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V V , S •--, A THE FIREMAN o By Ray Bradbury \ H | : . Galaxy SCIENCE FICTION

February, 1951 Vol. 1, No. 5 Edilor-in-Chief VERA CERUTTI

Editor H, L GOLD CONTENTS

Art Director NOVELLA W. L VAN DER POEL

Advertising Manager THE FIREMAN - * * < * ••.«.*«>.. GENE MARTINAT by Ray Bradbury 4

SHORT STORIES

. . . AND IT COMES OUT HERE

by Lester del Rey 62 Cover by CHESLEY BONESTELL .... •*»«*«*»#*•» «.*«> Illustrating THE PROTECTOR The Tying Down of a by Betsy Curtis 75 Spaceship on Mars in a Desert sandstorm SECOND CHILDHOOD GALAXY Science Fiction

is published monthly by , by Clifford D. S/mafc 83 World Editions, Inc. Main offices: 105 West 40th St., New York 18, N. Y. 250 WEEKS IN AUGUST per copy, Subscriptions TWO (12 copies) $2.50 per year in the United States, by Frank M. Robinson 1 02 Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. Possessions. Elsewhere BOOK-LENGTH SERIAL—Installment 2 $3,25. Application for entry as second-class matter is TYRANN pending at the Post Office, New York, N. Y. Copyright, 1950, by World Editions, by Isaac Asimov 108 Inc. President: George A, Gogniat. Vice-President Marco Lombi. Secretary FEATURES

and Treasurer : Anne Swe- reda. All rights, including EDITORIAL PAGE translation, reserved. Ail material submitted must be by H. Gold 2 accompanied by self-ad- L dressed stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolic- FIVE-STAR SHELF ited material. All stories printed^ in this magazine by Groff Conklin 99 are fiction, and any simil- arity between characters and actual persons is co- incidental* Next issue at your newsstand first week In February

o|^|s^k^l73 Printed in the U. S. A. Reg. U. S. Pat. Off* .

DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT . .

. . . GALAXY Science Fiction has:

• The most attractive appearance in its field. No reader, whether Ph.D., M.D., D.D., hackie, housewife or haber- dasher, is ashamed to be seen carrying GALAXY!

• The most beautiful covers in its field. Paintings by noted artists—and now CHESLEY BONESTELL!—are reproduced with the minutest fidelity on Champion Kromekote, the choicest cover stock obtainable!

• The highest rates and most liberal policy on story rights in its field. GALAXY demands no share what- ever in the resale of any story that appears in it, which helps to explain why GALAXY has . . .

• The best fiction in its field. The finest science fiction writers—and now RAY BRADBURY!—are consistently giving GALAXY their finest stories!

• Could this be why GALAXY Science Fiction has made the greatest impact and is growing more swiftly than any other magazine in its field?

• M'm, yes, it could be . . . and it is! For 1 2 issues of convincing proof, send $2.50 and your name and address to:

WORLD EDITIONS. Inc. 105 WEST 40th STREET NEW YORK 18. N. Y. Yardstick for Science Fiction

k MONG readers, writers and "The quality of everything that /% business rivals, there is no has appeared in GALAXY is so /~\ doubt that GALAXY has high that, when I write for it, I succeeded enormously. Of these, want to be represented by my best only our competitors are baffled by work." these phenomena: Guess at the name if you wish;

• GALAXY is naive enough to you may even be right . . . but I'll believe in the publishing platitudes hold it until I have a definite an- of good characterization, believable nouncement to make. situations, credible conflict, all of Yes, there is enough good stuff which have been talked up for to be had, now that writers are years while the opposite was used. convinced GALAXY wants them Whether GALAXY really does to discard the shabby wrappings in use them can be attested to by a which science fiction has been letter from an author whose name embalmed; mummified, almost.

would be instantly recognized: This policy was inevitable, for it

"... I opened the first issue merely applies the standards of any with interest but without any spe- legitimate branch of literature to cial expectation, one way or the science fiction. I don't want to keep

other. I recognized your name on this policy exclusively ours, for I

the masthead . . . and I was im- do not fear good competition, pressed with both the ambitious which can expand the field format and the table of contents immensely, but I am mortally

names. Then I read it, almost at afraid of retread private eye, west- one sitting—and realized I was ern and Congo Sam stories mas- reading the first fully adult science querading as science fiction.

fiction magazine I had ever held in • As I mentioned in an earlier my hands! editorial, reader-editor collabora- ". . . Frankly, I didn't think you tion has often been offered, seldom

could keep it up more than one meant. It was meant in GALAXY, issue, being fairly sure that there despite warnings even from read- was not that much good stuff to be ers that *the screwballs might de- had. But the second issue -was as mand old hat science fiction. None good as the first and so was the did.

third . . . If GALAXY is a superior maga-

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION —

zine it is due to reader participa- their inclination to give their work tion and guidance! away for nothing—while demand- • GALAXY has received the ing a share of resale price. excited support of the best writers • Because of our higher rates and of science fiction. These authors refusal to cut in on earnings that were not misled by party girls on are not ethically a magazine pub- our payroll, nor drugged into sub- lisher's, GALAXY is, as a natural mitting. They came voluntarily be- consequence, getting the finest sci- cause of our challenging editorial ence fiction stories. policy and the highest rates in the Also as a consequence, apparent- field. And just as important . . . ly, "Needle" by Hal Clement will

• GALAXY buys only first maga- not be the current 'GALAXY zine publication rights. We retain Science Fiction Novel, though an- no other rights at all, whether nounced last month. A fraction of radio, pocketbook, anthologization, the book first appeared in another or any other sort. We demand not magazine, and since it is that pub- a single cent of the payment for lisher's policy to retain reprint the resale of any GALAXY story! rights, it has been refused us, de- This point may be obscure to spite the wishes of the author and non-writers, but it is of vital con- the publishers of the clothbound cern to "authors. Vital enough, I be- edition. lieve, for readers to have it Hal Clement has thus suffered a explained to them. serious financial loss—a guarantee Counting false starts, stories of almost the original price of the that won't work out, stories that story, and royalties that could very shouldn't have been written at all possibly make it much more but seemed good at the time, re- through having his interests "pro- search, productive labor, etc., it tected." takes a stupendous amount of It is dubious protection that can, writing at even the highest rates cancel a sale for an author and to support an author and his family yet often involve a demand for a on magazine sales alone. substantial part of the payment. In Any additional income a story- some cases, this demand may can bring in, through anthologiza- amount to as much as the original tion, pocketbook reprint, or other price of the story. resale, is important to him. We regret being unable to offer

Realizing this, GALAXY does this fine book . . . but we do have not use fictitious excuses to deprive an ORIGINAL novel, "Prelude to writers of this income, such as re- Space" by Arthur C. Clarke. It's garding them as business infants good! And it's still only 25(f. who must be protected against —H. L. GOLD

YARDSTICK FOR SCIENCE FICTION 3 .

THE FIREMAN By RAY BRADBURY

A master of science fiction presents his

masterwork of frightening conviction . . the world of the future WE are creating!

Fire, Fire, Burn Books

HE four men sat silently Mr. Montag sat stiffly among the playing blackjack under a other firemen in the fire house, T green drop-light in the dark heard the voice-clock mourn out the morning. Only a voice whispered cold hour and the cold year, and from the ceiling: shivered. "One thirty-five a.m. Thursday •The other three glanced up. morning, October 4th, 2052, A.D. "What's wrong, Montag?"

. . . One 'forty a.m. . . . one A radio hummed somewhere. ." ". fifty . . . . War may be declared any

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Illustrated by KARL ROGERS

hour. This country stands ready to ." defend its destiny and . . The fire house trembled as five hundred jet-planes screamed across the black morning sky. colored hair. Stacked behind them The firemen slumped in their were glittering piles of auxiliary coal-blue uniforms, with the look helmets. Downstairs in concrete of thirty years in their blue-shaved, dampness the fire monster itself sharp, pink faces "and their burnt- slept, the silent dragon of nickel

THE FIREMAN quickly. and tangerine colors, the boa-con r 1. Answer the alarm strictor hoses, the twinkling brass. 2. Start the fire swiftly. "I'm thinking of our last job," 3. Be sure you burn every- said Mr. Montag. thing. "Don't," said Leahy, the fire 4. Report back to fire house. chief. 5. Stand alert for another "That poor man, when we alarm:

burned his library. How would it feel if firemen burned our houses Everyone watched Montag. and our books?" He swallowed. "What will they "We haven't any books." do to that old man we caught last "But if we did have some." night with his books?" "You got some?" "Insane asylum." "No." "But he wasn't insane!"

Montag gazed beyond them to "Any man is who thinks he can the wall and the typed lists of a hide books from the Government million forbidden books. The titles or us." Leahy blew a great fiery

cringed in fire, burning down the cloud of cigar smoke from his thin years under his ax and his fire hose mouth. He idled back. spraying not water but—kerosene. The alarm sounded. "Was it always like this?" asked The bell kicked itself two hun- Mr. Montag. "The fire house, our dred times in a few seconds. Sud- duties? I mean, well, once upon a denly there were three empty chairs. ." time . . The cards fell in a snow flurry. "Once upon a time!" Leahy The brass pole trembled. The men

crowed. "What kind of language is were gone, their hats with them.

that?" Montag still sat. Below, the orange

Fool, cried Montag to himself. dragon coughed to life. You'll give yourself away! That last Montag slid down the pole like fire. A book of fairy tales. He had a man in a dream. dared to read a line or so. "I mean," "Montag, you forgot your hat!" he said, quickly, "in the old days, He got it and they were off, the before homes were completely fire- night wind hammering about their proof, didn't firemen ride to fires siren noise and their mighty metal to put them out, instead of start thunder. them?" "I never knew that." Stoneman IT WAS a flaking three-story and Black drew forth their rule house in the old section of town. books and laid them where Mon- A century old if it was a day, but, tag, though long familiar with like every house, it had been given them, might read: a thin fireproof plastic coat fifty

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION years ago, and this preservative shell but it blazed in his mind for the

seemed to be holding it up. next minute as if stamped there "Here we are!" with a fiery iron. He dropped the The engine slammed to a stop. book. Immediately, another fell into Leahy, Stoneman, and Black ran up his arms. the sidewalk, suddenly odious and "Montag, come on up!" fat in their plump slickers. Montag Montag's hand closed like a trap, followed. crushed the book with wild devo- They crashed the front door and tion, with an insanity of mindless- caught a woman, running. ness to his chest. The men above "I didn't hurt anyone!" she were hurling shovelfuls of litera- cried. ture into the dusty air. They fell "Where are they?" Leahy twist- like slaughtered birds and the wo- ed her wrist. ' man stood like a small girl among "You wouldn't take an old wo- the bodies. man's pleasures from her, would "Montag!" you?" He climbed up into the attic. " " Stoneman produced the tele- 'This too shall pass away.' phone alarm card with the com- "What?" Leahy glared at him.

plaint signed in facsimile duplicate Montag froze, blinking. "Did I on the back. "Says here, Chief, the say something?" books are. in the attic." "Move, you idiot!" "All right, men, let's get 'em!" Next thing they were up in THE books lay in piles like fishes musty blackness, swinging silver left to dry. hatchets at doors that were, after "Trash! Trash!" The men danced all, unlocked, tumbling through like on the books. Titles glittered their boys all rollick and shout. golden eyes, falling, gone. "Hey!" "Kerosene!" A fountain of books sprayed They pumped the cool fluid from down on Montag as he climbed the white snake they had twined shuddering up the steep stair well. upstairs. They coated every book;

Books bombarded his shoulders, his they pumped rooms full of it. pale face. A book lit, almost obe- "This is better than the old man's diently, like a white pigeon, in his place last night, eh?" hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, That had not been as much fun. wavering light a page hung open The old man had lived in an apart- and it was like a snowy feather, the ment house with other people. They words delicately painted thereon. In had had to use controlled fire there. all the rush and fervor, Montag Here, they could ravage the entire

had only an instant to read a line, ' house.

THE FIREMAN They ran downstairs, Montag "Go on," said the woman. reeling after them in the kerosene "Three," said Leahy. fumes. "Come." Montag pulled at her. "Come on, woman!" "I want to stay here," she re- "My books," she said, quietly. plied, quietly. ." She knelt among them to touch the "Four . . . five . . drenched leather, to read the gilt The woman twisted. Montag

titles with her fingers instead of slipped on an oily book and fell. her eyes, while her eyes accused The woman ran up the stairs half Montag. way and stood there with the books "You can't take my books," she at her feet.

said. "Six . . . seven . . . Montag," "You know the law," said Leahy. said Leahy.

"Pure nonsense, all of it. No two Montag did not move. He looked books alike, none agreeing. Confu- out the door at that man there with sion. Stories about people who the pink face, pink and burned and never existed. Come on, now." shiny from too many fires, pink "No," she said. from night excitements, the pink "The whole house'll burn." face of Mr. Leahy with the igniter "I won't go." poised in his pink fingers. The three men walked clumsily Montag felt the book hidden to the door. They glanced back at against his pounding chest. Montag who stood near the woman. "Go get him!" ordered Leahy. "You're not leaving her here?" he protested. THE men dragged Montag yell- "She won't come." ing from the house. "But she's got to!" Leahy backed out after them, Leahy raised his hand. It con- leaving a kerosene trail down the tained the concealed igniter to start walk. When they were a hundred

the fire. "Got to get back to the feet away, Montag was still shout-, station. Besides, she'd cost us a ing and kicking. He glanced wildly trial, money, jail." back. Montag placed his hand around In the front door where she had the woman's elbow. "You can-come come to gaze out at them quietly, with me." her quietness a condemnation, star- "No." She actually focused her ing straight into Leahy's eyes, was eyes on him for a moment. "Thank the woman. you, anyway." Leahy twitched his finger to ignite "I'm counting to ten," said the fuel. ." Leahy. "One, two . . He was too late. Montag "Please," said Montag. gasped.

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION The woman in the door, reach- up along his chest, his throat, his ing with contempt toward them all, chin. Her hand brushed his cheek. struck a match against the saturated He knew that she pulled her hand wood. away from his cheek wet. People ran out of houses all down A long time later when he was the street. finally floating into sleep, he heard her say, "You smell of kerosene." r HO is it?" "I always smell of kerosene," he "W Who would it be?" mumbled. said Mr. Montag, leaning back Late in the night he looked over against the closed door in the dark. at Mildred. She was awake. There

His wife said, at last, "Well, put was a tiny dance of melody in the on the light." room. She had her thimble-radio "I don't want the light," he said. tamped into her ear, listening, lis- "Come to bed." tening to far people in far places, He heard her roll impatiently; her eyes peeled wide at deep ceil- the springs squeaked. "Are you ings of blackness. Many nights in drunk?" the last ten years he had £pund her He worked out of his coat and with her eyes open, like a dead let it slump to the floor. He held woman. She would lie that way, his pants out into an abyss and let blankly, hour upon hour, and then them fall forever and forever into rise and go soundlessly to the bath. darkness. You could hear faucet water run, His wife said, "What are you the tinkle of the sedatives bottle, doing?" and Mildred gulping hungrily, He balanced in space with the frantically, at sleep. book in his sweating, icy hand. She was awake now. In a mo- A minute later, she said, "Well, ment she would rise and go for the don't just stand there in the middle barbiturates. of the room." "Mildred," he thought. He made a small sound. And suddenly she was so strange "What?" she asked. that he couldn't believe that he

He made more soft sounds. He knew her at all. He was in someone stumbled toward the bed and else's house, like those jokes men shoved the book clumsily under the told about the gentleman, drunk cold pillow. He fell into bed and on life, who had come home late his wife cried out, startled. He lay at night, unlocked the wrong door, separate from her. She talked to him entered a wrong room. And now for what seemed a long while and here Montag lay in the strange when he didn't reply but only made night by this unidentified body he sounds, he felt her hand creep over, had never seen before.

THE FIREMAN "Millie?" he called. did it, why she wanted to die, and "What!" she saying she didn't know, she "I didn't mean to startle you. didn't know, she didn't know any-

What I want to know is, when did thing about anything! we meet? And where?" She didn't belong to him; he "For what?" didn't belong to her. She didn't "I mean originally." know herself, him, or anyone; the She was frowning in the dark. world didn't need her, she didn't need herself, and in the hospital he HE CLARIFIED it. "The first had realized that if she died he time we ever met, where was would not cry. For it was the dying it, and when?" of an unknown, a street face, a face ." "Why, it was at . . in the newspaper^ and it was sud- She stopped. denly so wrong that he had begun "I don't know." to cry, not at death but at the He was frightened. "Can't you thought of not crying at death, a remember?" silly empty man beside an empty They both tried. woman while the doctors emptied "It's been so long." her still more. "Only ten years. We're both only And why are we empty, lonely, thirty!" and not in love? he had asked him- "Don't get excited, I'm trying self, a year ago. ( to think." She laughed a strange They were never together. There laugh. "How funny, not to remem- was always something between, a ber where or when you met your radio, a televisor, a car, a plane, a husband or wife." game, nervous exhaustion, or, sim- He lay with his eyes tight, press- ply, a little pheno-barbitol. They ing, massaging his brow. It was didn't know each other; they knew suddenly more important than any things, inventions. They had ap- other thing in a lifetime that he plauded science while' it had built knew where he had met Mildred. a beautiful glass structure, a glitter- "It doesn't matter." She was up, ing miracle of contraptions about in the bathroom now. He heard the them, and, too late, they had found water rushing, the swallowing it to be a glass wall. They could sound. not shout through the wall; they

"No, I guess not," he murmured. could only pantomime silently, And he wondered, did she take never touching, hearing, barely see- twenty tablets now, like a year ago, ing each other. when we had to pump her stomach, Looking at Mildred at the hos- and me shouting to keep her awake, pital, he had thought, does it matter walking her, asking her why she if we live of die?

10 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION —

That might not have been "Okay, mister, you can walk enough if the people' had not moved now." next door with their daughter. He had gone on, stomping his Perhaps that had been the start feet, jerking his mouth and hands, of his awareness of his job, his eyes blazing, gripping his elbows. marriage, his life. "The nerve! The nerve! Is there a law against pedestrians!" The girl -turned a corner and ONE night—it was so long ago he had gone out for a long walked toward him.

walk. In the moonlight, he realized . She stopped and glanced at him. that he had come out to get away "Why, hello," she said, and put from the nagging of his wife's tele- out her hand. "You're my neigh- vision set. He walked, hands in bor, aren't you?" pockets, blowing steam from his "Am I?" he said. mouth into the cold air. She was smiling quietly. "We're "Alone," He looked at the ave- the only live ones, aren't we?" She nues ahead. "By God, I'm alone. waved at the empty sidewalks. "Did Not another pedestrian in miles." the police stop you, too?" He walked swiftly down street after "Walking's a crime." street. "Why, I'm the only pedes- "They flashed their lights—on me, trian in the entire city!" The but saw I was a woman " She streets were empty and long and was- no more than sixteen, Montag quiet. Distantly, on crosstown arter- estimated, with eyes and hair as ies, a few cars moved in the dark. dark as mulberries, and a paleness But no other man ventured upon about her that was not illness but the earth to test the use of his legs. radiance. "Then they drove away.

In fact, it had been so many years I'm Clarisse McClellan. And you're since the sidewalks were used that Mr. Montag, the fireman." they were buckling, becoming ob- They walked together. And she scured with grass. began to talk for both of them. So he walked alone, aware of "It's a graveyard, this town," she his loneliness, until the police car said. "I like to walk just to keep pulled up and flashed its cold white my franchise on the sidewalks." light upon him. He looked and it was true. The "What're you doing?" shouted a city was like a dark tomb, every voice. house deep in television dimness,

"I'm out for a walk." - not a sound or move anywhere. "He says he's out for a walk." The laughter, the cold, precise <

THE FIREMAN 11 way, day and night. I sometimes house, its lights were all blazing. It think they don't know what grass was the only house, in a city of a is, or flowers, because they never million houses, with its lights burn- see them slowly. If you showed ing brightly. them a green blur, oh, yes! they'd "What's going on?" Montag had say, that's grass! A pink blur, yes, never seen that many house lights. that's roses!" She laughed to her- "Oh, just my mother and father self. "A white blur's a house. Quick and uncle sitting around, talking. brown blurs are cows. My uncle It's like being a pedestrian, only drove slow on a highway once. rarer."

They threw him in jail. Isn't that "But what do they talk about?" funny and sad, too?" She laughed at this, said good "You think of a lot of things for night, and was gone. a girl," said Montag, uneasily. - At three in the cold morning, "That's because I've got time to he got out of bed and stuck his think. I never watch t-v or go to head out the front window. The games or races or funparks. So I've moon was rising and there was a lots of time for crazy thoughts, I man in the moon. Over the broad guess. Have you seen the two hun- lawn, a million jewels of dew dred-foot-long billboards in the sparkled. country? Well, did you know that "I'll be damned," said Montag, once billboards were only twenty- and went back to bed. five feet long? But cars started go- ing by so quickly, they had to HE SAW Clarisse many after- stretch the advertising out so it noons and came to hope he could be seen." would be seeing her, found himself "I didn't know that." Montag watching for her sitting on her laughed abruptly. green lawn, studying the autumn "Bet I know something else you leaves with a fine casual air, or re- don't." turning from a distant woods with "What?" wild yellow flowers, or looking at

"There's dew on the grass in the the sky, even while it was raining. morning." "Isn't rain nice?" she said. He couldn't remember, and sud- "I hadn't noticed." denly it frightened him. "Believe me, it is nice." "And, if you look, there's a man He always laughed embarrassed- in the moon." ly. Whether at her, or at himself, He had never looked. His heart he wasn't sure. "I believe you." beat rapidly. "Do you really? Did you ever They walked the rest of the way smell old leaves? Don't they smell in silence. When they reached her like cinnamon? Here!"

12 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "Why, it is cinnamon, yes!" seen and not heard. But that was a She gazed at him with her clear long time ago, when they had disci- dark eyes. "My gosh, you don't pline and responsibility. Do you spanked really know very much, do you?" . know, I'm disciplined? I'm She was not unkind, just concerned when I need it, and I've responsi- for him. bility. I do all the shopping and "I don't suppose any of us know housecleaning. By hand." much." "And you know about rain," said "I do," she said, quietly, "be- Mr. Montag, with the rain beating cause I've time to look." on his hat and coat. "Don't you attend school?" "It tastes good if you lean back "Oh, no. They say I'm anti-social. and open your mouth. Go on." I don't mix. And the yelling bully He leaned back and gaped.

is the thing among kids this season, "Why," he said, "it's wive." you know." "It's been a long season," ob- THAT had not been the end of served Montag, and stood some- it. The girl had talked to him what shocked at his own percep- one bright afternoon and given him tion. the dandelion test. "Then you've noticed?" "It proves you're in love or not." "Yes. But what about your She brushed a dandelion under friends?" his chin. "I haven't any. That's supposed "What a shame! You're not in to prove I'm abnormal. But they're love with anyone." always packed around the t-v, or And he thought, when did I racing in cars, or shouting or beat- stop loving Mildred? and the an- ing one another. Do you notice how swer was never! for he had never people hurt one another now- known her. She was the pale, sad adays?" goldfish that swam in the subter- "You sound ancient." ranean illumination of the televi-

"I am. I know about rain. That sion parlor; her natural habitat. makes me ancient to them. They "It's the dandelion you use," kill each other. It didn't used to be protested Montag. that way, did it? Children killing "No," said Clarisse, solemnly. each other all the time? Four of "You're not in love. A dandelion my friends have been shot in the won't help." She tossed the flower past year. I'm afraid of children." away. "Well, I've got to go see

"Maybe it was always this way." my psychiatrist. My teachers are "My father says his grandfather sending me to him. He's trying to remembered when children didn't make me normal." kill each other, when children were "I'll throttle him if he does!"

THE FIREMAN 13 "Right now he's trying to figure "A month! But why didn't out why I go away from the city someone tell me?" and walk in the forests once a day. "Didn't I? I suppose it slipped Have you ever walked in a forest? my mind. Yes, a car hit her." No? It's so quiet and lovely, and "Did they find whose car it nobody rushing. I like to watch the was?" birds and the insects. They don't "No. You know how those things rush:" are. What do you want for supper, Before she left him to go inside, frozen steak or chops?" she looked at him suddenly and said, "Do you know, Mr. Montag, AND so Clarisse was dead. No, I can't believe you're a fireman." disappeared! for in a large "Why not?" city you didn't die, you simply van- "Because you're so nice. Do you ished. No one missed you, no one mind if I ask one last question?" saw you go; your death was as in- "I don't mind." significant as that of a butterfly "Why do you do what you do?" carried secretly away, caught in the But before he knew what she radiator grille of a speeding car. meant or could make a reply, she And with Clarisse's death, half had run off, embarrassed at her own of the world was dead, and the frankness. other half was instantly revealed to

"What did she mean, why do I him for what it was. do what I do?" he said to himself. He saw what Mildred was and

"I'm a fireman, of course. I burn always would be, what he himself books. Is that what she meant?" was but didn't want to be any more.

He didn't see Clarisse for a And he saw that it was no idle month. He watched for her every thing, Mildred's suicidal attempts, day, but made no point of her ab- the lovely dark girl with the flow- sence to his wife. He wanted to go ers being ground under a car; it was rap on her parents' door, but de- a thing of the world they lived in. cided against it; he didn't want It was a part of the screaming, them misunderstanding his interest pressing down of people into elec- in the child. But after thirty-six tric molds. It was the meaningless days had passed, he brought Clar- flight of civilization down a rotary isse's name up offhand. track to smash its own senseless

"Oh, her?" said Mildred, with tail. Mildred's flight was trying to the radio music jarring the table die and escape nothingness, whereas plates. "Why, didn't you know?" Clarisse had been fighting nothing- "Know what?" ness with something, with being "She was killed by an automobile aware instead of forgetting, with a month ago." walking instead of sitting, with go-

14 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION ing to get life instead of having it Mildred stood over his bed, brought to her. curiously. He felt her there; he saw And this civilization had killed her without opening his eyes, her her for her trouble. Not purposely, hair burned by chemicals to a brittle no, but with a fine ironic sense; for straw, her eyes with a kind of men- no purpose at all. Killed by a tal cataract unseen but suspect far vanilla-faced idiot racing nowhere behind the pupils, the reddened for nothing and irritated that he pouting lips, the body as thin as a had been detained 120 seconds praying mantis from dieting, and while the police investigated and her flesh like raw milk. He could released him on his way to some remember her no other way. distant base which he must tag fran- "Will you bring me an analgesic tically before running for home. and water?" Montag felt the slow gathering "You've got to get up," she said. of awareness. Mildred. Clarisse. "It's noon. You've slept five hours The firemen. The murdering chil- later than usual." dren. Last night, the old man's "Will you turn the radio off?" books burned and him in an asylum. he asked. Tonight, that woman burned be- "That's my favorite program." fore his eyes. It was such a night- "Will you turn it off for a sick mare that only another nightmare, man?" less horrible, could be used to "I'll turn it down." escape from it, and Clarisse had She went out of the room and died weeks ago and he had not did nothing to the radio and came seen her die, which made it some- back. "Is that better?" how cruder and yet more bearable. "Thanks." "Clarisse. Clarisse." "That's my favorite program," Montag lay all night long, think- she repeated, as if she had not said ing, smelling the smoke on his it a thousand times before. hands, in the dark. "What about the analgesic?" "You've never been sick before." E HAD chills and fever in the She went away again. H morning. "Well, I'm sick now. I'm not "You can't be sick," said Mil- going to work tonight. Call Leahy dred. for me." He closed his eyes upon the "You acted funny last night." hotness. '-'Yes." She returned, humming. "But you were all right last "Where's the analgesic?" He night." glanced at the water glass. "No, I wasn't all right." He "Oh." She walked to the bath heard the radio in the parlor. again. "Did something happen?"

THE FIREMAN 15 " —

"A fire, that's all." "We burned a thousand • books "I had a nice evening," she said, and a woman." in the bathroom. "Forbidden books." "What doing?" The radio was exploding in the "Television." parlor. "What was on?" "Yes. Copies of Plato and Soc- "Programs." rates and Marcus Aurelius." "What programs?" "Foreigners?" "Some of the best ever." "Something like that." "Who?" "Then they were radicals." "Oh, you know, the big shows." "All foreigners can't be radicals." "Yes, the big shows, big, big, "If they wrote books, they were." big." He pressed at the pain in his Mildred fiddled with the telephone. eyes and suddenly the odor of kero- "You don't expect me to call Mr. sene made him vomit. Leahy, do you?" Mildred came in, humming. She "You must!" was surprised. "Why'd you do "Don't shout." that?" "I wasn't shouting!" He was up He looked with dismay at the in bed, suddenly, enraged and floor. "We burned an old woman flushed, shaking. The radio roared with her books." in the hot air. "I can't call him. I

"It's a good thing the rug's can't tell him I'm sick." washable." She fetched a mop and "Why?" swabbed clumsily at it. "I went to Because you're afraid, he thought, Helen's last night." pretending illness, afraid to call. "Couldn't you get the shows on Leahy because after a moment's dis- your own t-v?" cussion the conversation would run

"Sure, but it's nice visiting." so: "Yes, Mr. Leahy, I feel better

"Did Helen get over that finger already. I'll be in at ten o'clock infection ?" tonight."

' "I didn't notice." "You're not sick," said Mildred Montag fell back in bed. He SHE went out into the living reached under his pillow and room. He heard her by the groped for the hidden book. It radio, singing. was still there.

"Mildred?" he called. "Mildred, how would it be if She returned, singing, snapping well, maybe I quit my job awhile?" her fingers softly. "You want to give up every- "Aren't you going to ask me thing? After all these years of about last night?" he said. working, because, one—night, some "What about it?" woman and her books u GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "You should have seen her, The radio was playing a dance Millie!" tune. "She's nothing to me. She "I've been killing the brain of shouldn't have had books. It was the world for ten years, pouring

her responsibility; she should' ve kerosene on it. Millie, a book is a

thought of that. I hate her. She's brain. It isn't only that woman we got you going and next thing you destroyed, or others like her, in know we'll be out, no house, no these years, but it's the thoughts I job, nothing." burned and never knew it." "You weren't there, you didn't He got out of bed. see," he said. "There must be "It took some man a lifetime to something in books, whole worlds put some of his thoughts on paper, we don't dream about, to make a looking after all the beauty and woman stay in a burning house. goodness in life, and then we come

There must be something fine along in two minutes and heave it there. You don't stay and burn for in the incinerator!" nothing." "Let me alone," said Mildred. "She was simple-minded." "Let you alone!" He almost cried

"She was as rational as you or I, out with laughter. "Letting you

more so, and we burned her." alone is easy, but how can I leave "That's water under the bridge." myself alone? That's what's wrong. "No, not water, Millie, but fire. We need not to be let alone. We You ever seen a burned house ? It need to be upset and stirred and smolders for days. Well, this fire'll bothered, once in a while, anyway. last me half a century. My God, Nobody bothers any more. Nobody I've been trying to put it out, in thinks. Let a baby alone, why don't my mind, all night, and I'm crazy you? What would you have in with trying." twenty years? A savage, unable to "You should've thought of that think or talk—like us!" ' before becoming a fireman." Mildred glanced out the window.

"Now you've done it. Look who's "IT1HOUGHT!" he said. "Was I here."

jL given a choice? I was raised "I don't give a damn." He was to think the best thing in the world feeling better but didn't know

is not to r^id. The best thing is why. television and radio and ball games "It's Mr. Leahy." and a home I can't afford and, Good The elation drained away. Mr. Lord, now, only now I realize what Montag slumped. I've done. My grandfather and "Go open the door," he said, at father were firemen. Walking in last. "Tell him I'm sick." my sleep, I followed them." "Tell him yourself."

THE FIREMAN 17 He made sure the book was this. They only need understanding, hidden behind the pillow, climbed need to know how the wheels run, back into bed, and had made him- what the history of our profession self tremblingly- uncomfortable, is. They don't give it to rookies any when the door opened and Mr. more. Only fire chiefs remember it Leahy strolled in, hands in pockets. now. I'll let you in on it." He lit "Shut the radio off," said Leahy, the cigar leisurely. abstractedly. Mildred fidgeted. This time, Mildred obeyed. "You ask yourself about the Mr. Leahy sat down in a com- burning of books, why, how, fortable chair with a look of strange when." Leahy exuded a great gray peace in his pink face. He did not cloud of smoke. look at Montag. "Maybe," said Montag. "Just thought I'd come by and "It started around about the see how the sick man is." Civil War, I'd say. Photography "How'd you guess?" discovered. Fast printing presses "Oh." Leahy smiled his pink coming up. Films at the early part smile, and shrugged. "I'm an old of the 20th Century. Radio. Tele-

hand at this. I've seen it all. You vision. Things began to have mass, were going to call me and tell me Montag, mass." you needed a day off." "I see." "Yes." "And because they had mass, they became simpler. Books, now. "TT7ELL, take a day off," said Once they appealed to various small VV Leahy, looking at his groups of people, here and there. hands. He carried an eternal match They could afford to be different. with him at times in a little case The world was roomy. But then the which said, Guaranteed: One Mil- world got full of mass and elbows. lion Cigarets Can Be Lit with this Films and radios and magazines and Match, and kept striking this ab- books had to level down to a sort stractedly against its case as he of paste- pudding norm. Do you talked. "Take a day off. Take two. follow me?" But never take three." He struck "I think so." the match and looked at the flame Leahy looked through a veil of and blew it out. "When will you smoke, not at Montag, but at the be well?" thing he was describing. "Picture

"Tomorrow, the next day, first of it. The 19th Century man with his ." the week, I . . horses, dogs, and slow living. You "We've been wondering about might call him a slow motion man. you." Leahy put a cigar in his Then in the 20th Century you speed mouth. "Every fireman goes through up the camera."

