured one {cured?) to singing, and telling himself stories; Compulsion misliking constrained to reminding himself of friends; to to act consent reassuring lies about the excellent

chance of being spotted. But it was e waited on the crest of a very difficult. Whenever he let his H steep rock, able to see over attention wander, he felt the black the jagged local ground to the despair encroach on him like tides smoother-seeming plains beyond. He eroding a cliff. was not well used to exposed lunar He had endured eight hours, and conditions, and the stark blacks and was uncertain whether he would brilliant sunlit grays of the landscape meet his inevitable end as a sane were maddening; so also was the man or as a mindless, broken thing, fact that it he did not move rather when he saw the stirring of dust often his suit’s heat-transfer devices across the plain which indicated the overloaded, and if his feet were in passage of a lunar tractor. 82 IF

He imagined at first he was de- at more than snail's pace. It would luding himself. But when he clam- help greatly if he could make his bered down from his rock and way to the edge of the plain, he fetched the telescope which some thought, and began to scramble for- Navy-minded bureaucrat had de- ward, no longer needing to remain creed be included in the emergency close to the conspicuous wreckage kit of the ship, he saw that the of the ship. At this range, the bright tractor was real. Moreover, it was orange fabric of his suit would stand headed directly for him. He could out against the darker rocks. see few details owing to the reflec- He was so occupied that he failed tion of the sun on its highly polished to notice when the tractor passed snout, but that in itself showed it the edge of the plain and kept com- was aimed for where he stood. If it ing, over rocks and hummocks and had been travelling at an angle to crevasses, without slackening speed. him, it would have been splashing Only when he paused before tack- up enough dust to hide its sides. ling a particularly difficult patch, and looked up to see how far he onetheless, thinking pure chance had got, did he realize that the trac- N might have brought it in this tor was not what he had assumed. direction, he hurried to fire his Out on the dusty plain, of course, beacon. Turning on the tap of it had splashed dust up just as a an oxybottle, he ignited a few tracked vehicle would have done. scraps of what had been his accel- Now it was on hard ground he eration couch and made a bright could see what he would have de- blaze until the bottle ran dry. duced anyway from its ability to The tractor-driver had seen him. tackle broken terrain. This wasn’t Out of the blurring dust a brilliant a tractor from a Western base. This light flashed — Morse letters form- was a Russian “moon-walker,” ing the international reassurance tramping on four padded feet ex- sign, l-C-U. actly like a mechanical camel with He felt himself go limp with re- an oyster perched on top. Its slab lief. He did not realize until some sides bore the Soviet red star. moments had passed that he was A million crazy fears filled his babbling happily, and that if his suit mind. Automatically, as he strug- radio had survived the crash he gled to digest the knowledge of his would have made the oncoming fate, he found his fingers leaping driver think he was rescuing a towards the cracking valve on his lunatic. suit. But for the long hours of wait- How close would the tractor be ing, in which he had found he was able to come? Between him and the afraid of dying, he would have de- comparatively level plain lay some compressed then and there, and three kilometers of irregular ground, made the rescue journey useless. creviced and hummocked, over Only he checked himself. which no tracked vehicle could pass He could live. 14 IF He would live. And the hell with with rank and technician’s badges he everything else. He was twenty-nine did not recognize. years old and that was too young Ideas flashed through his head. to waste the chance. Possibly he was the first westerner ever to go aboard one of these moon-walkers. Down in the slab- sided compartment beneath his feet he moon-walker stopped a hun- there was alleged to be a dompact T dred meters from him. Below fusion engine which was a jealously the oyster-like pilot compartment a guarded secret, and then there was door in the slab side slid back, and the question of automatic preadjust- the legs folded to bring the thresh- ment to changes of level in the old to within a few inches of the ground, which was baffling many ground. More than a little enviously, investigators; a woman could be he stepped inside. overpowered and the moon-walker The door gave into a small com- directed to the nearest Western partment that served as an airlock. base. . . It cycled quickly, and before he The pilot pushed a control home knew what was happening the floor and locked it with a turn to the was pressing against his feet. He left. There was a slight lurch and a was lifted up into the pilot compart- turning sensation, and the machine ment through another sliding panel swung back on its original course in the ceiling of the lock. in the reverse direction. “Hullo,” said the pilot. “I am very “Please — open your suit,” the glad to have found you in good pilot said. Her voice was low and time.” pleasant, and her accent good. Then He did not even remember to she gave a sudden shrill, nervous crack his suit in the first moment of laugh, and checked herself as if she shock, although his outside pressure were in a state of extreme tension. gauge showed one atmosphere and “My name is Olga Solykin, and I the pilot was unsuited. For the pilot am more glad than I know how to was a woman. say!” — Everyone knew vaguely that the “Uh ” Well, no harm in giving Reds made a fetish of sexual equal- his name. “I’m Don Bywater. Thank ity. But he had never imagined for you for — well, saving my life.” a moment that they might send a Something was askew. Suppose woman out alone on a hazardous this situation were reversed. Could trip to rescue a foreign pilot. anyone imagine missing the chance She had short-cropped dark hair to inspect the wreck of a rival space- around a rather long, fine-boned ship, laid out and opened like a face; her complexion was sallow corpse at an autopsy? Yet already but her eyes were big and liquid, she had turned the machine around and her teeth were superb. She wore and by now — to judge from the a standard undersuit of olive-green view through the excellent ports — SINGLEMINDED 85 it was making thirty-five k.p.h back machine was obviously completely towards the base. Not a thought, automatic when bound for a known apparently, for the ship. destination. She produced a large Cautious, he cracked the suit at box of candy and some packs of last. The air was sweet and good cigarettes, and offered them to him after his own canned supply, which as he sat down. was partly recycled and never com- He was so taken aback he forgot pletely free of his own body odors. that it was probably bad to show “Come, sit down!” the pilot in- that he was impressed by anything. sisted, patting the vacant co-pilot’s He said, “You can smoke on board?” chair. “Are you well? Are you hun- “Oh, yes, if not more than one gry, thirsty? Were you injured in person does at a time. I do not the fall? Were you not very lucky?” smoke, so please, you smoke if you Why was she so eager — almost like.” She urged the cigarettes to- as though she had not seen another wards him, checked the movement human being for months? Her eyes and stripped away the cellophane were bright. Her voice tended to wrap with frantic fingers as though shake on occasional words, with panicking to be of service to him. what Don could only presume to be The tobacco drugged? The candy excitement. He glanced round the poisoned? All the scores of stories large cabin, noting the usual semi- which had been poured into his personal touches — the painting of mind since he was a child came back Lenin, the photograph of Yuri Ga- to him. Anyway, he did not usually garin, the bust of Maisky-Artemov smoke off Earth, and rarely even standing on a little ledge next to a at home. package of moon maps. But his nerves were shot to pieces, The stabilizing equipment was and a smoke would certainly be fantastic! Listening hard, he could soothing. If there was anything faintly discern the hum of a gyro funny about the smoke, he told him- somewhere, keeping the cabin dead self, he could throw the cigarette level no matter what kind of away after the first puff. ground the moon-walker was scram- There was nothing wrong with it bling over. at all. It was very good, aromatic

Balkan tobacco. Although it burned elatedly he began to peel off rather quickly in the oxygen-high B his suit. He said, “No, I air of the cabin it was soothing and wasn’t hurt, thank you. 1 was very welcome. lucky. The whole of my acceleration “And a drink, yes?” she invited. unit came away in one piece and “To celebrate the saving of your

1 was still in it when it hit the life? I brought you food, vodka, all ground.” I could find, and the candy for you, “I’m so glad!” the pilot cried. She and the cigarettes — you have not turned and felt along a shelf under been in one of our moon-walkers the exiguous bank of controls; the before, yes? Or you would not have 86 IF . asked about the smoking of a ciga- be fatal. The trick was to be friend- rette !” She laughed again, the sound ly as long as possible, to find out coming hard and harsh from her where he was exactly, to get an full-lipped mouth. idea of the controls of the machine, “Has anybody from my country?” and then to overpower her and he countered bitterly. What was all walk it to the nearest American this about, anyway? Some elaborate base. . Mata Hari trick? “Not even by now?” She seemed CCT X Thereabouts are *we?” he in- disappointed. “It is being so long, * quired, as casually as pos-