18 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

"A good analogy." hidden book out from behind the "Splendid. Books get shorter. pillow and displaying it as if it Condensations appear. Digests. were a reptile! Tabloids. Radio programs simplify. Leahy blew a cumulus of cigar Everything sublimates itself to the smoke at the ceiling. "School is gag, the snap ending." shortened, discipline relaxed, phi- "Snap ending." Mildred nodded losophies, histories, languages approvingly. "You— should have dropped, English and spelling neg- heard last night lected, finally ignored. Life is

"Great classics are cut to fit fif- immediate. The job counts. Why teen minute shows, then two min- learn anything save pressing but- ute book columns, then two line tons, pulling switches, fitting digest resumes. Magazines become bolts?" picture books. Out of the nursery "Let me fix your pillow," said to the college, back to the nursery, Mildred, being the video house- in a few short centuries!" wife. "No," whispered Montag. MILDRED arose. She was losing "The zipper replaces the button. the thread of the talk, Mon- Does a man have time to think tag knew, and when this happened while dressing in the morning, a she began to fiddle with things. philosophical time?" She went about the room, picking "No," said Montag, automati- up. cally. "Faster and faster the film, Mr. Mildred tugged at the pillow. Montag! Quick, Click, Pic, Look. "Get away," said Montag. Eye, Now/ Flick, Flash, Here, "Life becomes one big Prat Fall,

There, Swift, Up, Down, Why, Mr. Montag. No more " subtleties. How, Who, Eh? Mr. Montag, di- Everything is bang and boff and gest-digests, political affairs in one wow!" column, a sentence, a headline, and "Wow," reflected Mildred, yank- then, in mid-air, vanish! The mind ing the pillow edge. of man, whirling so fast under the "For God's sake, let me be!" pumping hands of publishers, pub- cried Montag, passionately. licists, ad men, broadcasters that the Leahy stared. centrifuge throws off all ideas! He Mildred's hand was frozen be- is unable to concentrate!" hind the pillow. Her hand was on Mildred was smoothing the bed the book, her face stunned, her now. Montag felt panic as she ap- mouth opening to ask a ques-

proached his pillow to straighten it. tion . . . In a moment, with sublime inno- "Theaters stand empty, Mr. cence, she would be pulling the Montag, replaced by television and

THE FIREMAN 19 baseball and sports where nobody the trick. Today, thanks to them, has to think at all, not at all, at you can read comics, confessions, all." Now Leahy was almost in- or trade journals, nothing else. All visible, a voice somewhere back of the rest is dangerous." a choking screen of cigar smoke. "Yes, but why the firemen?" "What's this?" asked Mildred, asked Montag.' with delight, almost. Montag "Ah," said Leahy, leaning for- crushed and heaved back against ward in the clouds of smoke to her hands. "What've you hid finish. "With schools turning out there?" doers instead of thinkers, with non- "Sit down!" Montag screamed. readers, naturally, in ignorance, She jumped back, her hands they hated and feared books. You empty. "We're talking!" always fear an unfamiliar thing. 'Intellectual' became a swear word. LEAHY continued, mildly. "Car- Books were snobbish things. toons everywhere. Books be- "The little man wants you and come cartoons. The mind drinks me to be like him. Not everyone less and less. Impatience. Time to born free and equal, as the Consti- kill. No work, all leisure. Highways tution says, but everyone made full of crowds going somewhere, equal. A book is a loaded gun in anywhere, nowhere. The gasoline the house next door. Burn it. Take refugee, towns becoming motels, the shot out of the weapon. Un- people in nomadic surges from city breach men's minds. Who knows to city, impatient, following the who might be the target of the moon tides, living tonight in the well-read man? And so, when room where you slept last night and houses became all fireproof and I the night before." there was no longer need of firemen Mildred went into the other for protection, they were given the room and slammed the door. She new job, as official censors, judges, turned on the radio. jurors, punishers. That's you, Mr. "Go on," said Montag. Montag, and me." "Intelligent writers gave up in Leahy stood up. "I've got to get disgust. Magazines were vanilla going." tapioca. The book buyer, bored by Montag lay back in bed. "Thanks dishwater, his brain spinning, quit for explaining it to me." buying. Everyone but the comic- "You must understand our civil- publisher died a slow publishing ization is so vast that we can't have death. There you have it. Don't our minorities upset and stirred. blame the Government. Technol- People must be contented. Books ogy, mass exploitation, and censor- bother them. Colored people don't ship from frightened officials did like Little Black Sambo. We burn

20 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION it. White people don't like Uncle Mildred had turned on the after-

Tom's Cabin. Burn it, too. Any- noon television show and was star- thing for serenity." ing into the shadow screen. Leahy shook Montag's limp Montag cleared his throat, but hand. she didn't look up. "Oh, one last thing. Once in his "It's only a step," he said, "from career, every fireman gets curious. not working today, to not working What do the books say, he won- tomorrow, to not working ever ders. A good question. Well, they again." say nothing, Mr. Montag. Nothing "You're going to work tonight, you can touch or believe in. They're though?" about non-existent people, figments. "I'm doing more than that," he Not to be trusted. But anyway, say, said. "I'm going to start to kill a fireman 'takes' a book, at a fire, people and rave, and buy books!" almost by 'accident.' A natural "A one-man revolution," said error." Mildred, lightly, turning to look at "Natural." him. "They'd put you in jail, "We allow that. We let him wouldn't they?" keep it 24 hours. If he hasn't "That's not a bad idea. The best burned it by then, we burn it for people are there." He put his him." clothes on, furiously, walking "I see," said Montag. His throat about the bedroom. "But I'd kill a was dry. few people before I did get locked "You'll be at work tonight at up. There's a real bastard, that six- o'clock?" Leahy. Did you bear him! Knows "No." all the answers, but does nothing "What!" about it!"

Montag shut his eyes. "I'll be "I won't even listen to all this in later, maybe." junk," said Mildred.

"See that you do." "No?" he said. "This is your "I'll never come in again!" house as well as mine, isn't it?" yelled Montag, but only in his "Yes." mind. "Then I have something I want

"Get well." you to see, something I put away Leahy, trailing smoke, went out. and never looked at again during the past year, not even knowing MONTAG watched through the why I put them away and hid them front window as Leahy drove and kept them and never told you." away in his gleaming beetle which He dragged a chair into the hall, was the color of the last fire they climbed up on it, and opened an had set. air-vent. Reaching up, he began

THE FIREMAN 21 throwing books, big ones, little we haven't done and must do. ones, red, yellow, green books, We've got to know what these twenty, thirty, fifty books, one by books are so we can tell others, and one, swiftly, into the parlor at her so that, eventually, they can tell feet. "There!" everyone. Sit down now, Millie,

"Leonard Montag! You didn't!" there, right there. I'll help you, "So you're not in this with me? we'll help each other. Between us,

You're in it up to your neck!" we'll do something to destroy men She backed away as if she were like Leahy and Stoneman and surrounded by a pack of terrible Black and myself, and this world rats. Her face was paled out and we live in, and put it all back to- her eyes were fastened wide and gether a different way. Do you she was breathing as if someone bear me?" had struck her in the stomach. "Yes." Her body sagged. "They'll burn our house. They'll The doorbell rang. kill us." They jerked about to stare at the "Let them try." door and the books toppled every- She hesitated; then, moaning, she where, everywhere in heaps. seized a book and ran toward the "Leahy!" fireplace. "It can't be him!" He caught her. "No, Millie! No! "He's come back!" sobbed Mil- Never touch my books. Never. Or, dred. by God, if you do, touch just one The bell rang again. of them meaning to burn it, be- "Let him stand out there. We lieve me, Millie, I'll kill you." won't answer." Montag reached "Leonard Montag! You would- blindly for a book on the floor, n't!" any book, any beginning, any start, any beauty at all would do. He put HE SHOOK her. "Listen," he the book into Mildred's shaking pleaded down into her face. hands. He held her shoulders firmly, while The bell rang a third time, in- her face bobbed helplessly, and sistently. tears sprang from her eyes. "Read." He quivered a hand to "You must help me," he said, a page. "Out loud." slowly, trying to find his way into Mildred's eyes were on the door her thinking. "You're in this now, and the bell rang angrily, loudly, whether you like it or not. I've again and again. "He'll come io," never asked for anything in my life she said, "oh, God, and set fire to of you, but I ask it now, I plead it. everything, and us." We must start somewhere. We're But at last she found the line, going to read books. It's a thing with Montag standing over her,

22 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION — "

swaying, any line in the book, and rare and beautiful wine but does after trying it four times, she be- not know it, went on enclosing the gan to fumble out the words of a words in plain glass, pouring forth poem printed there on the white, the beauties with a loose mouth, unburned paper: while her drab eyes moved over the "And evening vanish and no more, words and over the words and the The low pale light across the rain rained and the hour grew late. — a Shake- the land They read man named speare and a man named Poe and The bell rang. part of a book by a man named "Nor now the long light on the Matthew and one named Mark. On sea occasion, Mildred glanced fearfully And here face downward in the at the window. ." sun . . "Go on," said Mr. Montag. Another ring. "Someone might be watching. Montag whispered. "He'll go That might' ve been Mr. Leahy at away in a minute." our door a while back." lips Mildred's trembled: "Whoever it was went away.

"To feel how swift, how secretly Read that last section again. I want The shadow of the night comes to understand that." ." on . . She read from the works of

Near the ceiling, smoke from Jefferson and Lincoln.

Leahy's cigar still lingered. When it was five o'clock her hands dropped open. "I'm tired.

I stop voice II Can now?" Her was hoarse. The Sieve and the Sand "How thoughtless of me." He took a book from her. "But isn't THEY read the long after- it beautiful, Millie? The words, noon through, while the fire and the thoughts, • aren't they ex- flickered and blew on the citing?" hearth and the October rain fell "I don't understand any of it." ." from the sky upon the strangely "But surely . . quiet house. Now and again, Mr. "Just words." Montag would silently pace the "But you remember some of it." room, or bring in a bottle of cold "Nothing." beer and drink it easily or say, "You'll learn. It's difficult at

"Will you read that part over first." again? Isn't that an idea now?" "I don't like books," she said. And Mildred's voice, as colorless "I don't understand books. They're as a beer bottle which contains a over my head. They're for profes-

THE FIREMAN 23 sors and radicals and I don't want heavens, as if a running giant had to read any more. Please, promise drawn his breath. Those sharp, al- you won't make me." most quiet whistles, here and gone "Mildred!" in so much less than an instant that "I'm afraid," she said, putting one almost believed one had heard

' her face into her shaking hands. nothing. And seeing nothing in the "I'm so terribly frightened by these sky, if you did look, was worse ideas, by Mr. Leahy, and having than seeing something. There was these books in the house. They'll a feeling as if a great invisible fan burn our books and kill us. Now, was whirring blade after hostile

. I'm sick." blade across the stars, with giant

"I'm sorry," he said at last, sigh- murmurs and no motion, perhaps ing. "I've put you on trial, haven't only a faint trembling of starlight.

I ? I'm way out front, trying to drag All night, every night of their

you, when I should be walking be- lives, they had heard those jet side you, barely touching. I expect sounds and seen nothing, until, like

too much. It'll take months to put the tick of a clock or a time-bomb,

you in the frame of mind where it had come to be unnoticed, for it you can receive the ideas in these was the sound of today and the

books. It's not fair of me. All right, sound of today dying, the Cheyne- you won't have to read aloud Stokes respiration of civilization. again." "I want to know why and how "Thanks." we are where we are," said Mon- "But you must listen. I'll ex- tag. "How did those bombers get plain." in the sky every instant? Why have

"I'll never learn. I just know I there been three semi-atomic wars won't." since I960? Where did we take the

"You must if you want to be wrong turn ? What can we do about free." it? Only the books know this. May-

"I'm free already. I couldn't be be the books can't solve my prob- freer." lem, but they can bring me out in "You can't be free if you're not the light. And they might stop us aware." from going on with the same in- "Why do you want to ruin us" sane mistakes." with all this?" she asked. "You can't stop wars. There've "Listen," he said. always been wars."

"No, I can't. War's so much a SHE listened. part of us now that in the last three Jet-bombers were crossing days, though we're on the very rim

the sky over their house. of war, people hardly mention it.

Those quick gasps in the Ignoring it, at least, isn't the an-

24 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

swer. But now, about us. We must MILDRED was chattering. The have a schedule of reading. An hour radio was thundering, turned in the morning. An hour or so in on again. the afternoon. Two hours in the And then Mr. Montag remem- evening— bered; about a month ago, walking "You're not going to forbid me through the park alone, he had my radio, are you?" Her voice come upon a man in a black suit, rose. unaware. The man had been read- ." "Well, to start . . ing something. Montag hadn't seen She was up in a fury, raging at a book; he had only seen the man

him. "I'll sit and listen if you want move hastily, face flushed. The man me to for a while every day," she had jumped up as if to run, and cried. "But I've got to have my Montag had said, simply, "Sit radio programs, too, and every down." night on the t-v—you can't take "I didn't do anything." that away from me!" "No one said you did." "But don't you see? That's the They had sat in the park all after- very thing I'd like to counter- noon. Montag had drawn the man act—" out. He was a retired professor of The telephone rang. They both English literature, who had lost his

started. Mildred snatched it up and job forty years before when the last was almost immediately laughing. college of fine arts had been closed. "Hello, Ann. Yes, oh, yes! Tonight, His name was William Faber, and you come here. Yes, the White shyly, fearfully, he admitted he had Clown's on tonight and the Terror been reading a little book of Amer- will be fun." ican poems, forbidden poems which Mr. Montag shuddered, sick. He he now produced from his coat left the room. He walked through pocket. the house, thinking. "Just to know I'm alive," said Leahy, the fire house, these dan- Mr. Faber. "Just to know where I gerous books. am and what things are. To sense "I'll shoot him tonight," he said, things. Most of my friends sense aloud. "I'll kill Leahy. That'll be nothing. Most of them can't talk. one censor out of the way. No." They stutter and halt and hunt

He laughed coldly. "I'd have to words. And what they talk is sales shoot most of the people in the and profits and what they saw on world. How does one start a revo- television the hour before." lution? I'm alone. My wife, as the What a nice afternoon that had saying goes, does not understand been. Professor Faber had read me. What can a single lonely man some of the poems to Montag, none do?" of which Montag understood, but

THE FIREMAN ihe sounds were good, and slowly "I can't discuss such things, Mon- the meaning crept in. When it was tag." all over, Montag said, "I'm a fire- "This line is closed. There's no man." one listening." Faber had looked as if he might "Is this some sort of trap? I die on the spot. can't talk to just anyone on the "Don't be afraid. I won't turn phone." you in," said Montag hastily. "I "Tell me, are there any copies?" stopped being mean about it years "None!" And Faber hung up. ago. You know, the way you talk None. reminds me of a girl I knew once, name of Clarisse. She was killed a MONTAG fell back in his few months ago by a car. But she chair. None! None in all the had me thinking, too. We met each world, none left, none anywhere, other because we took long walks. all, all of them destroyed, torn No one walks any more. I haven't apart, burned. The Bible at last seen a pedestrian in ten years on dead for all time to the world. our street. Are you ever stopped by He got up shakily and walked police simply because you're a across the room and bent down pedestrian ?" among the books. He took hold of

He and Faber had smiled, ex- one book and lifted it. changed addresses orally, and "The old and new testaments, parted. He had never seen Faber Millie! One last copy and we have again. It wouldn't be safe to know it here!" a former English literature profes- "Fine," she said vaguely. sor. But now . . .? "Do you realize what it means, He dialed a call. the importance of this copy here in "Hello, Professor Faber?" our house? If anything should

"Who is this?" happen to this book, it would be

"This is Montag. You remem- lost forever." ber? The park? A month ago?" "And you have to hand it back

"Yes, Mr. Montag. Can I help to Mr. Leahy tonight to be burned, you?" 'don't you?" said Mildred. She was "Mr. Faber." He hesitated. not being cruel. She was merely "How many copies of the Bible are relieved that the one book, at least, left in the world?" was going out of her life.

"I'm afraid I don't know what "Yes." you're talking about." The voice He could see Leahy turning the grew cold. book over with slow appreciation. "I want to know if there are any "Sit down, Montag. I want you to copies at all." watch this. Delicately, like a head

26 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

of lettuce, see?" Ripping one page hot summer day, trying to fill a after another from the binding. sieve with sand. The faster he

Lighting the first page with a poured, the faster it sifted through match. And when it had curled with a hot whispering. He tried all down into black wings, lighting the day because some cruel cousin had second page from the first and the said, "Fill this sieve and you'll get third from the second, and so on, a dime!" chain-smoking the entire volume Seated there in the midst of chapter by printed chapter, all of July, he had cried. His hands were the words and the wisdom. When tired, the sand was boiling, the it was finished, with Montag seated sieve was empty. there sweating, the floor would re- And now, as the jet-underground semble a swarm of black moths car roared him through the lower that had fluttered and died in one cellars of town, rocking him, jolt- small storm. And Leahy smiling, ing him, he remembered that frus- washing his hands. trating sieve and he held this "My God, Millie, we've got to precious copy of the old and new do something! We've got to copy testaments fiercely in his hands, this. There must be a duplicate trying to pour the words into his made. This can't be lost!" mind. But the words fell through, "You haven't time." and he thought, in a few hours I "No, not by hand. But if we must hand this book to Leahy, but could photograph it." I must remember each word, no

"No one would do it for you." phrase must escape me, each line He stopped. She was right. There can be memorized. I must remem- was no one to trust, except, per- ber, I must. haps, Professor Faber. Montag "But I do not remember." He started for the door. shut the book and pressed it with

"You'll be here for the t-v party, his fists and tried to force his mind. won't you?" Mildred called after "Try Denham's Dentifrice to- him. "It wouldn't be fun without night!" screamed the radio in the you." bright, shuddering wall of the jet- "You'd never miss me." But she train. Trumpets blared. was looking at the late afternoon "Shut up," thought Mr. Monta:: t-v show and didn't hear. He went in panic. "Behold, the lilies of the out and slammed the door, the book field—" in his hand. "Denham's Dentifrice!"— "They toil not ONCE, as a child, he had sat "Denham's Dentifrice!" upon the yellow dunes by the "Behold, the lilies of the field, sea in the middle of the blue and shut up, let me remember!"

THE FIREMAN 27 " "

"Denham's Dentifrice!" Only that saved him. The car He tore the book open furiously stopped. Montag, thrown into the and flicked the pages about as if aisle by the grinding halt, rolled blind, tearing at the lines with raw over, book in hand, leaped up past eyes, staring until his eyelashes the pale, frightened faces, screamed were wet and quivering. in his mind soundlessly, and was "Denham's, Denham's, Den- out the opening door of the train ham's! D-E-N— and running on the white tiles up "They toil not, neither do and up through tunnels, alone, that ." they . . voice still crying like a seagull on A whisper, a faint sly whisper of a lonely shore after him, "Den- ." yellow sand through empty, empty ham's, Denham's . . sieve. "Denham's does it!"— PROFESSOR FABER opened "Behold, the lilies the door, saw the book, seized

"No dandier dental detergent!" it. "My God, I haven't held a copy "Shut up!" It was a shriek so in years!" loud, so vicious that the loud- "We burned a house last night.

speaker seemed stunned. Mr. Mon- I stole it." tag found himself on his feet, the "What a chance to take!" shocked inhabitants of the loud car Montag stood catching his looking at him, recoiling from a breath. "I was curious." man with an insane, gorged face, a "Of course. It's beautiful. Here,

gibbering wet mouth, a flapping come in, shut the door, sit down."

book in his fist. These rabbit peo- Faber walked with the book in his

ple who hadn't asked for music finger-s, feeling it, flipping the and commercials on their public pages slowly, hungrily, a thin man,

trains but who had got it by the bald, with slender hands, as light sewerful, the air drenched and as chaff. "There were a lot of love- sprayed and pummeled and kicked ly books once. Before we let them by voices and music every instant. go." He sat down and put his hand And here was an idiot man, him- over his eyes. "You are looking at self, suddenly scrabbling at the a coward, Mr. Montag. When they wall, beating at the loudspeaker, at burned the last of the evil books, the enemy of peace, at the killer of as they called them, forty years

philosophy and privacy! back, I made only a few feeble !" "Madman protestations and subsided. I've "Call the conductor!" damned myself ever since." "Denham's, Denham's Double "It's not too late. There are still Dentifrice!" books."

"Fourteenth Street!" "And there is still life in me, and

28 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION I'm afraid of dying. Civilizations "Yes, and see the engines roar fall because men like myself fear up. See the doors battered down death." on firemen's houses for a change. "I've a plan," said Montag. "I'm And see the planted books found in a position to do things. I'm a and each fireman, at last, accused fireman; I can find and hide books. and thrown in jail!" Last night I lay awake, thinking. The professor put his hand to We might publish many books pri- his face. "Why, that's absolutely vately when we have copies to print sinister." from." "Do you like it?" "How many have been killed for "The dragon eats his tail." that?" "You'll join me?" "We'll get a press." "I didn't say that. No, no." "We? Not we. You, Mr. Mon- tag." ""DDT you see the confusion and "You must help me. You're the -L» suspicion we could spread?" only one I know. You must." "Yes, plenty of trouble there."

"Must? What do you mean, "I've a list of firemen's homes must?' all across the states. With an under- "We could find someone to ground, we could reap fire and build a press for us." chaos for every blind bastard in the "Impossible. The books are industry." dead." "You can't trust anyone, though." "We can bring them back. I "What about professors like have a little money." yourself, former actors, directors, "No, no." Faber waved his writers, historians, linguists?" hands, his old hands, blotched with "Dead, or ancient, all of them." liver freckles. "Good. They'll have fallen from "But let me tell you my plan." public notice. You know hundreds

"I don't want to hear. If you of them. I know you must." insist on telling me, I must ask you "Nevertheless, I can't help you, to leave." Montag. I'll admit your idea ap- "We'll have extra copies of each peals to my sense of humor, to my book printed and hide them in fire- delight in striking back. A tem- !" men's houses porary delight, however. I'm a

"What?" The professor raised frightened man; I frighten easily." his brows and gazed at Montag as "Think of the actors alone, then, if a bright light had been switched who haven't acted Shakespeare or on. Pirandello. We could use their "Yes, and put in an alarm." anger, and the rage of historians "Call the fire engines?" who haven't written for forty years.

THE FIREMAN 29 We could start small classes in ture ready when this one falls," in- ." reading . . sisted Montag. "That's us." "Impractical." "A bunch of men quoting Shake- "We could try." speare and saying I remember "The whole civilization must Sophocles ? It would be funny if it fall. We can't change just the were not tragic." front. The framework needs melt- "We've got to be there. We've ing and remolding. Don't you real- got to remind those who are left ize, young man, that the Great that there are things more urgent Burning forty years back was almost than machines. We must remember unnecessary? By that time the pub- that the right kind of work is lic had stopped reading. Libraries happiness, instead of the wrong were Saharas of emptiness. Except kind of leisure. We must give peo- the Science Department." ple things to do. We must make "But—" them feel wanted again." "Can you shout louder than "They will only war again. No, radio, dance faster than t-v? Peo- Montag, go on home and go to ple don't want to think. They're bed. It was nice seeing you. But having fun." it's a lost cause." "Committing suicide." "Let them commit it." MONTAG paced about the "Murdering." room for a few moments, "Let them murder. The fewer chafing his hands, then he returned fools there will be." and picked up the book and held

"A war is starting, perhaps to- it toward the other man. night, and no one will even talk "Do you see this book? Would about it." you like to own it?" The house shook. A bomber "My God, yes! I'd give my right flight was moving south. It had arm for it." slowed to five hundred miles an "Watch." Montag began ripping hour and was trembling the two the pages out, one by one, drop- men standing there across from each ping them to the floor, tearing other. them in half, spitting on them and "Let the war turn off the t-vs rolling them into wads. and radio, and bomb the true con- "Stop it!" cried Faber. "You fessions." idiot, stop it!" He sprang forward. "I can't wait," said Montag. Montag warded him off and went

"Patience. The civilization is on tearing at the pages. flinging itself to pieces. Stand back "Do you see?" he said, a fistful from the centrifuge." of pages in his tightening fist, flour- "There has to be another struc- ishing them under the chin of the

30 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION old man. "Do you see what it college paper. That was the year I means to have your heart torn out? came to class one morning and Do you see what they do?" found only two students' to sign up "Don't tear any more, please," for Ancient Greek Drama. You see, said the old man. that's how it went. Like an iceblock "Who can stop me? You? I'm a melting in the sun. And when the fireman. I can do anything I want people had censored themselves into to do. Why, I could burn your a living idiocy with their purchas- house now, do you know that? I ing power, the Government, which could burn everything. I have the of course represents the people's power." will, being composed of representa- "You wouldn't!" tive people, froze the situation. "No. I wouldn't." Newspapers died. No one cared if

"Please. The book; don't rip it the Government said they couldn't any more. I can't stand that." Faber come back. No one wanted them sank into a chair, his face white, back. Do they now? I doubt it, his mouth trembling. "I see; I un- but I'll contact a printer, Montag. derstand. My God, I'm old enough We'll get the books started, and so it shouldn't matter what happens wait for the war. That's one fine to me. I'll help you. I can't take thing; war destroys machines so any more of this. If I'm killed, it beautifully." won't make any difference. I'm a terrible fool of an old man and MONTAG went to the door. it's too late, but I'll help you." "I'm afraid I'll have to take "To print the books?" the Bible along." "Yes." "No!" "To start classes?" "Leahy guessed I have a book in "Yes, yes, anything, but don't the house. He didn't come right ruin that book, don't. I never out and accuse me, or name the ." thought a book could mean so much book . . to me." Faber sighed. "Let us say "Can't you substitute another that you have -my limited coopera- book for this?" tion. Let us say that part of your "I can't chance it. It might be plan, at least, intrigues me, the idea a trap. If he expects me to bring a of striking back with books planted Bible and I brought something else, in firemen's homes. I'll help. How I'd be in jail very quickly. No, I'm much money could you get me to- afraid this Bible will be burned to- day?" night." "Five thousand dollars." "That's hard to accept." Faber

"Bring it here when you can. I took it for a moment and turned know a man who once printed our the pages, slowly, reading.

THE FIREMAN 31 "I've tried to memorize it," said Seven flights of jet-rockets went

Montag. "But I forget. It's driven over the sky in a breath. Montag me crazy, trying to remember." felt the money in his pocket, the "Oh, God, if we only had a little Bible in his hand. He had given up time." trying to memorize it now; he was

"I keep thinking that. Sorry." simply reading 'it for the enjoyment

He took the book. "Good night." it gave, the simple pleasure of good The door shut. Montag was in words on the tongue and in -the the darkening street again, looking mind. He uncupped the Seashell at the real world. radio from his ear and read another page of the Book of Job by moon- YOU could feel the war getting light. ready in the sky that night. The way the clouds moved aside AT EIGHT o'clock, the front and came back, and the way the door scanner recognized three stars looked, a million of them hov- women and opened, letting them in ering between the clouds, like the with laughter and loud, empty talk. enemy discs, and the feeling that Mrs. Masterson, Mrs. Phelps, and the sky might fall upon the city Mrs. Bowles drank the martinis and turn the homes to chalk dust, Mildred handed them, rioting like and the moon turn to red fire; that a crystal chandelier that someone was how the night felt. has pushed, tinkling upon them- Montag walked from the sub- selves in a million crystal chimes, way stop with his money in His flashing the same white smiles, their pocket—he had been to the bank echoes repeated in empty corridors. which stayed open until all hours Mr. Montag found himself in the with mechanical tellers doling out middle of a conversation, the main the money—and as he walked he topic of which was how nice every- was listening abstractedly to the one looked. Seashell radio which you could cup "Doesn't everyone look nice?" to your ear (Buy a Seashell and "Real nice." hear the Ocean of Time!) and a "You look fine, Alma." voice was talking to him and only "You look fine, too, Mildred." him as he turned his feet toward "Everybody looks nice and fine," home. "Things took another turn said Montag. for the worse today. War threatens He had put the book aside. None at it any hour." of would stay in his mind. The x Always the same monologue.- harder he tried to remember Job,

Nothing about causes or effects, no for instance,- the quicker it van- facts, no figures, nothing but sud- ished. He wanted to be out paying den turns for the worse. this money to Professor Faber, get-

32 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION ting things going, and yet he "I thought we might enjoy a delayed himself. It would be dan- little silence." gerous to be seen at Faber's twice Everyone blinked. within a few hours, just in case "Perhaps we might try a little ." Leahy was taking the precaution of conversation . . having Montag watched. "Conversation?"

Like it or not, he must spend the rest of the evening at home, and THE house shook with successive be ready to report to work at eleven waves of jet bombers which so that Leahy wouldn't be suspi- splashed the drinks in the ladies' cious. Most of all, Montag wanted hands. to walk, but he rarely did this any "There they go," said Montag, more. Somehow he was always watching the ceiling. "When do afraid that he might meet Clafisse, you suppose the war will start?" or not meet her again, on his strolls, "What war? There won't be a so that kept him here standing - war." among these blonde) tenpins, bowl- "I notice your husbands aren't ing back at them with socially re- here tonight." quired leers and wisecracks. Mrs. Masterson glanced nervous- Somehow the television set was ly at the empty t-v screen. "Oh, turned on before they had even fin- Dick'll be back in a week or so. ished saying how nice everyone The Army called him. But they looked, and there on the screen was have these things every month or a man selling orange soda pop and so." She beamed. a woman drinking it with a smile; "Don't you worry about the how could she drink and smile war?" simultaneously? A real stunt! Fol- "Well, heavens, if there is one, lowing this, a demonstration of how it's got to be over with. We can't to bake a certain new cake, fol- just sit and worry, can we?" lowed by a rather dreary domestic "No, but we can think about it?' comedy, a news analysis that did '"I'll let Dick think of it." A not analyze anything and did not nervous giggle. mention the war, even though the "And die maybe." house was shaking constantly with "It's always someone else's hus- the flight of new jets from four band dies, isn't that the joke?" The directions, and an intolerable quiz women all tittered. show naming the state capitals. Yes, thought Montag, and even

Montag sat tapping his fingers if Dick does die, what does it mat- on his knee and exhaling. ter? We've learned the magic of Abruptly, he walked to the tele- the replaceable part from machines. visor and snapped it off. You can't tell one man from an-

THE FIREMAN 33 — "

-ntoifiiT- "Wait a minute," said Montag, angrily. "Mrs. Phelps, why did you marry your husband ? What did you have in common?" The woman waved her hands helplessly. "Why, he had such a nice sense of humor, and— we liked the same t-v shows and "Did you have any children?" "Don't be ridiculous."

"Come to think of it, no one here has children," said Montag. "Except Mrs. Bowles."

"Four, by Caesarian section. It's easy that way." "The Caesarians weren't neces- sary?"

"I always said I'd be damned if I'd go through all that agony just for a baby. Four Caesarians. Noth-

ing to it, really." Yes, everything easy. Montag clenched his teeth. To mistake the other these days. And women, like easy way for the right way, how so many plastic dolls delicious a temptation. But it wasn't Everyone was silent, like children living. A woman who wouldn't with a schoolmaster. bear, or a shiftless man didn't be- "Did you see the Clarence Dove long; they were passing through. film last night?" said Mildred, They belonged to nothing and did suddenly. nothing. "He's hilarious." "Have you ever thought, ladies,"

"But what if Dick should die, or he said, growing more contemptu- your husband, Mrs. Phelps?" Mon- ous of them by the moment, "that tag insisted. perhaps this isn't the best of all "He's dead. He died a week ago. possible worlds? That perhaps our Didn't you know? He jumped from civil rights and other precious pos- the tenth floor of the State Hotel." sessions haven't been taken away in "I didn't know." Montag fell the past century, but have, if any- silent, embarrassed. thing, been given away by us?" "But to get back to Clarence "Why, that can't be true! We'd ." Dove . . said Mildred. have heard about it."

34 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "/~\N THAT pap-dispenser?" speak the poem right, and he was Vv cried Montag, jerking his afraid that he might stumble. He hand at the t-v. Suddenly he shoved read. his hand in his pocket and drew His voice rose and fell in the forth a piece of printed paper. He silent room and he found his way was shaking with rage and irrita- through to the final verses of the tion and he was half blind, staring poem: down at the twitching sheet before his eyes. "The Sea of Faith "What's that?" Mrs. Masterson Was once, too, at the full, and squinted. round earth's shore

"A poem I tore from a book." Lay like the folds of a bright "I don't like poetry." girdle furled.

"Have you ever heard any?" But now I only hear Mildred jumped up, but Montag Its melancholy, long, withdrawing said, coldly, "Sit down." The wo- roar, men all lit cigarets nervously, Retreating, to the breath twisting their red mouths. Of the night-wind, down the vast

"This is illegal, isn't it?" edges drear squealed Mrs. Phelps. "I'm afraid. And naked shingles of the world." I'm going home." "Sit down and shut up," said The four women twisted in their Montag. chairs.

The room was quiet. Montag finished it out:

"This is a poem by a man named Matthew Arnold," said Montag. "Ah, love, let us be true

"Its title is Dover Beach." To one another! for the world, The women were all glancing which seems with expectation at the television To lie before us like a land of set, as if it might save them from dreams, this moment. So various, so beautiful, so new, Montag cleared his throat. He Hath really neither" joy, nor love, waited. He wanted very much to nor light,

THE FIREMAN 35 Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help The door slammed. for pain; "Go home and think of your And we are here as on a darkling first husband, Mrs. Masterson, in plain the insane asylum, and of Mr. Swept with confused alarms of Phelps jumping off a building!" struggle and flight, yelled Montag through the shut Where ignorant armies clash by door.

night." * The house was completely aban- doned. He stood alone.

Montag let the white piece of In the bathroom, water was run- paper fall slowly to the floor. The ning. He heard Mildred shaking women watched it flutter and settle. the sleeping tablets out into her

Mildred said, "Can I turn the palm. t-v on now?" "You fool," he said to himself.

"No, God damn it, no!" "You idiot. Now you've done it. Mildred sat down. Now you've ruined it all, you and Mrs. Masterson said, "I don't your poem, you and your righteous get it. The poem, I mean." indignation."

"What was it about?" asked He went into the kitchen and Mrs. Phelps, her eyes darting fear- found the books where Mildred had fully in flashes of white and dark. stacked them behind the refrigera- "Don't you see?" shouted Mon- tor. He carried a selection of them tag. into the back yard, hid them in the "Nothing to get upset about," weeds near the fence. "Just in said Mrs. Masterson, casually. case," he thought, "Mildred gets a

"But it is, it is." passion for burning things during "Just silly words," said Mrs. the night. The best books out here;

Masterson. "But, Mr. Montag, I the others in the house don't mat- don't mind telling you—it is only ter." because you're a fireman that we He went back through the house. haven't called in an alarm on you "Mildred ?" he called at the bed- for reading this to us. It's illegal. room door but there was no sound.

But it's also very silly. It was non- He shut the front door quietly sense." She got to her feet and and left for work. mashed out her cigaret. "Ladies, don't you think it's time for us to "rnHANK you, Montag." Mr. leave?" JL Leahy accepted the copy of "I don't want to come back the Bible and, without even looking here, ever," said Mrs. Phelps, hur- at it, dropped it into the wall in- rying for the door. cinerator. "Let's forget all about it. "Please stay!" cried Mildred. Glad to see you back, Montag."

36 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION They walked upstairs. "Not smoking, Montag?" They sat and played cards at one "I've a cigaret cough." minute after midnight. And then, of course, the smoke In Leahy's sight, Montag felt the reminded him of old men and old guilt of his hands. His fingers were women screaming and falling into like ferrets that had done some evil wild cinders, and it was not good deed, and now were never at rest, any more to hold fire in your hand. always stirring and picking and He put his hands under the hiding in pockets, or moving out table. "Let's have your hands in from under Leahy's alcohol-flame sight," said Leahy, casually. "Not gaze. If Leahy so much as breathed that we don't trust you." on them, Montag felt that they They all laughed. might wither upon his wrists and The phone rang. die and he might never shake them to life again; they would be buried MR. LEAHY, carrying his cards forever in his coat sleeves, forgot- in one pink hand, walked ten. _ slowly over and stood by the

For these were the hands that phone, let it ring twice more, and had acted on their own, that were then picked it up. no part of him, that were his swift "Yes?" and clever conscience, that snatched Mr. Montag listened, eyes shut. books, tore pages, hid paragraphs The clock ticked in the room. and sentences in little wads to be "I see," said Leahy. He looked opened later, at home, by match- at Montag. He smiled. He winked. light, read and burned. They were Montag glanced away. "Better give the hands that in the last year had me that address again." darted off with Shakespeare and Mr. Montag got up. He walked Job and Ruth and shelved them around the room, hands in pockets. away next his crashing heart, over The other two men were standing the throbbing ribs and the hot, ready. Leahy jerked his head "to- roaring blood of a man excited by ward their coats, as if to say, "On his theft, appalled by his temerity, the double!" They shoved their betrayed by ten fingers which at arms in their coats and pushed on times he held up to watch as if their helmets, joking in whispers. they were gloved with blood. Mr.< Montag waited. The game proceeded. Twice in "I understand perfectly," said half an hour, Montag got up and Leahy into the phone. "Yes. Yes. went to the latrine to wash his Perfectly. No, that's all right. Don't hands. He came back. He sat down. you worry. We'll be right out." He held his cards. Leahy watched Leahy deposited the receiver. his fingers fumble the cards. "Well, well."

THE FIREMAN 37 "A call? Books to be burned?" chaff women, with the kernels

"So it seems." blown out from under them by a Mr. Montag sat down heavily. neon wind, and his reading a book "I don't feel well." to them.

"What a shame; this is a special What. a silly thing it was now! case," said Leahy, coming forward For what was a book? Sheets of slowly, putting on his slicker. paper, lines of type. Why should he "I think I'm handing in my resig- fret for books—one, two, or ten nation." thousand of them, really? He was "Not yet, Montag. One more the only inhabitant of a burning fire, eh? Then I'll be agreeable; world that cared, so why not drop you can hand in your papers. We'll it all, forget it, let the now-mean- all be happy." ingless books lie? "Do you mean that?" "Here we go!" shouted Leahy. "Have I ever lied to you?" "Elm Street?" Leahy fetched a helmet. "Put this "Right!" on. The job'll be over in an hour. He saw Leahy up on his driver's

I understand you, Montag, really I throne, with his massive black do. Everything will be just as you slicker flapping out behind. He want it." seemed to be an immense black bat "All right." flying above the engine, over the They slid down the brass pole. brass numbers, taking the wind. "Where's the fire?" His pink, phosphorescent face glim- "I'll drive!" shouted Leahy. mered in the high darkness, press- "I've got the address." ing forward, and he was smiling The engine blasted to life and furiously. in the gaseous tornado they all "Here we go to keep the world leaped aboard. happy!" And Mr. Montag thought, "No, THEY rounded a corner in thun- I can't let the books rot; I can't let der and siren, with concussion them burn. As long as there are of tires, with scream of rubber, with souls like Leahy, I can't hold my a shift of kerosene bulk in the glit- breath. But what can I do? I can't tery brass tank, like the food in the kill everyone. It's me against the stomach of a giant, with Mr. Mon- world, and the odds too big for tag's fingers jolting off the silver any man. What can I do? Against rail, swinging into cold space, with fire, what water is best?" the wind tearing his hair back from "Now over on Park Terrace!" his bleak face, with the wind whis- The fire engine boomed to a halt, tling in his teeth, and he all the throwing the men off in skips and while thinking of the women, the clumsy hops. Mr. Montag stood fix-

38 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION ing his raw eyes to the cold bright gers, the valise handles. Her mouth rail under his gripped fingers. was bloodless. "I can't do it," he murmured. "I "You didn't!" he said. can't go in there. I can't rip another She shoved the valises into a book." waiting taxi-beetle and climbed in Leahy jumped from his throne, and sat there, staring straight smelling of the wind that had ahead. hammered him about. "Okay, Mon- Montag started toward her. tag, fetch the kerosene!" Leahy caught his arm. The hoses were snaked out. The "Come on, Montag." men ran on soft boots, as clumsy The cab drove away slowly down as cripples, as quiet as deadly black the lighted street. spiders. There was a crystal tinkling as Mr. Montag turned his head. Stonemari and Black chopped the "What's wrong, Montag?" Leahy windows to provide fine drafts for asked, solicitously. the fire. "Why," protested Montag, "that Mr. Montag walked but did not is my house." feel his feet touch the walk, nor the

"So it is," agreed Leahy, heart- hose in his icy hands, nor did he ily. hear. Leahy talking continually as

All the lights were lit. Down the they reached the door. street, more lights were flicking on, "Pour the kerosene in, Montag." people were standing on porches, Montag stood gazing in at the as the door of Montag's house queer house, made strange by the opened. In it, with two suitcases in hour of the night, by the murmur her hands, stood Mildred. When of neighbor voices, by the littered she saw her husband, she came glass, the lights blazing, and there down the steps quickly, with a on the floor, their covers plucked dreamlike rigidity, looking at the off, the pages spilled about like third button on his coat. pigeon feathers, were his incredible "Mildred!" books, and they looked so pitiful She said nothing. and silly and not worth bothering "Okay, Montag, up with the hose with, for they were nothing but type and ax." and paper and raveled binding. "Just a moment, Mr. Leahy. Mil- Montag stepped forward in a dred, you didn't telephone this call huge silence and picked up one of in, did you?" the pages of the books and read

what it had to say. SHE walked past him with her He had read only three lines arms stiff and at the ends of when Leahy snatched the paper them, in the sharp, red-nailed fin- from him.

THE FIREMAN 39 "Oh, no," he said, smiling. "Be- "When you're all done, Mon- cause then we'd have to burn your tag," said Leahy behind him, mind, too. Mustn't have that." He "you're under arrest." stepped back. "Ready?" "Ready." Montag snapped the Ill valve lock on the fire-thrower. "Aim," said Leahy. Water, Water, Quench Yire "Aim." "Fire!" house fell into red ruin. THEIt itself to He burned the television set first bedded down and then the radio and he burned sleepy pink ashes and a the motion picture projector and smoke pall hung over it, rising he burned the films and the gossip straight to the sky. It was ten min- magazines and the litter of cos- utes after one in the morning. The metics on a table, and he took crowd drew back into their houses; pleasure in it all, and he burned the the fun was over. walls because he wanted to change Mr. Montag stood with the fire- everything, the chairs, the tables, thrower in his stiff hands, great the paintings. He didn't want to islands of perspiration standing out remember that he had lived here under his arms, his face smeared with some strange woman who with soot. The three other firemen would forget him tomorrow, who waited behind him in the darkness, had gone and forgotten him already their faces illumined faintly by the and was listening to a radio as she burned house, by the house which rode across town. So he burned the Mr. Montag had just charred and room with a precise fury. crumpled so efficiently with kero- "The books, Montag, the sene, flame-gun, and deliberate aim. books !" "All right, Montag," said Leahy. He directed the fire at the books. "Come along. You've done your They leaped and danced, like roast- duty. Now, you're in custody." ed birds, their wings frantically "What've I done?" ablaze in red and yellow feathers. '•'You know what you did. Don't They fell in charred lumps. ask."

"Get that one there, get it!" di- "Why so much fuss over a few l rected Leahy, pointing. bits of paper?" Montag burned the indicated "We won't stand here arguing; book. it's cold."

He burned books, he burned "Was it my wife called you, or them by the dozen, he burned one of her friends?" books with sweat pouring down "It doesn't matter." his cheeks. "Was it my wife?"

40 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Leahy nodded. "But her friends Montag jerked the weapon at

turned in an alarm earlier. I let it them. "Turn around!" ride. One way or the other, you'd They turned stiffly. He beat them

have got it. That was pretty silly, over the heads with the gun shaft; quoting poetry around free and he didn't want to burn any other easy, Montag. Very silly. Come on, thing ever again. They fell. Then now." Montag turned the fire-thrower on "I think not," said Montag. the fire engine itself, set the trigger, He twitched the fire-trigger in and ran. Voices screamed in sev- his hand. Leahy glanced at Mon- eral houses. The engine blew up, tag's fingers and saw what he in- hundreds of gallons of kerosene in tended before Montag himself had one great flower of heat.

even considered it. In that instant, Montag ran away down the Montag was stunned by the thought street and into an alley, thinking,

of murder, for murder is always a "That's the end of you, Leahy! new thing, and Montag knew That's the end of you and what nothing of murder; he knew only you were!" burning and burning things that He kept running. people said were evil. "I know what's really wrong HE REMEMBERED the books with the world," said Montag.— and turned back. "Look here, Montag " cried "You're a fool, a damned fool, Leahy. an awful fool, an idiot, but most of And then he was a shrieking all a fool." He stumbled and fell. blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gib- He got up. "You blind idiot, you bering thing, all aflame, writhing and your pride and your stinking on the grass as Montag shot three temper and your righteousness, more blazing pulses of liquid fire you've ruined it all, at the very over him. There was a hissing and start, you fumbler. But those bubbling like a snail upon which women, those stupid women, they salt has been poured. There was a drove me to it with their non- sound like spittle on a red-hot sense!" he protested to himself. stove. Montag shut his eyes and "A fool, nevertheless, no better yelled and tried to get his hands than they! to his ears to cut away the sounds. "We'll save what we can. We'll Leahy twisted in upon himself like do what has to be done. We'll take a ridiculous black wax doll and lay a few more firemen with us if we !" silent. burn The other two firemen stood ap- He found the books where he palled. had left them, beyond the garden "Montag !'* fence. He heard voices yelling in

THE FIREMAN 41 the night and flashbeams were to the professor's, Leahy, the Bible, swirling about. Other fire engines memorizing, the sieve, and the sand, wailed from far off and police cars the bank money, the printing press, were arriving. the plan, the rage, the alarm, Mil- Mr Montag took as many books dred's departure, the fire, Leahy as he could carry under one arm into a torch—too much for any and staggered down the alley. He one day in any one life. hadn't realized what a shock the At last he was able to get to his evening had been to him, but sud- feet, but the books seemed impos- denly he fell and lay sobbing, sibly heavy. He fumbled along the weak, his legs folded, his face in alley and the voices and sirens the gravel. At a distance he heard faded behind him. He moved in running feet. Get up, he told him- darkness, panting. self. But he lay there. Get up, get "You must remember," he said, up! But he cried like a child. He "that you've got to burn them or hadn't wanted to kill anyone, not they'll burn you. Burn them or even Leahy. Killing did nothing they'll burn you." but kill something of yourself He searched his pockets. The when you did it, and suddenly he money was there. In his shirt pocket saw Leahy again, a torch, scream- he found the Seashell radio and ing, and he shut his hand over his slapped it to his ear. wet face, gagging. "I'm sorry, I'm "Attention! Attention, all police sorry." alert. Special alarm. Wanted: Leon- Everything at once. In twenty- ard Montag, fugitive, for murder four hours the burning of a wo- and crimes against the State. De- ." man, the burning of books, the trip scription . .

42 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Six blocks away the alley opened to give him this money. Whatever out onto a wide empty thorough- happened, he wanted the money to fare. It looked like a clean stage, go on after him. Perhaps he could so bored, so quiet, so well lit, and make it to open country, Jive on him alone, running across it, easily the rivers and near highways, in seen, easily shot down. the meadows and hills, the sort of "Beware of the pedestrian, watch life he had often thought about but for the pedestrian!" The Seashell never tried. stung his ear. Something caught at one corner Montag hid back in the shadows. of his vision and he turned to look He must use only the alleys. There at the sky. was a gas station nearby. It might The police helicopters were ris- give him the slightest extra margin ing, far away, like a flight of gray of safety if he were clean and pre- moths, spreading out, six of them. sentable. He must get to the station He saw them wavering, indecisive, rest room and wash up, comb his a half mile off, like butterflies hair, then, with books under arm, puzzled by autumn, dying with win- stroll calmly across that wide boule- ter, and then they were landing, vard to get where he was going. one by one, dropping softly to the

"Where am I going?" streets where, turned into cars, they would shriek along the boulevards NOWHERE. There was nowhere or, just as suddenly, hop back into to go, no friend to turn to. the air, continuing their search.

Faber couldn't take him in; it would And here was the gas station. Ap- be murder to even try; but he had proaching from the rear, Mr. Mon- to see Faber for a minute or two, tag entered the men's wash room.

THE FIREMAN 43 !

Through the tin wall he heard a "Keep going." radio voice crying, "War has been Montag faltered, got a new hold declared ! Repeat—war has —been de- on his books, and forced himself clared! Ten minutes ago " But not to freeze. Nor should he draw the sound of washing his hands and suspicion to himself by running. rinsing his face and toweling him- He was now one-third of the way self dry cut the announcer's voice across. There was a growl from the

away. Emerging from the wash- car's motor as it put on speed. room a cleaner, newer man, less suspect, Mr. Montag walked as THE police, thought Montag. casually as a man looking for a bus, They see me, of course. But to the edge of the empty boule- walk slowly, quietly, don't turn, vard. don't look, don't seem concerned.

There it lay, a game for him to Walk, that's it, walk, walk. win, a vast bowling alley in the The car was rushing at a terrific dark morning. The boulevard was speed. A good one hundred miles as clean as a pinball machine, but an hour. Its horn blared. Its light underneath, somewhere, one could flushed the concrete. The heat of

feel the electrical energy, the readi- the lights, it seemed, burned Mon- ness to dart lights, flash red and tag's cheeks and eyelids and brought blue, and out of nowhere, rolling the sweat coursing from his body. like a silver ball, might thunder the He began to shuffle idiotically, searchers! Three blocks away, there then broke and ran. The horn hoot- were a few headlights. Montag ed. The motor sound whined drew a deep breath. His lungs were higher. Montag sprinted. He like burning brooms in his chest; dropped a book, whirled, hesitated, his mouth was sucked dry from left it there, plunged on, yelling to running. All of the iron in the himself, in the middle of concrete world lay in his dragging feet. emptiness, the car a hundred feet He began to walk across the away, closer, closer, hooting, push- empty avenue. ing, rolling, screeching, the horn A hundred yards across. He esti- hunting, himself running, his legs mated. A hundred yards in the up, down, out, back, his eyes blind open, more than plenty of time for in the flashing glare, the horn a police car to appear, see him, and nearer, now on top of .him run him down. They'll run me down, they know

He listened to his own loud foot- who I am, it's all over, thought steps. Montag, it's done!

A car was coming. Its headlights He stumbled and fell. leaped and caught Montag in full . An instant before reaching him, stride. ' the wild car swerved around him

44 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION and was gone. Falling had saved empty avenue, four blocks away, the him. car of laughing children had

Mr. Montag lay flat, his head turned. Now it was racing back, down. Wisps of laughter trailed picking up speed. back with the blue car exhaust. Montag dodged into an alley and That wasn't the police, thought was gone in the shadow long be- Mr. Montag. fore the car returned. It was "a earful of high-school children, yelling, whistling, hurrah- THE house was silent. ing. And they had seen a man, a Mr. Montag approached it pedestrian, a rarity, and they had from the back, creeping through the yelled "Let's get him!" They didn't scent of daffodils and roses and know he was the fugitive Mr. Mon- wet grass. He touched the screen

tag; they were simply out for a door, found it open, slipped in, tip- night of roaring five hundred miles toed across the porch, and, behind in a few moonlit hours, their faces the refrigerator in the kitchen, de- icy with wind. posited three of the books. He "They would have killed me," waited, listening to the house. whispered Montag to the shaking "Mrs. Black, are you asleep up concrete under his bruised cheek. there?" he asked of the second "For no reason at all in the world, floor in a whisper. "I hate to do they would have killed me." this to you, but your husband did He got up and walked unstead- just as bad to others, never asking, ily to the far curb. Somehow, he never wondering, never worrying. had remembered to pick up the You're a fireman's wife, Mrs. Black,

spilled books. He shuffled them, and now it's your house, and you oddly, in his numb hands. will be in jail a while, for all the "I wonder if they were the ones houses your husband has burned who killed Clarisse." and people he's killed." His eyes watered. The ceiling did not reply. The thing that had saved him Quietly, Montag slipped from the

was falling flat. The driver of that house and returned to the alley. The car, seeing Montag prone, consid- house was still dark; no one had ered the possibility that running heard him come or go. over a body at one hundred miles He walked casually down the an hour might turn the car over alley, and came to an all-night, and spill them all out. Now, if dimly lighted phone booth. He Montag had remained upright, closed himself in the booth and things would have been far differ- dialed a number.

ent .. . "I want to report an illegal own-

Montag gasped. Far down the . ership of books," he said.

THE FIREMAN 45 —

The voice sharpened on the other dered what had happened to you." end. "The address?" "I was delayed." Montag patted

He gave it and added, "Better his inside pocket. "The money's get there before they burn them. here." He took it out and laid it on Check the kitchen." the desk, then sat tiredly sipping Montag stepped out and stood his drink. "How do you feel?" in the cold night air, waiting. At a "This is the first night in many great distance he heard the fire years I've fallen right to sleep," sirens coming, coming to burn Mr. said Faber. "That must mean I'm

Black's house while he was away doing the right thing. I think we at work, and make his wife stand can trust me now. Once, I didn't shivering in the morning air while think so." the .roof dropped down. But now "People never trust themselves, she was upstairs, deep in sleep. but they never let others know. I "Good night, Mrs. Black," said suppose that's why we do rash Mr. Montag. "You'll excuse me things, expose ourselves in posi-

I have several other visits to make." tions from which we don't dare retreat. Unconsciously, we fear we RAP at the door. might give in, quit the fight, and A "Professor Faber!" so we do a foolish thing, like read- Another rap and a long waiting. ing poetry to women." Montag

Then, from within, lights flickered laughed at himself. "So I guess I'm on about the small house. After on the run. It'll be up to you to another pause, the front door keep things moving." opened. "I'll do my damnedest." Faber

"Who is it?" Faber cried, for sat down. "Tell me about it. What the man who staggered in was in you did just now, I mean." the dark for a moment and then "I hid my remaining books in rushing past. "Oh, Montag!" four firemen's homes. Then I tele-

"I'm going away," said Montag, phoned an alarm. I figured I might stumbling to a chair. "I've been a be dead by morning, and I wanted fool." to have done something before Professor Faber stood at the door then." listening to the distant sirens wail- "God, I'd like to've been there." ing off like animals in the morn- "Yes, the places burned very ing. "Someone's been busy." well." "It worked." "Where are you going now?" "At least you were a fool about "I don't know." the right things." Faber shut the "Try the factory section, follow door, came back, and poured a the old rail lines, look up some of drink for each of them. "I won- the hobo camps. I didn't tell you

46 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION " ' this before—maybe I didn't quite in 24 hours. Here's a bulletin. The trust you yet, I don't know—but Electric Dog is being —transported they were in touch with' me last here from Green Town year, wanting me to go underground Montag and Faber glanced at with them." each other. " "With tramps?" —You may recall the interviews "There are a lot of Harvard de- recently on t-v concerning this in- grees on the tracks between here credible new invention, a machine and Los Angeles. What else can so delicate in sense perception that they do? Most of them are wanted it can follow trails much as blood- and hunted in cities. They survive. hounds did for centuries. But this

I don't think they have a plan for machine, without fail, always finds a revolution, though; I never heard its quarry!" them speak of it. They simply sit by Montag put his empty glass their fires. Not a very lively group. down and he was cold.

But they might hide you now." "The machine is self-operating,

"I'll try. I'm heading for the weighs only forty pounds, is pro- river, I think, then the old factory pelled on seven rubber wheels. The

district. I'll keep in touch with front is a nose, which in reality is you.' a thousand noses, so sensitive that "In Boston, then. I'm leaving on they can distinguish 10,000 food the three o'clock train tonight—or, combinations, 5,000 flower smells, rather, this morning. That's not and remember identity index odors long from now. There's a retired of 15,000 men without the bother printer in Boston that I want to of resetting." see with this money." Faber began to tremble. He "I'll contact you there," said looked at his house, at the door, Montag. "And get books from you the floor, the chair in which Mon-

when I need them, to plant in fire- tag sat. Montag interpreted this men's houses across the country." look. They both stared together at the invisible trail of his footprints MONTAG drained his drink. leading to this house, the odor of "Do you want to sleep here his hand on the brass doorknobs, a while?" Faber asked. the smell of his body in the air and

"I'd better get going. I wouldn't on this chair.

want you held responsible." "The Electric Hound is now "Let's check." Faber switched on landing, by helicopter, at the burned the televisor. A voice was talking Montag home. We take you there swiftly: by t-v control!" " —this evening. Montag has So they must have a game, escaped, but we expect his arrest thought Montag. In the midst of a

THE FIREMAN 47 ! "

time of war, they must play the the big game, the big hunt, the game out. Scoop

There was the burned house, the "There it is," whispered Faber, crowd, and something with a sheet hoarsely. over it, Mr. Leahy—yes, Mr. Leahy—and out of the sky, flutter- OUT of the helicopter glided ing, came the red helicopter, land- something that was not a ma- ing like a grotesque and menacing chine, not an animal, not dead, not flower. alive, just gliding. It glowed with

Montag watched the scene with a green phosphorescence, and dt a solid fascination, not wanting to was on a long leash. Behind it came move, ever. If he wished, he could a man, dressed lightly, with ear- linger here, in comfort, and follow phones on his shaven head. the entire hunt on through its quick "I can't stay here." Montag phases, down alleys, up streets, leaped up, his eyes still fixed to the across empty running avenues, with scene. The Electric Hound shot for- the sky finally lightening with ward to the smoking ruins, the man dawn, up other alleys to burned running after it. A coat was brought houses, and so on to this place here, forward. Montag recognized it as this house, with Faber and him- his own, dropped in the yard dur- self seated at their leisure, smoking ing flight. The Electric Hound idly, drinking good wine, while the studied it for only a moment. There Electric Hound sniffed down the was a whirring and clicking of dials fatal paths, whirring and pausing and meters. with finality right outside that door "You can't escape." Faber there. mourned over it, turning away. Then, if he wished, Montag "I've heard about that damned could rise, walk to the door, keep monster. No one has ever escaped." one eye on the t-v screen, open the "I'll try, anyway. I'm sorry about door, look out, look back, and see this, Professor." himself, dramatized, described, "About me? About my house? made over, standing there, limned Don't be. I'm the one to be sorry in the bright television screen, from I didn't act years ago. Whatever I outside, a drama to be watched ob- get out of this, I deserve. You run, jectively, and he would catch him- now; perhaps— I can delay them here self, an instant before oblivion, somehow being killed for the benefit of a "Wait a minute." Montag moved million televiewers who had been forward. "There's no use your be- wakened from their sleeps a few ing discovered. We can erase the minutes ago by the frantic beep- trail here. First the chair. Get me beeping of their receivers to watch a knife."

48 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Faber ran and fetched a knife. They shook hands again and

With it, Montag attacked the chair glanced at the t-v. The Electric where he had sat. He cut the up- Hound was on its way, followed by holstery free, then shoved it, bit mobile camera units, through alleys, by bit, without touching the lid, across empty morning streets, si-

into the wall incinerator. , "Now," lently, silently, sniffing the great he said, "after I leave, rip up the night wind for Mr. Leonard Mon-

carpet. It has my footprints on it. tag.

Cut it up, burn it, air the house. "Be seeing you!" Rub the doorknobs with alcohol. And Montag was out the door,

After I go, turn your garden sprink- running lightly, with the half ler on full. That'll wash away the empty case. Behind him, he saw and sidewalk traces." felt and heard the garden sprinkler Faber shook his hand vigorously. system jump up, filling the dark "You don't know what this means. air with synthetic rain to wash away

I'll do anything to help you in the the smell of Montag. Through the future. Get in touch with me in back window, the last thing he saw Boston, then." of Faber was the older man ripping "One more thing. A suitcase, up the carpet and cramming it in

Get it, fill it with your dirty laun- the wall incinerator. dry, an old suit, the dirtier the Montag ran. better, denim pants maybe, a shirt, Behind him, in the night city, some old sneakers and socks." the Electric Hound followed. Faber was gone and back in a minute. Montag sealed the full suit- HE STOPPED now and again, case with scotch tape. "To keep panting, across town, to watch the odor in," he said, breathlessly. through the dimly lighted windows He poured a liberal amount of of wakened houses. He peered in at cognac over the exterior of the case. silhouettes before television screens "I don't want that Hound picking and there on the screens saw where up two odors at once. Mind if I the Electric Hound was, now at Elm take this bottle of whisky? I'll need Terrace, now at Lincoln Avenue,

it later. When I get to the river, now at 34th, now up the alley to-

I'll change clothes." ward Mr. Faber's, now at Faber's! "And identities; from Montag to "No, no!" thought Montag. "Go Faber." on past! Don't turn in, don't!"

"Christ, I hope it works! If your He held his breath. clothes smell strong enough, which The Electric Hound hesitated,

God knows they seem to, we might then plunged on, leaving Faber's confuse the Hound, anyway." house behind. For a moment the "Good luck." t-v camera scanned Faber's home.

THE FIREMAN 49 The windows were dark. In the drawn and staked to the sand. He garden, the water sprinkled the took possession. cool air, softly. The boat slid easily on the long silence of river and went away THE Electric Hound raced ahead, downstream from the city, bobbing down the alley. and whispering, while Montag "Good going, Professor." And stripped in darkness down to the Montag was gone, again, racing to- skin, and splashed his body, his ward the distant river, stopping at arms, his legs, his face with raw other houses to see the game on liquor. Then he changed into the t-v sets, the long running game, Faber's old clothing and shoes. He and the Hound drawing near be- tossed his own clothing into the hind. "Only a mile away now!" river with the suitcase. As he ran he had the Seashell at He sat watching the dark shore. his ear and a voice ran with every There would be a delay while the step, with the beat of his heart and pursuit rode the Electric Hound up the sound of his shoes on gravel. and down stream to see where a

"Watch for the pedestrian ! Look man named Montag had stepped for the pedestrian ! Anyone on the ashore. sidewalks or in the street, walking Whether or not the smell of or running, is suspect ! Watch for Faber would be strong enough, the pedestrian!" with the aid of the alcohol, was How simple in a city where no something else again. He pulled one walked. Look, look for the out a handkerchief he had saved walking man, the man who proves over, doused it with the remainder his legs. Thank God for good dark of the liquor. He must hold this alleys where men could run in over his mouth when stepping peace. House lights flashed on all ashore. about. Montag saw faces peering The particles of his breathing streetward as he passed behind might remain in an electronically them, faces hid by curtains, pale, detectable invisible cloud for hours night-frightened faces, like odd ani- after he had passed on. mals peering from electric caves, He couldn't wait any longer. He faces with gray eyes and gray was below the town now, in a lone- minds, and he plunged ahead, leav- ly place of weeds and old railway ing them to their tasks, and in an- tracks. He rowed the boat toward other minute was at the black, shore, tied the handkerchief over his moving river. face, and leaped out as the boat He found what he was looking touched briefly. for after five minutes of running The current swept the boat along the bank. It was a rowboat away, turning slowly.

50 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "Farewell to Mr. Montag," he leader of the little group. "Sit said. "Hello, Mr. Faber." down. Have some coffee." He went into the woods. He watched the dark steaming mixture poured into a collapsible HE FOUND his way along rail- cup which was handed him straight road tracks that had not been off. He sipped it gingerly. He felt used in years, crusted with brown the scald on his lips. The men were rust and overgrown with weeds. He watching him. Their faces were un- listened to his feet moving in the shaved but their beards were much long grass. He paused now and too neat, and their, hands were then, checking behind to see if he clean. They had stood up, as if to was followed, but was not. welcome a guest, and now they sat Firelight shone far ahead. "One down again. Montag sipped. of the camps," thought Montag. "Thanks," he said. "One of the places where the hobo The leader said, "My name is intellectuals cook their meals and Granger, as good a name as any.

talk!" It was unbelievable. You don't have to tell us your name Half an hour later he came out at all." He remembered something. of the weeds and the forest into "Here, before you finish the coffee, the half light of the fire, for only better take this." He held out a a moment, then he hid back and small bottle of colorless fluid. waited, watching the group of seven "What is it?" men, holding their hands to the "Drink it. Whoever you are, you small blaze, murmuring. To their wouldn't be here unless you were right, a quarter mile away, was the in trouble. Either that, or you're a river. Up the stream a mile, and Government spy, in which case we still apparent in the dark, was the are only a bunch of men traveling city, and no sound except the voices nowhere and hurting no one. In and the fire crackling. any event, whoever you are, an hour Montag waited ten minutes in after you've drunk this fluid, you'll the shadows. Finally a voice called: be someone else. It does something "All right, you can come out now." to the perspiratory system—changes He shrank back. the sweat content. If you want to

"It's okay," said the voice. stay here you'll have to drink it, "You're welcome here." otherwise you'll have to move on. He let himself stand forth and If there's a Hound after you, you'd then he walked tiredly toward the be bad company." fire, peering at the men and their "I think I took care of the dirty clothing. Hound," said Montag, and drank "We're not very elegant," said the tasteless stuff. The fluid stung the man who seemed to be the his throat. He was sick for a mo-

THE FIREMAN 51 ment; there was a blackness in his for the hell of it. Anyway, up that eyes, and a roaring in his head. street the police know that every

Then it passed. morning a certain man walks alone, for the air, to smoke. Call him "rpHAT'S better, Mr. Montag," Billings or Brown or Baumgartner, -L said Granger, and snorted at but the search is getting nearer to his social error. "I beg your par- him every minute. See?" don—-" He poked his thumb at a In the video screen, a man small portable t-v beyond the fire. turned a corner. The Electric "We've been watching. They vi- Hound rushed forward, screeching. Jeoed a picture of you, not a very The police converged upon the good resemblance. We hoped you'd man. head this way." The t-v voice cried, "There's "It's been quite a chase." Montag now"! The search is over!" "Yes." Granger snapped the t-v The innocent man stood watch- on. It was no bigger than a hand- ing the crowd come on. In his hand bag, weighing some seven pounds, was a cigaret, half smoked. He mostly screen. A voice from the set looked at the Hound and his jaw cried: dropped and he started to say some-

"The chase is now veering south thing when a godlike voice boomed, along the river. On the eastern "All right, - Montag, don't move! shore the police helicopters are We've got you, Montag!" converging on Avenue 87 and Elm By the small fire, with seven Grove Park." other men, Mr. Montag sat, ten "You're safe," said Granger. miles removed, the light of the "They're faking. You threw them video screen on his face. off at the river, but they can't ad- "Don't run, Montag!" mit it. Must be a million people The man turned, bewildered. watching that bunch of scoundrels The crowd roared. The Hound hound after you. They'll catch you leaped up. in five minutes." "The poor son of a bitch" said

"But if they're ten miles away, Granger, bitterly. .?" how can they . . A dozen shots rattled out. The "Watch." man crumpled.

He made the t-v picture brighter. "Montag is dead, the search is "Up that street there, somewhere, over, a criminal is given his due," right now, out for an early morning said the announcer. walk. A rarity, an odd one. Don't The camera trucked forward. think the police don't know the Just before it showed the dead habits of queer ducks like that, men man's face, however, the screen who walk early in the morning just went black.

52 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

"We now switch you to the Sky to run. I've been running ever ." Room of the Hotel Lux in San since. And Simmons here . . Francisco for a —half hour of dawn "I quoted Donne in the midst dance music by of a genetics class one afternoon. For no reason at all. Just started GRANGER turned it off. "They quoting Donne. You see ? Fools, all didn't show the man's face, of us." naturally. Better if everyone thinks They glanced at the fire, self- it's Montag." consciously. Montag said nothing, but simply "So you want to join us, Mr. looked at the blank screen. He could Montag?" not move or speak. "Yes." Granger put out his hand. "Wel- "What have you to offer?" come back from the dead, Mr. "Nothing. I thought I had the Montag." Montag took the hand, Book of Job, but I haven't even numbly. The man said, "My real got that now." name is Clement, former occupant "The Book of Job would do very of the T. S. Eliot Chair at Cam- well. Where was it?" bridge. That was before it became "Here." Montag touched his an Electrical Engineering School. head.

This gentleman here is Dr. Sim- "Ah," said Granger-Clement. He mons from U.C.L.A." smiled and nodded. "I don't belong here," said Mon- "What's wrong? Isn't that all

tag, at last, slowly. "I've been an right?" said Montag. idiot, all the way down the line, "Better than all right—perfect! bungled and messed and tripped Mr. Montag, you have hit upon the

myself up." secret of, if you want to give it a

"Anger makes idiots of us all, term, our organization. Living I'm afraid. You can only be angry books, Mr. Montag, living books. so long, then you explode and do Inside the old skull where no one the wrong things. It can't be helped can see." He turned to Simmons. now." "Do we have a Book of Job?" "I shouldn't have come here. It "Only one. A man named Harris might endanger you." in Youngstown." "We're used to that. We all "Mr. Montag." The man grasped make mistakes, or we wouldn't be Montag's shoulder firmly. "Walk here ourselves. When we were sep- slowly, be careful, take your health arate individuals, all we had was seriously. If anything should hap- rage. I struck a fireman in the face, pen to Harris, you are the Book of once. He'd come to burn my library Tob. Do you see how important you

back about forty years ago. I had are?"

THE FIREMAN 53 "But I've forgotten it!" "None of it. But I can't get it

"Nonsense, nothing is ever for- out. Once it's in, it's like solidified gotten. Mislaid, perhaps, but not glue in a bottle, there for good. Mr. forgotten. We have ways, several Granger says it's important. That's new methods of hypnosis, to shake good enough for me." down the clinkers there. You'll re- "We're old friends," said Gran- member, don't fear." ger. "We hadn't seen each other "I've been trying to remember." since we were boys. We met a few "Don't try. Relax. It'll come years ago on that track, somewhere

when we need it. Some people are between here and Seattle, walking, quick studies but don't know it. me running away from firemen, he Some of God's simplest creatures running from cities." have the ability called eidetic or "Never liked cities," said the one photographic memory, the ability who was Plato. "Always felt that

to memorize entire pages of print cities owned men, that was all, and at a glance. It has nothing to do used men to keep themselves going, with I.Q. No offense, Montag. It to keep machines oiled and dusted.

varies. Would you like, one day, to So I got out. And then I met

read Plato's Republic?" Granger and he found out that I "Of course." had this eidetic memory, as he calls

Granger nodded to a man who it, and he gave me a book to read had been sitting to one side. and then we burned the book our- "Mr. Plato, if you please." selves so we wouldn't be caught

with it. And now I'm Plato; that's THE man began to talk. He what I am." looked at Montag idly, his "He is also Socrates." hands filling a corncob pipe, un- The man nodded. aware of the words tumbling from "And Schopenhauer." his lips. He talked for two minutes Another nod. without a- pause or stumble. "And John Dewey." Granger made the smallest move "All that in one bottle. You of his fingers. The man cut off. wouldn't think there was room. But "Perfect word-for-word memory, I can open my head like a concer- every word important, every word tina and play it. There's plenty of

Plato's," said Granger. room if you don't try to think about "And," said the man who was what you've memorized. It's when Plato, "I don't understand a you start thinking that all of a damned word of it. I just say it. sudden it's crowded. I don't think It's up to you to understand." about anything except eating, sleep-

"Don't you understand any of ing, and traveling. I let you people it?" asked Montag. do the thinking when you hear what

54 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION I recite. Oh, there's plenty of ferocious trying to go at it the way room, believe me." I did, planting books and calling "So here we are, Mr. Montag. firemen." Mr. Simmons is really Mr. John "You did what you thought you

Donne and Mr. Charles Darwin had to do. But our way is simpler and Mr. Aristophanes. These other and better and the thing we wish gentlemen are Matthew, Mark, to do is keep the knowledge intact Luke, and John. And / am Ruth." and safe and not to excite or anger Everyone laughed quietly. anyone; for then, if we are de-

"You see, we are not without stroyed, the knowledge is most cer- humor in this melancholy age. I'm tainly dead. We are model citizens also bits and pieces, Mr. Montag, in our own special way—we walk snatches of Byron and Shelley and the tracks, we lie in the hills at Shaw and Washington Irving and night, we bother no one, and the Shakespeare. I'm one of those city people let us be. We're stopped kaleidoscopes. Hold me up to the and searched for books, occasion- sun, give a shake, watch the pat- ally, but we have none, and our terns. And you are Mr. Job, and faces have been changed by plastic in half an hour or less, a war will surgery, as have our fingerprints. So begin. While those people in that we wait quietly for the day when anthill across the river have been the machines are dented junk and busy chasing Montag, as if he were then we hope to walk by and say. the cause of all their nervous 'Here we are,' to those who survive anxiety and frustration, the war has this war, and we'll say, 'Have you been getting under way. By this come to your senses now? Perhaps time tomorrow the world will be- a few books will do you some " long to the little green towns and good.' the rusted railroad tracks and the "But will they listen to you?" men walking on them; that's us. "Perhaps not. Then we'll have to The cities will be soot and baking wait some more. Maybe a few hun- powder." dred years. Maybe they'll never lis ten; we can't make them. So we'll THE t-v rang a bell. Granger pass the books on to our children, switched it on. in their minds, and let them wait, "Final negotiations are arranged in turn, on other people. Some day for a conference today with the someone will need us. This can't •" enemy government— last forever."