I hoped that — well, it is not really sible. “I was too busy fighting the so long, I guess. Well, you will like controls to take a fix as I came to see all of it, then. Shall I show down.” you how it is?” She leaned towards Well, that was true enough. him, over the side of her chair, her She jumped at the opportunity. face bright and her tongue going Flushing a little, she put a finger on once from left to right across her a switch before her. A previously lips. dark screen on the control panel lit A tentative conclusion jelled in up with a set of grid-lines and a Don’s mind. pattern of radar blips. This woman — or girl, maybe, The grid lines moved visibly, in for she was no older than himself time with the motion of the moon- — must have been condemned to walker. Don tried not to look im- some isolated post for a long tour of pressed again. duty. It was exactly the kind of “Here, you see!” the girl said. “It thing that fitted with all the half- navigates partly by dead-reckoning, authorized rumors one was always partly by sighting on the stars. All hearing, even more here on the is automatic now. We are here, and moon than back home, because here are the Ural Mountains in back here was where the competition was of us, and this red star in the center, fiercest. And the stress of loneliness that is this moon-walker, you un- must have made her mentally un- derstand?” balanced. How else to explain her “And you can — uh — steer it by weird behaviour? Claiming to have hand if you have to?” brought him candy and cigarettes “Oh, yes!” and vodka — he was no psycholo- She showed him how. She showed gist, but as guesswork it certainly him the inspection hatch of the fitted. fusion engine, and the neat stabilizer

He said, not without some nerv- which kept the cabin level — it ousness, “Later. In a little while, if turned out to be a bowl of mercury you like.” Not to arouse any sus- with hundreds and hundreds of tiny picion, that was important. To jump electrical contacts around the sides, at the chance of inspecting the from which a computer drew infor- works of the moon-walker might mation about the vehicle’s attitude, SINGLEM1NDED 87 . extrapolating to find the most prob- “They?” Don stared wildly to- able correction the mechanism wards the cabin ports. Yes, it must would next have to cope with. Don be true. The machine was marching followed her explanations with in between two low cliffs, towards mounting excitement; it seemed a dark, over-roofed aperture; then there was nothing she would not it was in the shadow with the sud- willingly tell him, apparently for the denness of a light being switched simple pleasure of talking. off, and the engine’s note changed In the back of his mind, he was down to an idling buzz. But if this calculating. It would be best to take woman hadn’t gone crazy from iso- over the machine after about a lation, then what — ? couple of hours on board, before He pulled his hand away. “How they came too close to its home many people are there at your base, but not so soon that her sus- base?” he demanded. picions would not be lulled. Then “Oh, many, many! Ninety, a hun- he could easily locate the nearest dred. But I have been so alone for American base. There were rather so long!” few in this region, for it was mainly There was a noise from below — a Soviet preserve. And then he first, air hissing into an oversized could. . lock, then the hurry of footsteps. “Ah!” she said suddenly, and Dazed, he said, “Alone? Are you cocked her head. They were looking crazy?” down through the inspection hatch “With no one to talk to, yes, I over the forward radar, watching have become nearly crazy!” she as- the ground-scanner weave back and serted, nodding her dark head fran- forth on the far side of a pane of tically. “They do not talk, you un- tough glass. derstand! They do not give me a Don felt a stir of alarm. “What single word!” is it?” he demanded. So she was a lunatic. And he was “We are coming in at my base. trapped. Don made a dash for the Listen!” front of the cabin. But just as he “We’re what?” Pictures of a dozen was forming his intention the helmet wasted chances flashed through his and shoulders of a spacesuit ap- mind. “But — why so soon?” peared on the platform under the “Oh, you mean why if we are so cabin which had previously lifted near where you crashed did 1 come him from the airlock below. He was so long after you fell down? Why, too close to stop himself. All the there was much argument for and newcomer — a stolid-faced man against to rescue you.” She gazed with big shoulders — had to do was at him with almost ridiculously trip him. melting eyes. Suddenly she thrust He measured his length on the out her hand and snatched his, deck. His forehead hit the base of squeezing it briefly. “I am so glad the pilot’s chair, and there was long they decided it must be done!” darkness. IF in She got up and took the three steps necessary to reach a sort of e awoke painfully, with his window, beyond which a stout mid- H head aching and his eyes dle-aged woman with an expression- blurred, in a room that might well less face was making quick panto- have been at any of the moon-bases mime gestures. As he rolled his head he knew. Starkly furnished with on one side to follow Olga with bunks and one table, plus some his eyes, Don saw her draw out lockers and shelves on which were from below the window a sliding microfilms, a reader and some re- compartment like those used in cording spools, it was about as drive-in banks tb protect cash being homelike as a fallout shelter. paid over. From it she took a He had a little delirium for a charged hypodermic. while before he regained full con- Once more the mishmash of tales sciousness. He could not tell whether about hypnotic drugs, secret poisons he actually saw, or only imagined and ruthless espionage techniques he was seeing, Olga’s face above his flooded into Don’s muddled mind. own, very pale and worried. He was But he was as weak as a kitten and confused, unable to decide whether could not resist as the needle was the crash had been a dream and he pushed expertly home. was really in one of the American “It is good,” Olga said apologeti- bases, or whether he was dead. cally. “It is for your health, you When things finally straightened understand.” out, he found that Olga was there, Don closed his eyes. on a stool beside the bunk, watch- Some hours went by between ing him with terrible intensity. sleeping and waking. On two occa- When he opened his eyes, she sions someone came and went at seemed to break suddenly. the curious sealed window, and “You live!” she cried. “You are signalled for Olga to go to the well! How wonderful!” drawer below it. The first time she Memory came flooding back. He took out some thin broth steaming could not tell if it was wonderful in a tin bowl, and spooned it into to be alive; or not. He lifted hesitant Don’s mouth. The second time she hands to touch his forehead. There took out food for herself. By raising was a tenderness, but nothing more, his head a little Don was able to to show where he had knocked him- see that a faint violet glow pervaded self out. the box, which disappeared a mo- Gently Olga guided his hands ment after it was opened. away, and swabbed the patch of Sterile? Presumably But — what bruised skin with something cool for? and wet that diminished the pain. It was not until the embarrassing She had barely finished the brief discovery that Olga was not going task when there was a rapping sound to leave this cramped cabin for any from the far wall. purpose whatever, even the most 8INGLEMINDED 89 private ones, that he began to think ful. I saw some of them who learned back over what she had said. The to use tools, who could even talk a others would not speak to her. She few hundred simple words about was alone among nearly a hundred food and working. It is decided by companions. Why? Surely she could the great scientist Bielov, director of not simply be insane, because then the ba$e, that he will experiment she would not have been trusted to on himself, for it seems the virus drive out alone and fetch him from increases mind activity. —Changes the wreck. readings on the encephalo ” She He said, “What goes on? Please stumbled, stressing the syllables odd- tell me! Why will no one talk to ly, and got it right the second time. you? Why am I shut up with you “Encephalo-graph, yes.” like this when there are so many Don listened passively. 'All this other people?” was a long way from the moon. Olga clasped her hands before her “So in secret he infects himself in a kind of parody of delight, drew with this virus that we call a reso- up her little stool near the bed and nating virus. It seems to respond to sat down close to him. She said, nervous activity as a sounding board “Oh, it’s marvelous to talk again! to a tuning fork, do you know? As Even in a foreign language it is an amplifier. good! You know, I have come to “Now I was apprentice — student, where I have made recordings of yes — with Bielov. One evening I my own voice and played to myself am working with a friend, Dvoriov, so as to remember what it is like to in the laboratory where we have hear, and listen.” monkeys, and Dvoriov suddenly “Why?” Don persisted. cries out that Bielov will kill him- “The others are not talking now. self! Bielov is not there. He is at I am the only one who is cured.” his house half a kilometer away, out- side the station. But we go, because on closed his eyes. This was Dvoriov insists, like a crazy man, do D too much. One sane person you understand?” in a base full of lunatics? She was getting violently demon- “Poor friend Don,” Olga said, strative. The words poured from laying her hand on his. “It is all her, with wild gestures to emphasize hard to understand, isn’t it? Here them. is the beginning. Several years ago, “And he is taking poison, laid on in Soviet Experimental Biology Sta- his bed with a note by him! From tion of Raznoyansk, is discovered half a kilometer Dvoriov knew . strange symbiotic virus with some And that was when we discovered affinity for the nervous system, it was true, what Bielov said in his especially the brain. They give it to last note. This virus can create tele- some monkeys, and they get very pathy.” intelligent, amazing! Then they go Don almost sat up. Only a stab mad. But so intelligent it is wonder- of pain from his head made him 90 IP fall back. Telepathy! With a tool way from other people, and our like that the East would — supplies come by automatic rockets “So all of us who had in any and by robot vehicles And all of way been infected, Dvoriov, myself, us are of high intelligence, so per- many many more as well, were haps the others may not after all brought here to the moon, to this want to be cured. They work to- secret base, to work upon the anti- gether on many problems.” dote. We think we have it. We think Don seized on that one. Telepathy so because it was tested on myself, would imply — perfect espionage, and for many months now I have perfect teamwork in research, limit- been well, and have not suffered to less things! be able to read a thought in another “When you fell down in your mind. And that was what was given ship,” Olga hurried on, “it was much to you. This was why Dvoriov wore argued whether to rescue you. It a spacesuit when he came into the was dangerous. But it would not moon-walker to us. Although I am have been possible to endure the now cured, perhaps, I still carry the knowing that you were dying, do virus, can still infect others. But I you understand? Better to save you. am sealed up here in the one room Better also because without com- because I am the control study. It pany I would go mad, and though must be learned if the virus will one I have no longer power to receive day die out in my body, do you thoughts all the others can hear me understand?” distantly as they heard you.” Painfully, Don worked it out. Once more she clasped his hand.