Granger snapped it off. "How many of you are there?" "Well, what do you think, Mon- "Thousands on the road, on the tag?" rails, bums on the outside, libraries "I think I was pretty blind and on the inside. It wasn't really

THE FIREMAN 55 planned; it grew. Each man had a MONTAG looked at the men's book he wanted to remember and faces, old, all of them, in the did. Then we discovered each firelight, and certainly tired. Per- other and over twenty years or so haps he was looking for a bright- got a loose network together and ness, a resolve, a triumph over to- made a plan. The important thing morrow that' wasn't really there. we had to learn was that we were Perhaps he expected these men to not important, we were not to be be proud with the knowledge they pedants, we were not to feel su- carried, to glow with the wisdom perior, we were nothing more than as lanterns glow with the fire they covers for books, of no individual contain. significance whatever. Some of us But all the light came from the live in small towns-—chapter one of campfire here, and these men Walden in Nantucket, chapter two seemed no different than any other in Reading, chapter three in Wau- man who has run a long run, kesha, each according to his ability. searched a long search, seen pre- Some can learn a few lines, some a cious things destroyed, seen old lot." friends die, and now, very late in "The books are safe then." time, were gathered together to "Couldn't be safer. Why, there's watch the machines die, or hope one village in North Carolina, some they might die, even while cherish- 200 people, no bomb'll ever touch ing a last paradoxical love for those

their town, which is the complete very machines which could spin Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. out a material with happiness in the You could pick up that town, al- warp and terror in the woof, so most, and flip the pages, a page to interblended that a man might go a person. People who wouldn't insane trying to tell the design to

dream of being seen with a book himself, and his place in it. gladly memorized a page. You can't They weren't at all certain that be caught with that. And when the what they carried in their heads war's over and we've time and need, might make every future dawn the books can be written again. The dawn brighter. They were sure of people will be called in one by one nothing save that the books were

to recite what they know and it'll on file behind their solemn eyes and be in print again until another Dark that if man put his mind to them Age, when maybe we'll have to do properly, something of dignity and the whole damned thing over again, happiness might be regained. man being the fool he is." Montag looked from one face to "What do we do tonight?" asked another.

Montag. "Don't judge a book by its "Just wait, that's all." cover," said someone.

56 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION A soft laughter moved among divisions, the blood is astounded to them. be free on the air, and the brain Montag turned to look at the city gives up all its precious memories across the river. and, still puzzled, dies. "My wife's in that city now," he said. THIS war was not to be believed. "I'm sorry to hear that." It was merely a gesture. It was "Look," said Simmons. the flirt of a great metal hand over Montag glanced up. the city and a voice saying, "Dis- The bombardment was finished integrate. Leave no stone upon an- and over, even while the seeds were other. Perish. Die." in the windy sky. The bombs were Montag held the bombs in the there, the jet-planes were there, for sky for a precious moment, with his the merest trifle of an instant, like mind and his hands. "Run!" he grain thrown across the heavens by cried to Faber. To Clarisse, "Run!" a great hand, and the bombs drifted To Mildred, "Get out, get out of with a dreadful slowness down there!" But Clarisse, he remem-. upon the morning city where all of bered, was dead. And Faber was the people looked up at their des- out; there, in the deep valleys of tiny coming upon them like the lid the country, went the dawn train

of a dream shutting tight and be- on its way from one desolation to come an instant later a red and another. Though the desolation had

powdery nightmare. not yet arrived, was still in the air,

The bombardment to all military it was as certain as man could make

purposes was finished. Once the it. Before the train had gone an- planes had sighted their target, other fifty yards on the track, its alerted their bombardier at five destination would be meaningless, thousand miles an hour, as quick its point of departure made from as the whisper of a knife through a metropolis into a junkyard. the sky, the war was finished. Once And Mildred! the trigger was pulled, once the "Get out, run!" he thought.

bombs took flight, it was over. He could see Mildred in that Now, a full three seconds, all of metropolis now, in the half second the time in history, before the remaining, as the bombs were per- bombs struck, the enemy ships haps three inches, three small inches themselves were gone, half around shy of her hotel building. He could

the visible world, it seemed, like see her leaning into the t-v set as if bullets in which an island savage all of the hunger of looking would might not believe because they were find the secret of her sleepless un- unseen, yet the heart is struck sud- ease there. Mildred, leaning anx- denly, the body falls into separate iously, nervously, into that tubular

THE FIREMAN 57 world as info a crystal ball to find pounds of brick, metal and people happiness. down into the cellar, there to dis-

The first bomb struck. pose of them in its unreasonable

"Mildred I" way. Perhaps the television station "I remember now," thought went first into oblivion. Montag, "where we first met. It Montag saw the screen go dark was in Chicago, Yes, now I re- in Mildred's face, and heard her member." screaming, because in the next mil- Montag found himself on his lionth part of time left, she would face. The concussion had knocked see her own face reflected there, the air across the river, turned the hungry and alone, in a mirror in- men down like dominoes in a line, stead of a crystal ball, and it would blown out the fire like a last candle, be such a wildly empty face that and caused the trees to mourn with

she would at last recognize it, and a great voice of wind passing away stare at the ceiling almost with south. welcome as it and the entire struc- Montag lay with his face toward ture of the hotel blasted down upon the city. Now it, instead of the her, carrying her with a million bombs, was in the air. They had

58 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION displaced each other. For another of those impossible instants the city stood, rebuilt and unrecognizable, taller than it had ever hoped or strived to be, taller than man had built it, erected at last in gouts of dust and sparkles of torn metal into a city not unlike a reversed aval- anche, formed of flame and steel and stone,' a door where a window ought to be, a top for a bottom, a side for a back, and then the city rolled over and fell.

The sound of its death came after.

THE FIREMAN 59 .

member another thing. Now I re- tions and minute obsessions. They member the Book of Job." He said lay blinking their stunned eyelids.

it over to himself, lying tight to You could hear them breathing

the earth; he said the words of it fast, then slower, then with the many times and they were perfect slowness of normality.

without trying. "Now I remember Montag sat up. He did not move the book of Job. Now I do remem- any farther, however. The other ." ber . . men did likewise. The sun was "There," said a voice, Granger's touching the black horizon with a voice. faint red tip. The air was cool and The men lay like gasping fish on sweet and smelled of rain. In a few the grass. minutes it would smell of dust and

They did not get up for a long pulverized iron, but now it was time, but held to the earth as chil- sweet. dren hold to a familiar thing, no And across the world, thought matter how cold or dead, no matter Montag, the cities of the other na- what has happened or will happen. tions are dead, too, almost in the Their fingers were clawed into the same instant.

soil, and they were all shouting to Silently, the leader of the small keep their ears in balance and open, group, Granger, arose, felt of his Montag shouting with them, a pro- arms and legs, touched his face to

test against the wind that swept see if everything was in its place, them, shaking their hair, tearing at then shuffled over to the blown-

their lips, making their noses out fire and bent over it. Montag bleed. watched. Montag watched the blood drip Everyone watched. into the earth with such an absorp- Striking a match, Granger tion that the city was effortlessly touched it to a piece of paper and forgotten. shoved this under a bit of kindling, The wind died. and shoved together bits of straw The city was flat, as if one had and dry wood, and after a while, taken a heaping tablespoon of flour drawing the men slowly, awkward- and passed a finger over it, smooth- ly to it by its glow, the fire licked ing it to an even level. up, coloring their faces pink and The men said nothing. They lay yellow, while the sun rose slowly a while like people on the dawn to color their backs. edge of sleep, not yet ready to arise and begin the day's obligations, its THERE was no sound except the fires and foods, its thousand details low and secret talk of men at of putting foot after foot, hand morning, and the talk was no more after hand, its deliveries and func- than this:

60 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION .

"How many strips?" in their hands, waiting a moment "Two each." for the eggs to cool, while the lead- "Good enough." er started the routine, and others

The bacon was counted out on a took it up, here or there, round wax paper. The frying pan was set about. to the fire and the bacon laid in it. After a moment it began to flutter WHEN it was Montag's turn, and dance in the pan and the sput- he spoke, too: ter of it filled the morning air with its aroma. Eggs were cracked in "To everything there is a season, upon the bacon and ,the men And a time to every purpose under watched this ritual, for the leader the heaven . . > was a participant, as were they, in A time to be born, and a time to a religion of early rising, a thing die . . . man had done for many centuries, A time to kill, and a time to ." thought Montag, a thing man had heal . . done over and over again, and Mon- tag felt at ease among them, as if The forks moved in the pink during the long night the walls of light. Now each of the men re- a great prison had vaporized membered a separate and different around them and they were on the thing, a bit of poetry, a line from land again and only the birds sang a play, an old song. And they spoke on or off as they pleased, with no these little bits and pieces in the schedule, and with no nagging hu- early morning air: man insistence.

"Here," said Granger, dishing "Man that is born of a woman out the bacon and eggs to each Is of few days and full of ." from the hot pan. They each held trouble . . out the scratched tin plates that had been passed around. A wind blew in the trees. Then, without looking up, breaking more eggs into the pan- for "To be or not to be, that is the ." himself, Granger slowly and with question . . a concern both for what he said, re- calling it, rounding it, and for The sun was fully up. making the food also, began to re- cite snatches and rhythms, even "Oh, do you remember, Sweet all .?" while the day brightened about Alice, Ben Bolt . . as if a pink lamp had been given more wick, and Montag listened Montag felt fine. and they all looked at the tin plates —RAY BRADBURY

THE FIREMAN 61 • • and it

By LESTER

YOU'RE wrong. I'm ways have ... or do ... or will. NO,not your father's ghost, I don't know, verbs get all mixed even if I do look a bit up. We don't have the right atti- like him. But it's a longish story, tude toward tenses for a situation and you might as well let me in. like this. You will, you know, so why Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, quibble about it? At least, you al- so you will.

62 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION — comes out here

Illustrated by DON SIBLEY

There is one fact no sane man can quarrel with ...everything has a beginning and an end. But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!

Thanks. You think you're crazy, thirty years from now, or you're of course, but you'll find out you me. I remember just how you feel; aren't. It's just that things are a bit I felt the same way when he confused. And don't look at the that is,' of course, I or we—came machine out there too long—until back to tell me about it, thirty years you get used to it, you'll find it's ago. hard on the eyes, trying to follow Here, have one of these. You'll where the vanes go. You'll get get to like them in a couple more used to it, of course, but it will years. And you can look at the take about thirty years. revenue stamp date, if you still

You're wondering whether to doubt my story. You'll believe it give me a drink, as I remember it. eventually, though, so it doesn't Why not? And naturally, since we matter. have the same tastes, you can make Right now, you're shocked. It's the same for me as you're having. a real wrench when a man meets Of course we have the same tastes himself for the first time. Some —we're the same person. I'm you kind of telepathy seems to work

.AND IT COMES OUT HERE 63 —

between two of the same people. cockpit; it is probably the field that

You sense things. So I'll simply go prevents passage through time from ahead talking for half an hour or affecting us. The luggage section so, until you get over it. After that isn't protected, though. you'll come along with me. You You start to say something, but know, I could try to change things by then I'm pressing a black but- around by telling what happened ton, and everything outside will to me; but he—I —told me what I disappear. You look for your house, was going to do, so I might as well but it isn't there. There is exactly do the same. I probably couldn't nothing there—in fact, there is no help telling you the same thing in there. You are completely outside the same words, even if I tried of time and space, as best you can and I don't intend to try. I've got- guess how things are. ten past that stage in worrying You can't feel any motion, of about all this. course. You try to reach a hand So let's begin when you get up out through the field into the noth- in half an hour and come out ing around you and your hand goes with me. You'll take a closer look out, all right, but nothing happens. at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be Where the screen ends, your hand pretty obvious it must 'be a time just turns over and pokes back at ma'chine. You'll sense that, too. you. Doesn't hurt, and when you

You've seen it, just a small little pull your arm back, you're still cage with two seats, a luggage com- sound and uninjured. But it looks partment, and a few buttons on a frightening and you don't try it dash. You'll be puzzling over what again.

I'll tell you, and you'll be getting Then it comes to you slowly that used to the idea that you are the you're actually traveling in time. man who makes atomic power prac- You turn to me, getting used to the tical. Jerome Boell,* just a plain idea. "So this is the fourth dimen- engineer, the man who put atomic sion?" you ask. power in every home. You won't Then you feel silly, because exactly believe it, but you'll want you'll remember that I said you'd to go along. ask that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told I'LL BE tired of talking by then, it to you, and I still can't help an- and in a hurry to get going. So swering when you speak.

I cut off your questions, and get you "Not exactly," I try to explain. inside. I snap on a green button, "Maybe it's no dimension—or it and everything seems to cut off might be the fifth; if you're going around us. You can see a sort of to skip over the so-called fourth foggy nothing surrounding the without traveling along it, you'd

64 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

v <• need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't realize that everything in the ma- invent the machine and I don't un- chine is wide open, yet you derstand it." haven't seen any effects of air loss. ." "But . . "Where are we getting our air?"

I let it go, and so do you. If you you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?" don't, a good way of going crazy. "No place for it to go," I ex-

You'll see later why I couldn't have plain. There isn't. Out there is invented the machine. Of course, neither time nor space, apparently. there may have been a start for all How could the air leak out? You this once. There may have been a still feel gravity, but I can't explain time when you did invent the ma- that, either. Maybe the machine has chine—the atomic motor first, then a gravity field built in, or maybe the time-machine. And when you the time that makes your watch run closed the loop by going back and is responsible for gravity. In spite saving yourself the trouble, it got of Einstein, you have always had all tangled up. I figured out once the idea that time is an effect of that such a universe would need gravity, and I sort of agree, still. some seven or eight time and space Then the machine stops—at least, dimensions. It's simpler just to the field around us cuts off. You figure that this is the way time got feel a dankish sort of air replace bent back on itself. Maybe there is the stale air, and you breathe no machine, and it's just easier for easier, though we're in complete us to imagine it. When you spend darkness, except for the weak light thirty years thinking about it, as I in the machine, which always burns, did—and you will—you get further and a few feet of rough dirty and further from an answer. cement floor around. You take an- Anyhow, you sit there, watching other cigaret from me and you get nothing all around you, and no out of the machine, just as I do. time, apparently, though there is a I've got a bundle of clothes and time effect back in the luggage I start changing. It's a sort of space. You look at your watch and simple, short-limbed, one-piece af- it's still running. That means you fair I put on, but it feels comfort- either carry a small time field with able. you, or you are catching a small "I'm staying here," I tell you. increment of time from the main "This is like the things they wear field. I don't know, and you won't in this century, as near as I can think about that then, either. remember it, and I should be able to pass fairly well. I've had all my SMOKING, and so are you, fortune the one make on that I'M — you and the air in the machine is atomic generator—invested in such getting a bit stale. You suddenly a way I can get it on using some

AND IT COMES OUT HERE 65 —

identification I've got with me, so nobody around. I grab your hand

I'll do all right. I know they still and shake it. "You go that way. use some kind of money, you'll see Don't worry about getting lost; you evidence of that. And it's a pretty never did, so you can't. Find the easygoing civilization, from what I museum, grab the motor, and get could see. We'll go up and I'll out. And good luck to you." leave you. I like the looks of things You act as if you're dreaming, here, so I won't be coming back though you can't believe it's a with you." dream. You nod at me and I move You nod, remembering I've told out into the main corridor. A sec- you about it. "What century is this, ond later, you see me going by, anyway?" mixed into a crowd that is loafing I'd told you that, too, but you've along toward a restaurant, or some-

forgotten. "As near as I can guess, thing like it, that is just opening. it's about 2150. He told me, just I'm asking questions of a man, who as I'm telling you, that it's an inter- points, and I turn and move off. stellar civilization." You come out of the side corri- You take another cigaret from dor and go down a hall, away from me, and follow me. I've got a small the restaurant. There are quiet little flashlight and we grope through a signs along the hall. You look at pile of rubbish, out into a corridor. them, realizing for the first time

This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We that things have changed. have to walk up a flight of stairs, Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dis- and there is an elevator waiting, penser/. The signs are very quiet fortunately with the door open. and dignified. Some of them can "What about the time ma- be decoded to stationery shops, chine?" you ask. fountains, and the like. What a zer-

"Since nobody ever stole it, it's got is, you don't know. You stop safe." • at a sign that announces: Trav:l Bhvrou—F.rst-Clas fun—Man, WE GET in the elevator, and I Viin*s, and x: Trouj:n Planets. say "first" to it. It gives out Spej:l reits tti aol s*nz wixin 60

a soughing noise and the basement lyt iirz! But there is only a single openings begin to click by us. picture of a dull-looking metal There's no feeling of acceleration sphere, with passengers moving up

some kind of false gravity they use a ramp, and the office is closed. You in the future. Then the door opens, begin to get the hang of the spell- and the elevator says "first" back ing they use, though. at us. Now there are people around It's obviously a service elevator you, but nobody pays much atten-

and we're in a dim corridor, with tion to you. Why should they ? You

66 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION — wouldn't care if you saw a man in and the friendly grin on his face, a leopard-skin suit; you'd figure it he looks like any other guard. was some part in a play and let it What's more, he speaks pretty go. Well, people don't change clearly. Everyone says things in a much. sort of drawl, with softer vowels You get up your courage and go and slurred consonants, but it's up to a boy selling something that rather pleasant. might be papers on tapes. "Help you, sir? Oh, of course.

"Where can I find the Museum You must be playing in 'Atoms and of Science?" Axioms.' The museum's closed, but

"Downayer rien turn lefa the I'll be glad to let you study what- sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. ever you need for realism in your

Around you, you hear some pretty role. Nice show. I saw it twice." normal English, but there are others "Thanks," you mutter, wonder- using stuff as garbled as his. The ing what kind of civilization can educated and uneducated? I don't produce guards as polite as that. know. "I—I'm told I should investigate You go right until you find a big your display of atomic generators." sign built into the rubbery surface He beams at that. "Of course." of the walk: M':uzi:m *v Syens. The gate is swung to behind you,

There's an arrow pointing and you but obviously he isn't locking it. turn left. Ahead of you, two blocks In fact, there doesn't seem to be a on, you can see a pink building, lock. "Must be a new part. You go with faint aqua trimming, bigger down that corridor, up one flight than most of the others. They are of stairs and left. Finest display in building lower than they used to, all the known worlds. We've got apparently. Twenty floors up seems the original of the first thirteen about the maximum. You head for models. Professor Jonas was using it, and find the sidewalk is marked them to check his latest theory of with the information that it is the how they work. Too bad he could museum. not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though. YOU go up the steps, but you Lord, the genius of that twentieth see thjt it seems to be closed. century inventor! It's quite a hobby You hesitate for a moment, then. with me, sir. I've read everything You're beginning to think the I could get on the period. Oh whole affair is complete nonsense, congratulations on your pronuncia- and you should get back to the tion. Sounds just like some of our time machine and go home. But oldest tapes." then a guard comes to the gate. Ex- You get away from him, finally, cept for the short legs in his suit after some polite thanks. The

..AND IT COMES OUT HERE 67

' \ *. , building seems deserted and you BY THAT time, you're almost wander up the stairs. There's a convinced. And you've been room on your right filled with doing a lot of thinking about what something that proclaims itself the you can" do. The story I'm telling

first truly plastic diamond former, has been sinking in, but you aren't

and you go up to it. As you come completely willing to accept it.

near, it goes through a crazy wiggle You notice that the models are inside, stops turning out a con- all mounted on tables and that tinual row of what seem to be bear- they're a lot smaller than you ings, and slips something the size thought. They seem to be in chrono- of a penny toward you. logical order, and the latest one,

"Souvenir," it announces in a marked 2147—Rhics Dyn*pat:, is well-modulated voice. "This is a about the size of a desk telephone. typical gem of the twentieth cen- The earlier ones are larger, of tury, properly cut to 58 facets, course, clumsier, but with varia- known technically as a Jaegger dia- tions, probably depending on the mond, and approximately twenty power output. A big sign on the carats in size. You can have it made ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic into a ring on the third floor during generators, explaining that this is morning hours for one-tenth credit. the first invention which leaped full If you have more than one child, blown into basically final form. press the red button for the num- You study it, but it mentions cas- ber of stones you desire." ually the inventor, without giving

You put it in your pocket, gulp- his name. Either they don't know ing a little, and get back to the it, or they take it for granted that corridor. You turn left and go past everyone does, which seems more a big room in which models of probable. They call attention to the spaceships—from the original thing fact that they have the original that looks like a V-2, and is labeled model of the first atomic generator first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot built, complete with design draw- globe, complete with miniature ings, original manuscript on opera- manikins—are sailing about in tion, and full patent application. some kind of orbits. Then there is They state that it has all major one labeled Wep:nz, filled with refinements, operating on any fuel, everything from a crossbow to a producing electricity at any desired tiny rod four inches long and half voltage up to five million, any the thickness of a pencil, marked chosen cyclic rate from direct cur- Fynal Hand Arm. Beyond is the rent to one thousand megacycles, end of the corridor, and a big place and any amperage up to one thou- that bears a sign, Mad:lz *v Atamic sand, its maximum power output Pau.r Sorsez. being fifty kilowatts, limited by

68 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION the current-carrying capacity of the that Rinks Dynapattuh, or what- outputs. They also mention that the ever it transliterates to. That's operating principle is still being small and you can carry it. But the investigated, and that only such re- darned thing is absolutely fixed. finements as better alloys and the You can't see any bolts, but you addition of magnetric and nuclea- can't budge it, either. tric current outlets have been added since the original. YOU work down the line. It'd So you go to the end and look be foolish to take the early over the thing. It's simply a square model if you can get one with: box with a huge plug on each side, built-in magnetic current terminals and a set of vernier controls on top, —Ehrenhaft or some other prin- plus a little hole marked, in old- ciple ? —and nuclear binding-force style spelling, Drop BBs or wire energy terminals. But they're all here. Apparently that's the way it's held down by the same whatcha- fueled. It's about one foot on each maycallem effect. side. And, finally, you're right back

"Nice," the guard says over your beside the original first model. It's shoulder. "It finally wore out one probably bolted down, too, but you of the cathogrids and we had to try it tentatively and you find it replace that, but otherwise it's ex- moves. There's a little sign under actly as the great inventor made it. it, indicating you shouldn't touch

And it still operates as well as ever. it, since the gravostatic plate is be- Like to have me tell you about it?" ing renewed. "Not particularly," you begin, Well, you won't be able to and then realize bad manners might change the time cycle by doing any- be conspicuous here. While you're thing I haven't told you, but a searching for an answer, the guard working model such as that is a pulls v something out of his pocket handy thing. You lift it; it only and stares at it. weighs about fifty pounds! Natur-

"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altase- ally, it can be carried. carba—Centaurian, you know—is You expect a warning bell, but arriving, but I'll be back in about nothing happens. As a matter of ten minutes. He wants to examine fact, if you'd stop drinking so much some of the weapons for a mono- of that scotch and staring at the graph on Centaurian primitives time machine out there now, you'd compared to nineteenth century hear what I'm saying and know man. You'll pardon me?" what will happen to you. But of You pardon him pretty eagerly course, just as I did, you're going and he wanders off happily. You to miss a lot of what I say from go up to the head of the line, to now on, and have to find out for

..AND IT COMES OUT HERE 69 yourself. But maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered, after he told

me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep

on talking. I probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say. Well, you stagger down the cor- ridor, looking out for the guard, but all seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing happens, though.

70 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION pressions you haven't time to see. There's another yell behind you. Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front' of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out about that, either. Some- body reaches out a hand to catch you and you dart past.

The street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting heavier at every step. .Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and on the beefy side appears—and the badge hasn't changed 'much. The cop catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop. "You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow," the cop says. "There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let me grab you a taxi."

REACTION sets in a bit and You stumble down the stairs, your knees begin to buckle, feeling all the futuristic rays in the but you shake your head and come world on your back, and still noth- up for air. ing happens. Ahead of you, the "I— I left my money home," you gate is closed. You reach it and it begin. opens obligingly by itself. You The cop nods. "Oh, that explains breathe a quick sigh of relief and it. Fine, I won't have to give you start out onto the street. an appearance schedule. But you Then there's a yell behind you. should have come to me." He You don't wait. You put one leg in reaches out and taps a pedestrian front of the other and you begin lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an racing down the walk, ducking past emergency request. Would you help people, who stare at you with ex- this gentleman?"

AND IT COMES OUT HERE 71 —

The pedestrian grins, looks at You swallow several sets of ton- his watch, and nods. "How far?" sils you had removed years before, You did notice the name of the and take the bundle of papers he building from which you came and hands you out of the little case. you .mutter it. The stranger nods He pumps you for some more in- again, reaches out and picks up the formation, which you give him at other side of the generator, blow- random. It seems- to satisfy your ing a little whistle the cop hands amiable guard friend. He finally him. Pedestrians begin to move smiles in satisfaction and heads back aside, and you and the stranger jog to the museum. down the street at a trot, with a You still don't believe it, but you nice clear path, while the cop stands pick up the atomic generator and beaming at you both. the information sheets, and you

That way, it isn't so bad. And head down toward the service ele- you begin to see why I decided I vator. There is no button on it. In might like to stay in the future. fact, there's no door there. But all the same, the organized co- You start looking for other doors operation here doesn't look too or corridors, but you know this is good. The guard can get the same right. The signs along the halls are and be there before you. the same as they were.

And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you THEN there's a sort of cough reach it. The stranger lifts an eye- and something dilates in the brow and goes off at once when wall. It forms a perfect door and you nod at him, not waiting for the elevator stands there waiting. thanks. And the guard comes up, You get in, gulping out something holding some dinkus in his hand, about going all the way down, and about the size of a big folding then wonder how a machine geared camera and not too dissimilar in for voice operation can make any-

other ways. He snaps it open and thing of that. What the deuce you get set to duck. would that lowest basement be "You forgot the prints, mono- called? But the elevator has closed graph, and patent applications," he and is moving downward in a says. "They go with the generator hurry. It coughs again and you're —we don't like to have them sep- at the original level. You get out arated. A good thing I knew the and realize you don't have a light. production office of 'Atoms and You'll never know what you Axioms' was in this building. Just stumbled over, but, somehow, you let us know when you're finished move back in the direction of the

with the model and we'll pick it time machine, bumping against up." boxes, staggering here and there,

72 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION - — and trying to find the right place Instead, everything flashes off by sheer feel. Then a shred of dim and you're sitting in the machine light appears; it's the weak light in in your own back yard. the time machine. You'll figure out the cycle in

You ve located it. more details later. You get into the You put the atomic generator in machine in front of your house, go the luggage space, throw the papers to the future in the sub-basement, down beside it, and climb into the land in your back yard, and then cockpit, sweating and mumbling. hop back thirty years to pick up You reach forward toward the yourself, landing in front of your green button and hesitate. There's house. Just that. But right then, a red one beside it and you finally you don't care. You jump out and decide on that. start pulling out that atomic gen-

Suddenly, there's a confused yell erator and taking it inside. from the direction of the elevator and a beam of light strikes against IT ISN'T hard to disassemble, but your eyes, with a shout punctuat- you don't learn a thing; just ing it. Your finger touches the red some plates of metal, some spiral button. coils, and a few odds and ends You'll never know what the all things that can be made easily shouting was about—whether they enough, all obviously of common finally doped out the fact that metals. But when you put it to- they'd been robbed, or whether they gether again, about an hour later, were trying to help you. You don't you notice something. care which it is. The field springs Everything in it is brand-new up around you and the next button and there's one set of copper wires you touch—the one on the board missing! It won't work. You put that hasn't been used so far—sends some #12 house wire in, exactly you off into nothingness. There is like the set on the other side, drop no beam of light, you can't hear a in some iron filings, and try it thing, and you're safe. again. It isn't much of a trip back. You And with the controls set at 120 sit there smoking and letting your volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, nerves settle back to normal. You you get just that. You don't need notice a third set of buttons, with the power company any more. And some pencil marks over them— you feel a little happier when you "Press these to return to yourself 30 realize that the luggage space years"—and you begin waiting for wasn't insulated from time effects the air to get stale. It doesn't be- by a field, so the motor has moved cause there is only one of you this backward in time, somehow, and is time. back to its original youth—minus

.AND IT COMES OUT HERE 73 .

the replaced wires the guard men- worst times in history for a few tioned—which probably wore out years. Your name eventually be- because of the makeshift job you've comes as common as Ampere, or just done. Faraday, or any other spelled with- But you begin getting more of a out a capital letter. jolt when you find that the papers But you're thinking of the are all in your own writing, that puzzle. You can't find any an- your name is down as the inventor, swer. and that the date of the patent ap- One day you come across an old plication is 1951. poem—something about some folks

It will begin to soak in, then. calling it evolution and others call-

You pick up an atomic generator ing it God. You go out, make a in the future and bring it back to few provisions for the future, and the past—your present—so that it come back to climb into the time can be put in the museum with you machine that's waiting in the build- as the inventor so you can steal it ing you had put around it. Then

to be the inventor. And yoij do it you'll be knocking on your i own , in a time machine which you bring door, thirty years back—or right back to yourself to take yourself now, from your view—and telling into the future to return to take your younger self all these things back to yourself . . . I'm telling you.

Who invented what? And who But now . . . built which ? Well, the drinks are finished. Before long, your riches from the You're woozy enough to go along generator are piling in. Little kids with me without protest, and I from school are coming around to want to find out just why those stare at the man who changed his- people up there came looking for tory and made -atomic power so you and shouting, before the time common that no nation could hope machine left. to be anything but a democracy and Let's go. a peaceful one—after some of the —LESTER DEL REY

The Big News Next Month. . . The Wind Between the Worlds A Major Novelet by LESTER DEL REY

74 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION The Protector

BY BETSY CURTIS

There's a fortune in a boxer who feels no pain. This one didn't, except in odd ways...

come I live here on HOWGorlin permanent ? Well,

it's something like this.

There is nobody real surprised when some scientist writes an article in the Sunday supplement about the primitive tribes of Anestha dy- ing out, probably. The Anesthon

natives is freaks, anyway, and folks

Illustrated by DAVIO STONE

THE PROTECTOR 75 just naturally figure they can't last tough till afterward. He comes from long in stiff competition. If you Gorlin. Of course I have to stable are like them and your body don't him on Venus long enough for a feel any pain any time, you need a legal residence, or the Boxing Com- nursemaid around to keep you from mission would have him investi- doing dumb things, like walking in gated and maybe banned from the front of a truck or starving to ring as a telepath. Tough training death. him, too. He can't see the sense of

I am here on Gorlin a couple fighting, but, man, he can stay in times and know about 'em. Some the ring all night. He never does folks think it's comical to watch get real speedy on his feet, but he the space crews think up ways to learns fast and packs a wicked left. give an Anesthon a workout. 1 see I don't have to lie when I am one Anesthon girl—a real looker thinking real hard he is champeen she is, too—dance fourteen hours material. before she gives out, just for a Anyhow, Pierre gets all worked bottle of perfume and one of them up over his race getting extinct. He Venusian fur lou/ige robes. They has a sister who is glenched to some sure enjoy their pleasures, even if nice boy and his old man is some they never feel no pain. You feel- sort of a chief. He is all for beating ing any? More thiska? it back by the next via-Venus ship

Hey, Noor! Another round of to see what is getting at the old thiska for the boys! folks at home. I calm him down Well, they can feel your feel- though, give him a couple of shots ings, and any thoughts that are of thiska and say I better take him about them, too. I guess all they around to see that scientist-dope- live for is pleasure and a pat on ster and get the inside first. I have the back. One time a little runty to go everywhere with him to see he Anesthon guy even builds a whole doesn't break a leg and forget to stone blockhouse for a first looie, tell me about it. when the looie thinks real hard that the little guy looks like a first- SO WE hope a TAT in Chi and rate hod carrier. Time the house is make for Washington where built, the Anesthon's hands is all this science fellow is with some bloody and one ankle broke where Smithsonian Institute. He is nice a chunk of rock drops on him. He enough about seeing us, but he can't don't notice it, of course. figure how a Chinaman like Pierre Pierre gets all worked up about has any call to be steamed'up about them Anestha dying out. That's my the Anestha (you seen these Anes- boy Pierre, the heavyweight. I name tha with their slick black hair and him Pierre so's nobody thinks he is goldy skin and smooth eyelids like

76 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION —

a Earth Chinaman) so I have to jittery and homesick, too, when the break down 'and tell him about guy starts raving about swimming Pierre being an Anesthon. in the flaff pools and the feeling of

That scientist is pretty peeved katweela petals under your bare with me bringing Pierre into the feet, so I says we have to catch a Earth system, but when I tell him plane and get out of there. Pierre wants to go back to help out Pierre still wants to head for the folks, he kind of clams up and Gorlin. He says his people must

says the article is just one of those be unhappy about something or Sunday paper things. There don't they are more careful. Life on Gor- really seem to be anything wrong lin is too much fun to just go and on Gorlin except that all the work- die for no reason. ers are getting more careless than I try to pep him up on the way usual, falling off walls they are back to Chi, talking about his next building and getting hit by rocks fight with Kid Bop, but he says he during blasting, or walking in can't see any reason in fighting, front of full cars in the mines. either, just now. I tell him I think Pierre gives the man a look. he kind of likes fighting, but he "Workers? Mines? Blasting?" he says what he likes is the nice things says. "What gives? There are no I think about him when he wins, mines on Gorlin," he says, "just a and he is too worried about his fam- few quarries and a lot of big farms. ily to pay much attention to what I We never have to kill ourselves think just now. working. What gives?" he says. "Oh," the man comes back, WELL, we are both pretty flush "there's a couple big targ mines in from one of the best fight full swing. Some big Earth con- seasons I ever see and a rest won't

cern is shipping out the . stuff five hurt the boy, so I say okay, we are freighters a day to Mercury for going by the first liner off the Flats. mass insulation. All native work- "You don't have to go, Joe," he

ers. They don't get paid much says. "Keep your dough and train a weej cigarettes, bubble bath, some couple more kids. I may not be thiska, electro-fur blankets, stuff back," he says. like that—but 1 don't hear yapping. "Look, boy," I says, "you know If I do, I report anything that looks what the food is like on them

like slavery." Of course he says it liners," I says, kind of kidding,

with a lot of grammar and it takes "and if there's nobody around to

him a half hour, but that is the cram it down you, you don't eat, and slant. if you don't eat, you starve—and He wants to gab some then with if you starve, you are in no condi-

Pierre. I see that the boy is getting tion to cheer up your sister and

THE PROTECTOR 77 your old man. Besides," I says, "I has a cloudrift shower that you can afford a vacation and you're the nearly float away on. only fighter I want to work with. But Pierre just doesn't relax. I You've got a real future," I says, keep trying to make him get in the

"and I'm going to bring you back shower, but it is no use.^He says alive." he is just too worried to take any

I guess that makes him feel kind pleasure in it. I don't think we of good, because he grins first time ought to go scouting till night and since he reads that paper and says, that is thirty some hours yet, but

"All right, Joe, come on along." when I see he is settling down to wear the fuzz right off the floor WE BUY a few pretties and walking round and round, I give in, neckties in the station and feed him a sandwich I bring from ship out of Chi for the Flats on the the ship, and we stroll off in the next TAT. Pierre wants to get some woods like we are looking for flow- perfume for his sister, but I tell ers. him we can get better on Venus, There are no signs around the where all the good stuff is made. hotel saying which way to the The trip from Venus Space Base mines, so we set off to circle the to Gorlin is fast on account of over- hotel and spaceport clearing to look drive, but even so I have no trou- for the rail-line that brings the targ ble passing Pierre off as a fighter to the port. I figure we have gone who has the jitters and is headed about two-thirds of the way around for a vacation where he learns to when I nearly fall over a guy sit- take it easy the easy way. He is ting on the ground with his head always burning his fingers or his in his hands. What I think is kat- mouth on a cigarette, and I have weela flowers is just the red Anes- to keep an eye on him all the time. thon kloa he has on. He looks up Nerves, I explain to the passengers. sort of dull and then he sees Pierre

When we land, Pierre is all for with me. He lets out a yip and sits hunting up his folks, but I says no, back hard on the ground and if there is some trouble, it is moans. Pierre yanks the fellow up smarter to case the joint. We check on his feet and hugs him and starts in at the swanky tourist hotel. She to jabber away so fast I can't tell is new since I am on Gorlin a what he is saying. Foreigners al- couple years ago and what class! ways talk faster than anybody else.

She is built around one of the big- The other guy puts in a word or gest flaff pools on the whole planet two every once in a while and then and our room is completely lined he scrams off through the trees. with padded velvety stuff, sort of a "That's Noor," Pierre informs deep red color, and the bathroom me, "the guy my sister Jennel is

78 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION glenched to. He's gonna get us a Noor sees her, too, and takes off couple of kloas so nobody'll notice like a bat back the way we come. us around the mine. He's feeling Pierre jogs ahead and when J get mighty low, but I can't figure out up with him, there he is hugging why. He says Jennel and the old and jabbering again. man are okay, only he can't ever "My sister Jennel," he says, and, carry Jennel to his own house be- "Jennel, this is Joe, my manager." cause he ain't man enough. I don't She is a cute trick with lots of get it. He can make a good fighter, yumph showing through the molla. Joe." She stands kind of slumped, though, and a few of the flowers in BEFORE you can count three, her shiny black hair are pretty Noor is back again with the mashed. " kloas and Pierre strips and gets into 'Smatter, Jennel?" I says. "You his. I ain't too keen to show my look kind of dragged out for a shapelies, but Pierre starts grabbing dame whose brother comes home my shirt and I have to put the kloa practically a champeen. Karweela on or else. The boys head south at flowers go on strike?" I says, just a good clip and I tag along trying tryjng to make talk. to catch up and find out the score. She slumps a little more and says

When Pierre sees I am making like the boss don't like her and how it's winded, he slows down and tells me too bad her brother has to come we are going to the mine owner's home and find her still alive and fancy dump about two miles down cluttering up the woods. the drag. Pierre says Noor tells him I tell Pierre she better take us to the mine owner doesn't like him this boss that don't like a babe like and he has to leave us when we get her, but she just shakes her head in sight of the house. and says go that way and we come After about a mile, Noor begins to the house. Then she says the to drag along. Then he just sits boss makes the natives use the em- down under another tree and says ployees' entrance on the other side that is the end of the line for him. of the house and she offers to take He points through the trees and and show us the way. She kind of says go on, maybe he is still there twitches when she says "natives." when we come back, maybe not. She don't even says yes or no all

While Pierre is jawing with him, I the way to the gate till, just before look up the trail and see a Anesthon we get there, I trip on a root and babe about a hundred feet away. bang my knee on a rock on the way

You can tell it is a babe from one down. Well, I howl and cuss some of them blue and green mollos and she comes up close and asks draped around her over the kloa. me what seems to be the matter. I

THE PROTECTOR 79 tell her the blamed rock hurts my .up at the big house. They are be-

knee and I think real hard about ing talked to by the boss about not how her knee would feel if a rock getting out enough targ on the

hits it and she busts right out cry- shifts where they are foremen, and

ing. she says how sad it is about Pierre "Oh, you poor man, you poor coming home.

man, you," she sobs. "That rock It is just beginning to filter don't like you at all." through my thick skull that the boss

"It don't hate me, either," I says. is connected with all this dying out "It's only a rock." of the Anestha, as the Sunday paper

"But it makes a hurt to you. It puts it, and I grab Pierre away don't love you and now you are not from Jennel and hustle him through happy where there's any rocks be- .the gate. cause they don't love you," she "Look, Pierre," I says, "we'll go says, and she helps me up and starts around' and listen by them long

dragging me along, still crying like windows and see what cooks. I'll

crazy. bet that boss is up to something

dirty in there. If he is the one who DON'T make nothing out of messed up Jennel," I says, "we I that, but pretty soon we come better just mess him up some." to a little gate in a thick row of There is nobody in sight on the bushes. Jennel lets go of me then lawn and we just march up to the and says she hopes Pierre is a strong window easy as pie. There is this man >and a good worker and that the big booming voice giving some- boss likes him. And then she gives body what for. a big sigh and says if the boss "You poor miserable idiots," don't like him, we can find her yells this voice, "you can't keep the over there where the men are cut- workers off the tracks and you get ting down a bunch of trees, because out less than twenty tons of targ if one of the trees likes her, it will since last night, and then you waste maybe fall on her pretty soon. a whole charge of nitro by not tell- Pierre tells her to wait right there ing the watchman he's not supposed by the gate because he is coming to smoke in the enclosure. All those back. He isn't looking for work so people are dead and it's your fault." the boss won't care if he is strong or I hear a sniffle behind me and not. She just sighs again and sits when I turn around, there is Jennel. down on the grass and whimpers. She ha§ sneaked up behind us to Pierre tries once more to get her see what we are going to do. to tell him what is the matter, but "That's how he talks to me, too," all she says is that their father and she lets us know in a whisper, some other fellow named Frith are "only he says I am not fit to even

80 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION wash dishes, let alone ever have a "You get in there and poke him, house of my own . . . when I drop boy," I says and give him a push. one of his plates a little while ago. "I like you and I see you fight and He says I am looking in a mirror the Anestha got more guts than instead of where I am going and anybody!" he hopes I see what an ugly pan I have, because I ought to know it THE big guy hears us and turns and keep out of people's way so around. "Get out of here, you they won't have to look at me." mangy natives," he bellows. "You Her tears splash right down on the good for nothing, shivering, snivel- grass. ing, cowardly boobs. I'm not ready

"And that's not all," the yelling for you yet." He is shaking a inside goes on. "Not only do you whippy-looking cane at me and kill off all my workers, but at this Pierre, and I think he has turned rate I'm losing money paying you purple. four packs of cigarettes a day. If I "We're ready for you, though," have to blast off and start from I yell back. I climb into the room scratch in some other part of this pulling Pierre in after me. "Pierre's blamed universe, you stupid, gut- no sniveling coward and you can less . . . why, you aren't even men. quit talking to his brave, heroic, You worms don't even run when self-sacrificing father like that. Put you see a car coming at you. Too 'em up and defend yourself, you blamed dumb to come in out of howling ape," I yell, "because the rain." Pierre is going to give you the beat- I stick my head around the cor- ing of your howling life!" ner and look in, and there is the I see Pierre's old man and the back of a big guy in a Mercury- other fellow spruce up some. made suit and with a bald head The big guy sits down in a chair that is red all the way round to the real quick, and, sucking in a big back of his neck. On the other side breath, he starts going all fatherly of the room I see a couple of the at Pierre, telling him that he sorriest-looking Anestha God ever doesn't want to have to hit him makes, shuffling their feet and look- back, because Pierre will not feel it ing like kicked dogs. when he kills him, which'he doesn't I turn to Pierre. "Go in there want to have to do because Pierre swinging," I says, like at a fight, is just a poor weak Anesthon who and pull the window open. don't know from nothing, and he "He won't like me," Pierre says, doesn't want to injure any of his hanging back. "He says Anestha are workers and he is just telling dumb cowards. Maybe he knows. Pierre's "old man a few things to

Maybe I won't dare hit Him." protect the Anestha.

THE PROTECTOR 81 Pierre looks at me kind of doubt- corded report. He is sending a doc- ful. tor out by 'copter.

"Go on, hit the fat bully," I says, We beat it for the port, leaving real icy. "He has it coming. You the fat boss sleeping on the floor. owe it to your old man and Noor We all stay in protective custody and Jennel here. Go ahead and at the hotel, swimming in flaff and show him what kind of champeens lounging around the thiska bar for the Anestha can turn out. It's just a couple of weeks, until the com- for his own good," I says, "so hit mission headed by that scientist him now. Then you can tell your from the Smithsonian Institute dad what a great guy you are." comes out and takes the boss back Pierre's left obediently swings to Earth. He has to see a judge into the lug's jaw with a crack like about why he should not go into a rifle. He don't even watch the big stir for a while for psychological guy sag down on the floor. He be- coercion or something like that. gins hugging his father and the Before they leave, the commis- other fellow and grinning and jab- sion hands me an official charge at bering away like blue blazes. a hundred thou a year to stay as

The big guy is still breathing, but Protector of Morale to the Anestha. out cold, so I go to look for a tele^ That is better than the fight racket, viz. I figure the authorities better but the protectorship is a laugh. I hear my story before the big guy can't even go out for a walk with- wakes up. out a couple dozen Anestha tagging After I make my spiel, the port along, to keep me from stubbing chief says to come in and bring my toe on some unfriendly pebble, Pierre and his father and Frith and or socking my eye on some unloving Jennel and Noor, too, if we can devil of a doorknob. find him, and make an official re- —BETSY CURTIS

NEXT MONTH'S CONTENTS PAGE NOVELETS THE WIND BETWEEN THE WORLDS by Lester del Rev GOOD NIGHT, MR. JAMES by Clifford D. Simak BOOK-LENGTH SERIAL—Conclusion TYRANN by Isaac Asimov

SHORT STORIES* • ARTICLES* • FEATURES

*One astonishing article and at least three GALAXY quality short stories.

82 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Second Childhood

By CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

Achieving immortality is only half of the problem. The other half is knowing how to live with it once it's been made possible—and inescapable!

did not die. YOUThere was no normal svay to die. You lived as carelessly and as recklessly as you could and you hoped that you would be lucky and be accidentally killed. You kept on living and you got tired of living. "God, how tired a man can get of living!" Andrew Young said. John Riggs, chairman of the im- mortality commission, cleared his throat. "You realize," he said to An-

drew Young, "that this petition is a highly irregular procedure to bring to our attention." He picked up the sheaf of papers off the table and ruffled through them rapidly.

IMastrnted by DON HUNTER

SECOND CHILDHOOD 83 "There is no precedent," he five thousand years. No more than added. in a life of only a hundred years.

"I had hoped," said Andrew If Man is to be immortal, he must Young, "to establish precedent." be genuinely immortal. He cannot Commissioner Stanford said, "I compromise." must admit that you have made a "And yet," said Young, "my good case, Ancestor Young. Yet friends are gone." you must realize that this commis- sion has no possible jurisdiction HE GESTURED at the papers over the life of any person, except Riggs held m his hands. "I to see that everyone is assured of have them listed there," he said. all the benefits of immortality and "Their names and when and where to work out any kinks that may and how they died. Take a look at show up." them. More than two hundred "I am well aware of that," an- names. People of my own genera- swered Young, "and it seems to tion and of the generations closely me that my case is one of the kinks following mine. Their names and you mention." . the photo-copies of their death cer- He stood silently, watching the tificates." faces of the members of the board. He put both of his hands upon They are afraid, he thought. Every the table, palms flat against the one of them. Afraid of the day table, and leaned his weight upon they will face the thing I am facing his arms. now. They have sought an answer "Take a look at how they died," and there is no answer yet except he said. "Every one involves acci- the pitifully basic answer, the bru- dental violence. Some of them tally fundamental answer that I drove their vehicles too fast and, have given them. more than likely, very recklessly.

"My request is simple," he told One fell off a cliff when he reached them, calmly. "I have asked for down to pick a flower that was permission to discontinue life. And growing on its edge. A case of de- since suicide has been made psy- liberately poor judgment, to my chologically impossible, I have mind. One got stinking drunk and asked that this commission appoint took a bath and passed out in the ." a panel of next-friends to make the tub. He drowned . . necessary and somewhat distasteful "Ancestor Young," Riggs said arrangements to bring about the dis- sharply, "you are surely not imply- continuance of my life." ing these folks were suicides." "If we did," said Riggs, "we "No," Andrew Young said bit- would destroy everything we have. terly. "We abolished suicide three

There is no virtue in a life of only thousand years ago, cleared it clean

84 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION out of human minds. How could the planet Earth on September 21, they have killed themselves?" 1968. I have served humankind Stanford said, peering up at well in those fifty-seven centuries.

Young, "I believe, sir, you sat on My record is there for you to see. the board that resolved that prob- Boards, commissions, legislative lem." posts, diplomatic missions. No one

Andrew Young nodded. "It was can say that I have shirked my duty.

after the first wave of suicides. I I submit that I have paid any debt

remember it quite well. It took I owe humanity . . . even the well- years of work. We had to change intentioned debt for a chance at human perspective, shift certain immortality." facets of human nature. We had to "We wish," said Riggs, "that condition human reasoning by edu- you would reconsider." cation and propaganda and instill "I am a lonely man," replied

a new set of moral values. I think Young. "A lonely man and tired.

we did a good job of it. Perhaps I have no friends. There is nothing too good a job. Today a man can any longer that holds my interest.

no more think of deliberately com- It is my hope that I can make you mitting suicide than he could think see the desirability of assuming of overthrowing our government. jurisdiction in cases such as mine.

The very idea, the very word is re- Someday you may find a solution pulsive, instinctively repulsive. You to the problem, but until that time

can come a long way, gentlemen, arrives, I ask you, in the name of in three thousand years." mercy, to give us relief from life." He leaned across the table and "The problem, as we see it," said tapped the sheaf of papers with a Riggs, "is to find some way to lean, tense finger. wipe out mental perspective. When "They didn't kill themselves," he a man lives as you have, sir, for said. "They did not commit sui- fifty centuries, he has too long a cide. They just didn't give a damn. memory. The memories add up to They were tired of living ... as I the disadvantage of present reali- am tired of living. So they lived ties and prospects for the future." recklessly in every way. Perhaps "I know," said Young. "I re- there always was a secret hope that member we used to talk about that they would drown while drunk or in the early days. It was one of the ." their car would hit a tree or . . problems which was recognized when immortality first became prac- HE STRAIGHTENED up and tical. But we always thought that faced them. "Gentlemen," he memory would erase itself, that }he said. "I am 5,786 years of age. I brain could accommodate only so was born at Lancaster, Maine, on many memories, that when it got

SECOND CHILDHOOD 85 full up it would dump the old "We have tried," said Stanford. ones. It hasn't worked that way." "We tried conditioning, the same He made a savage gesture. "Gen- solution that worked with suicides. tlemen, I can recall my childhood But in this, it didn't work. For a much more vividly than I recall man's life is built upon his mem- anything that happened yesterday." ories. There are certain basic mem- "Memories are buried," said ories that must remain intact. With Riggs, "and in the old days, when conditioning, you could not be se- men lived no longer than a hundred lective. You could not keep the years at most, it was thought those structural memories and winnow buried memories were forgotten. out the trash. It didn't work that

Life, Man told himself, is a process way." of forgetting. So Man wasn't too "There was one machine that worried over memories when he be- worked," Riggs put in. "It got rid came immortal. He thought he of memories. I don't understand ex- would forget them." actly how it worked, but it did the "He should have known," ar- job all right. It did too good a job. gued Young. "I can remember my It swept the mind as clean as an father, and I remember him much empty room. It didn't leave a thing. more intimately than I will remem- It took all memories and it left no ber you gentlemen once I leave this capacity to build a new set. A man room. ... I can remember my went in a human being and came father telling me that, in his later out a vegetable." years, he could recall things which "Suspended animation," said happened in his childhood that had Stanford, "would be a solution. If been forgotten all his younger we had suspended animation. Simp- years. And that, alone, should have ly stack a man away until we found tipped us off. The brain buries only the answer, then revive and recon- the newer memories deeply . . . dition him." they are not available; they do not "Be that as it may," Young told rise to bother one, because they are them, "I should like your most not sorted or oriented or correlated earnest consideration of my peti- or whatever it is that the brain may tion. I do not feel quite equal to do with them. But once they are waiting until you have the answer all nicely docketed and filed, they solved." pop up in an instant." Riggs said, harshly, "You are asking us to legalize death." RIGGS nodded agreement. Young nodded. "If you wish to "There's a lag of a good many phrase it that way. I'm asking it in years in the brain's bookkeeping. the name of common decency."

We will overcome it in time." Commissioner Stanford said,

86 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "We can ill afford to lose you, An- faces. It's all new to them and so cestor." old, so damned and damnably old

Young sighed. "There is that to me." damned attitude again. Immortality "Ancestor Young," said Stan- pays all debts. When a man is made ford, "you have seen Man spread immortal, he has received full com- out from Earth to distant stellar pensation for everything that he systems. You have seen the human may endure. I have lived longer race expand from one planet to than any man could be expected to several thousand planets. You have live and still I am denied the dig- had a part in this. Is there not Some nity of old age. A man's desires satisfaction ..." are few, and quickly sated, and "You're talking in abstracts," yet he is expected to continue Young cut in. "What I am con- living with desires burned up cerned about is myself ... a certain and blown away to ash. He gets specific mass of protoplasm shaped to a point where nothing has in biped form and tagged by- the

a value . . . even to a point designation, ironic as it may seem, where his own personal values of Andrew Young. I have been un- are no more than shadows. Gen- selfish all my life. I've asked little tlemen, there was a time when for myself. Now I am being utterly I could not have committed murder and entirely selfish and I ask that

. . . literally could not have forced this matter be regarded as a per- myself to kill another man . . . but sonal problem rather than as a racial today I could, without a second abstraction." thought. Disillusion and cynicism "Whether you'll admit it or not," have crept in upon me and I have said Stanford, "it is more than a no conscience." personal problem. It is a problem which some day must be solved for <HERE are compensations," the salvation of the race."

J- Riggs said. "Your fam- "That is what I am trying to im- ily •" press upon you," Young snapped. „- • "They get in my hair," said "It is a problem that you must

Young disgustedly. "Thousands face. Some day you will solve it, but upon thousands of young squirts until you do, you must make pro- calling me Grandsire and Ancestor visions for those who face the un- and coming to me for advice they solved problem." practically never follow. I don't "Wait a while," counseled Chair- know even a fraction of them and man Riggs. "Who knows? Today,

I listen to them carefully explain a tomorrow." relationship so tangled and trivial "Or a million years from now," that it makes me yawn in their Young told him bitterly and left, a

SECOND CHILDHOOD 87 —

tall, vigorous-looking man whose of trees misty with the breaking step was swift in anger where nor- leaves of Spring. mally it was slow with weariness Something else, thought Andrew and despair. Young. Something that was not hu- man—yet. A tiny animal that had THERE was yet a chance, of many ways to choose, many roads to course. walk. And, of course, I chose the

But there was little hope. wrong way. I chose the human way.

How can a man go back almost But there was another way. I know six thousand years and snare a thing there must have been. A fairy way he never understood? —or a brownie way, or maybe even And yet Andrew Young remem- pixie. That sounds foolish and bered it. Remembered it as clearly childish now, but it wasn't always. as if it had been a thing that had I chose the human way because happened in the morning of this I was guided into it. I was pushed very day. and shoved, like a herded sheep.

It was a shining thing, a bright I grew up and I lost the thing I thing, a happiness that was brand- held. new and fresh as a bluebird's wing" He sat and made his mind go of an April morning or a shy woods hard and tried to analyze what it flower after sudden rain. was he sought and there was no

He had been a boy and he had name for it. Except happiness. And seen the bluebird and he had no happiness was a state of being, not words to say the thing he felt, but a thing to regain and grasp. he had held up his tiny fingers and pointed and shaped his lips to coo. BUT he could remember how it Once, he thought, I had it in my felt. With his eyes open in the very fingers and I did not have the present, he could remember the experience to know what it was, nor brightness of the day of the past, the value of it. And now I know the clean-washed goodness of it, the value, but it has escaped me the wonder of the colors that were it escaped me on the day that I be- more brilliant than he ever since gan to think like a human being. had seen—as if it were the first sec-

The first adult thought pushed it ond after Creation and the world just a little and the next one pushed was still shiningly new. it farther and finally it was gone It was that new, of course. It entirely and I didn't even know that would be that new to a child. it had gone. But that didn't explain it all. He sat in the chair on the flag- It didn't explain the bottomless stone patio and felt the Sun upon capacity for seeing and knowing him, filtering through the branches and believing in the beauty and the

.. GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

goodness of a clean new world. It was one with the leaves and the didn't explain the almost non-hu- whispers that they made, one with man elation of knowing that there the gold and the autumn sunshine were colors to see and scents to and the far blue mist upon the hill smell and soft green grass to touch. above the apple orchard. I'm insane, Andrew Young said A foot crunched stone behind to himself. Insane, or going insane. him and his eyes came open and

But if insanity will take me back the golden leaves were gone. to an understanding of the strange "I am sorry if I disturbed you, perception I had when I was a Ancestor," said the man. "I had an

child, and lost, I'll take insanity. appointment for this hour, but I He leaned back in his chair and would not have disturbed you if I let his eyes go shut and his mind had known." drift- back. Young stared at him reproach- He was crouching in a corner of fully without answering. a garden and the leaves were drift- "I am kin," the man told him. ing down from the walnut trees "I wouldn't doubt it," said An- like a rain of saffron gold. He lift- drew Young. "The Galaxy is clut-

ed one of the leaves and it slipped tered up with descendants of from his fingers, for his hands were mine." chubby still and not too sure in The man was very humble. "Of grasping. But he tried again and he course, you must resent us some- clutched it by the stem in one stubby times. But we are proud of you, fist and he saw that it was not just sir. I might almost say that— we a blob of yellowness, but delicate, revere you. No other family with many little veins. When he "I know," interrupted Andrew held it so that the Sun struck it, he Young. "No other family has any imagined that he could almost see fossil quite so old as I am." through it, the gold was spun so "Nor as wise," said the man. fine. Andrew Young snorted. "Cut He crouched with the leaf clutch- out that nonsense. Let's hear what ed tightly in his hand and for a you have to say and get it over moment there was a silence that with." held him motionless. Then he heard the frost-loosened leaves pattering THE technician was harassed all around him, pattering as they and worried and very frankly fell, talking in little whispers as puzzled. But he stayed respectful, they sailed down through the air for one always was respectful to an and found themselves a bed with ancestor, whoever he might be. To- their golden fellows. day there were mighty few left who In that moment he knew that he had been born into a mortal world.

SECOND CHILDHOOD 89 "

Not that Andrew Young looked entertain them with a bag of tricks old. He looked like all adults, a that leave the young'uns no room fine figure of a person in the early for imagination. They couldn't pos- twenties. sibly think up, on their own, all The technician shifted uneasily. the screwy thjngs these new toys ." "But, sir, this . . . this . . do. Built-in responses and implied "Teddy bear," said Young. consciousness and all such mechan- "Yes, of course. An extinct ter- ical trivia. ..." restrial subspecies of animal?" "You just want a stuffed fab- "It's a toy," Young told him. "A ric," said the technician, sadly, very ancient toy. All children used "with jointed arms and legs." to have them five thousand years "Precisely," agreed Young. ago. They took them to bed." "You're sure you want fabric,

sir? I could do a neater job in plas- THE technician shuddered. "A tics." deplorable custom. Primitive." "Fabric," Young insisted firmly,

"Depends on the viewpoint," "and it must be scratchy." said Young. "I've slept with them "Scratchy, sir?" many a time. There's a world of "Sure. You know. Bristly. So it comfort in one, I can personally scratches when you rub your face < assure you." against it."

The technician saw that it was no "But no one in his right mind ." use to argue. He might as well fab- would want to rub his face . . ricate the thing and get it over "I would," said Andrew Young. with. "I fully intend to do so." "I can build you a fine model, "As you wish, sir," the techni- sir," he said, trying to work up cian answered, beaten now. some enthusiasm. "I'll build in a "When you get it done," said response mechanism so that it can Young, "I have some other things give simple answers to certain in mind." keyed questions and, of course, I'll "Other things?" The technician fix it so it'll walk, either on two looked wildly about, as if seeking ." legs or four. . . some escape. "No," said Andrew Young. "A high chair," said Young. The technician looked surprised "And a crib. And a woolly dog. and hurt. "No?" And buttons." "No," repeated Andrew Young. "Buttons?" asked the technician.

"I don't want it fancied up. I want "What are buttons?" it a simple lump of make-believe. "I'll explain it all to you," No wonder the children of today Young told him airily. "It all is have no imagination. Modern toys very simple."

90 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

IT SEEMED, when Andrew Young stood for a long moment, Young came into the room, looking at the two of them. Then that Riggs and Stanford had been he said, "I thank you, gentlemen. expecting him, had known that he I thank you for your helpfulness was coming and had been waiting and your understanding. But most for him. of all I thank you for not asking He wasted no time on prelim- any questions." inaries or formalities. He turned slowly and walked They know, he told himself. out of the room and they sat in They know, or they have guessed. silence for minutes after he was They would be watching me. Ever gone. since I brought in my petition, they Finally, Stanford offered a de- have been watching me, wondering duction: "It will have to be a place what I would be "thinking, trying that a boy would like. Woods to to puzzle out what I might do next. run in and a little stream to fish in They know every move I've made, and a field where he can fly his they know about the toys and the kites. What else could it be?" furniture and all the other things. "He's been out ordering chil- And I don't need to tell them what dren's furniture and toys," Riggs

I plan to do. agreed. "Stuff from five thousand "I need some help," he said, and years ago. The kind of things he they nodded soberly, as if they used when he was a child. But had guessed he needed help. scaled to adult size." "I want to build a house," he "Now," said Stanford, "he wants explained. "A big house. Much a house built to the same propor- larger than the usual house." tions. A house that will make him Riggs said, "We'll draw the think or help him believe that he plans for— you. Do anything else is a child. But will it work, Riggs? that you His body will not change. He can-

"A house," Young went on, not make it change. It will only be "about four or five times as big as in his mind." the ordinary house. Four or five "Illusion," declared Riggs. "The times normal scale, I mean. Doors illusion of bigness in relation to twenty-five to thirty feet high and himself. To a child, creeping on the everything else in proportion." floor, a door is twenty-five to thirty "Neighbors or privacy?" asked feet high, relatively. Of course the Stanford. child doesn't know that. But An-

"Privacy," said Young. drew Young does. I don't see how "We'll take care of it," prom- he'll overcome that." ised Riggs. "Leave the matter of "At first," suggested Stanford, the house to us." "he will know that it's illusion, but

SECOND CHILDHOOD 91 —

after a time, isn't there a possi- memories with the outlook he had bility that it will become reality so when he was a child. His mind far as he's concerned? That's why must be washed out, refreshed, he needs our help. So that the wiped clean and shining and made house will not be firmly planted in new again . . . ready to live another his memory as a thing that's merely five thousand years." out of proportion ... so that it The two men sat and looked at will slide from illusion into reality one another and in each other's without too great a strain." eyes they saw a single thought "We must keep our mouths the day would come when they, too, shut." Riggs nodded soberly. each of them alone, would face the

"There must be no interference. It's problem Andrew Young faced.

a thing he must do himself . . . "We must help," said Riggs, "in entirely by himself. Our help with every way we can and we must keep the house must be the help of watch and we must be ready . . . an unseen, silent agency. Like but Andrew Young cannot know brownies, I think the term was that that we are helping or that we are he used, we must help and be never watching him. We must anticipate seen. Intrusion by anyone would in- the materials and tools and the aids troduce a jarring note and would that he may need." - destroy illusion and that is all he has to work on. Illusion pure and STANFORD started to speak, simple." then hesitated, as if seeking "Others have tried," objected in his mind for the proper words.

Stanford, pessimistic again. "Many "Yes," said Riggs. "What is it?" others. With gadgets and ma- "Later on," Stanford, managed ." chines . . to say, "much later on, toward the

"None has tried it," said Riggs, very end, there is a certain factor "with the power of mind alone. that we must supply. The one thing With the sheer determination to that he will need the most and the wipe out five thousand years of one thing that he cannot think memory." about, even in advance. All the rest "That will be his stumbling can be stage setting and he can block," said Stanford. "The old, still go on toward the time when

dead memories are the things he it becomes reality. All the rest may has to beat. He has to get rid of be make-believe, but one thing

them . . . not just bury them, but must come as genuine or the entire get rid of them for good and all, effort will collapse in failure." forever." Riggs nodded. "Of course. That's "He must do more than that," something we'll have to work out said Riggs. "He must replace his carefully."

92 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION !

"If we can," Stanford said. seen any of his neighbors for a long spell now. THE yellow button over here and A suspicion came into his mind. the red one over there and the Maybe they knew what he was do- green one doesn't fit, so I'll throw ing, maybe they were deliberately it on the floor and just for the fun keeping out of his way in order not of it, I'll put the pink one in my to embarrass him. mouth and someone will find me That, of course, would be what with it and they'll raise a ruckus they would do if they had realized because they will be afraid that I what he was about. But he had ex- will swallow it. pected ... he had expected . . .

And there's nothing, absolutely that fellow, what's his name? . . . nothing, that I love better than a at the commission, what's the name full-blown ruckus. Especially if it of that commission, anyhow? Well, is over me. . anyway, he'd expected a fellow "Ug," said Andrew Young, and whose name he couldn't remember he swallowed the button. from a commission the name of He sat stiff and straight in the which he could not recall to come towering high chair and then, in a snooping around, wondering what fury, swept the oversized muffin tin he might be up to, offering to help, and its freight of buttons crashing spoiling the whole setup, every- to the floor. thing he'd planned.

For a second he felt like weep- I can't remember, he complained ing in utter frustration and then a to himself. I can't remember the sense of shame crept in on him. name of a man whose name I knew Big baby, he said to himself. so short a time ago as yesterday. Crazy to be sitting in an over- Nor the name of a commission that grown high chair, playing with but- I knew as well as I know my name. tons and mouthing baby talk and I'm getting forgetful. I'm getting trying to force a mind conditioned downright childish. by five thousand years of life into Childish? the channels of an infant's thoughts. Childish Carefully he disengaged the tray Childish and forgetful.

and slid it out, cautiously shinnied Good Lord, thought Andrew down the twelve-foot-high chair. Young, that's just the way I want

The room engulfed him, the ceil- it. ing towering far above him. On hands and knees he scrabbled The neighbors, he told himself, about and picked up the buttons, no doubt thought him crazy, al- put them in his pocket. Then, with though none of them had said so. the muffin tin underneath his arm,

Come to think of it, he had not he shinnied up the high chair and,

SECOND CHILDHOOD 93 "

Seating himself comfortably, sorted more substantial stuff on a regular out the buttons in the pan. schedule and leaves it where he can

The green one over here in this find it. We have to be careful. We compartment and the yellow one can't mess around too much. We

. . . oops, there she goes onto the can't intrude on him. I have a feel- floor. And the red one in with the ing he's almost reached an actual blue one and this one . . . this turning point. We can't afford to one . . . what's the color of this upset things now that he's come one? Color? What's that? this far."

What is what? "The android's ready?" What— "Just about," said Stanford. "And the playmates?" «TT'S almost time," said Stanford, "Ready. They were less of a X "and we are ready, as ready problem." as we'll ever be. We'll move in "There's nothing more that we when the time is right, but we can do?" can't move in too soon. Better to "Nothing," Stanford said. "Just be a little late than a little early. wait, that's all. Young has carried We have all the things—we need. himself this far by the sheer force Special size diapers and of will alone. That will is gone "Good Lord," exclaimed Riggs, now. He can't consciously force "it won't go that far, will it?" himself any further back. He is "It should," said Stanford. "It more child than adult now. He's should go even further to work built up a regressive momentum and right. He got lost yesterday. One the only question is whether that of our men found him and led him momentum is sufficient to carry him home. He didn't have the slightest -all the way back to actual baby- idea where he was and he was get- hood." ting pretty scared and he cried a "It has to go back to that?"

little. He chattered about birds and Riggs • looked unhappy, obviously flowers and he insisted that our thinking of his own future. "You're man stay and play with him." only guessing, aren't j'ou?"

Riggs chuckled softly. "Did he?" "All the way or it simply is no "Oh, certainly. He came back good," Stanford said dogmatically. worn to a frazzle." "He has to get an absolutely fresh

"Food?" asked Riggs. "How is start. All the way or nothing." he feeding himself?" "And if he gets stuck halfway "We see there's a supply of stuff, between? Half child, half man, cookies and such-wise, left on a low what then?" shelf, where he can get at them. "That's -something I don't want One of the robots cooks up some to think about," Stanford said.

94 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION HE HAD lost his favorite teddy bear and gone to hunt it in Your money back the dusk that was filled with elusive if this isn't the fireflies and the hush of a world quieting down for the time of most exciting science- sleep. The grass was drenched with fiction anthology dew and he felt the cold wetness of you've ever read! it soaking through his shoes as he 32 great full-length stories. went from bush to hedge to flower- 544 thrill-packed pages! bed, looking for the missing toy. All new! It was necessary, he told himself, The book bargain of the year for that he find the nice little bear, for science-fiction fans ! Action stories of interstellar travel, supersonic it was the one that slept with him speed, and atomic power, by Pad- and if he did not find it, he knew gett, Kaempffert, Pratt, Sturgeon, Bradbury, Leinster, Russell, and that it would spend a lonely and many scientist-writers. comfortless night. But at no time Just published, only S3 -00 his innermost did he admit, even to BIG BOOK OF thought, that it was he who needed the bear and not the bear who needed him. SCIENCE A soaring bat swooped low and for a horrified moment, catching FICTION sight of the zooming terror, a blob Edited by GROFF CONKLIN of darkness in the gathering dusk, B*~ SEND NO MONEY NOW! he squatted low against the ground, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! Ex- huddling against the sudden fear amine this mammoth feast of that came out of the night. Sounds science-fiction reading for 10 days. If not delighted, return it for full of fright bubbled in his throat and refund of purchase price. now he saw the great dark garden JUST MAIL THIS COUPON as an unknown place, filled with lurking shadows that lay in wait CROWN PUBLISHERS 419 Fourth Avenue. New York 1& for him. Please send me lilG BOOK OP SCIENCE FIC- He stayed cowering against the TION. I will deposit J3.00 plus few cents post- age with postman. I may return book tor refund ground and tried to fight off the of purchase price in 10 days. alien fear that growled from be- hind each bush and snarled in every darkened corner. But even as the fear washed over him, there was one hidden corner of his mind D SAVE C.O.D. POSTAGE CHARGES. Check that knew there was no need of box and enclose remittance. Same refund privi- lege. S-6 fear. It was as if that one area of

SECOND CHILDHOOD 95 a —

his brain still fought against the reach. But there was another way, rest of him, as if that small section a small swinging door built into the of cells might know that the bat big door, the sort of door that is was no more than a flying bat, that built for cats and dogs and some- the shadows in the garden were no times little children. He darted more than absence of light. through it and felt the sureness and There was a reason, he knew, the comfort of the house about him. why he should not be afraid— The sureness and the comfort good reason born of a certain and the loneliness. knowledge he no longer had. And He found his second-best teddy that he should have such knowledge bear, and, picking it up, clutched it seemed unbelievable, for he was to his breast, sobbing into its scarcely two years old. scratchy back in pure relief from terror. HE TRIED to say it—two years There is something wrong, he old. thought. Something dreadfully

There was something wrong wrong. Something is as it should with his tongue, something the not be. It is not the garden or the matter with the way he had to use darkened bushes or the swooping his mouth, with the way his lips winged shape that came out of the

refused to shape the words he night. It is something else, some- meant to say. thing missing, something that He tried to define the words, should be here and isn't. tried to tell himself what he meant Clutching the teddy bear, he sat by two years old and one moment rigid and tried desperately to drive

it seemed that he knew the meaning his mind back along the way that of it and then it escaped him. would tell him what was wrong. The bat came again and he There was an answer, he was sure huddled close against the ground, of that. There was an answer some- shivering as he crouched. He lifted where; at one time he had known his eyes fearfully, darting glances it. At one time he had recognized here and there, and out of the cor- the need he felt and there had been ner of his eye he saw the looming no way to supply it—and now he house and it was a place he knew couldn't even know the need, could

as refuge. feel it, but he could not know it. "House," he said, and the word He clutched the bear closer and was wrong, not the word itself, but huddled in the darkness, watching

the way he said it. the moonbeam that came through He ran on trembling, unsure feet a window, high above his head, and and the great door loomed before etched a square of floor in bright- him, with the latch too high to ness.

94 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION —

Fascinated, he watched the moon- beam and all at once the terror faded. He dropped the bear and crawled on hands and knees, stalk- ing the moonbeam. It did not try

to get away and he reached its edge

and thrust his hands into it and laughed with glee when his hands were painted by the light coming through the window. He lifted his face and stared up at the blackness and saw the white globe of the Moon, looking at him, watching him. The Moon seemed to wink at him and he chortled joy- fully. Behind him a door creaked open and he turned clumsily around. Someone stood in the doorway, almost filling it—a beautiful per- son who smiled at him. Even in the darkness he could serjse the sweetness of the smile, the glory of her golden hair. "Time to eat, Andy," said the woman. "Eat and get a bath and then to bed." Andrew Young hopped joyfully on both feet, arms held out happy and excited and contented. "Mummy!" he cried. "Mummy

. . . Moon!" He swung about with a pointing finger and the woman came swiftly across the floor, knelt and put her arms around him, held him close against her. His cheek against hers,

he stared up at the Moon and it was a wondrous thing, a bright and golden thing, a wonder that was shining new and fresh.