Yes, it hung together. He could It occurred to him that he would have been infected by Olga as an probably need a friend in the enemy immune but a carrier, and had been camp. He returned the pressure. It given the antidote, so was now an wasn’t difficult. In spite of her immune carrier himself, and ... he mannish haircut and her rather dis- had to get out of here! If he could turbing eagerness to talk, she was just walk out, that would be enough attractive and female. Vague plans to take the secret of the miraculous for exploiting these facts crossed virus with hirti. his mind. In alarm, he checked Or was this all a big lie? them. It had just struck him that if he could be “overheard” at the lga was going on, but he distance of the crash, he could be O was scarcely paying attention. overheard similarly and more easily “Now all the others, you see, now. think together, and talk no more. What a fantastic situation to find I must talk again. Oh, I have been himself in! so alone since I was cured! Soon, “So you will help me to keep my when one year and a half is finished, mind well,” Olga was saying, “and and if I am still well, there will be this will be good for the others, and more cures. But here it is a long also you will be a control for the

SINGLEMINDED 91 antidote, because if you do not be- enough, when the ninety or a hun- gin to have telepathy it will prove dred telepathic people here were all it also immunizes, as well as cures. fast asleep together. And hypnoti- It is turning out so well!” she fin- cally prevented from waking up ished rapturously. for eight hours.

“What is it like to read people’s minds?” Don demanded. IV “So strange it cannot be ex- plained. It must happen to you. t was logical that they should Blurred. Confusing. Sometimes I become lovers. The confined frightening. Worst and most diffi- conditions plus Olga’s desperate cult is when you are awake and hunger for maximum companion- near a person sleeping, for dreams ship saw to that. Don had no par- are not logical. Almost they are in- ticular objection, except first that sane. That is why now everyone it seemed obscurely like treachery here sleeps at the same time; we to have so much pleasure from it, have our own artificial time, and and second that he could never help all sleep from midnight to eight wondering whether there were hundred hours. This is by hypnosis, eavesdroppers. that all go to sleep and wake up There were regular deliveries of together. No other way is possible.” food, usually by the same middle- Click! Don tried to keep the aged woman he had seen bring the thought unverbalized, at least, so hypodermic with the antidote just as to reduce the chance of it being after he woke up. It seemed that picked out of his mind. He said, that could have been automated. “And — are they listening to me But it gave an opportunity for visual all the time?” inspection of the control subjects, “No, no! Much work is done, and of course, and according to Olga they concentrate hard. I — or now that was why it was attended to you as well — we are like a little personally. Twice a day he and she noise in the corner of a room. It is both had to offer a drop of blood there, but you can forget it. To from a finger to be taken to a lab hear the tick of a watch at night, somewhere else in the base. She did when your wrist comes near your this skilfully for herself and for him, ear, is easy, but after you wear the and he noted — not knowing wheth- watch two days, three days, it is er it was important, but taking ignored, you understand? So with everything in that he could — that the mind you are not interested in. the sterilizing ultra-violet did not

With many minds, it is much more play inside the sliding box when difficult, for it is what you would something was passed out of the call louder. Stronger.” room as it did when something was So he could allow himself to passed inward. think that it would be possible to Aside from that, Olga talked. escape as soon as he was well Months of pent-up conversation 92 IF . flooded from her. Childhood mem- shared it might be the long-feared ories, descriptions of what it was decisive advantage which would like to be infested with the resonat- give the enemy (the enemy since ing virus, funny stories, accounts of before Don was born, although books she had read and shows she there had never been a war in all had seen, word-portraits of people that) the effective victory. here at the station before they be- Then, measuredly, he began' to came as they were. . . Don closed make himself depressed and restless. his mind to it firmly, as he had The natural effect 'of being been taught. One could never tell cooped up gave him a basis to work when insidious propaganda might on. Soon he was snapping and com- come through the harmless-seeming plaining with convincing vigor while words. she wrung her hands and demanded The other people in the base might what she could do. as well not have existed except as After a couple of days of that, shadows beyond the sealed window, he delicately broached the idea that appearing like the figures on some they ought to be allowed outside, ancient mechanical clock at stated to save them from claustrophobia hours, going through their routine setting in. So what if it were not and vanishing again. But there was permitted? Was anyone to know if a world outside, and there was a — just after midnight — one of the secret of tremendous importance moon-walkers was taken out brief- which he alone of all Americans ly, and returned before anyone woke possessed and which, if humanly up? possible, he was going to take away. Horror at the idea fought in Olga’s mind with her boundless de- is watch had survived the sire to please her companion and H crash, and still worked. The not to be condemned to renewed base was apparently run on an arbi- loneliness. trary time — perhaps that of some She voiced objections. Don dis- Russian meridian — but it was easy posed of them smoothly. He was to establish when the official “mid- enough of a technician to get around night” fell; two-forty a.m. on his the alarms if she knew where they Greenwich-set watch. were. There could not be many, be- Disciplining himself with every cause all the telepaths would be in technique he had ever been taught, hypnotic sleep. It would be impos- he acted quite well enough to con- sible to wake just one of them be- vince Olga within a few days that cause of this difficulty with insane- his gratitude for being saved from seeming dreams picked up from death had evolved into a genuine sleeping minds. . affection for her. It was unkind, he Three days’ argument produced knew. But there was a deadly the admission that there were no rivalry between west and east, and alarms or indeed locks to prevent unless the secret of telepathy was Olga leaving her one room. There S1NGLEMINDED 93 had just been no reason why she But he had well and truly made should, until now. She had wanted amends for his weakness now. to keep the experiment perfectly He bound and gagged her with controlled. strips torn from her clothing and After over a year, Don count- placed her comfortably in the co- ered, surely enough evidence had pilot’s chair. Then he studied his been gathered! location. He had done some heavy On the fourth night, he won his thinking on the problem of naviga- point. tion, and he was fairlv sure he could strike straight across the plain to- e had never been so excited wards Mrs. Rafferty’s Pass — that H in his life as at the moment all-important gap between steep when she timorously activated the mountains which an irreverent remote control for the big lock spaceman had named. Beyond there, through which the moon-walker he would be in line-of-sight radio entered and left the base, and sent range of more than one American it hurrying and scurrying over the base, and could take his pick of plain as if anxious to get quickly the nearest. away from the base where everyone ft would be a long haul. But traf- slumbered, and all the alarms had fic in the lunar night was very been temporarily restored to their sparse, and with a fusion engine normal “daytime” setting. under him the range was virtually It was lunar night outside. To unlimited. the radar senses of the moon-walker He occupied his time on the long that made no difference at all. At trip with dreams of the glory await- a steady forty-k.p.h. clip it headed ing the man who captured not only out across the black plain under the one of the fabulous moon-walkers, frozen stars. but also the incredible secret of the At his request, she showed him telepathic virus. When the eggheads how to operate all the controls. set to work on that one, things Directly she had done so, he closed would really blow off Imagine the his fingers gently on her carotid lovely expression on Soviet faces arteries. as they learned of the loss of their As she fainted, he chuckled to secret weapon! himself. He felt extraordinarily He noticed eventually that Olga proud* as though he had given her had recovered. He had expected a much-needed lesson in absolute her to struggle against her bonds, devotion to duty. He had been a splutter foolish nonsense behind her little ashamed of himself for not soaked gag. But she did not. She cracking his suit when he saw he merelv twisted her head and looked was being rescued by the enemy, at him. and again when he found himself For some reason, he could not tempted to treat Olga with real meet her gaze for long. He dis- tenderness. tracted himself by feigning cheer- 94 IF .

fulness which was not altogether He had a wonderful time impress- sincere. He said, “Sorry, Olga, ing the guards with the resourceful- honey! I’m afraid I never was the ness whereby he had captured the type to be romanced away from the moon-walker. The telepathic virus call of duty. They teach you a lot was of less interest to them. Ma- about loyalty in the Service. Some chinery they could see working.

of it sticks.” Viruses were a cold in the head.

She said nothing. Still. . How could she, efficiently gagged On this trip, Olga was not gagged, as she was? only handcuffed to a stanchion, but Yet somehow a sort of deflating she said nothing at all. She merely message seemed to reach him from went on looking at Don. Some-

her. As it might be put in words. times she smiled, and he didn’t like

Don't count chickens. It didn’t fit the smile at all. So he tried not to with his future plans, and he ignored look at her. it. It took the better part of a day He said nothing else directly to at America Base One to establish her all the time it took the moon- his claims to the satisfaction of the walker to reach Mrs. Rafferty’s Pass egghead staff. There were hasty and come in range of an American conferences with the topmost brass; base. As luck would have it, the there were plans laid on for a vice- first one he contacted was on a war presidential welcome and other suit- footing. They made him stand by able rewards for Don Bywater. And for six hours while they verified his suitable treatment for Olga was like- identity by satellite relay half around wise arranged.