SECOND CHILDHOOD 97 ON THE street outside, Stanford sibility. It's enough to get him over and Riggs stood looking up the final hump, to place him safely at the huge house that towered and securely in the second child- above the trees. hood that he had to have. Now he

"She's in there now," said Stan- can curl up, contented. There is ford. "Everything's quiet so it must someone to look after him and be all right." think for him and take care of him.

Riggs said, "He was crying in He'll probably go back just a little the garden. He ran in terror for further ... a little closer to the

the house. He stopped crying about cradle. And that is good, for the she must have come in." the time . further he goes, the more memories Stanford nodded. "I was afraid are erased."

we were putting it off too long, but "And then?" asked Riggs wor-

I don't see now how we could have riedly.

done it sooner. Any outside inter- "Then he can proceed to grow ference would have shattered the up again." thing he tried to do. He had to They stood watching, silently.

really need her. Well, it's all right In the enormous house, lights now. The timing was just about came on in the kitchen and the perfect." windows gleamed with a homey "You're sure, Stanford?" brightness.

"Sure? Certainly I am sure. We I, too, Stanford was thinking.

created the android and we trained Some day, I, too. Young has point- her. We instilled a deep maternal ed the way, he has blazed the path. sense into her personality. She He had shown us, all the other knows what to do. She is almost billions of us, here on Earth and

human. She is as close as we could all over the Galaxy, the way it can come to a human mother eighteen be done. There will be others and feet tall. We don't know what for them there will be more help.

Young's mother looked like, but We'll know then how to do it bet- chances are he doesn't either. Over ter. the years his memory has idealized Now we have something to her. That's what we did. We made work on. an ideal mother." Another thousand years or so, he

"If it only works," said Riggs. thought, and I will go back, too. "It will work," said Stanford, Back to the cradle and the dreams confidently. "Despite the shortcom- of childhood and the safe security ings we may discover by trial and of a mother's arms. error, it will work. He's been fight- It didn't frighten him in the ing himself all this time. Now he least. can quit fighting and shift respon- —CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

98 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION BY GROFF CONKLIN

FARMER IN THE SKY, by Rob- Sky underemphasizes philosophical ert A. Heinlein. Charles Scrib- ideology, grandiose concepts of ner's Sons, 1950. $2.50, 216 space, and complex scientific jar-

pages. gon; it really is just an adventure story with an unusual amount of THOUGH conceived as a book realism in its telling. It is not child- for "adolescents," and first ish. When I compare it with the published, in a shorter version, in boys' books' of a generation or so

Boy's Life, this book is also one of ago, such as The Rover Boys or the best of the month's output in Tom Swift, I am astonished at the science fiction for adults. I don't advance in quality that has taken know what this proves; but I hope place in books for boys. it indicates that the so-called The fact of the matter is that adolescent of our time is acquiring any lover of realistic and exciting a pretty mature and down-to-Earth narratives of "different" places will outlook on science fiction. thoroughly enjoy this tale of the

It is true that Farmer in the attempts of mankind to establish

• • • • • SHELF 99 settlements on Ganymede, one of The whole book is a very effec- Jupiter's moons. It has all the'feel tive antidote to the complex and of the believable that a good story often bloody tales of intergalactic of adventure in strange places of and interplanetary wars which seem the known world gives one—rplus to be the stock in trade of too the bonus tingle of the fact that it many modern science fiction writ- is, today, only a dream. ers. The Lord be praised for this The methods of making Gany- touch of simple sanity in the mad mede habitable are not described worlds of science fantasy! in rich, beautiful pseudo-scientific prose. They are mentioned, some- A GNOME THERE WAS, by times actually described, but never Lewis Padgett. Simon & Schuster, overelaborated : a trick which a Inc., 1950. $2.50, 276 pages. good many established science fic- tion writers might well adopt. And COLLECTION of eleven of the circumstances that lead to the A the better Kuttner-Padgett colonization of Ganymede are de- short stories from past issues of scribed with equal realism and Astounding and other magazines, simplicity. The story takes place at and consequently a must for every- a time in the future when Earth one who likes top-grade science fic- itself is drastically overpopulated, tion and fantasy. I have certain

;uid food is in very short supply. reservations, as a matter of personal The colonists on Ganymede have taste, against the two Hogben opera one thing the Earth inhabitants do included," and particularly against not have, which is plenty to eat. the two out-and-out fantasies in the On the other hand, they have trou- book (The Gnome, a "semi"-hu- bles, too—troubles which seem morous tale about a man who be- possible when you read them, even comes a gnome, and Compliments though they are foreign now. of the Author, an overlong fiction Above all, the book is peopled about cats as familiars and a small- with real and entirely human-scale time blackmailer who sold his soul human beings. There is not a space- to the devil) but the rest of the jockey among them—unless you tales are top drawer stuff. There consider old Captain Hattie, the are what you need, The Tivonky, crotchety female who operates the The Cure, Mimsy Were the Boro-

-ancient rocket ship that is used to groves (a masterpiece of subtle and ferry passengers and freight from elegant writing about the strange- the huge modern Terran space liner ness of being very young), Jesting

(which cannot land on Ganymede) Pilot, Main Check (with its su- to the satellite's surface, the very perb snap at the end) and This Is model of a future astronaut. The House (which, though not as

100 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION .

well known as The Twonky, is just this colossal concept with the quiet as good and just as frightening) realities of Heinlein's tale of

Incidentally, as far as I know, colonizing Ganymede is not favor-

this is the second Kuttner item to able to the Simak, but the com- see the light of day as a bound parison should be made. It shows book. Fury, which was done under how science fiction—even for "ado- the pseudonym of Lawrence lescents" —has improved since. O'Donnell in Astounding, was The writing in the book is on published recently in the Grosset the immature side, too, as a com- & Dunlap Dollar series of science parison with Simak's own magnifi- fiction (GALAXY, Nov. 1950). cent Time Quarry (GALAXY,

The book is a genuine first, which Oct.-Dec. 1950) shows. It is very makes this tale of violence and im- pleasant to see how the author has mortality in the underwater Keeps improved with age—proving that of Venus especially worth your both science fiction and science fic- while—and only $1. tion authors are maturing!

COSMIC ENGINEERS, by Clif- THE SHIP OF ISHTAR, by A. ford Simak. Gnome Press, 1950. Merritt. Memorial Edition, $2.50, 224 pages. illustrated by Virgil Finlay. Bor- den Publishing Co., 1950. $3.50, THIS well-remembered story of 309 pages. inter-universe adventure has been made into a solid novel from AVERY handsome volume, with the shorter form in which it orig- its five superb and sexy Fin- inally appeared back in 1939. Fall- lays, and an acceptable In Memor- ing more or less into the super- iam for the Old Master of fantasy. impossible school of science fiction As for the melodramatic, color- of which Donald Wandrei used to ful, corny old plot (the story was be the leader, it has an old-fash- first published in 1924), there is no ioned and somewhat frenetic ring need to describe it here. If you like to it which, nevertheless, is rather Merritt, you'll love this example of pleasant. The tale tells how, from his weird and fruity imagination; a space station on Pluto, a few if you don't, you won't care any-

Earthians, aided by an incredible how. I'm one of those who like it, girl who has been in suspended though sometimes I wonder if it's animation for a thousand years, are simple hankering for my adoles- able to help avert the collision of cence, when Merritt was the most our universe with another, a crash wonderful thing that ever hap- which would have been "slightly pened. fatal" to both. A comparison of —GROFF CONKLIN

• • • • • SHELF 101 Two Weeks in August

The humblest events sometimes result from the most grandiose beginnings. You'd never imagine space travel starting this way, for instancel

By FRANK M. ROBINSON

SUPPOSE there's a guy like could never get along with Mc- McCleary in every office. Cleary. To be as disliked as he was, I Now I'm not a hard man to you have to work at it. get along with and it usually takes What kind of guy was he? Well, quite a bit more than overly bright if you came down to the office one remarks from the office boy to day proud as Punch because of

bother me. But try as I might, I something little Johnny or Josephine

Illustrated by ELIZABETH MaclNTYRE

102 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION had said, it was a sure cinch that got the money, I'll never know.

McCleary would horn in with some- Sometimes I'd tell the wife about it thing his little Louie had spouted and she'd sniff and wonder what off that morning. At any rate, when kind of shabby house they lived in McCleary got through, you felt like that they could afford all the other taking Johnny to the doctor to find things. I never looked him up my- out what made him subnormal. self. Tell you the truth, I was afraid Or maybe you happened to buy I'd find the McClearys lived on a new Super-eight that week and Park Avenue. were bragging about the mileage, the terrific pickup, and how quickly NOW you look forward to a vaca- she responded to the wheel. Leave tion all year, but particularly it to McCleary to give a quick run- during the latter part of July, when, down on his own car that would what with the heat and the stuffy make you feel like selling yours for office, you begin to feel like a half- junk at the nearest scrap heap. done hotdog at a barbecue. I was

Well, you see what I mean. feeling even worse than usual as I

But by far the worst of it was was faced with spending my two when vacation time rolled around. weeks in my own backyard, most of You could forgive a guy for top- my vacation dough having gone to ping you about how brainy his kids pay the doctor. The only thing I are, and you might even find it in minded was having McCleary find your heart to forget the terrific bar- out about it and seeing that phony gain he drove to work in. But vaca- look of sympathy roll across his fat tion time was when he'd really get face while he rambled on about the on your nerves. You could pack the vacation he was going to have. wife and kids in Old Reliable and It was lunch time and we had roll out to 'the lake for your two just finished talking about the latest weeks in August. You might even on television and what was wrong break the bank and spend the two with the Administration and who'd weeks at a poor man's Sun Valley. win the pennant when Bob Young But no matter where you went, brought up the subject of vacations. when you came back, you'd have to It turned out he was due for a trip sit in silence and listen to Mc- to the Ozarks and Donley was Cleary's account of his Vacation in going after wall-eye pike in north- the Adirondacks, or his Tramp in ern Wisconsin. I could sense Mc- the Canadian Wilds, or maybe even Cleary prick up his ears clear across the Old French Quarter. the room. The trouble was he always had the "How about you, Bill?" Donley photographs, the ticket stubs, and asked me. "Got any plans?" the souvenirs to prove it. Where he I winked heavily and jerked a

TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 103 thumb warningly toward McCleary, surprised eyebrow. "Oh, I suppose making sure McCleary couldn't see a little, but it's worth it. The wife the gesture. and I got a roomette on the Princess "My vacation is really going to of Mars for $139.50. That's one be out of the world this time," I way, of course." said. "Me and the wife are going "Mars!" Young sighed wistfully. to Mars. Dry, you know. Even bet- There was a moment of silence, ter than Arizona for her sinus." with all three of us paying silent Even with the wink they were tribute to the ultimate" in vacations. caught off guard for a minute. McCleary slowly masticated a leaf "Mars?" Donley said feebly, of lettuce, his initial look of suspi- edging his chair away. "Yeah, sure. cion giving way to half-belief. Great place. Never been there my- "Let's hear some more about it," self, though." Young said enthusiastically, sud- Young just gaped, then grinned denly recovering from his reverie. as he caught on. "I understand it's "Oh, there isn't much more," I a wonderful spot," he chipped in. said indifferently. "We plan to stay

I casually peeled a hard-boiled at the Redsands hotel in Marsport egg the wife had packed in my —American plan. Take in Mars- lunch bucket and leaned back in my port, with maybe a side trip to swivel chair. "It's really swell," I Crystallite. If we have time we said dreamily, but loud enough so might even take a waterway cruise ." McCleary couldn't help but over- to the North Pole . . hear. "Drifting down the Grand Canal at evening, the sun a faint 1 BROKE off and dug Donley in golden disk behind the crystal tow- the ribs. ers of Marsport ..." I let my voice "Man, you never fished until you drift into a long sigh and reached have a Martian flying fish at the for Donley's sack of grapes. end of the line!" I grabbed a ruler

About this time McCleary had off the desk and began using it as gnawed his way through a big an imaginary rod and reel. "Talk pastrami sandwich and waddled about fight ... oh, sorry, Mac." over. He stood there expectantly, My ruler had amputated part of a but we carefully ignored him. floppy lettuce leaf that hung from "Always wanted to go myself," McCleary's sandwich.

Donley said in the same tone of I settled down in my chair again voice he would have used to say and started paying attention to my he'd like to go to California some- lunch. "Nothing like it," I added" day. "Pretty expensive, though, between mouthfuls of liverwurst. isn't it?" "How about entertainment?" "Expensive?" I raised a studiedly Young winked slyly.

104 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "Well, you know—the wife will I sighed softly, acting disgusted be along," I said. "But some of the at having to deal with somebody as places near the Grand Canal—and stupid as McCleary. "Mac, that's those Martian Mist Maidens! the government and besides they're ." Brother, if I was unattached . . dealing with military rockets. And "There ain't any life on Mars," did you ever hear of the govern- McCleary said, suspicious again. ment perfecting .something before All three of us looked at him in private industry? Who perfected shocked silence. the telephone, the radio, television ? "He says there's no life on The government? No, private in- Mars!" Donley repeated. dustry, of course! Private industry "You ever been there, 'Mc- has always been ahead of the gov- Cleary?" I asked sarcastically. ernment on everything, including ." "No, but just the same . . rockets. Get on the stick, Mac." "All right," I cut in, "then you McCleary started in on his lettuce don't know whether there is or leaf again, looking very shrewd. isn't. So kindly reserve your opin- "How come I never heard of it ion until you know a little about before now?" he asked, springing the subject under discussion." the clincher argument.

"Look, Mac, this is relatively TURNED back to Donley and new. The company's just starting, I Young. can't afford to take full-page ads "Really a wonderful place for and that sort of thing. Just give 'em your health. Dry, thin air, nice and time, that's all. Why, a couple of cool at night. And beautiful! From years from now you'll be spending Marsport you can see low-slung your vacation on Venus or Jupiter mountains in the distance, dunes of or some place like that. From now soft, red sand stretching out to on California and the Bahamas will them. If I were you, Bob, I'd forget be strictly old hat." all about the Ozarks and sign up on McCleary looked half-believing. the rocket." "Where'd you get your tickets?"

"There ain't any rockets going to I waved vaguely in the direction Mars," McCleary said obstinately. of downtown. "Oh, there must be

"Isn't," I corrected. "I mean, at least a couple of agencies down- there is. Besides, McCleary, just town. Might even be able to find because you never heard of some- them in the phone book. Look thing doesn't mean it doesn't exist." under Interplanetary Rocket Lines "The government's still working or something like that. You might on V-2," McCleary said flatly. have a little difficulty, of course. "They haven't even reached the Like I say, they're not too well ad- moon yet." vertised."

TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 105 McCleary was about to say some- The three of us looked blank for thing more, but then the one o'clock a minute and then we caught on. It bell rang and we went back to the took us a while to recover from office grind. laughing and my sides were still

aching when I saw McCleary's face. WELL, McCleary didn't say any- It definitely had a hurt look on it. thing more about it the next "You don't think I did," he ac- day, even though we'd throw in a cused us. chance comment about Mars every "Oh, come off it, McCleary," I now and then, as if it were the most said crossly. "A gag's a gag, but it natural thing in the world, but Mac can be carried too far. Where'd you didn't rise to the bait. We gradually go? California, Oregon, some place forgot about it. like that?" The next couple of weeks came "I said I went to Mars," Mc- and went and then my two weeks in Cleary repeated hotly, "and I can August. Like I said before, my va- prove it!" cation dough had gone to pay the "Sure," I said. "Like I can prove doctor, so I stayed at home and the world's flat and it's supported watered the begonias. by four elephants standing on The Monday morning after vaca- a turtle's back like the old tion, we were all back in the office, Greeks ..." if anything looking more fagged I cut off. McCleary had thrown a than we had when we left. When couple of pasteboards on the desk lunch time rolled around, Donley and I picked them up. The printing and Young and I piled our lunches on it was like you see on a Pullman on Donley's desk—his desk was ticket. It said something about a near a window on the north side of roomette, first-class passage on the the building so we could get the Mar/tan Prime, for $154.75, and breeze—and talked about what we there was even .a place where they had done during vacation. had the tax figured. In two blanks

McCleary ambled up and like it at the top of the ticket, they had it usually does after McCleary comes filled out to E. C. McCleary and around, the conversation just natu- wife. The bottom half was torn off, rally died down. After a two min- just like they do with train tickets. ute silence I finally took the hook. "Very clever," I said, "but you

"Okay, Mac," I said, "I know shouldn't have gone to all that trou- you're just dying to tell us. Where ble to have these printed up." did you go?" McCleary scowled and dropped He almost looked surprised. "To a little bunch of kodachrome slides

Mars," he said, like he might have on the desk. 1 took one and held it said Aunt Minnie's. up to the light. It showed Mac and

106 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION his wife mounted on something puzzledly. "I asked the passenger that looked like a cross between a agent about the Princess of Mars camel and a zebra. They were at the and he said he had never heard of top of a sand dune and in the dis- the ship. And it's Mars City, not tance you could see the towers of a Marsport. Couldn't understand how city. The funny thing was the tow- you made a mistake." ers looked a little—but not much- "It was easy," I said weakly. I like minarets and the sand dunes pointed to the pasteboard ducats. were colored a beautiful pink. "Where'd you get these, Mac?" I passed it on to Donley and He waved generously in the di- Young and started leafing through rection of downtown. "Like you the rest. They were beautiful slides. said, there's a couple of agencies ." McCIeary and spouse in front of downtown. . . various structures in a delicately tinted marble and crystal city. Mc- YOU know, sometimes I think we CIeary in a pink-and-black boat on misjudged McCIeary. It takes a a canal that looked as wide as the while to get to know a guy like

Mississippi. McCIeary standing on Mac. Maybe his' Louie is brighter a strangely carved sandstone para- than Johnny, and maybe his chug- pet, admiring a sunset caused by a mobile is something terrific. sun looking half as big as ours. For the last few years, all on ac- And everywhere were the dunes of count of Mac, my two weeks in pink sand. August have really been well spent. "Pictures can be faked, Mac," I Beautiful! Why, from Mars City said. you can see low-slung mountains in He looked hurt and got some the distance and dunes of soft, red things out of his desk—a sateen sand stretching out to them. And pillow with scenes like those on his the sunsets when you're standing snapshots, an urn fdled with pink on the parapets of that delicate sand, a tiny boat like a gondola, crystal city . . . And, man, fishing in only different, a letter opener made the Grand Canal ... > peculiar glass. out of bubbly pink How do you get to Mars ? There's They were all stamped "Souvenir probably a couple of agencies in of Mars" and that kind of junk you your own town. You can look them don't have made up for a gag. I up in your phone book under "Va- know mass-produced articles when cation at the Planets of Pleasure" or I see them. something like that. They might be "We couldn't afford the first- a little difficult to find, though. class tour," McCIeary said expan- • You see, they're not very well sively, I cover "but figure we can advertised yet. that next year." He turned to me —FRANK M. ROBINSON

TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 107 TYRANN By ISAAC ASIMOV

Part 2 of a 3 part serial

Synopsis the Tyranni make another attempt to kill him as the representative of rylRON FARRILL, son of an an aristocratic family toe danger- D aristocrat of the Nebular King- ously popular with their subjects. doms, is about to complete bis uni- Biron leaves for the planet versity work on Earth. He is Rhodia under an assumed name. awakened on one of his last nights There he expects to see the planet's in the dormitory to find himself Director, who is a favorite of the locked in with a deadly radiation Tyranni overlords and may use his bomb. He is rescued from this sit- influence with them to have Biron's uation by Sander fonti, a native of ancestral land holdings restored to the same region of the Galaxy, who him. On the ship to Rhodia, bow- states that Biron's father has been ever, Biron finds that his cabin has arrested and probably executed by been searched and some of his pri- the Tyranni, the inhabitants of the vate papers taken. He realizes that planet Tyrann who, fifty years ear- his identity must be known and lier, had conquered all the Nebular that he is in grave danger. On land- Kingdoms. ing at Rhodia he is turned over to fonti apparently also knows that Simok Aratap, the Tyranni Conimis- Biron has been asked by his father sioner for that sector of space. to obtain a mysterious document Aratap is aware of Biron's real from Earth's archives which seems identity, but releases bim in order to be of major importance to the to be able to discover the true extent success of the conspiracy, fonti ad- of what he feels must be a vast vises Biron to leave Earth before conspiracy, of which Biron and his

Illustrated by JOHN BUNCH

Rebellions logically are led by men who have nothing to lose. But this galactic conspiracy was staffed with noblemen who had nothing to gain and everything to lose if it succeeded!

108 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION TYRANN 109 father were only a small part. For be arrested and delivered back to that purpose, Biron is conducted to Aratap. Hinrik, the Director of Rhodia. With Gillbret's help, Biron Meanwhile, back on Earth, escapes from the two guards sent Sander Jonti continues the search to arrest him and seeks refuge in for the important document which Artemisia's room. She conceals him Biron had been sent to obtain. He and now faces the company of

finds it had disappeared from guards who are ransacking the pal- Earth's archives twenty years earlier. ace and who wish to search her He has not the slightest notion of room. With them is Gillbret. the nature of the document, except In Artemisia's dressing room, that it dates prior to the time of Biron waits tensely. the discovery of space-travel. What Earth of the pre-atomic age can Part Two possibly contribute to a conspiracy of the Galactic Era is a mystery. CHAPTER LY On Rhodia, Biron meets Hinrik, the weakling Director, who is And an Overlord's Trousers frightened nearly to idiocy of the Tyranni, and therefore makes a per- ARTEMISIA did not have to fect tool for them. He meets Arte- feign uneasiness. She spoke misia, the Director's daughter, who ^to Gillbret, who, with the is being driven to desperation by captain of the guard, was at the an impending marriage of state door. Half a dozen uniformed men with an old Tyranni courtier; and hovered discreetly in the back- Gillbret, the Director's cousin, who ground. She asked, quickly, "Has dabbles in scientific gadgets al- anything happened to father?" though all forms of research among "No, no," Gillbret reassured her. the subject peoples have been for- "Nothing has happened that need

bidden by the Tyranni. Biron re- concern you at all. Were you ' veals his actual identity to them. asleep ?" In a private conference, Gillbret "Just about," she replied, "and tells Biron of his own passionate my girls have been about their own opposition to Tyranni rule and asks affairs for hours. There was no one Biron to help him and Artemisia to answer but myself and you near- escape from the planet. Biron ly frightened me to death." agrees. But meanwhile, Hinrik, con- She turned to the captain sud-

vinced that Biron's presence is a denly, with a stiffening attitude. trap set for him by the Tyranni, in- "What is wanted of me, captain? tended to test his loyalty {and in Quickly, please. This is not the time

this he is right), orders that Biron of day for a proper audience."

110 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Gillbret broke in, before the statement that you have not seen other could more than open his the fugitive is, of course, sufficient. mouth, "A most amusing thing, Under the circumstances, it was Arta. The young man, whatsisname necessary to assure ourselves of your —you know—has dashed off, break- safety. He is a dangerous man." ing two heads on his way. We're "Surely not so dangerous that he hunting him on even terms now. cannot be handled by you and your One platoon of soldiers to one fugi- company." tive. And here I am myself, hot on the trail, delighting our good cap- GILLBRET' S high-pitched voice tain with my zeal and courage." interposed, "Captain, come, Artemisia managed to look com- come. While you exchange courtly pletely bewildered. sentiments with my niece, our man Under his breath, the captain has had time to rifle the armory. I muttered a monosyllabic impreca- would suggest that you leave a tion. His lips scarcely moved. He guard at the lady Artemisia's door, said, "If you please, my Lord, you so that what remains of her sleep are not quite plain, and we are de- will not be further disturbed. Un- laying matters insufferably. My less, my dear," and he twinkled his Lady, the man who calls himself the fingers at Artemisia, "you would son of the ex-Rancher of Widemos care to join us." has been arrested for treason. He "I shall satisfy myself," said has managed to escape and is now Artemisia, coldly, "in locking my at large. We must search the Pal- door and retiring, thank you." ace for him, room by room." "Pick a large guard," cried Gill- Artemisia stepped back, frown- bret. "Take that one. A fine uni- ing. "Including my room?" form our guards have, Artemisia. "If your Ladyship permits." You can recognize a guard as far

'^1 do not. I would certainly as you can see him by his uniform know if there were a strange man alone." in my room. And the suggestion "My Lord," said the captain, im- that I might be having dealings patiently, "there is no time. You with such a man, or any strange delay matters." man, at this time of night is highly At a gesture from him, a guard improper. Please observe due re- fell out of the platoon, saluted spect for my position, captain." Artemisia through the closing door, It worked quite well. The cap- then the captain. The sound of or- tain could only bow and say, "No dered footsteps fell away in both such implication was intended, my directions. Lady. Your pardon for annoying Artemisia waited, then slid the you at this time of night. Your door quietly open an inch or two.

TYRANN 111 Jfwf

^'•.'.'"i'.W.V, in,'- .

The guard was there, legs apart, IRON tensed as the door slid back rigid, right hand armed, left B away again. He held his breath hand at his alarm button. He was and his fingers stiffened. the guard suggested by Gillbret, a Artemisia stared at his neuronic tall one. As tall as Biron of Wide- whips, which he had aimed instant- mos, though slimmer of shoulders. ly at her. "Be careful/" It occurred to her, at that mo- He puffed out his breath in re- ment, that Biron, though young and lief and stuffed each whip into a therefore rather unreasonable in pocket. They were very uncomfort- some of his viewpoints, was at least able there, but he had no proper large and well-muscled, which was holsters. He said, "That was just in convenient. It had been foolish of case it was somebody looking for her to snap at him. Quite pleasant- me." looking, too. "Come out. And whisper."

' She closed the door, and stepped She was still in her night-robe, toward the dressing room. woven out of a smooth fabric with

1T2 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Biron looked up at her face. "What? Oh, I'm sorry." He turned his back to her and remained stiffly attentive to the faint rustling of the change of outer gar- ments. It did not occur to him to wonder why she had not used the

dressing room, or why, better still, she had not changed before open- ing the door. There are depths in feminine psychology, which, with- out experience, defy analysis. She was in black when he turned, a two-piece suit which did not reach

below the knee. It had that more substantial appearance that went with clothing meant for the out- doors, rather than for the ballroom. Biron said, automatically, "Are •we leaving, then?" She shook her head. "You'll have to do your part first. You'll need other clothes yourself. Get to BBSS one side of the door, and I'll have the guard in." which Biron was unfamiliar, "What guard?" adorned with little tufts of silvery She smiled briefly. "They left a fur, and clinging to the body guard at the door, at Uncle Gil's through some faint static attraction suggestion." inherent in the material so that The door to the corridor ran neither buttons, clasps, loops, nor smoothly along its runners an inch seam-fields were necessary. Nor, as or two. a consequence, did it do more than The guard was still there, stiffly merely faintly dim the outlines of immobile. Artemisia's figure. "Guard," she whispered. "In Biron felt his ears reddening, and here, quickly." liked the sensation very much. There was no reason for a com- Artemisia waited, then made a mon soldier to hesitate in his obe- little whirling gesture with her dience to the Director's daughter. forefinger and said, "Do you He entered the widening door, with mind?" a respectful, "At your service, my

TYRANN 113 — L " and then his knees buckled Biron said, "You must have under the weight which came down some Cellite stockings. They would upon his shoulders, while his words do fine." He had already stripped were cut off, without even an inter- the guard of weapons and outer rupting squawk, by the forearm clothing, "And I'd like to wash which slammed against his larynx. up. In fact, I have to." Artemisia closed the door hur- riedly and watched with sensations IT WAS pleasant to step that amounted almost to nausea. through the detergent mist in The life in the Palace of the Hin- Artemisia's bathroom. It left him riads was mild almost to decadence, perhaps a trifle overscented, but the and she had never before seen a open air would take care of the man's face congest with blood and fragrance, he hoped. At least, he his mouth yawn and puff futilely was clean; and it required merely under the influence of asphyxia. the momentary passage through the She looked away. fine, suspended droplets that shot Biron bared his teeth with effort past him forcefully in a warm air as he tightened the circle of bone stream. No special drying chamber and muscle about the other's throat. was required, since he stepped out For a minute, the guard's weaken- dry as well as clean. They didn't ing hands ripped futilely at Biron's have this on Widemos, or on Earth. arm, while his feet groped in aim- The guard's uniform was a bit less kicks. Biron heaved him clear tight, and Biron did not like the off the floor. way the somewhat ugly, conical

And then the guard's hands fell military cap fit over his brachy- to his sides, his legs hung loosely cephalic head. He stared at his re- and the convulsive and useless flection with some dissatisfaction.

heavings of the chest began to sub- "How do I look?" side. Biron lowered him gently to "Quite like a soldier," she said. the floor. The guard sprawled out •He 'said, "You'll have to carry limply as though he were a sack one of these whips. I can't handle which had been emptied. three."

"Is he dead?" asked Artemisia, She took it between two fingers

in a horrified whisper. and dropped it into her bag which "I doubt it," said Biron. "It then was suspended from her wide

takes four or five minutes of it to belt by another micro-force, so that kill a man. But he'll be out of her hands remained free. things for a while. Do you have "We had better go, now," she anything to tie him up with?" said. "Don't say a word if we meet She shook her head. For the mo- anyone; let me do the talking. Your

ment, she felt quite helpless. accent isn't right, and it would be

114 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION .

impossible to talk in my presence much. Where are the other unless you were directly addressed, guards?" anyway. Remember, you're a com- "Everyone objects to a few mon soldier." words," he said, pettishly. "The The guard on the floor was be- other guards are working their way ginning to wriggle a bit and roll up the tower. They've decided that his eyes. His wrists and ankles were our friend is on none of the lower securely tied at the small of his levels, so they've just left some men back with stockings that had the at the main exits and at the ramps, tensile strength of more than an with the general alarm system in equal amount of steel. His tongue operation as well. We can get past worked futilely at his gag. it." He had been shoved out of the "Won't they miss you, sir?" way, so that it was not necessary to asked Biron. step over him to get to the door. "Me? Hah! The captain was "This way," breathed Artemisia. glad to see me go for all his toe- scraping. They won't look for me, AT THE first turning, there was I assure you." a footstep behind them and a They were speaking in whispers, hand came down on Biron's shoul- but now even those died away. A der. guard stood at the bottom of the Biron stepped to one side quick- ramp, while two others flanked the ly and turned, one hand catching large, carved double door that led the other's arm, while' his other to the open air. snatched at his whip. Gillbret called out, "Any word

But it was Gillbret, who said, of the escaped prisoner, men?" "Easy, man!" "No, my Lord," said the nearest. Biron loosened his grip. He clicked his heels together and Gillbret rubbed his arm. "I've saluted. been waiting for you, but that's no "Well, keep your eyes open." reason to break my bones. Let me And they walked past them and stare admiringly at you, Farrill. out, one of the guards at the door Your clothes seem to have shrunk carefully neutralizing that section on you, but not bad; not bad at all. of the alarm as they left. Nobody would look twice at you in It was night-time outside. The that get-up. It's the advantage of a. sky was clear and starry, the ragged uniform. It's taken for granted that mass of the Dark Nebula blotting a soldier's uniform holds a soldier out the specks of light near the and nothing else." horizon. Palace Central was a dark "Uncle Gil," whispered Arte- mass behind them, and the Palace misia, urgently, "don't talk so Field was half a mile away.

TYRANN 115 But after five minutes of walking There's nothing to do now. We along the quiet path, Gillbret grew can't fight Tyranni." restless. "Why not?"- Biron demanded, "There's something wrong," he savagely. "Why can't we fight said. them? They have no reason to sus- Artemisia said, "Uncle Gil, you pect trouble and we're armed. Let's haven't forgotten to arrange to have take the Commissioner's own ship. the ship ready?" Let's leave him with his trousers "Of course not," he snapped at down." her, as nearly as one could snap in He stepped forward, out of the a whisper, "but why is the Field relative obscurity of the trees and

Tower lit up? It should be dark." on to the bare Field. The others He pointed up through the trees, followed. There was ,no reason to to where the Tower was a honey- hide. They were two members of comb of white light. Ordinarily, the royal family and an escorting that would indicate business at the soldier.

Field, ships leaving for space or But it was the Tyranni they were

arriving from it. fighting now. Gillbret muttered, "Nothing was scheduled for tonight. That was SIMOK ARATAP of Tyrann had definite." been impressed the first time They saw the answer at a dis- he had ever seen the Palace tance, or Gillbret did. He stopped Grounds at Rhodia years earlier,

suddenly and spread his arms wide but it had turned out to be only a to hold back the others. shell that had impressed him. The "That's all," he said, and giggled interior was nothing but a musty almost hysterically. "This time Hin- relic. Two generations earlier, rik has really messed things prop- Rhodia's legislative chambers had erly, the idiot. They're here! The met on these grounds and most of

Tyranni ! Don't you understand ? the administrative offices had been That's Aratap's private armored quartered there. Palace Central had cruiser." been the heartbeat of a dozen

Biron saw it, gleaming faintly worlds. under the lights, standing out But now the legislative chambers among the other undistinguished (still existing, for the Khan never ships. It was smoother, slimmer, interfered with local legalisms) met more deadly feline than the Rhod- once a year to ratify the executive ian vessels. orders of the past twelve months.

Gillbret said, "The captain said a It was only a formality. The Ex-

'personage' was being entertained ecutive Council was still, nom-

today, and I paid no attention. inally, in continuous session, but it

116 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION consisted of a dozen men who re- Widemos had been a traitor, and mained on their estates nine weeks Widemos's son had attempted a in ten. The various executive bu- meeting with the Director of Rho- reaus were still active, since one dia. He had attempted it first in could not govern without them secret and when that had failed, whether the Director or the Khan such was the urgency, he attempted ruled, but they were now scattered it openly with his ridiculous story over the planet; made less depend- of an assassination plot. Surely that ent upon the Director, more con- must have been the beginning of a scious of their actual masters, the pattern.

Tyranni. And now it fell apart. Hinrik Which left the Palace as majes- was giving up the boy with inde- tic as it had always been in stone cent haste. He could not even wait and metal and that only. It housed the night, it seemed. And that did the Directorial family, a scarcely not fit at afl, or else Aratap had adequate corps of servants, and an not yet learned all the facts. entirely inadequate corps of native guards. HE FOCUSED his attention on Aratap felt uncomfortable in the the Director. Hinrik was sense- palatial shell and was unhappy. It lessly beginning to repeat himself. was late, he was tired, his eyes Aratap felt a twinge of compas- burned so that he longed to remove sion. The man had been made into his contact lenses, and, most of all, such a coward that even the Ty- he was disappointed. ranni themselves grew impatient

There was no recognizable pat- with him. And yet it was the only tern of motive and counter-motive. way. Nothing but fear could insure He glanced occasionally at his mili- absolute loyalty. tary aide, but the major was Widemos had not been afraid, listening to the Director with ex- and, despite the fact that his self- pressionless stolidity. As for Aratap interest had been bound at every himself, he paid little attention. point with the maintenance of Ty- "Widemos's son! Indeed?" he ranni rule, he had rebelled. Hinrik would say, in abstraction. Then was afraid and that made the dif- later, "And so you arrested him? ference. Quite right!" And because Hinrik was afraid,

But it meant little to him, since he sat there, lapsing into incoher- events lacked a design. Aratap had ence as he struggled to wheedle a neat and tidy mind which could some gesture of approval. The ma- not bear the thought of individual jor -would give none, of course, facts loosely clumped together with Aratap knew. The man had no no decent arrangement. imagination. He sighed and wished

TYRANN 117 "

he had none, either. Politics was a alarm. They are still only minutes filthy business. away." So he said, with some air of "Yes, by all means," stuttered animation, "I commend your quick Hinrik, "by all means. A general decision and your zeal in the service alarm, indeed. Just the thing. of the Khan. You may be sure he Quickly! Quickly! Commissioner, I will hear of it." cannot understand how it could have happened. Captain, put every HINRIK brightened visibly, his man to work. There will be an in- relief obvious. vestigation, Commissioner. If nec- Aratap said, "Have him brought essary, every man on the guards in, then, and let us hear what our will be broken. Broken! Broken!" cockerel has to say." He suppressed He repeated the word in near- a desire to yawn. He had absolutely hysteria, but the captain remained no interest in what the "cockerel" standing. It was obvious that he had had to say. more to say. It was Hinrik's intention at this Aratap said, "Why do you point to signal for the captain of wait?" the guard, but there was no neces- "May I speak to your Excellency sity for that. The captain stood in in private?" asked the captain, the doorway, unannounced. abruptly. "Excellency," he said and strode Hinrik cast a quick, frightened in without waiting for permission. look at the bland, unperturbed Hinrik stared hard at his hand, Commissioner. He mustered a still inches from the signal, as feeble indignation. "There are no though wondering whether his in- secrets from the soldiers— of the tention had somehow developed Khan, our friends, our sufficient force to substitute for the "Say your say, captain," inter- act. posed Aratap, gently.