Luna and made sure it wasn’t a “Congratulations!” said the base Soviet trap. But they relaxed their commander briefly, as the ferry to over-cautious manner once they had Earth was being fueled and raised men swarming over the machine on the launching ramps. He shook and inspecting its mechanism, and Don’s hand briefly. Photographs in another hour or two he was in were taken for the record. the presence of the base commander and pouring out his message. V Again, the commander was sus- picious. But at length Don con- omewhere along the line, some vinced him, and the application of S wires seemed to get crossed. a syringe of disinhibitor to Olga When the ship had settled at Nevada produced evidence to back him up. Main Port there was quite a crowd. Within two hours more he, Olga It cheered as Don emerged, wav- and a heavy guard were on their ing, straining a little against full way to America Base One, the gravity, but not as loudly as might nearest equivalent to a city any- have been. The vice president waited where on the moon, for ferrying at the edge of the field for the back to Earth. buggy to fetch Don across. Don SINGLEM1NDED 95 . went down to the little open vehicle People have lynched and rioted with his personal escort. here, do you understand?” Then they brought Olga out of the Don stared at her numbly. ship. The cheering rose to a noise She turned and inspected the like Niagara. waiting crowd with a bright, hating look in her eyes. “Yes!” she said, Disgusted suddenly with the whole and gave a nod. “People in the mass business, Don had to make room for react strangely. They make less than her in the buggy’s back seat. But the — what is it in English?” to his amazement she was smiling, “The sum of their parts.” even at him, and with some sign of The gravelly voice was Don’s real pleasure at the welcome ar- own, but it took him a while ranged for them. The driver turned to recognize that he had spoken. the buggy around and drove at a suitably slow pace across the con- “That is correct.” Bitterness col- crete toward the vice president, the ored Olga’s words. “I think perhaps cameras and the press. I was sane till you exploited me — “Tell me, Don,” Olga said in a for loyalty, as you said. Now . . voice bright with false cheerfulness, perhaps not. But I think there is a “did you ever stop to wonder about good number of people here, enough ” some things?” to form well a mob “What?” Don was lost in worrying Don’s mind seemed to have con- about what might happen in this gealed now. To stop the buggy? To ghastly situation, and about his stand up and scream a warning? tarnished glory. “Possibly there are some people “Why Bielov killed himself, yes? here who dislike your vice president. And why it was necessary to take Political people are easily hated.” all of us to the moon and close us Olga smiled a little crazy smile. “Do away from the whole world?” you think it would please the crowd Don felt a block of ice form if I persuaded the leader to kiss me, around his heart. the pretty girl who has been brought “Think!” Olga invited brightly. to see error of her ways? Who would “All on the moon at our base were not know what loyalty means? You clever, sensible people, high intelli- should know, Don.” gence, trained scientists. All in- fected. Not .deliberately, by accident. erhaps the antidote in the For them, life is difficult but not P carriers’ bodies had made the bad. .. More were infected than are virus more efficient at the business there now, but it was clearly neces- of infecting others. The crowd took sary to insure that the stupid ones, ten minutes to become the mob the untrained thinkers, were ex- Olga had predicted; within days it cluded. We know a lot, over our was the hemisphere that was in- side of the world, about people in fected, and in two weeks, the world. the mass. You also should know. END

96 IF — IF • Feature

NONPOLITICAL NEW FRONTIERS

ave you ever seen a nematode? since for every massing of hu- H Probably not—and for the man beings there would be a same reason people, especially in corresponding massing of cer- the season of the mortarboard, the tain nematodes. Trees would graduation watch, and the platitu- still stand in ghostly rows repre- dinous valedictory, can’t see the pro- senting our streets and high- fusion of new frontiers all around ways. them. We don’t mean the New Fron- tier of foreign policy. We mean the That was written in 1914, in a re- ones worth dedicating a life to, cap- port to the Department of Agricul- able of filling it with adventure, ex- ture, by one N. A. Cobb, who ap- citement, discovery and accomplish- parently did discover a frontier, and ment. Do you really think there who was followed by more nema- aren’t many of them around? If tologists—but never enough. It has there were, you might be saying, been estimated that these amazing why can’t you see them? critters cost the farmer—and you Have you ever seen a nematode? upwards of a billion a year. If you Listen: want to organize a safari to hunt nematodes, get yourself a shovel If all the matter in the uni- and step over to the nearest grass- verse except the nematodes land. In the top inch of one square were swept away, our world yard of topsoil you can bag twenty

would still be dimly recogniz- million or more of them.

able, and if, as disembodied A nematode is an eel-like animal spirits, we could then investi- seldom more than a twentieth of an

gate it, we should find its moun- inch long. It has a well developed tains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes nervous system and elaborate or-

and oceans represented by a gans, and in one form or another it film of nematodes. The location thrives in hot springs, Arctic ice and of towns would be decipherable, your own treasured personal plumb- NONPOilTICAl NEW FRONTIERS n — ing. Trichinosis is caused by nema- an inch a day, pop goes the capsule. todes; so is hookworm. Among the The chemical that brings this about many astonishing things about this is called a root “diffusate.” Hold on little marauder is his—well, let’s call to that. it radio. chemical The nematode has its enemies;

prime among these is a tiny thread- here is one nematode which lives like fungus. When no nematodes are T exclusively on tomato plants present, these (there are several spe- and its close relatives. It lays its eggs cies) grow their fine tangled threads and encapsulates them, and neither quietly through the topsoil like many rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of others. But in the presence of nema- night has the slightest effect on this todes, the fungus—goes hunting! In capsule. Nor time at least, not — a very brief time, the innocuous If no tomato rootlets appear much. threads begin to manufacture traps. in the nearby soil, the capsule will Some make flypaper, some fish- lie there dormant for years on end. hooks; the most amazing of all as soon as the right plant sprouts, But makes a closed noose. Should a nem- pop goes the capsule, the eggs hatch atode put his head in the noose, it and nematodes swarm to the attack. snaps closed— in less than one tenth all hatch, by the way; (They don’t of a second! having apparently bought an insur- Now, wha* triggers these traps is ance policy, the nematode leaves a contact. What causes them to be percentage of the eggs unhatched in made, however, and be ready in time case of crop failure. These can resist is you probably guessed it—a dif- everything the capsule could, almost — fusate. So sensitive are these fungi as well, plus temptation. No matter to some trace chemical exuded by what, they’ll await another season.) the nematodes that, if grown in a The especially interesting thing about nutrient dish to which one drop of this is the chemical “signal” sent out water in which the nematodes have by the plant, and the nematode’s re- lived is added, they will immediately action to it. It isn’t anything as gross begin to build traps. as, for example, an acid which dis- Here, then, is one of those fron- solves the capsule. It’s a trace chem- tiers. ical so dilute that it’s indetectable by The composition and action of any but the most advanced lab tech- diffusates is poorly understood, and niques. The capsule isn’t opened by the man who can explain the process will have done it; it opens itself when it gets the more than make the “message”, and it’s so sensitive that acquaintance of a hookworm. For it it will only respond to a healthy, new is a diffusate which sends out the ir- fast-growing rootlet. If the root is resistible call from ovum to sperm growing at a rate of 6/100ths of an and sends the opposite message the instant inch a day it will then be left alone. very a single sperm cell pen- Such a plant is weak and may not etrates it. And such understanding live. But if its growth is 8/1 00th of may make clearer the exact electro- 98 IF ‘ chemical process by which a nerve Doctors in the state of Para' found impulse, which triggers cell after a high and tragic incidence of stom- cell in microseconds, carries a mes- ach hemorrhage a while back, and sage. There is simply no way to cal- traced it to a local apricot, which wa* culate the ultimate effects of such eaten plentifully by the people. From understanding. it they have derived a valuable anti-

But if you feel a little cheated by coagulent to control strokes and an- our use of terms like “adventure” gina. (Let us add that our home* and “exploration” for such sit-down, grown variety doesn’t play these eyestrain, trace-element researches, tricks.) The vinca rose, common as maybe the Para apricot, the vinca our daffodils, is used in Brazil for

' rose, aniba , pacova', and pajuru will a bracing tea, a mouth wash, an an- be more to your liking. tiseptic for open wounds and a cure for upset stomachs. This year re-

ere is exploration and adventure searchers haVe found that it is a H in its truest sense, not only the potent aid in the remission of many exotic-land, pith-helmet, wild beast types of cancer, including leukemial and deadly serpent variety, but also Pacova' and pajuru ' with which In- the pot-o’-gold kind; for here is ex- dians have been brilliantly painting ploration with more than a fair their faces since before Columbus, chance of a classic buck at the far may make a breakthrough in the dye end. industry the like of which has not At last, and belatedly, teams of been seen since coaltar appeared American and Brazilian doctors and on the scene. Aniba! is a heady per- biochemists are assaulting the Ama- fume, and certainly the forerunner zon Valley—an immense, largely un- of a whole new series of exotic charted tract carpeted with some 11,- scents. 000 as-yet-unclassified plant species. We’ve been talking here only Everyone knows the story of about one small corner of one sci- curare deadly arrow-poison which ence—biochemistry—and have, we , became a miracle drug. But did you think, uncovered a goodly number know that along with quinine and of challenging “new frontiers”. ipecac, cortisone also comes from a When you pause to think that with- jungle plant, and Brazilian Indians out exception, every scientific dis- used to chew Rauwolfia to make cipline can produce more of the them brave in battle, long before same, the widespread ambition to Mad Ave ever heard of Miltown? shoot for Fringe-Benefitsville in good And they have 17 species of Rauwol- old General Everything Inc. looks fia in those jungles, each valuable in just a little effete, doesn’t it? its own special way. END

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The nematode Information is from Peter Farb’s papeav back LIVING EARTH, Pyramid #WS 4. The rest is thanks to Dimension, CBS Newt.