He asked, uncertainly, "What is The captain brought his heels to- it, captain?" gether sharply. "Since I am ordered

The captain said, "Excellency, to speak, your Excellency, I regret the prisoner has escaped." to inform you that my lady Arte- Aratap felt some of the weari- misia and my lord Gillbret accom- ness disappear. What was this? pany the prisoner in his escape." "The details, captain!" he ordered, "He dared to kidnap them?" and straightened in his chair. Hinrik was on his feet. "And my The captain gave them with a guards allowed it?" blunt economy of words. He con- "They were not kidnaped, Excel- cluded, "I ask your permission, Ex- lency. They accompany him volun- cellency, to proclaim a general tarily."

118 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "How do you know?" Aratap duties and look to your Director. was delighted, and thoroughly —Come, major." awake. It formed a pattern now, after all. A better pattern than he THE Tyrannian major spoke could have anticipated. tensely once they had left the The captain said, "We have the mass of Palace Central behind testimony of the guard they over- them. powered, and the guards who, un- "Aratap," he said, "I presume wittingly, allowed them to leave the you know what you're doing. I kept building." He hesitated, then added my mouth shut in there on the basis grimly, "When I interviewed my of that presumption." lady Artemisia at the door of her "Thank you, major." Aratap private chambers, she told me she liked the night air of a planet full had been on the point of sleep. It of green and growing things. Ty- was only later that I realized that rann was more beautiful in its way, when she told me that, her face was but it was a terrible beauty of arid elaborately made up. When I re- rocks and mountains. turned, it was too late. I accept the He went on, "You cannot blame for the mismanagement of handle Hinrik, Major Andros. In this affair. After tonight, I will re- your hands, he would wilt and quest your Excellency to accept my break. 'He is useful, but requires resignation, but, first, have I still gentle treatment if he is to remain your permission to sound the gen- so." eral alarm ? Without your authority, The major brushed that aside. I could not interfere with members "I'm not referring to that. Why not of the royal family." the general alarm? Don't you want But Hinrik was swaying on his them?" feet and could only stare at him "Do you?" Aratap stopped. "Let vacantly. us sit here for a moment, Andros. Aratap said, "Captain, you would A bench on a pathway along a do better to look to the health of lawn. What more beautiful and your Director. I would suggest you what place is safer fram spy beams ? call his physician." Why do you want the young man, "The general alarm," repeated major?" the captain. "Why do I want any traitor and "There will be no general conspirator?" alarm," said Aratap. "Do you un- "Why do you, indeed, if you derstand me? No general alarm! only catch a few tools while leav- No recapture of the prisoner! The ing the source of the poison un- incident is closed ! Return your men touched? Whom would you have? to their quarters and ordinary A cub, a silly girl, a senile idiot."

TYRANN 119 —

There was the faint splashing of bers of the royal family go unrec- an artificial waterfall nearby. A ognized? Particularly the girl." small one, but decorative. Now that "They would have to leave the was a real wonder to Aratap. planet then." Imagine water, spilling out, run- "And from where? They can ning to waste, pouring down the reach the Palace Field in a fifteen- rocks and along the ground. He had minute walk. Now do you see the never educated himself out of a purpose of our being here?" prim indignation over it. The major said, "Our ship?" "Of course. A Tyrannian ship <* A S IT is," said the major, "we would seem ideal to them. Other- -£~X have nothing." wise, they would have to choose "We have a pattern. When the among freighters. Farrill has been young man first arrived, we con- educated on Earth, and, I'm sure, nected him with Hinrik and that can fly a cruiser." bothered us because Hinrik is "Now there's a point," the ma- what he is. But it was the best we jor agreed. "Why do we allow the could do. Now we see it was not nobility to send out their sons in Hinrik at all; that Hinrik was a all directions? What business has misdirection. It was Hinrik's daugh- a subject to know more about ter and cousin he was after and that travel than will suffice him for lo- makes more sense." cal trade? We raise soldiers against "Why didn't he call us sooner? us." He waited for the middle of the "Nevertheless," said Aratap, night." with polite indifference, "at the mo-

"Because he is the tool of who- ment, Farrill has a foreign educa- ever is the first to reach him, and tion and let us take that into account Gillbret, I am sure, suggested this objectively, without growing angry night meeting as a sign of great about it. The fact remains that I am zeal on his part." completely certain they have taken "You mean we were called here our cruiser." on purpose? To witness their "I can't believe it." escape?" "You have your wrist-caller. "No, not for that reason. Ask Make contact with the. ship, if you yourself. Where do these people can." intend going?" The major tried, futilely.

The major shrugged. "Rhodia is Aratap said, "Try the Field big." Tower."

"Yes, if it were the young Far- The major did so, and the small rill alone who was concerned. But voice came out of the tiny receiver, where on Rhodia would two mem- in minute agitation. "But, Excel-

120 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION lency, I don't understand. There is would surely have escaped and

some mistake. Your pilot took off (what's the expression?) I would ten minutes ago." have been caught with my trousers

Aratap was smiling. "You see? down this night. As it is, my trous- Work out the pattern and each little ers are firmly belted and nothing event becomes inevitable. And now can save the three of them. And

do you fully understand the conse- when I pluck them back, in my quences?" own good time" —he emphasized the words with satisfaction— "I THE major did. He slapped his will have the rest of the conspiracy thigh, and laughed briefly. "Of in my hands as well." course!" He sighed and found himself be- "Well," said Aratap, "they ginning to feel sleepy once more, couldn't know, of course, but they "Well, we have been lucky, and have ruined themselves. Had they now there is no hurry. Call Central been satisfied with the clumsiest Base and have them send another Rhodian freighter on the field, they ship after us."

TYRANN 121 CHAPTER X bruised against the padded web- bing. The Tyrannian prisoner had Maybe! lain pressed against the wall, tear- ing at his bonds and cursing in a BIRON FARRILL'S training in monotone. spationautics back at Earth had Biron had risen shakily to his been largely academic. There had feet, kicked the Tyrannian into a been the university courses in the brooding silence and made his way various phases of spatial engineer- along the wall-rail, hand over hand ing which, though half a semester against the acceleration, back to his was spent on the theory of the seat.. Forward blasts of power hyperatomic motor, offered little quivered the ship and reduced the when it came to the actual manipu- rate of increasing velocity to a bear- lation of ships in space. The best able pressure. and most skilled pilots learned their They were in the upper reaches art in practice and not in school- of the Rhodian atmosphere by then. rooms. The sky was a deep violet and the He had managed to take off with- hull of the ship was hot with air out actual accident, though that was friction, so that warmth could be more luck than design. The Re- felt within. morseless answered the controls far It took hours thereafter to set the more quickly than Biron had an- ship into an orbit about Rhodia. ticipated. He had manipulated sev- Biron could find no way of readily eral ships on Earth out into space calculating the velocity necessary to and back to the planet, but those just overcome Rhodia's gravity. He had been aged and sedate models, had to work it by hit and miss, maintained for the use of students. varying the velocity with puffs of They had been gentle, and very, power forward and backward, very tired, and had lifted with an watching the massometer, which in- effort and spiraled slowly upward dicated their distance from the plan- through the atmosphere and into et's surface by measuring the space. intensity of the gravitational field. The Remorseless, on the other Fortunately the massometer was al- hand, had lifted effortlessly, spring- ready calibrated for Rhodia's mass ing upward and whistling through and radius. Without considerable the air, so that Biron had fallen experimentation, Biron. could not backward out of his chair and all have adjusted the calibration him- but dislocated his shoulder. Arte- self. misia and Gillbret, with the greater Eventually, the massometer held caution of the inexperienced, had steady and over a period of two strapped themselves in, and were hours showed no appreciable drift.

122 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Biron allowed himself to relax, and the master race is really the unfor- the others climbed out of their givable sin." belts. "But what is the alternative?" "We'll land him." ARTEMISIA said, "You don't "All right. Where?" have a very light touch, my "On Rhodia." lord Rancher." "What?" "I'm flying by touch, my Lady," "It's the one place they won't be Biron replied, curtly. "If you can looking for us. Besides, we've got do better, you're welcome to try, but to go down pretty soon, anyway." only after I myself disembark." "Why?"

"Quiet, quiet," said Gillbret. "Look, this is the Commission-

"The ship is too cramped for pet- er's ship, and he's been using it for tishness, and, in addition, since we hopping about the surface of the are to be crushed into an incon- planet. It wouldn't be provisioned venient familiarity in this leaping for space voyages. Before we go prison pen, I suggest we discard the anywhere, we'll have to take com- many 'lords' and 'ladies' which will plete inventory aboard ship, and at otherwise encrust our conversation. least make sure that we have enough

I am Gillbret, you are Biron, she is food and water."

Artemisia. I suggest we memorize Artemisia was nodding vigorous-

those terms of address, or any var- ly. "That's right. I wouldn't have iation we care to use. And as for thought of that myself. Very piloting the ship, why not use the clever, Biron." help of our Tyrannian friend Biron made a deprecating ges- here?" ture, but warmed with pleasure, The Tyrannian glared, and Biron nevertheless. It was the first time

said, "No. There is no way we she had used his first name. She could trust him. And my own pilot- could be quite pleasant when she

ing will improve as I get the hang tried.

of this ship. I haven't cracked you Gillbret said, "But he'll radio our up yet, have I?" whereabouts instantly."

His shoulder hurt still as a. re- "I don't think so," said Biron.

sult of the first lurch and, as usual, "In the first place, Rhodia has its pain made him peevish. desolate areas, I imagine. We don't "Well," said Gillbret, "what do have to drop him into the business

we do with him?" - section of a city, or into the middle "I don't like to kill him in cold of one of the Tyranni garrisons. blood," said Biron, "and that won't Besides, he may not be so anxious

help us. It would just make the Ty- to contact his superiors as you might ranni doubly excited. Killing one of think. -—Say, private, what would

TYRANN 123 happen to a soldier who allowed and allowed to flutter downward the Commissioner of the Khan to some fifty miles from the nearest have his private cruiser stolen from sizable town. him?" The landing, on an empty beach, The prisoner did not answer, but was only mildly jerky, and Biron, his lip-line became pale. as the one least likely to be recog- Biron would not have wanted to nized, made the necessary pur- be in the soldier's place. To be chases. Such Rhodian currency as sure, he could scarcely be blamed. Gillbret had had the presence of There was no reason why he should mind to bring with him had scarce- have suspected trouble resulting ly sufficed for elementary needs, from mere politeness to members since much of it went for a little of the Rhodian royal family. Stick- bi-wheel and tow-cart, on which ing to the letter of the Tyranni Biron could carry the supplies away military code, he had refused to piecemeal. allow them aboard ship without the "You might have stretched the permission of his commanding offi- money further," said Artemisia, "if cer. If the Director himself had de- you hadn't wasted so much of it on manded permission to enter, he the Tyranni mush you bought." would have to deny it. But in the "There was nothing else to do," meantime, they had closed in upon said Biron, hotly. "It may be Ty- him, and by the time he realized ranni mush to you, but it's a well- he should have followed the mili- balanced food, and will see us tary code still more closely and had through better than anything else I his weapon ready, it was too late. could have gotten." A neuronic whip was practically He was annoyed. It had been touching his chest. stevedore's work, getting all that Nor had he given in tamely, even stuff out of the city and then aboard then. It had taken a whip-blast at ship. And it had meant a consider- his chest to stop him. And even so, able risk, buying it at one of the he could face only courtmartial and Tyranni-run commissaries in the conviction. No one doubted that, city. He had expected appreciation, least of all the soldier. not carping. There was no alternative, actual- THEY had landed two days later ly. The Tyranni forces had evolved at the outskirts of the city of an entire technique of supply Southwark. It had been chosen de- adapted entirely to the fact that they liberately because it lay far from used tiny ships. They couldn't afford the main centers of Rhodian popu- the huge storage spaces of other lation. The Tyrannian soldier had fleets, which were stacked with the been strapped into a repulsion unit carcasses of whole animals, neatly

124 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION !

hung in rows. They ha* to develop Well, she would have to get used a„ standard food-concentrate con- to it. Biron felt that he had done taining what was necessary in the enough for her, gone sufficiently way of calories and food-factors and out of his way. Why couldn't she let it .go at that. It took up only be pleasant about it, and smile once one-twentieth of the space that an in a while? She had a nice smile, equivalent supply of natural animal and he had to admit she wasn't bad food would take, and it could be outside her temper. But, oh, that piled up in the low-temperature temper storeroom like packaged bricks. Well, why waste his time think- ing about her? r ELL, it tastes awful," said The water situation was the "W Artemisia. worst. Tyrann was a desert planet "You'll get used to it," retorted in the first place, where water was Biron, mimicking her petulance, so at a premium and men knew its that she flushed and turned away value, so none was included on angrily. board ship for washing purposes. What was bothering her, Biron Soldiers could wash themselves and knew, was simply the lack of space their personal effects once they had and all that accompanied the lack. landed on a planet. During trips, a It wasn't just a question of using little grime and sweat would not a monotonous food-stock because, hurt them. Even for drinking pur- in that way, more calories could be poses, water was barely sufficient packed to the cubic inch. It was for the longer trips. After all, wa- that there were no separate sleeping ter could be neither concentrated rooms, for instance. There were the nor dehydrated, but had to be car- engine rooms and the control room, ried in bulk, the problem being which took up most of the ship's aggravated by the fact that the wa-

space. (After all, Biron thought, ter content of the food concentrates

this is a warship, not a pleasure was quite low. yacht.) Then there were the store- There were distilling devices to room, and one small cabin, with re-use water lost by the body, but two tiers of three bunks on either Biron, when he realized their func- side. The plumbing was located in tion, felt squeamish and arranged a little niche just outside the cabin. for the disposal of waste products

It meant crowding; it meant a without attempt at water recovery. complete absence of privacy; and it Chemically, it was a sensible pro- meant that Artemisia would have to cedure, but one has to be educated adjust herself to the fact that there into that sort of thing. were no women's clothes aboard, The second takeoff was, com- no mirrors, no washing facilities. paratively, a model of smooth-

TYRANN 125 ness, and Biron spent time playing manufactured this ship." It was a with the controls afterward. The relief to shout at Gillbret. It was a control board resembled only in the relief to shout at anybody. dimmest fashion those of the ships The door opened again, and he had handled on Earth. It had Artemisia stood there. She. said, been compressed and compacted freezingly, "I would refrain, Mr. frightfully. As Biron puzzled out Farrill, from shouting if I were the action of a contact or the pur- you. You can be distinctly heard pose of a dial, he wrote minute di- all over the ship." rections on paper and pasted them "That," said Biron, "does not appropriately on the board. bother me. And if the ship bothers Gillbret entered the pilot room. you, just remember that if your Biron looked over his shoulder. father hadn't tried to kill me off "Artemisia's in the cabin, I sup- and marry you off, neither one of pose?" us would be here." "There isn't any place else she "Don't you criticize my father." could be and stay inside the ship." "I'll criticize anyone I please." Biron said, "When you see her, Gillbret put his hands over his tell her I'll make up a bunk here in ears. "Please!" the pilot room. I'd advise you to do the same, and let her have the cabin IT BROUGHT a brief halt. Gill- to herself." He muttered, "It wasn't bret said, "Shall we discuss the bad enough—we had to bring along matter of our destination now? It's a damn girl." * obvious at this point that the "You have your moments, too, sooner we're somewhere else and Biron," said Gillbret. "You'll have get out of this ship, the more com- to remember the sort of life she's fortable we'll be." used to." "I agree with you there, Gil,"

"All right, I do remember it, and said Biron. "Just let's go somewhere

so what? What sort of life do you where I don't have to listen to her

think I'm used to? I wasn't born clacking. Talk about women on in the mine fields of some asteroidal spaceships!"

belt, you know. I was born on the Artemisia ignored him and ad- biggest ranch of Nephelos. But if dressed Gillbret exclusively. "Why you're caught in a situation, you've don't we get out of the Nebular

got to make the best of it. Damn it, area altogether?" I can't stretch the hull of the ship. "I don't know about you," said It will hold just so much food and Biron, at once, "but I've got to get water, and I can't do anything about my Ranch back and do a little some-

the fact that there isn't any shower. thing about my father's murder. I'll

She picks on me as if I personally stay in the Kingdoms, thanks."

126 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "I did not mean," said Artemisia, which will someday destroy that "that we were to leave forever; same Khan." only till the worst of the search was "Go on," said Biron. over. I don't see what you intend "The trip from Rhodia to Ty- doing about your Ranch, anyway. rann was by Tyranni warship, of

You can't get it back unless the course, as was the trip back. A ship

Tyranni Empire is broken to pieces, like this, I might say, but rather and I can't see you doing that." larger. The trip there was unevent- "You never mind what I intend ful. The stay on Tyrann had its doing. It's my business." points of amusement, but, for our "Might I make a suggestion?" purposes now, was likewise un- asked Gillbret, mildly. He took si- eventful. On the trip back, how- lence for consent, and went on, ever, a meteor hit us."

"Then suppose I tell you where we "What?" ought to go, and exactly what we ought to do to help break the Em- GILLBRET held up a hand. "I pire to pieces, just as Arta said." know it's an unlikely acci- "Oh? How do you propose do- dent. The incidence of meteors in ing that?" said Biron. space, especially in interstellar Gillbret smiled. "My dear boy, space, is low enough to make the you're taking a very amusing atti- chances of collision with a ship tude. Don't you trust me? You look completely insignificant, but it does at me as though you think that any happen, as you know. And it did enterprise I might be interested in happen in this case. Of course any was bound to be a foolish one. I meteor that does hit, even when it got you out of the Palace, you is the size of a pinhead, as most of know." them are, can penetrate the hull of "I know that. I'm perfectly will- any but the most heavily armored ing to listen to you." ship." "Do so then. I've been waiting "I know," said Biron. "It's a for over twenty years for my chance question of their momentum, which to get away from them. If I had is a product of their mass and been a private citizen, I could have velocity. The velocity more than done it Jong since; but, through the makes up for their lack of mass." curse of birth, I've been in the pub- He recited it glumly, like a school lic eye. And yet if it hadn't been lesson, and caught himself watch- for the fact that I was born a Hin- ing Artemisia furtively. riad, I would not have attended the She had seated herself to listen coronation of the present Khan of to Gillbret, and she .vas so dose Tyrann, and in that case I would that they were almost touching. It never have stumbled on the secret occurred to Biron that her profile

TYRANN 127 was beautiful as she sat there, even "As it was, however, it plunged if her hair was becoming a little into the control room, ricocheted bedraggled. She wasn't wearing her off the far wall and slammed back

little jacket, and the fluffy white- and forth till it came to a halt. It ness of her blouse was still smooth couldn't have taken more than a and unwrinkled after forty-eight fraction of a minute to do so, but hours. He wondered how she man- at an original velocity of a hundred

aged to do that. miles a minute, it must have criss- The trip, he decided, could be crossed the room a hundred times. quite wonderful if she would only Both crewmen were cut to pieces, learn to behave herself. The trouble and I escaped only because I was in was that no one had ever controlled the cabin at the time. her properly, that was all. Certain- "I heard the thin clang of the ly not her father. She'd become too meteor when it originally penetrat- used to having her own way. If ed the hull, then the click-clack of she'd been born a commoner, she its bouncing and the terrifying would have been a very lovely crea- short screams of the two crew men. ture. When I jumped into the control room, there was only the blood HE WAS just beginning to slip everywhere and the t^rn flesh. The into a daydream in which be things that happened next I remem- controlled her properly and brought ber only vaguely, although for

her to a state of proper- apprecia- years I lived it over step by step in tion of himself, when she turned my nightmares. her head and met his eye calmly. "The cold sound of escaping air Biron looked away and fastened his led me to the meteor hole. I slapped attention instantly on Gillbret. He a disk of metal over it and air pres-

had missed a few sentences. sure made a decent seal of it. I "1 haven't the slightest idea why found the little battered space- the ship's screen had tailed. It was pebble on the floor. It was warm to just one of those things to which the touch, but I hit it with a span- no one will ever know the answer, ner and split it in two. The exposed but it had failed. • Anyway, the me- interior frosted over instantly. It teor struck amidships. It was was still at the temperature of space. pebble-size and piercing the hull "I tied a cord to the wrist of

slowed it just sufficiently so that it each corpse and then fastened each couldn't blaze its way out again cord to a towing magnet. I dumped

through the other side. If it had them through the airlock, heard the done that, there would have been magnets clank against the hold, and

little harm to it, since the hull could knew that the hard-frozen bodies be temporarily patched in no time. would follow the ship now where-

128 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION ever it went. You see, I knew I skillfully, but . they had a definite would need the evidence of their military edge as well. Everyone bodies to show that it had been the knows that their tactics were supe- meteor that had killed them and rior to ours, and part of that was not I, once we returned to Rhodia. due to the automatic Jump. It meant "But how was I to return? I was a great increase in the maneuver- quite helpless. There was no way / ability of their ships and made could run the ship, and there was possible much more elaborate battle nothing I dared try there in the plans than any we could set up. depths of interstellar space. I didn't "It's one of their best-kept se- even know how to use the sub- crets, this technique of theirs. I etheric communication system, so never learned it until I was trapped that I couldn't SOS. I could only alone on the Bloodsucker (the Ty- let the ship travel on its own ranni have the most annoying cus- course." tom of naming their ships

"But you couldn't very well do unpleasantly, though I suppose it's that, could you?" Biron asked. He good psychology) and watched it wondered if Gillbret were invent- happen. I ivatcbed it make the ing this, either out of simple ro- Jumps without a hand on the con- mantic imaginings or for some se- trols." verely practical reason of his own. "And you mean to say that this "What about the Jumps through ship can do that, too?" hyperspace? You must have man- "I don't know. I wouldn't be aged those, or you wouldn't be surprised." here." "A Tyranni ship," said Gillbret, BIRON turned to the control "once the controls are properly set, board. There were still dozens will make any number of Jumps of contacts he had not determined quite automatically." the slightest use for. Well, later! Biron stared his disbelief. Did He turned to Gillbret again. Gillbret take him for a fool? "And the ship took you home?"

"You're making that up," he said. "No, it didn't. When that meteor

"I am not. It's one of the damned wove its pattern through the con- military advances which won their trol room, it didn't leave the board wars for them. They didn't defeat untouched. It would have been a fifty planetary systems, outnumber- most amusing coincidence if it had. ing Tyrann by hundreds of times Dials were smashed, the casing in population and resources, just battered and dented. There was no by playing mumbledy-peg, you way of telling how the previous set- know. Sure, they tackled us one at ting of the controls had been a time, and utilized our traitors very altered, but it must have been

TYRANN 129 !

somehow, because it never took me "Because they knew the ship I back to Rhodia. was in was a Tyranni vessel. They

"Eventually, of course, it began knew that by sight, and almost

deceleration, and I knew the trip blasted it before I could convince was theoretically over. I couldn't them I was the only one on board

tell where I was, but I managed to alive." maneuver the visiplate so that I Biron put his large hands on his could tell there was a planet close knees and kneaded them. "Now

enough to show a disc in the ship hold on and pull back. I don't un- telescope. It was blind luck, because derstand this. If they knew it was a the disc was increasing in size. The Tyranni vessel and intending blast- ship was heading for the planet. ing it, isn't that the best proof that "Oh, not directly. That would be the world was not in the Nebular too impossible to hope for. If I had Kingdoms? Anywhere in the Gal- just drifted, the ship would have axy but there." missed the planet by a million miles, "No, by the Galaxy." Gillbret's at least, but at that distance I could eyes were shining, and his voice use ordinary etheric radio. I knew climbed in enthusiasm. "It was in how to do that. It was after this the Kingdoms. They took me to the was all over that I began educating surface and what a world it was! myself in electronics. I made up my There were men there from all over mind that I would never be quite so the Kingdoms. I could tell by the helpless again. Being helpless is accents. And they had no fear of one of the things that isn't alto- the Tyranni. The place was an gether amusing." arsenal. You couldn't tell from space. It might externally have been IRON prompted, "So you used a rundown- farming world, but the B the radio." real life of the planet was under- "Exactly, and they came and got ground. Somewhere in the King- me." doms, my boy, someivbere, there is

"Who?" that planet still and it is not afraid

"The men of the planet. It was of the Tyranni and it is going to inhabited." destroy the Tyranni as it would "Well, the luck piles up. What have destroyed the ship I was on planet was it?" then, if the crew men had been "I don't know." still alive." "You mean they didn't tell you?" Biron felt his heart bound. "Amusing, isn't it? They didn't. For a moment, he wanted des-

But it was somewhere among the perately to believe. Nebular Kingdoms!" After all, maybe. "How did you know that?" Maybe

130 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

CHAPTER XI tories in which some sort of metal- work was going on. The ships that And Maybe Not! had captured me were certainly like none I've ever heard about. BIRON said, "How did you "It was all so apparent fo me at learn all this about its being the time that I have never ques- an arsenal? How long did you stay? tioned it in the years since. I think What did you see?" of it as my 'rebellion world,' and Gillbret grew impatient. "It I know that someday swarms of wasn't exactly what I saw at all. ships will leave it to attack the Ty- They didn't conduct me on any ranni, and that the subject worlds tours, or anything like that." He will be called upon to rally round forced himself to relax. "Well, the rebel leaders. From year to year look, this is what happened. By the I've waited for it to happen. Each time they got me off the ship, I new year I've thought to myself: was in more or less of a bad state. This may be the one. And each

I had been too frightened to eat time, I half hoped it wouldn't be, much (it's a terrible thing, being because I was longing to get away marooned in space) and I must first, to join them so that I might have looked worse than I really be part of the great attack. I didn't was. want' them to start without me." "I identified myself, more or less, He laughed shakily. "I suppose and they took me underground. it would have amused most people With the ship, of course. I suppose to know what was going on in my they were more interested in the mind. In my mind. Nobody thought

ship than in myself. It gave them a much of me, you know." , chance to study Tyranni spatio-en- Biron said, "All this happened gineering. They took me to what over twenty years ago, and they must have been a hospital." haven't attacked? There's been no "But what did you see, uncle?" sign of them? No strange ships asked Artemisia. have been reported?—No incidents? Biron interrupted, "Hasn't he And you still think ever told you this before?" Gillbret fired at him, "Yes, I do. Artemisia said, "No." Twenty years isn't too long to or- And Gillbret added, "I've never ganize a rebellion against a planet

told anyone till now. I was taken that rules fifty systems. I was there

to a hospital, as I said. I passed re- just at the beginning of the rebel- search laboratories in that hospital lion. I know that, too. Slowly, since that must have been better than any- then, the}- must have been honey- thing we have on Rhodia. On the combing the planet with their un-

way to the hospital I passed fac- derground preparations, developing

TYRANN 131 newer ships and weapons, training found out then. They knew I was more men, organizing the attack. Gillbret oth Hinriad. There was "It's only in the video-thrillers enough identification on the ship, that men spring to arms at a mo- even if I hadn't told them myself, ment's notice, that a new weapon is which I had. They knew that if I needed one day, invented the next, didn't return to Rhodia there would mass-produced the third and used be a full-scale search that would the fourth. These things take time, not readily come to a halt. Biron, and the men of the 'rebel- "They couldn't risk such a lion world' must know they will search, so they had to see to it that have to be completely ready before I was returned to Rhodia. And beginning. They won't be able to that's where they took me." strike twice. "What?" cried Biron. "But that "And what do you call 'inci- must have been an even greater dents?' Tyranni ships have disap- risk. How did they do that?" peared and never been found. Space "I don't know." Gillbret passed is big, you might say, and they his thin fingers through his gray- might simply be lost, but what if ing hair, and his eyes seemed to be they were captured by the rebels? probing uselessly into tlie backward ^There was the case of the Tireless stretches of his memory. "They two years back. It reported a anesthetized me, I suppose. That strange object close enough to part all blanks out. Past a certain stimulate the massometer, and then point there is nothing. I can only was never heard of again. It could remember that I opened my eyes have been a meteor, but was it?" and was back in the Bloodsucker. I "The search lasted months. They was in space, just off Rhodia."

never found it. / think the rebels "The two dead crewmen were have it. The Tireless was a new still attached by the tow magnets? ship, an experimental model. It They hadn't been removed on the would be just what they would 'rebellion world?' " asked Biron.

want." "They were still there." "Was there any evidence at all BIRON said, "Once having to indicate that you had been on " landed there, why didn't you the 'rebellion world?'

stay?" "None, except for what I remem- "Don't you suppose I wanted to? bered." I had no chance. I listened to them "How did you know you were when they thought I was uncon- oft Rhodia?"

scious, and I learned a bit more "I didn't. I knew I was near a

then. They were just starting at that planet; the massometer said so. I time. They couldn't afford to be used the radio again, and this time

132 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION it was Rhodian ships that came for had heard the name some time me. I told my story to the Tyran- back, it seemed to him, but he had nian Commissioner of that day, forgotten the connection. "Why with appropriate modifications. I he?" made no mention of the 'rebellion "Lingane was the last Kingdom world,' of course. And I said the captured by the Tyranni. It is not, meteor had hit just after the last shall we say, as pacified as the rest. Jump. I didn't want them to think Doesn't that make sense?"

I knew that a Tyrannian ship could "As far as it goes. But how far make the Jumps automatically." is that?" "Do you think the 'rebellion "If you want another reason, world' found out that little fact? there is your father." Did you tell them?" "My father?" For a moment,

"I didn't tell them. I had no Biron forgot that his father was chance. I wasn't there long enough. dead. He saw him standing before

Conscious, that is. But I don't know his mind's eyes, large and alive, how long I was unconscious and but then he remembered and there what they managed to find out for was that same cold wrench inside themselves." Tiim. "How does my father come Biron stared at the visiplate. into this?" Judging from the rigidity of the "He was at court six months ago. picture it presented, the ship they I gained certain notions as to what were on might have been nailed in he wanted. Some of his talks with space. The Remorseless was travel- my cousin, Hinrik, I overheard." ing at the rate of ten thousand miles "Oh, uncle," said Artemisia, im- an hour, but that was nothing to patiently. the immense distances of space. The "My dear?" stars were hard, bright and mo- "You had no right to eavesdrop tionless. They had a hypnotic qual- on father's private discussions." ity about them. He said, "Then where are we GILLBRET shrugged. "Of going? I take it you still don't know course not, but it was amusing, where the "rebellion world' is?" and useful as well." "I don't. B.ut I have an idea who Biron interrupted, "Now wait. would be in charge. I am almost You say it was six months ago that sure I know who would be in my father was at Rhodia?" He felt charge." Gillbret was eager about excitement mount. it. "Yes." "Who?" "Tell me. While there, did he "The Autarch of Lingane." have access to the Director's collec- "Lingane?" Biron frowned. He tion of Primitivism? You told me

TYRANN 133 once that the Director had a large But Gillbret could only shake his library of matters concerning head. Earth." Biron said, "Well, continue with

"I imagine so. The library is your story." quite famous and it is usually made "They spoke of the Autarch of available to distinguished visitors, Lingane, your father and my if they're interested. They usually cousin," Gillbret said. "Despite aren't, but your father was. Yes, I your father's cautious phraseology, remember that very well. He spent Biron, it was obvious that the Au- nearly a day there." tarch was the organizer of the con-

That checked. It had been half spiracy. a year ago that his father had first "And then," he hesitated, "there asked his help. Biron said, "You was a mission from Lingane and the yourself know the library well, I Autarch himself was at its head. imagine." I—I told him of the 'rebellion " "Of course." world.' "Is there anything in the library "You said a while ago you told that would suggest that there ex-^ nobody," Biron objected. ists a document on Earth of great "Except the Autarch. I bad to military value?" know the truth." Gillbret was blank of face; ob- "What did he tell you?" viously, blank of mind. "Practically nothing. But. then, Biron said, "Somewhere in the he had to be cautious, too. Could last centuries of prehistoric Earth he trust me? I might have been there must have been such a docu- working for the Tyranni. How ment. I can only tell you that my could he know ? But he didn't close father thought it to be the most the door altogether. It's our only valuable single item in the Galaxy, lead." and the deadliest. I was to have "Is it?" Biron said. "Then we'll gotten it for him, but I left Earth go to Lingane. One place, I sup- before I could, and in any case," his pose, is like another." voice faltered, "he died too soon." Mention of his father had de-

But Gillbret was still blank. "I pressed him, and, for the moment, don't know what you're talking nothing mattered much. Let it be about." Lingane.

"My father mentioned it to me first six months ago. He must have LET it be Lingane! That was learned of it in the library on easy to say. But how does one Rhodia. If you've been through it go about pointing the ship at a tiny yourself, can't you tell me what it speck of light thirty-five light years was he must have learned?" away? Two hundred trillion miles.

134 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION A two with seventeen zeroes after tion of the ship's own position. One

it. At ten thousand miles an hour, could calculate the distance from (current cruising speed of the Re- Rhodia by the reading of the mass- morseless) it would take well over ometer, or, more correctly, the two million years to get there. distance from Rhodia's sun, since Biron leafed through the "Stand- this far out in space the sun's gravi- ard Galactic Ephemeris" with tational field drowned out that of

something like despair. Tens of any of its planets. The direction thousands of stars were listed in they were traveling along with ref- detail, with their positions crammed erence to the Galactic Baseline was into three figures. There were hun- more difficult to determine. Biron dreds, of pages of these figures, had to locate two known stars other symbolized by the Greek letters than Rhodia's sun. From their ap- rho, theta, and phi. parent positions and the known dis- Rho was the distance from the tance from Rhodia's sun, he could Galactic Center in parsecs; theta, plot their actual position. the angular separation, along the It was roughly done, but, he felt plane of the Galactic Lens from the sure, accurately enough. Knowing Standard Galactic Baseline (the his own position and that of Lin-

line, that is, which connects the gane's sun, It was only a matter of Galactic Center and the sun of the adjusting the controls for the planet Earth); phi, the angular proper direction and strength of the separation from the Baseline in the hyperatomic thrust. plane perpendicular to that of the Biron felt lonely and tense. Not Galactic Lens, the two latter meas- frightened. He rejected the word. urements being expressed in rad- But tense, definitely. He was de- ians. Given those three figures, one liberately calculating the elements could locate any star accurately in of the Jump for six hours later. He all the vast immensity of space. wanted plenty of time to check his figures. And perhaps there might THAT is, on a given date. In ad- be the chance for a nap. He had dition to the star's position on dragged the bedding out of the

the day for which all the data cabin and it was ready for him. were calculated, one had to know The other two were, presumably, the star's proper motion, both sleeping in the cabin. He told him- speed and direction. It was a small self that that was a good thing and correction, comparatively, but nec- that he wanted nobody around both-

essary. A million miles is virtually ering him, yet when he heard the nothing compared with stellar dis- small sound of bare feet outside, he tances, but a long way with a ship. looked up with involuntary eager- There was, of course, the ques- ness.