NONPOLITICAL NEW FRONTIERS 99 IP • Novelette

BY DAVID EVANS & AL LANDAU

ILLUSTRATED BY MODEL

Whatever it was that had happened in the

test, it badly needed a good explanation.

I never before challenged the ingenu- ity of man. For he was the head of ieutenant Colonel Philip Snow, a small community of men, scientists L Flight Surgeon, USAF, and like himself — medical specialists Test Director of the Aero-Medi- of all kinds, psychologists, electronic cal Laboratory, was pacing the technicians, physicists, pressure engi- study floor in his quarters, asking neers, mathematicians and so on, himself for the dozenth time in the each one of them an acknowledged past half-hour: What had happened expert in his particular field — who to Richardson during the test that had worked together with one end afternoon? in view: to send a man into space He was no stranger to problems. and bring him back safely to Earth He had been living with them for again. To put it more excitingly: to the past few years, and they had enable man to take his first step been problems the like of which had toward the conquest of the universe. 100 IF

The result of their labors to date to survival that can attack not only was the Capsule, a bottle-shaped high-flying pilots, but deep-sea div- contraption which occupied the cen- ers, “the rapture of the depths,” and ter of the laboratory floor. sometimes it was accompanied by It wasn’t very big; just big enough hallucinations in which strange to contain a man enclosed in a forms and sounds were seen and spacesuit, lying on a couch sur- heard. rounded by instruments. But there wasn’t a square inch of the capsule n the case of Lieutenant Ham- itself, the spacesuit, and the instru- I ilton Richardson, USN, there ments which hadn’t presented in- had been no mysterious trou- numerable problems, the solving of bles of this kind — in fact, no which had been the result of endless troubles of any kind at ' all. Aged research and theorizing and testing. thirty-six, he had been one of the And in the same way, and almost first of the astronauts to volunteer. to the same extent, there wasn’t a He had passed with flying colors square inch of the man, too, which every one of the grueling prelimi- didn’t present problems, all of nary tests, mental and physical, and which must be solved before he as far as could be judged by science, could be sent into space. he had seemed to be the perfect And so, in test after test, one of specimen, mentally and physically, the chosen astronauts had lain on for the job. In the many tests made the couch in the capsule, wired with him inside the capsule, nothing through his spacesuit to the dozens had gone wrong with him. There of dials and graph recorders on the had been no signs of fatigue or consoles at which sat the watching failure of any kind. Had Snow been specialists. It seemed there was noth- asked who, in his opinion, would be ing that could happen inside his the first man — or, at any rate, body that they could not know the first American — to go into about. They could read every flex- deep space, he would unhesitatingly ing of his muscles, every heartbeat, have nominated Richardson. That is every tiny shifting of temperature, to say, until that afternoon when every reaction of his blood and of the thing had happened. his complicated nervous system. On It had been a long test, one made the encephalograph, they could even for the first time. The object of it detect reactions in the mass of gray was to find out how the spacesuit, matter which was his brain, any which was sealed off from the rest sign of tension there, and above all, of the capsule, would stand up if any symptom of that strange phe- something happened to the capsule nomenon of which so little was yet itself. If, for instance, in its head- known, and which was called the long flight through space, something “breakoff” — the eerie sensation of struck it, something, maybe, no complete isolation from Earth, the bigger than a small pebble. The odds trancelike apathy and indifference were that in collision with even so 102 IF small a meteor, the shell of the voice had stopped in the middle of capsule would be punctured, and an instrument reading, as if it had within a minute or less, the atmos- suddenly been cut off. A few sec- pheric pressure inside it*, fixed at onds later, it had resumed. Birt about five thousand feet above sea when it did so, the voice was utter- level, would be reduced to zero. In ing a stream of unintelligible soundi other words, the capsule would be- in a low, lilting chant. Snow had come a vacuum in which nothing listened incredulously for perhaps on Earth could live. The astronaut thirty seconds, at the* end of which would then have to depend upon the sounds had suddenly ceased. his spacesuit which, being pres- Immediately, Snow had given in- surized, and being really a capsule structions for the normal pressure within a capsule, with its own sup- inside the capsule to be restored. ply of oxygen, would be the one Almost as he had done so, Richard- hope of survival. son’s voice, once again normal, had That day, the test had consisted resumed the reading of the instru- of the “puncturing” of the capsule. ments, taking up from where it had At a given signal, the pressure in- left off a minute before. side it had been reduced to that of Acting on a sudden impulse. fifty miles above the Earth’s sur- Snow had decided to say nothing face — in other words, to zero — over the wire to Richardson at the by pumping out the air inside it. time. He had continued his conver- Richardson, the ace of the astro- sation with the astronaut, telling nauts, had been chosen for this im- him they were “bringing him down” portant test. and asking the usual questions until It had gone well. With the other the test ended. scientists at their dials, Snow, seated at the big console of literally dozens hen, with the others, he had of dials, the only one to be con- W stood around watching while nected with Richardson by sound Richardson was helped out of and speech, had given the signal. his spacesuit, he had carefully In a minute, the capsule had be- watched their faces, looking for come a vacuum fifty miles above some sign of doubt or puzzlement the surface of the Earth, outside its But he saw none. On the contrary, envelope of atmosphere. they all seemed triumphantly satis- Richardson’s voice, reading his fied. Even Richardson had shown instruments, acknowledging Snow’s no sign that anything unusual had instructions, answering his questions, occurred. He had been his usual had come through as normal and cheerful self, seeming not even as calm as ever. Snow had felt a slightly fatigued by the long test. rising excitement as the test pro- Being the only one who had been ceeded. in contact with Richardson, Snow And then, without warning, the had suddenly found himself wonder- thing had happened. Richardson’s ing if he really had heard those ANOTHER EARTH 103 sounds, if, maybe, he had been the spoken. He was quite sure he had victim of a hallucination. This was never heard anything even remotely why he had said nothing about it at resembling these sounds. Certainly the time. He had just asked, as casu- Richardson was no linguist either. ally as he could, if any of them had He was third-generation American anything they wanted to bring up from British stock, and all he knew immediately. They had shaken their about languages was what he had heads, beaming their satisfaction, learned in school. and he had dismissed them all, say- ing that in view of Jhe length of hen where had those sounds the test they might all call it a day, T come from? Were they a and postponing the usual interroga- language, and if so, w,hat did they tion until the morrow. Then he had mean? How could this happen to a hurried back to his quarters, bring- man like Richardson without his ing with him the recording machine knowing about it? Did it mean that on which, as was the practice, his here was, after all, something conversation with Richardson dur- strange about him which the man ing the test had been recorded. Con- himself might not even know about, trolling his impatience with diffi- and which might mean that he was culty, he had rewound the tape on not fit for the project? This last the machine and played it back, the question worried Snow more than tension rising within him as he lis- the others. tened. He went to the telephone on his There had been no hallucination. desk and dialed the Richardson He heard Richardson’s voice read- bungalow. The voice of Richard- ing the instrument, the sudden cut- son’s pretty wife answered him. off in the middle of it, the short “Yes? Sandra Richardson here.” silence, then the voice uttering the “Hello, Sandra. Phil Snow calling. strange sounds in a low-pitched Is Ham there?” chant with a gentle rise and fall to “He’s in the shower singing his it. Three times he had played it head off. Shall I get him?” back, and now it seemed to him that “No, it isn’t important. I just these were not just disconnected wanted to ask him again if he feels sounds. They appeared to have a all right after the test. I was rather cadence, a phrasing which indicated a long one, and I wondered if he that they .” belonged to a language might feel tired, or. . of some sort. “Tired? He seems even more full Snow was no linguist. He had less of pep than usual. Was the test so than a fair conversational knowl- very long, then?” edge of French and German, and “Yes, it was. That’s why I called a scholar’s acquaintance with Latin, and — just to tell him it was a suc- but he had travelled very extensive- cess. I haven’t checked all the re- ly in his time and had been accus- ports yet, but it looks good. And tomed to hear many languages you say he’s as usual?” 104 IF "Yes. Why? There wasn’t any- I’ve seen around here since that .?” thing. . test this afternoon. Here we are, "No, no, nothing at all. Just as I within sight of our goal at last, and said. I’ll be seeing you.” look at you! Weren’t you satisfied?” He rang off, hoping that nothing "Before I go into that,” Snow re- he had said was now making San- plied, "there are a few things I want dra Richardson suspicious, and re- to ask you.” sumed his pacing up and down the “About the test?” floor. Now another question came "In a way, but .principally about into his mind. The same test would Richardson. Have you ever had any be run several times again before reason to suspect that there is any- final conclusions could be made. thing unusual about him?” Should he wait for them to see if "In what way?” this thing happened again before "In your line.” starting anything with Richardson Franstein produced an enormous and his colleagues? But even as he meerschaum pipe and proceeded to asked himself the question, he knew fill it from an untidy plastic pouch the answer. If this never again hap- as he replied. pened in any future test, the fact "Yes, there is. One very unusual would remain that it had happened thing.” once and could not be forgotten or "There is?” brushed aside. It must be cleared "He’s got a very rare type of up. Something had happened to mind. It’s probably perfectly bal- Richardson’s mind. anced.” The little man lit his pipe He decided to take Abe Fran and continued: “The vast majority stein, his head psychologist, into his of us have some sort of imbalance, confidence. As he dialed Franstein’s mentally. He hasn’t. When I say bungalow, he recalled with a sense imbalance, I mean the sort of thing of comfort that the brilliant little that makes for genius, a phenome- man was not only a world authority nal memory, an outstanding, effort- in his particular subject, but that he less talent, amnesia, any form of in- was said to be able to read, write, sanity, or even something like a and converse in a staggering num- violent temper. Anything, so to ber of languages, some of them ob- speak, overemphasized.” scure Oriental dialects. “Is it physical? I mean, does it When Franstein answered the have anything to do with the size or call, Snow asked him to drop in for weight of the brain, or anything like coffee after dinner. that?” "You can take the brain of a II genius and that of an ordinary per- son of average intelligence, and find 44T T Tell, I must say,” said Fran- them exactly the same in measure- V stein as they sipped their ments and tissue condition. The coffee, "yours is the first glum face popular conception of the genius as ANOTHER EARTH 105 a man with a bulging forehead is “Nowl” said Snow as the point so much nonsense. Plenty of lunatics on the tape approached. and retarded individuals have bulg- There came the sudden stopping ing foreheads.’’ of Richardson’s voice in the middle

“Then what does it have to do of an instrument reading, the short with?” silence, then Richardson’s voice “Ah! That’s the big question. No- chanting the strange sounds. Fran- body knows. You can take two men, stein took his pipe from between equal physically in every respect, his teeth and his mouth fell open equal in upbringing, education, as he listened. The sounds ceased health, and with the same sized and Richardson’s voice resumed the brain. One of them might turn instrument reading at the point at out to be a genius, the other an which it had left off. average individual, and nobody “That’s all,” said Snow, and knows what makes the difference. switched off the machine. Nobody knows what makes an in- Franstein put his pipe back into fant prodigy, or what it is which his mouth. “Is this the recording of enables a child of two to read easily, this afternoon’s test?” or a kid of five or six to play some “Yes. What d’you make of it?” instrument as if he’d been at it for “Let’s hear it again.” years or compose symphonies, or Snow played back the recording master advanced mathematics. Same a second and a third time, and then answer. Nobody knows. It’s got said: “Well?” nothing to do with heredity. So few Franstein went to the table and geniuses have had genius offspring helped himself to more coffee be- that they form exceptions to the fore replying. “It’s a new one on rule. Again, why does an infant me,” he said presently. “I’ve got prodigy sometimes lose his gift or about a thousand recordings of talent entirely as he grows older? languages and dialects from all over We don’t know. All we know is that the world, and not one of them is the gift or talent is there, but where anything like that.” it comes from, or why it is in one “You think it is a language, not brain and not in another, we don’t just sounds?” know. But surely you don’t have “That we’ve got to find out, but to have me to tell you all this, Phil? I’d say, offhand, it’s a primitive What’s on your mind?” form of a language of some sort.” “Listen to this,” Snow said, and “Then how the devil does it come went to the tape recorder. out of a man like Richardson who’s never spoken anything but English e rewound the tape to its — nor his forebears, for that mat- H beginning, depressed the ter?” marked Play Franstein shrugged his shoulders. switch , and presently they heard the two voices, Snow’s “How does great music come out and Richardson’s. of a child of six, and so on? Same 106 If ” question, same answer. Nobody to notice this, went on: "You think knows. Have you spoken to Rich- yourselves clever, you exact scien- ardson about it?” tists, and so you are. You can do “No. I rang his bungalow just be- a lot of things. You can split the fore dinner and spoke to Sandra. atom, measure the stars, estimate Richardson was in the shower, and the life expectancy of the sun; you she said he was feeling fine. I didn’t have conquered distance, you have tell her about this, of course.” surrounded us with miracles like

“Then it couldn’t have been some radio, television, invisible rays and sort of mediumistic trance. They all the rest of it. Presently, you will usually feel the effects of that soon- conquer space and colonize the er or later.” planets, and so it will go until it will “You’re not suggesting spiritual- seem to you that you will know ism, are you?” and in Snow’s voice everything. And you will too, except was a note of amusement. for one thing —the one final mys- “Don’t laugh at it. If it’s never tery, the last secret of the universe been proved, neither has it been — MAN. And that means you and disproved.” me, and any human being from a And that touched off a discussion bum of Skid Row to the President. which went on for two hours. It Man is the eternal unknown quan- covered many theories, many beliefs tity, and you’ve never had a more and faiths, all of which Franstein clear demonstration of this than spoke learnedly and with great re- what happened to Richardson this spect. He talked of reincarnation, afternoon. Oh, I know what you’ve spiritualism, the mystery of time, found out. You know all about man, and in this last connection, he his insides, his glands, muscles, paused in the middle of what he nerves, brain, and so on. You can was saying and asked: “If this — even display him on a table as a and he waved a hand toward the bucket of water and little piles of machine — “is a language, and I’m salts and minerals, and you can pretty sure it is, how can we be sure point to them and say: ‘That is what that it is a language of the past? man is made of.* Only the other Why shouldn’t it be one belonging day I was reading about some scien- to the future? All languages change tist who thinks he’s on the verge of with time. We’d probably find it producing a cell of life in a test very difficult to understand the tube. You may even do that, and English spoken ten centuries ago. you may find out one day how to What if this is the English that is put the water and the salts and the going to be spoken a thousand years minerals together again and make hence?” a man. I’ve always thought the Frankenstein story was a bit of in- all of which Snow listened spired prophecy. But you still won’t with the skepticism of the ex- be able to explain why great music act scientist, and Franstein, quick can come from a child of six, or ANOTHER EARTH 107 what happened to Richardson this Snow tried to wake the astronaut, afternoon.” He lit his big pipe, which gently at first, then less so, but it had gone out, and through the puffs had no effect. He used his stetho- asked: “And what do you propose scope on heart and lungs, drew back to do about Richardson?” an eyelid and examined the eye be- “Run the test again tomorrow neath, felt the brow. with him and see if this happens “When did this happen?” he asked again, and then decide,” replied the anxious Sandra. Snow. “About fifteen, maybe twenty “But even if nothing happens to- minutes ago,” she replied. “We came morrow, you can’t ignore this.” in here and undressed and I used “That’s true. We’ve got to get to the bathroom first. When I came the bottom of it, and that’s where out, I found him like this.” you come in. You’re the expert on “How’s he been all the evening?” this sort of thing.” “Fine, just as I told you when you Franstein looked at his watch. rang. Tom and Betty Moreland “Let’s sleep on it and see what hap- came for dinner and we played pens tomorrow, eh?” canasta. Is he all right?” He was on his way to the door “As far as I can see, yes. Heart, when the telephone bell rang. Snow lungs, eyes all right, no fever. I guess picked up the receiver, and he heard we’ll just have to wait till he wakes.” him say: “Sandra? . . . What? . . . They went into the sitting room I’ll be right over. I’ve got Abe Fran- and Sandra left them to make stein with me. I’ll bring him with coffee. me. Don’t worry dear.” “He’s living through something,” Snow hung up. “Something’s hap- Franstein said. “Pity you haven’t got pened to Richardson,” he said. “He’s the recorder here.” gone into a deep sleep and won’t “I thought the same. I’ll get it.” wake, and he’s talking to himself in Snow left and Franstein wander- some funny language. Let’s go.” ed back into the bedroom and Snow rummaged in a drawer of leaned over Richardson. Now he his desk and found a stethoscope. was sure this was a language and that the sleeper was conversing with Ill someone in his sleep. The expres- sions changed on Richardson’s face ive minutes later, they were rapidly as they do on the face of F standing with pretty Sandra anyone during a conversation. At Richardson at the foot of the bed one moment he laughed as he said on which Richardson, clad in his something, then became serious as pajamas, sprawled on his back. He he said something else. was in a deep sleep and from his Sandra came into the bedroom mouth came a low chanting. Fran- and joined Franstein at the bedside. stein and Snow glanced at each “He’s never been like this before,” other as they recognized the sounds. she said worriedly. 108 IF ''Doesn’t he ever talk in his sleep?" Sandra, at a loss, looked at Fran- “He never even snores. When we stein and he answered for her. “You were first married, he slept so quiet- were dreaming, Ham,” he said. ly that I thought he’d stopped Richardson thought for a moment breathing, but I’d only have to before replying. “Now that you touch him or whisper to him and mention it, I was. But what’s so he’d wake in an instant. What does extraordinary about that? Why are this mean?” you all looking at me as if I’d sud- “We’ll find out, never fear.” denly grown horns?” * They went back into the sitting “D’you remember what the dream room as they heard Snow return. was about?” Franstein asked. He was carrying the recording ma- “Vaguely. Yes, I do. It was just chine, and seeing the question in a dream. Why is it so important?” Sandra’s eyes as she saw it, he said He sat down in a deep chair and reassuringly: “We’re going to make looked around at them. “What is a recording of what Ham’s saying. all this?” he said. “I fall asleep for We’ll soon find out what this is all half an hour, have a silly dream, about.” and wake up to find you here look- He busied himself changing the ing as if something big has hap- tapes on the machine, taking the pened.” new one from his pocket, and fum- “Something has happened, Ham,” bled the job in his haste. He had said Franstein. “Something we don’t plugged in the microphone and was understand.” Richardson started up unwinding the long chord when they in his seat. “Take it easy, there’s heard Richardson’s voice call out nothing to worry about. We’ll get to from the next room: “Sandra!” and the bottom of it.” He turned to a moment later, Richardson ap- Snow. “I think I know the way out peared in the open doorway, staring of this. Play the recording for Ham at them in astonishment. to hear.” “Abe! Phil! When did you come Snow hesitated for a moment. here?” “All right, if you think so,” he said, “About .half an hour ago,” Snow and busied himself with the record- replied. er, replacing the used tape on the spool. ichardson passed a hand over Sandra perched herself on the R his eyes. “I must have fallen arm of her husband’s chair and put asleep,” he said. an arm about his shoulders. They “You did, darling, and I couldn’t waited while Snow linked up the wake you,” Sandra said. “So I called end of the tape to the other spool. Phil.” He pressed the Play switch, and “You couldn’t wake me?” presently there came the voices of “No, and you were talking away Snow and Richardson. in your sleep. You had me worried.” “That’s this afternoon’s test,” “Why?” Richardson said. ANOTHER EARTH 109 Franstein nodded, and they con- happened to your brain, it would tinued to listen Then came the have shown up on the encephalo- chanting sounds, and when he heard graph, and nothing showed. I didn’t them, Richardson’s expression know about this until I heard the changed to one of amazement. recording, and we weren’t going to

Snow switched off the machine. say anything about it until we’d run “What was that?” Richardson the test a second time. Then Sandra asked. called us to say she couldn’t wake “We hoped you’d be able to tell you and that you were talking in us,” Franstein replied. your sleep, and we came over to “I? What should I know about it?” find you in a sleep as deep as a “That was your voice, Ham. No- coma and obviously di;eaming.” body’s touched the tape, and I “And what’s that got to do with heard it during the test.” the test?” “But this is crazy. How could I “You were making the same sort make a noise like that without of sounds in your sleep as you did knowing anything about it? Why, in the test, and I’m sure they add I remember every second of that up to a language of some sort.” test, and I know I didn’t do any- “What? You mean to say that was thing like that.” He jumped to his a language? For Pete’s sake, I’ve feet and began to walk up and down never spoken anything but Epglish the room, his hands pressed to his all my life. I can’t.” head. “We know that.”

“I said take it easy, Ham,” Fran- Richardson turned to his wife. “Is stein said. this true?” he asked her tensely. Richardson pulled up short in his “Was I making noises like that in pacing and turned to the little man. my sleep?” “How can I take it easy? I spend She nodded miserably. six hours in the capsule in a difficult He threw up his hands. “Okay,” test, remember every bit of it, come he said, “you’re three to one. The out of it feeling not even tired, and ace astronaut turns out to be some now you tell me that in the middle sort of nut who talks monkey lan- of it I had some sort of a blackout gauge in his sleep, and when he’s and made funny noises. That can awake too, without knowing it.” He only mean that there’s something went to the deep chair and slumped wrong with me, and you don’t have down into it. “What do we do now? to tell me what that means. I don’t Go into analysis again? Start all qualify, after all. Is that what you over?” He laughed shortly and bit- came here to tell me?” terly, and added: “Or do I resign from the project?” ranstein’s voice was as quiet “Listen, Ham,” Franstein said. F as before. “It doesn’t mean “We’re up against something new, anything of the sort. If there’d been something I don’t understand, and a blackout or if something else had whatever happens, we’ve got to try no IF and find out what it is, for your Richardson looked at him and sake as well as for the project’s. suddenly a smile formed on his face. Let’s relax and start with the dream. “Now I know where that dream Tell us what you remember of it.” came from,” he said. “Remember Richardson took time to calm that book On The Beach? The story down before he spoke. “It was just about how everyone on Earth was a dream,” he began presently. wiped out by nuclear fallout? That’s

“There was a big spaceship and a it! I remember wondering when I lot of people standing about.” read it if some of us would be able “Where was this?” to go to another planet before any- “Where? I don’t know. On Earth, thing like that happened here, and I suppose. Open place, you know, I remember thinking, too, that we’d only ...” He paused before going on. probably take things like seeds and

“Only it wasn’t standing up on end so on with us, and even the ova of like a rocket. It was lying on its animals, and that by then we’d prob- side, and we were loading it.” ably know how to preserve them “Who were ‘we’?” — freeze them or something of the “My father and my two brothers. sort.” And that shows how silly the dream “We can do that now,” Snow said. was because I haven’t got any broth- “Well, there it is, then,” said Rich- ers or father. My father in the ardson, smiling again. “There’s the dream wasn’t anything like my own. explanation.” He was just an old man, and he “It explains the dream all right,” told us where to stow the crates.” agreed Snow, “but what about the “What was in the crates?” sounds? Particularly those you made “In the crates?” Richardson looked in the capsule?” up. “Let me see now. Oh, yes, they “Lord, yes!” said Richardson, and were full of the seeds of plants and the smile left his face. “I’d forgotten eggs and sperm of animals — sort about those. That puts us back to of the beginnings of things.” where we came in, doesn’t it?” “And where was the ship going “I’m not so sure,” said Franstein. to?” He got to his feet and, in his turn, prowled up and down the room, gain, Richardson concentrated deep in thought. The others waited A before replying. “To another for him to go on, and presently he Earth,” lie said. “That’s right. The turned to them, a glint of excite- old guy, our father, said that this ment in his eyes. “I think we’re onto one was going to be destroyed by something,” he said. “Those sounds some disaster, and the people stand- are obviously a part of your dream, ing about were laughing and jeering Ham, including the ones you made and saying the old man was crazy.” in the capsule, and only you know “Do you know what sort of dis- what they mean.” aster was going to happen?” asked “But I don’t even remember mak- Franstein. ing them!” 112 IF .

“No, but your mind does. If we look up into Richardson’s face above can unlock your mind, we can find him. Then he released the hand and the secret, and there’s a way in said: “Now you can lie down on the which it can be done. Hypnosis.” couch if you like.” “Hypnosis?” The others spoke at Richardson went to the couch and once. stretched himself out on it. Franstein nodded. “I’ve got to put “I’ve heard a lot about this-,” San- you into a hypnotic trance, Ham, dra said, “but I’ve never seen it and we’ll play that recording back done.” to you and I think — only think, Franstein smiled at her. “You've remember — that you’re going to just seen it done, my dear,” he said, be able to tell us what they mean. and as she stared back at him in Any objection, Phil?” astonishment, added: “He's a very “You’re the expert.” good subject. Now, when that ma- “How about you, Ham?” chine is ready. “I’ll do anything to clear up this “If I’m right in what I think,” business.” He jumped to his feet. Franstein said a few minutes later “Let’s get on with it now. What do to Snow, who stood by the table I do? Shall I lie down on the sofa?” on which now rested the recorder, “I didn’t know you are a hypno- and to Sandra who was at the head tist too, Abe,” said Snow. “I’m not of the couch looking down on her surprised, though. I might have husband who lay there, his eyes half- known.” closed, “you’re going to hear some- Franstein took no notice of this, thing very surprising. Please don’t lie stepped up to Richardson and make a sound.” looked up at him, holding out one They nodded their heads, and hand which the other, wonderingly, Franstein seated himself on the edge took. “The big thing is confidence, of the couch, leaned over Richard- Ham,” he said, looking up earnest- son, and spoke softly: “You hear ly. “Complete confidence. You have me, Ham?” that in me?” “Yes, I hear you.” Richardson looked down on the “Then listen.” Franstein turned little man and nodded his head. and nodded to Snow. The machine “Sure,” he said. “I’ve always had was switched on and there came, that in you, Abe.” clearly, the chanted sounds of the Franstein continued to hold the test. They finished and the machine other’s hand. “That’s fine,” he said. was switched off. “You heard. “All you have to do is to relax and Ham?” trust in me. Just relax completely. “Yes, I heard.” Just let yourself go — eh?” “You made those sounds that we just heard.’ ichardson’s head nodded again, “Yes.” R and for a moment Franstein, “Can you repeat them?” still holding the hand continued to ANOTHER EARTH .

“Then do so.” store it up. . .And Noah did all that .” And now the strange low chant- the Lord had commanded him. . ing sounds streamed from Richard- The voice tapered off into silence, son’s lips. Sandra put her hands to and Sandra, her eyes wide with fear her mouth to stifle a gasp. Snow and amazement whispered: “That’s stepped to her side, his face tense. the story of the Flood and he told

The sounds ceased and Franstein, it as if he was there. What does it his eyes alight with excitement, said mean?” softly: “Tell us, to whom are you Franstein silenced her with a speaking?” gesture and bent over Richardson “To my sons.” whose eyes were closed. “Ham,” he “Tell us in English what you are said, a note of insistence in his saying to them.” voice, “you hear me? Answer!”

There was a silence. Franstein re- The eyes half opened. “Yes, I peated his command, and Richard- hear you.” son spoke again, this time in his “Tell me, where did you go in the normal voice. ark?”

“And God saw the earth and be- a place of many waters. . , “To hold it was corrupt; for all flesh had many waters, and we rested on corrupted their way upon the earth. them until they went down.” Now And God said to Noah I have de- the voice fading. , was termined to make an end of all “Where was it? Tell me, where flesh; for the earth is filled with was it?” violence through them; behold 1 The reply came in almost a whis- will destroy them with the earth. per. “I don’t know. It was another .” Make yourself an ark. . .and you earth. . .another earth. . shall come into the ark eyes closed again, the breath- you , , vour The

’ sons , your wife , and your sons wives ing became deeper, but the lips still with you. And of every living thing moved, and through them, barely of all flesh you shall bring two of heard in the tense silence, came every sort into the ark to keep them again the low, chanting sounds.

alive with you , they shall be male Then they, too, died away to silence, and female . . . Also take with you the lips ceased to move, and Rich- every sort of food that is eaten and ardson slept. END

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Two by Lester del Rey I

BADGE OF INFAMY 1 THE SKY IS FALLING On your newsstand—get your copy today! | r = ' 114 IF The Place Where Readers And Editor Meet...

Dear Editor: Wright will become a good author, You will be astonished to get a but one can see that he just has be- letter from Germany speaking about gun to write. He doesn’t know whe- If. So I have to tell you that I am ther he shall write more about the a German sf fan and reader of sf, persons or the fiction. I think that too. Today we have no sf magazine the persons are more important and in Germany, but we had. It was the an author who can only describe ac- German edition of Galaxy, and it tion, but has no ideas how to de- was a very fine magazine, but only scribe persons, is, as I myself think, a very few people bought it and so no good author. But Gary Wright publishing ended soon. I wanted to seems to become a good one. know what is on with sf in America There are other good stories in and the only way to get to know the that issue, but I think there is no new American sf literature is to wealth to count them up. read an American sf magazine. So I hope that I have shown you I came to If, and I think If is that there are friends of If also in good enough to show me something other countries. Finally I have a about your sf. question to you: Do you ever pub- First some critic of my second lish stories of foreign authors? as edition of If, the one of January, German or French or other? 1963. I don’t like serials, and so I With best greetings, am not happy to have one in If in Jorn-Dieter Bandermann R. A. Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars, 2 Hamburg-Nienstedten but I think that my meaning has Wustenkamp 5, W. Germany not enough weight to abolish it. * Seldom if ever—because we see One of the best stories of that issue very few, and almost none that we is, I think, Gary Wright’s Captain think our readers would enjoy. But of the Kali. It might be that G. we’d be glad to print any good story

128 IF — we can find regardless of origin. form size in the magazine. The Editor November issue measure 19x12.9 cm. * * * The January issue measures 18 . 6x Dear Editor: 13.5 cm. Of course I don’t ex- pect Here’s congratulating you on one If to establish itself as a topnotch sf magazine (such as An- of the finest issues that I have ever alog or Galaxy) overnight, seen in your history. The Jan. issue but I don’t believe in stagnation, either. was simply superb! I rate The Five Who knows? If such Hells of Orion as the best by far, improvements persist, I one of the best novelettes of in- may even buy a subscrip- tion. terstellar adventure that I have Tell Worlds To- ever read. If you ever start a me more about of morrow. Clarke, Leinster, “classic reprint” department this Silverberg and Laumer. Quite a lineup, if I story will appear in If as a classic may say so. One more question, then of classics. The next best story was I’ll stop bothering you. Are you to Captain of the Kali, by an author become editor? who is very promising, Gary William Lewis, Jr. Wright. I found this story to be an Box 24 excellent blend of science fiction and Bunola, Pennsylvania good old-fashioned adventure. Next *Yes. — Editor comes The Shipshape Miracle by , * * * Clifford D. Simak. All in all, a great issue. Dear Editor: Every time I turn to your letter In the first part of Podkayne of column I see comments on your cov- Mars, Podkayne states, “my waist is er and interior art, usually bad. forty-eight centimeters.” Robert Lately these remarks are getting Heinlein is one of my favorite au- better, signifying that your art is thors, but sixteen-year-old girls do looking up. However, I don’t give a not usually have waistlines of a darn whether your art is superb or little over twelve inches. What hap- crummy. When I buy If or any pened, has Podkayne been dieting? other sf magazine I look for good Muriel Garfunkel stories, and nothing else. 49 East 96th Street I wish you came out monthly, New York 28, N.Y. though. Couldn’t you do something * A centimeter being .3937 inches, about that? 48 of ’em must come to—um—gosh Paul Gilster —oh, say about nineteen inches, al- 42 Goodwon Lane most. Svelte but not scrawny. Bet- St. Louis 24, Mo. ter get that slipstick fixed.' - * * Editor Dear Editor: * * * The improvement in the January Dear Editor: issue of If is welcome. Not one The March If was the first ish smudged or totally unreadable page! I’d seen in a while, but what an im- One trivial thing that irritates provement! Neat cover by Finlay me no end is the utter lack of uni- (ain’t he always?), neat layout, HUE AND CRY 129 neat illos, tinted headings, terrific to her and so does Clark? Poddy yarns (an extra laurel for that dis- ought to have made a pet of Ariel, turbing bit by Ted White and Terry flirted with a spaceship captain, Carr). Wot next? Pulp size? No? I proved her worth as a crewman in thought not. space and finally married Dexter. Know something? You’re rounding Please tell Mr. Heinlein to get busy up the best, so try to latch on to on the sequel. Hannes Bok, R. M. Williams, Ross Gwen Cunningham Rocklynne, Leigh Brackett, and/or 8286 Wisconsin Street James MacCreigh (for that I get Oakland 2, California * Pohl-axed) . Also Bloch, Bloch, Gosh, what do we need him for?

Bloch. Sure! You just wrote it ! —Editor I’ll be waiting with four dimes * * clutched in my sweaty little paw. * As friends of the family know, Meantime I wish to heck someone each issue we bring you at least would write to me. one story by a writer never before Chuck Morris published in a science fiction maga- R. 6, Box 34 zine. This issue there are two: An- Gaffney, S.C. other Earth by couple of fellows y a * James MacWho ?—Editor who have done all their previous * * writing in drama form, and Run- Dear Editor: downy by a young public-relations I’ve heard of an all one-author man from upstate New York. How issue, but never before an all one- about the rest of you out there? artist issue. Hats off to Virgil Fin- It isn’t a contest; you don’t have to boxtop all have to lay and Fred Pohl, boys. tear off a ; you It’s good to see J. G. Ballard in do is write a story and mail it to your pages, but how about some us along with a stamped, self-ad- more Britishers, say James White, dressed return envelope in case we Ken Bulmer, Philip High and so on? don’t like it . . . David Charles Paskow Next issue: Retief is back, with 817 West 66th Avenue what we think about the best in the Philadelphia 26, Penna. series. We begin a new serial called * * * The Reefs of Space by Jack Wil- Dear Editor: liamson and your editor. And

I protest! How could Heinlein there’ll be more . . . squeal to a stop so soon when ob- See you then! viously, Poddy has a lot more story Editor

130 o !

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