TYRANN 135 "Hello," he said. "Why aren't He wanted to say no, not at all, you sleeping?" but it didn't come out that way. He Artemisia stood in the doorway, smiled sheepishly and said, "Sort hesitating. She said, in a small of." voice, "Do you mind if I come in? Oddly enough, that comforted Will I be bothering you?" her. She knelt down on the floor "It depends on what you do." beside him, and looked at the thick "I'll try to do the right things." volumes opened before him and at She seemed too humble, Biron the sheets of calculations. thought suspiciously, and then the "They had all these books here?" reason for it came out. "You bet. They couldn't pilot a "I'm awfully frightened," she ship without them." said. "Aren't you?" "And you understand all that?"

136 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "Not all that. I wish I did. I "But what would happen if you hope I understand enough. We'll were wrong?" have to Jump to Lingane, you "We could re-enter space too know." close to Lingane's sun." "Is that hard to do?" She considered that, then said, "No, not if you know the fig- "You have no idea how much better ures, which are all here, and have I feel." the controls which are all there, and "After what I've just said?" if you have experience, which I "Of course. In my bunk, I simply haven't. For instance, it should be felt helpless and lost, with so much done in several Jumps, but I'm go- emptiness in all directions. Now I ing to try it in one because there'll know that we're going somewhere be less chance of trouble, even and that the emptiness is under our though it means a waste of energy." control."

He shouldn't tell her; there was "I don't know about its being no point in telling her; it would be. under our control," Biron said cowardly to frighten her; and she'd doubtfully. be hard to handle if she got really She stopped him. "It is. I know frightened, panicky frightened. He you can handle the ship." kept telling himself all that and it And Biron decided that maybe did no good. He wanted to share it he "might at that. with somebody. He wanted part of it off his own mind. ARTEMISIA had tucked her He said, "There are some things legs under her and sat facing

I should know that I don't. Things him. She said, "You know, I had like the mass-density between here an awfully queer sensation in the and Lingane affect the course of bunk, almost as if I were floating. » the Jump, because that mass density That was one of the things that is what controls the curvature of frightened me. Every time I'd turn, this part of the universe. The I'd give a queer little jump into the 'Ephemeris'—that's this big book air and then flop back slowly as if here—mentions the curvature cor- there were springs in the air hold- rections that must be made in cer- ing me back." tain standard Jumps and from that "You were sleeping in a top you're supposed to be able to cal- bunk?" culate out your own particular cor- "Yes. The bottom ones give me rections. But then if you happen to claustrophobia, with another mat- have a super-giant star within ten tress only six inches over my light years, all bets are off. I'm not head." even sure if I used the computer Biron laughed. "Then that ex- correctly." plains it. The ship's gravitational

TYRANN 137 force is directed toward its base, The silence had lasted a little too and falls off as you move away from long. He said, hurriedly, "You it. In the top bunk, you were prob- don't travel very much, do you? I ably twenty or thirty pounds lighter mean, you were on a liner only than on the floor. Were you ever once?" on a passenger liner? A really big one?" SHE nodded. "Once too often. "Once. When father and I visit- If we hadn't gone to Tyrann, ed Tyrann last year." that filthy chamberlain wouldn't

"Well, on the liners they have have seen me and— I don't want to the gravitation in all parts of the talk about that." ship directed toward the outer hull, Biron let it go. He said, "Is that so that the long axis of the ship is usual? I mean, not traveling?" always 'up,' no matter where you "I'm afraid so. Father is always are. That's why the motors of one hopping around on state visits, of those big ships are always lined opening agricultural expositions, up in a cylinder running right along dedicating buildings. He usually the long axis. No gravity there." just makes some speech that Ara- "It must take an awful lot of tap writes for him. As for the rest power to keep an artificial gravity of us, however, the more we stay going." in the palace, the better the Tyranni

"Enough to power a small like it. Poor Gillbret! The one and town." only time he left Rhodia was to "There isn't any danger of our attend the Khan's coronation as running short of fuel, is there?" father's representative. They've "Don't worry about that. Ships never let him get into a ship again." are fueled by the total conversion Her eyes were downcast and, of mass to energy. Fuel is the last absently, she pleated the material thing we'll run out of. The outer of Biron's sleeve where it ended at hull will wear away first." the wrist. She said, "Biron." She was facing him. (He noted "Yes—Arta?" He stumbled a that her face had been cleaned of bit, but it came out. its makeup and wondered how that "Do you think Uncle Gil's story had been done; probably with a can be true?" handkerchief and as little of the "I don't know." drinking water as she could man- "Do you suppose it could be his age. She didn't suffer as a result, imagination? He's been brooding for her clear white skin was the about the Tyranni for years, and more startlingly perfect against the he's never been able to do any- black of her hair and eyes. Her eyes thing, of course, except to rig up were very warm, thought Biron. spy beams, which is only childish,

138 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION and he knows it. He may have built pass out the door. "The food con- himself a daydream and, over the centrate tastes very nice after you years, gradually come to believe in get used to it. Thank you for get- it. I know him, you see." ting it." "It's possible, but let's follow it Somehow that, rather than the up a little. We can travel to Lin- kisses, was the treaty of peace be- gane, anyway." tween them. They were closer to one another. He could have reached out and WHEN Gillbret entered the touched her, held her in his arms, control room, hours later, he kissed her. showed no surprise at finding Biron And he did so. and Artemisia lost in a foolish kind It was a complete non sequitur. of conversation. He made no re-

Nothing, it seemed to Biron, had marks about the fact that Biron's led to it. One moment they were arm was about his niece's waist. discussing Jumps and gravity and He asked, "When are we Jump- Gillbret, and the next she was soft ing, Biron?" and silky in his arms and soft and "In half an hour," said Biron. silky on his lips. The half-hour passed; the con- His first impulse was to say he trols were set; conversation lan- was sorry, to go through all the guished and died. silly motions of apology, but when At zero time, Biron drew a deep he drew away, and would have breath and yanked a lever the full spoken, she still made no attempt length of its arc, from left to right. at escape but rested her head in the It was not as it had been aboard crook of his left arm. Her eyes re- the liner. The Remorseless was mained closed. smaller and the Jump was conse- So he said nothing at all and quently less smooth. Biron stag- kissed her again, slowly and thor- gered and for a split-second things oughly. wavered. It was the best thing he could And then they were smooth and have done, and at the time he knew solid again. it. ' . The stars in the visiplate had Finally, she said, a bit dreamily, changed. Biron rotated the ship so "Aren't you hungry? I'll bring you that the star-field lifted, each star some of the concentrate and warm moving in a stately arc. One star

it for you. Then, if you want to appeared finally, brilliantly white sleep, I can keep an eye on things and more than a point. It was a for you. And—and I'd better put tiny sphere, a burning speck of

on more of my clothes." sand. Biron caught it, steadied the

She turned as she was about to ship before it was lost again, and

TYRANN 139 turned the telescope upon it, recess that narrowed gently toward throwing in the spectroscopic at- it. It was extremely clear, immense- ly thick and precisely curved, tachment. , not He turned again to the "Ephe- so much a window as a lens, funnel- meris," and checked under the col- ing the light inward from all di- umn headed "Spectral Characteris- rections, so that, looking outward, tics." Then he got out of the pilot's one eyed a miniature panorama. chair and said, "It's still too far. When the position of the sun

I'll have to nudge up to it. But made the lenslike windows a focus anyway, that's Lingane right for impossible heat and light, they ahead." were blanked out automatically, It was the first Jump he had ever rather than opened; rendered made, and it was successful. opaque by a shift in the polariza- tion characteristics of the glass. CHAPTER XII And certainly the theory that a planet's architecture is the reflec- The Autarch Comes tion of a planet's place in the Gal- axy would seem to be borne out THE Autarch of Lingane pon- by Lingane and its windows. dered the matter, but his cool, Like the windows, Lingane was well-trained features scarcely creased small, yet commanded a panoramic under the strain of thought. view. It was a "planet-state" in a "And you waited forty-eight Galaxy, which, at the time, had hours to tell me," he accused. passed beyond that stage of eco- Rizzett said boldly, "There was nomic and political development. no reason to tell you earlier. If we Where most political units were bombarded you with all matters, conglomerations of stellar systems, life would be a burden to you. We Lingane remained what it had been tell you now, because we still make for centuries; a single inhabited nothing of it. It is queer, and in world. This did not prevent it from

our position, we can afford nothing being wealthy. In fact, it was al-

queer." most inconceivable that . Lingane "Repeat this business. Let me could be anything else.

hear it again." It is difficult to tell in advance

The Autarch threw a leg upon when a world is so located that

the flaring window-sill and looked many Jump-routes may use it as a outward thoughtfully. The window pivotal intermediate point; or even

itself represented perhaps the must use it in the interests of op- greatest single oddity of Linganian timal economy. A great deal de- architecture. It was moderate in size pends on the pattern of develop- and set at the end of a five-foot ment of that region of space. There

140 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION is the question of the distribution ordinates don't matter. They've of the naturally habitable planets; been watched ever since. The point the order in which they are colon- is that even then, the Tyranni ized and developed; the types of cruiser was in an orbit about the economy they possess. planet."

Lingane discovered its own "As though it had no intention values early, which was the great of landing, but rather was waiting turning-point of its history. Next for something." to the actual possession of a strate- "Yes." gic position, the capacity to appre- "No way of telling how long ciate and exploit that position is they'd been waiting?" most important. Lingane had pro- - "Impossible, I'm afraid. They ceeded to occupy small planetoids were sighted by no one else. We with neither resources nor capacity checked thoroughly." for supporting an independent "Very well," said the Autarch. population, choosing them only be- "We'll abandon that for the mo- cause they would help maintain ment. They stopped the mail ship;

Lingane's trade monopoly. They which is, of course, interference built servicing stations on those with the mails and a violation of rocks. All that ships could need, our Articles of Association with from hyperatomic replacements to Tyrann." new book-reels, could be found "I doubt that they were Tyranni. there. The stations grew to huge Their unsure actions are more those trading posts. From all the Nebu- of outlaws; of prisoners in flight." lar Kingdoms, fur, minerals, grain, "You mean the men on the Ty- beef, timber poured in; from the ranni cruiser? It may be what they Inner Kingdoms, machinery, ap- want us to believe, of course. At pliances, medicinals, finished prod- any rate, their only overt action ucts of all sorts. was to ask that a message be de-

So that, like its windows, Lin- livered directly to me." gane's minuteness looked out on all "Directly to the Autarch." the Galaxy. It was a planet alone; "Nothing else?" but it did well. "Nothing else." "They at no time entered the THE Autarch said turning from mail ship?" the window, "Start with the "All communication was by visi- mail ship, Rizzett. Where did plate. The mail capsule was shot they meet this cruiser in the first across two miles of empty space place?" and caught by ship's net."

"Les« than one hundred thousand "Was it vision communication miles off Lingane. The exact co- or sound only?"

TYRANN 141 —

"Full vision. That's the point. power, had been fought to a stand-

The speaker was described by sev- still. They had not been defeated, eral as being a young man of 'aris- but they had been stopped. The tocratic bearing,' whatever that shock, even of that, had been per- means." manent. Not a planet had been con- quered by the Tyranni since the THE Autarch's fist clenched year they had attacked Lingane. slowly. "And no photo-impres- Other planets of the Nebular sion was taken of the face? That Kingdoms were outright vassals of was a mistake." the Tyranni. Lingane, however, "Unfortunately there was no was an Associated State, theoretic- reason -for the mail captain to have ally the equal "Ally" of Tyrann, anticipated the importance of doing with its rights guarded by the Arti- so. If any importance exists. Does cles of Association. all this mean anything to you, sir?" The Autarch was not fooled by The Autarch did not answer the the situation. The chauvinistic of question. "And this is the mes- the planet might allow themselves sage?" the luxury of considering them- "Exactly. A .tremendous message selves free, but the Autarch knew of one word that we were supposed that the Tyranni danger had been to bring directly to you; a thing held at arm's-length this past gen- we did not do, of course. It might eration. Only that far. No farther. have been a fission capsule, for in- And now it might be moving in stance. Men have been killed that quickly for the final, long-delayed way before." bear hug. Certainly, he had given "Yes, and Autarchs too," said it the opportunity it was waiting the Autarch. "Just the word 'Gill- for. The organization he had built " bret.' One word, 'Gillbret.' up, ineffectual though it was, was The Autarch maintained his in- sufficient grounds for punitive ac- different calm, but a lack of cer- tion of any type the Tyranni might tainty was gathering and he did not care to undertake. Legally, Lingane like to experience a lack of cer- would be in the wrong. tainty. He liked nothing which Was the cruiser the first reaching made him aware of limitations. An out for the final bear hug? Autarch should have no limitations, The Autarch said, "Has a guard and on Lingane he had none that been placed on that ship?" natural law did not impose. "I said— they were watched. Two Under the Autarchy, Lingane in- of our " he smiled one-sidedly creased its wealth and strength. "freighters keep in massometer Even the Tyranni, attacking thirty range." years earlier at the height of their "What do you make of it?"

142 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "I don't know. The only Gillr And he was the Autarch, after bret I know whose name by itself all. Rizzett's face fell and he said, would mean anything is Gillbret "As you please, sir." oth Hinriad of Rhodia. Have you had dealings with him?" ABOARD the Remorseless, the The Autarch said, "I saw him on wait was proving increasingly my last visit to Rhodia." unpleasant. For two days, they "You told him nothing, of hadn't budged from their orbit. course." Gillbret watched the controls with "Of course." relentless concentration. His voice

Rizzett's eyes narrowed. "I had an edge to it.' thought there might have been a "Wouldn't you say they were certain lack of caution on your part; moving?" that the Tyranni had been the recip- Biron looked up briefly. He was ients of an equal lack of caution on shaving, and handling the Tyranni the part of this Gillbret—the Hin- erosive-spray with finicky care. riads are notable weaklings these "No," he said, "they're not mov- days—and that this now was a de- ing. Why should they? They're vice to trap you into final self- watching us, and they'll keep on betrayal." watching us."

"I doubt it. It comes at a queer He concentrated upon the diffi- time, this business. I have been cult area of the upper lip, frown- away from Lingane for a year or ing impatiently as he felt the more. I arrived last week and I slightly sour taste of the spray shall leave in a matter of days upon his tongue. A Tyrannian again. A message such as this could handle the spray with a grace reaches me just when I am in a po- that was almost poetic. It was un- sition to be reached." doubtedly the quickest and closest

"You don't think it is a coinci- non-permanent shaving method in dence?" existence, in the hands of an expert.

"I don't believe in coincidence. In essence, it was an extremely fine And there is one way in which all air-blown abrasive that scoured off this would not be coincidence. I the hairs without harming the skin. will therefore visit that ship. Certainly the skin felt nothing more Alone." than the gentle pressure of what "Impossible, sir." Rizzett was might have been an air-stream. startled. He had a small, uneven Biron was surveying his face in scar just above his right temple and the mirror, wondering how he it showed suddenly red. would look in sideburns down to "You forbid me?" asked the Au- the angle of the jaw, when Arte- tarch, drily. misia said from the doorway, "I

TYRANN 143 thought you were .going to sleep." As near as I can tell, it's 5,000 miles

"I did," he said. "Then I woke off, about 46 degrees rho and up." 192 degrees from the ship-planet

He looked at her and smiled. line, "if I've got the clockwise She patted his cheek, then and counterclockwise conventions stroked it gently with her fingers, straight. If I haven't, the figures "It's smooth. You look about eigh- are, respectively, 314 and 168 de- teen." grees." He carried her hand to his lips. He paused to take another read- "Don't let that fool you." ing. "I think they're approaching. It's a small ship. Do you think you HE said, "They're still watch- can get in touch with them, Gill- s ing?" bret?" "Still watching. Isn't it annoy- "I can try." ing? These damned dull interludes "All right. No vision. Let's that give you time to sit and leave it at sound, till we get some worry." notion of what's coming."

"I don't find this interlude at all It was amazing to watch Gillbret dull." at the controls of the etheric radio. "You're talking about other as- He was obviously the possessor of pects of it now, Arta." a native talent. Contacting an iso- She said, "Why don't we cross lated point in space with a tight them up and land on Lingane?" radio-beam remains, after all, a task

"We've thought of it. I don't in which the ship's control panel think we're ready for that kind of information can participate only risk. We can afford to wait till the slightly. He had a notion of the water-supply gets a bit lower." distance of the ship which might be Gillbret said loudly, "I tell you off by a hundred miles plus-or- they are moving." minus. He had two angles, either Biron crossed over to the control or both of which might easily be panel and considered the massome- wrong by five or six degrees in any ter readings. direction. He looked at Gillbret and said, This left a volume of about ten "You may be right." million cubic miles within which He pecked away at the calculator the ship might be. The rest was for a moment or two and stared at left to the human operator, and a

its dials. radio beam which was a probing "No, the two ships haven't finger not half a mile in cross-sec-

moved relative to us, Gillbret. tion at the widest point of its re-

What's changed the massometer is ceivable range. It was said that a that a third ship has Joined them. skilled operator could tell by the

144 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION feel of the controls how closely the telescope, Gillbret had shouted in beam missed the target. Scientific- delight, "That's the Autarch's ally, that theory is nonsense, of yacht," and his face wrinkled into course, but it often seemed that no a grin. "It's his private yacht. I'm other explanation was possible. sure of it. I told you that the bare In less than ten minutes, the ac- mention of my name was the surest tivity gauge of the radio was jump- way to get his attention." ing and the Remorseless was both There was the period of decelera- sending and receiving. tion and adjustment of velocity on In another ten minutes, Biron the part of the Linganian ship, un- could lean back and say, "They're til it hung motionless in the 'plate. going to send a man aboard." A thin voice came from the re- "Ought we to let them?" asked ceiver: "Ready for boarding?" Artemisia. "Ready!" said Biron. "One per- "Why not? One man? We're son only." armed." "One person," came the re- "But if we let their ship get too sponse. close?" It was like a snake uncoiling, the "We're a Tyrannian cruiser, Arta. metal-mesh rope looping outward We've got three to five times their from the Linganian ship, shooting power, even if they are the best war- at them harpoon-fashion. Its thick- ship Lingane had. They're not al- ness expanded in the visiplate and lowed too much by their precious the magnetized cylinder that ended

Articles of Association, and we've it approached and grew in size. As got five high-caliber blasters." it grew closer, it edged toward rim Artemisia said, "Do you know of the cone of vision, then veered how to use the Tyranni blasters? I off completely. didn't know you did." The sound of its contact was Biron hated to turn the admira- hollow and reverberant. The mag- tion off, but he said, "Unfortunate- netized weight was anchored, and ly, I don't. At least, not yet. But the line was a spider-thread that did then the Linganian ship won't not sag in a normal weighted curve know that, you see." but retained whatever kinks and

loops it had possessed at the mo- HALF an hour later, the visi- ment of contact. These moved plate showed a visible ship. slowly forward as units under the

It was a stubby little craft, fitted influence of inertia. with two sets of four fins as though Easily and carefully, the Lingan- it were frequently called upon to ian ship edged away and the line double for stratospheric flight. straightened. It hung there then,

At its first appearance in the taut and fine, thinning into space

TYRANN 145 until it was an almost invisible the initial impulse of the snapping thing, glittering with incredible line—with nothing, neither friction daintiness in the light of Lingane's nor obstruction, to stop him this sun. side of eternity. Biron threw in the telescopic at- The approaching Linganian tachment, which bloated the ship moved on confidently and quickly.

monstrously in the field of vision, When he came closer it was easy

so that one could see the origin of to see that it was not a simple hand the half-mile length of connecting over hand procedure. Each time the

line, and the little figure that was forward hand flexed, pulling him beginning to swing hand over hand on, he would let go and float on-

along it. ward some dozen feet before his It was not the usual form of other hand reached forward for a boarding. Ordinarily, two ships new hold. would maneuver to near-contact, so It was a brachiation through that extensible airlocks could meet space. The spaceman was a gleam- and merge under intense magnetic ing metal gibbon. fields. A tunnel through space would thus connect the ships and ARTEMISIA asked, "'What if a man could travel from one to the he misses?" other with no further protection "He looks too expert to do that," than he needed to wear aboard ship. said Biron, "but if he does, he'd Naturally, this form of boarding still shine in the sun. We'd pick required mutual trust. him up again." By space-line, one was dependent The Linganian was close now. upon his spacesuit. The approaching He had passed out of the field of Linganian was bloated in his; a fat the visiplate. In another five sec- thing of air-extended metal mesh, onds, there was the clatter of gaunt- the joints of which required no leted feet on the ship's hull.

. small muscular effort to work. Even Biron yanked the lever that lit at the distance at which he was, the signals which outlined the ship's Biron could see his arms flex with airlock. A moment later, in answer a snap as the joint gave and came to an imperative series of raps, the to rest in a new groove. outer door was opened. There was And the mutual velocities of the a thump just beyond a blank sec- two ships had to be carefully ad- tion of the pilot room's wall. The justed. An inadvertent acceleration outer door closed; the section of on the part of either would tear the wall slid away; and a man stepped line loose and send the traveler through. tumbling through space under the His suit frosted over instantly, easy grip of the faraway sun and of blanking the thick glass of his hel-

146 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

met and turning him into a mound did not expect to see you quite so of white. The air grew cold. Biron soon, Farrill," he said. elevated the heaters and the renew- "Or at all, perhaps?" asked ing gush that entered was warm Biron, acidly. and dry. For a moment, the frost "One never knows," agreed the on the suit held its own, then be- Autarch. "Of course, with a mes- gan to thin and dissolve into a dew. sage that read only 'Gillbret;' with The Linganian's blunt metal fin- the knowledge that Gillbret could gers were fumbling at the clasps of not pilot a spaceship; with the fur- the helmet as though he were im- ther knowledge that I had myself patient with his snowy blindness: sent a young man to Rhodia who

It lifted off as a unit, the thick, soft could pilot a spaceship and who insulation inside rumpling his hair was quite capable of stealing a Ty- as it passed. rannian cruiser in his desperation Gillbret exclaimed, "Your Excel- to escape; and with the final knowl- lency!" In glad triumph, he said, edge that one of the men on the

"Biron, it is the Autarch himself." cruiser was' reported to be young But Biron, in a voice that strug- and of aristocratic bearing; the con- gled vainly against stupefaction, clusion was obvious. I am not sur- could only gasp, "Jonti!" prised to see you." "I think you are," said Biron. "I CHAPTER XIII think you're as surprised as hell to see me. As an assassin, you should The Autarch Remains be. Do you think I am worse at de- duction than you are?" THE Autarch gently toed the suit "I think very highly of you." to one side and appropriated The Autarch was completely un- the larger of the padded chairs. perturbed, and Biron felt awkward He said, "I haven't had that sort and stupid in his resentment. He of exercise in quite a while. But turned furiously to the others. they say it never leaves you once "This man is Sander Jonti; the you've learned, and, apparently, it Sander Jonti I've told you of. He hasn't in my case. Hello, Farrill. may be the Autarch of Lingane be- My lord Gillbret, good day. And sides, or fifty Autarchs. It makes this, if I remember, is the Direc- no difference. To me he is Sander tor's daughter, the lady Artemisia." Jonti." He placed a long cigaret care- Artemisia— said, "He is the man fully between his lips and brought who it to life with a single intake of Gillbret put a thin and shaking breath. The scented tobacco filled hand to his brow. "Control your- the air with its pleasant odor. "I self, Biron. Are you mad?"

TYRANN 147 "This is the man! I am not not miss it? Who blasted my door mad!" shouted Biron. He checked in so that I might leave the room himself with an effort. "All right. before I found out that the bomb

There's no point yelling, I suppose. was only a dud after all ? You must Get off my ship, Jonti. That's said have enjoyed yourself that night, quietly enough. Get off my ship." Jonti." "My dear Farrill, for what Biron waited for effect, but the reason?" Autarch merely nodded in polite Gillbret made incoherent sounds interest. Biron felt the fury mount. in his throat, but Biron pushed him It was like punching pillows, whip- aside roughly and faced the seated ping water, kicking air. Autarch. "You made one mistake, Jonti. Just one. You couldn't tell HE SAID harshly, "My father in advance that when I got out of was to be executed. I would my dormitory room back on Earth, have learned of it soon enough. I

I would leave my wristwatch inside. would have gone to Nephelos, or You see, my wristwatch strap hap- not gone. I would have followed pened to be a radiation indicator." my own good sense in the matter, The Autarch blew a smoke ring confronted the Tyranni openly or and smiled pleasantly. not as I decided. I would have Biron said, "And that strap known my chances. I would have never turned blue, Jonti. There was been prepared for eventualities. no radiation bomb in my room that "But you wanted me to go to • night. There was only a deliberate- Rhodia; to see Hinrik. But, ordi- ly planted dud ! If you deny it, you narily, you couldn't expect me to are a liar, Jonti, or Autarch, or do what you wanted. I wasn't like- whatever you call yourself. ly to go to you for advice. Unless, "What is more, you planted that that is, you. could stage an approp- dud. You knocked me out with riate situation. You did!

Hypnite and arranged the rest of "I thought I was being bombed that night's comedy. It makes quite and I could think of no reason. obvious sense, you know. If I had You could. You seemed to have been left to myself, I would have saved my life. You seemed to know slept through the night, and would everything; what I ought to do never have known that anything next, for instance. I was off-bal- was out of the way. So who rang ance, confused. I followed your ad- me on the visiphone until he was vice." sure I had awakened—awakened, Biron ran out of breath and that is, to discover the bomb, which waited for an answer. There was had been deliberately placed near none. He shouted, "You didn't ex- a radiation counter so that I could plain that the ship on which I left

148 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

Earth was a Rhodian ship and that need you if the Tyranni home fleet you had seen to it that the captain were closing in right now and you had been informed of my true iden- could blast them out of space for tity. You didn't explain that you me." intended me to be in the hands of "Farrill," said Jonti, "you are the Tyranni the instant I landed on talking and acting like an adoles- Rhodia. Do you deny that?" cent. I've let you have your say. There was a long pause. Jonti May I have mine?" stubbed out his cigaret. "No, I see no reason to listen." Gillbret chafed one hand in the "Do you see one now?" other. "Biron, you are being—ridicu- Artemisia screamed. Biron made lous. The Autarch wouldn't one movement, then stopped. Red Then Jonti looked up and said with frustration, he remained poised quietly, "But the Autarch would. and helpless.

I admit it all. You are quite right, Jonti said, "I do take certain

Biron, and I congratulate you on precautions. I am sorry to be so your penetration. The bomb was crude as to use a weapon as a a dud planted by myself and I sent threat. But I imagine it will help you to Rhodia with the intention of me force you to hear me." having you arrested by the Ty- The weapon he held was a pock- ranni." et-blaster. It was not designed to Biron's face cleared. Some of the pain or stun. It was the lethal futility of anger vanished. He said, model.

"Some day, Jonti, I will settle that matter. At the moment, it seems you JONTI said, "For years, I have are Autarch of Lingane with three been organizing Lingane ships waiting for you out there. against the Tyranni. Do you know That hampers me a bit more than I what that means? It has not been would like. However, the Remorse- easy. It has been almost impossible.

less is my ship. I am its pilot. Put The Inner Kingdoms will offer no on your suit and get out. The space- help; we've known that from long

line,is still in place." experience. There is no salvation

"It is not your ship. You are a for the Nebular Kingdoms, except pirate, not a pilot." from themselves. But to convince

"Possession is all the law here. our native leaders of this is no You have five minutes to get into friendly game. Your father was ac- your suit." tive in the matter and was killed. "Let's avoid dramatics. We need Not a friendly game at all. Re- one another and I have no intention member that. of leaving." "And your father's capture was a "I don't need you. I wouldn't crisis to us. It was life and horrible

TYRANN 149 "

death to us. He was in our inner circles and the Tyranni were ob- viously not far behind us. They had to be thrown off-stride. To do so, I could scarcely temper my deal- ings with honor and integrity. They fry no eggs. "I couldn't come to you and say, 'Farrill, we've got to put the Ty- ranni on a false scent. You're the son of the Rancher and therefore suspicious. Get out there and be friendly with Hinrik of Rhodia so that the Tyranni may look in the wrong direction. Lead them away from Lingane. It may be danger- ous; you may lose your life, but the ideals for which your father died come first.' "Maybe you would have done it, but I couldn't afford to experi- ment. I maneuvered you into doing it without your knowledge. It was hard; I'll grant you. Still, I had no choice. I thought you might not survive; I tell you that frankly. But you were expendable; and I tell you that frankly. As it turned out, "But then, with your father you did survive, and I am pleased arrested, you 'became dangerous. with that. You would be an object of prime "And there was one —more thing, suspicion to the Tyranni; and we a matter of a document could not allow the document to

Biron said, "What document?" fall into your possession, since it "You jump quickly. I said your would then almost inevitably fall father was working for me, so I into theirs. We had to get you off know what he knew. You were to Earth before you could complete obtain that document and you were your mission. You see, it all hangs a good choice, at first. You were together." on Earth legitimately. You were "Then you have it now?" asked young and not likely to be suspect- Biron. ed. I say, at first! The Autarch said, "No, I have

150 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION not. A document which might have But the smile had little of real been the right one has been miss- amusement in it. ing from Earth for years. If it is "Are you through with your ex- the right one, I don't know who planation now?" has it. May I put away the blaster "Quite through." now? It grows heavy." "Then," said Biron, "get off the ship." BIRON said, "Put it away." Gillbret said, "Now wait, Biron. The Autarch did so. He There's more than private anger to said, "What has your father told be considered here. There's Arte- you about the document?" misia and myself, too, you know. "Nothing that you don't know, We have something to say. 'As far since he worked for you." as I'm concerned, what the Autarch The Autarch smiled. "Quite so!" says makes sense. I'll remind you

TYRANN 151 that on Rhodia I saved your life, feel the stinging of self-pity inside so I think my views are to be con- himself. sidered." The Autarch said, "Well, Far- "All right. You.saved my life," rill?" shouted Biron. He pointed a finger And Gillbret said, "Well, ?" towards the airlock. "Go with him, Biron then. Go on. You get out of here, Biron turned to Artemisia. too. You wanted to find the Au- "What do you think?" tarch. There he is ! I agreed to pilot you to him and my responsibility ARTEMISIA said, calmly, "I is over. Don't try to tell me what think he has three ships out to do." there, and is Autarch of Lingane, He turned to Artemisia, some of besides. I don't think you really his anger still brimming over. "And have a choice." what about you ? You saved my life, The Autarch looked at her, and too. Everyone went around saving he nodded his admiration. "You my life. Do you want to go with are an intelligent girl, my Lady. It him, too?" is good that such a mind should She said, quietly, "Don't put be in such a pleasant exterior." For words into my mouth, Biron. If I a measurable moment, his eyes lin- wanted to go with him, I'd certainly gered. say so." Biron said, "What's the deal?" "Don't feel any obligations. You "Lend me the use of your names can leave any time." and your abilities, and I will take She looked hurt and he turned you to what my lord Gillbret called " away. As usual, some cooler part of the 'Rebellion World.' himself knew that he was acting Biron said, sourly, "You think childishly. He had been made to there is' one?" look foolish by Jonti and he was And Gillbret said, simultaneous- helpless in the face of the resent- ly, "Then it is yours." ment he felt. And besides, why The Autarch smiled. "I think should they all take so calmly the there is a world such as my lord thesis that it was perfectly right to described, but it is not minei" have Biron Farrill thrown to the "It's not yours?" exclaimed Gill- Tyranni, like a bone to the dogs, in bret, stunned. order to keep them off Jonti's neck ? "Does that matter; if I can find

Damn it, what did they think he it?" was? "How?" demanded Biron.

He thought of the dud bomb, The Autarch said, "It is not as the Rhodian liner, the Tyranni, the difficult as you might think. If we wild night on Rhodia, and he could accept the story as it has been told

152 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION us, we must believe that there ex- "Why there?" said Biron. "It is

ists a world in rebellion against the a matter of little importance, but I Tyranni. We must believe that it is met you there and I am curious."

located somewhere in the Nebular "There's no mystery to it. I left

Sector and that, in twenty years, it Lingane originally on my own busi-

has remained undiscovered by the ness. The exact nature is of no im-

Tyranni. If such a situation is to portance.. About six months ago, I

remain possible, there is only one visited Rhodia. My agent, Wide- place in the Sector where such a mos—your father, Biron—had been planet can exist." unsuccessful in his negotiations

"And where is that?" with the Director, whom we had "You do not find the solution hoped to swing to our side. I tried

obvious? Doesn't it seem inevitable to improve matters and failed, since that the world could exist only Hinrik, with apologies to the lady,

within the Nebula itself?" is not the type of material for our "Inside the Nebula!" sort of work." Gillbret said, "Great Galaxy, of

, course!" "TTEAR, hear," said Biron. And at the moment, the solution -LJ. The Autarch continued,

did indeed seem obvious and ines- "But I did meet Gillbret, as he may capable. have told you. So I went to Earth,

Artemisia asked, timidly, "Can because Earth is the original home people live on worlds inside the of humanity. It was from Earth that Nebula?" most of the original explorations

"Why not?" said the Autarch. of the Galaxy set out. It is upon "Don't mistake the Nebula. It is a Earth that most of the records ex-

dark mist in space, but it is not a ist. The Horsehead Nebula was ex-

poison gas. It is an incredibly at- plored quite thoroughly; at least, it tenuated mass of sodium, potas- was passed through a number of

sium, and calcium atoms that times. It was never settled, since absorb and obscure the light of the the difficulties of traveling through

stars within it, and, of course, those a volume of space where stellar ob- on the side directly opposite the servations could not be made were

observer. Otherwise, it isjiarmless, too great. The explorations them- and, in the direct neighborhood of selves, however, were all I needed. a star, virtually undetectable. "Now listen carefully. The Ty- "I apologize if I seem pedantic, ranni ship upon which my lord but I have spent the last several Gillbret was marooned was struck months at the University of Earth by a meteor after its first jump. As- collecting astronomical data on the suming that the trip from Tyrann Nebula." to Rhodia was along the usual trade

TYRANN 153 route (and there is no reason to tension of the Horsehead Nebula. suppose anything else) the point Some six thousand square degrees

in space at which the ship left its of the sphere's surface, one-fourth

route is established. It would of the total surface, lie in the Ne- scarcely have traveled more than bula. It remains, therefore, only to half a million miles in ordinary find a star lying within the Nebula space between the first two Jumps. and within one million miles or so We can consider such a length as of the imaginary surface we are dis- a point in space. cussing. You will remember that

"It is possible to make another when Gillbret's ship came to rest, assumption. In damaging the con- it was within reach of a star.

trol panels, it was quite possible "Now how many stars within the that the meteor might have altered Nebula do you suppose we can find the direction of the Jumps, since that close to the sphere's surface? that woidd require only an inter- Remember there are one hundred ference with the motion of the billion radiating stars in the Gal- ship's gyroscope. This would be axy." difficult, but not impossible. To change the power of the hyper- BIRON found himself absorbed atomic thrusts, however, would re- in the matter against his will. quire complete smashing of the "Hundreds, I suppose." engines, which, of course, were not "Five!" replied the Autarch. touched by the meteor. "Just five. Don't be fooled by the "With unchanged power of one hundred billion figure. The gal- thrust, the length of the four re- axy is about seven trillion cubic maining Jumps would not be light years in volume, so that there changed, nor, for that matter, are seventy cubic light years per would their relative directions. It star on the average. It is a pity that would be analogous to having a I do not know which of those five long, crooked wire bent at a single have habitable planets; we might point in an unknown direction reduce the number of possibles to through an unknown angle. The one. Unfortunately, the early ex- final position of the ship would lie plorers had no time for detailed somewhere on the surface of an observations. They plotted the po- imaginary sphere, the center of sitions of the stars, the proper mo- which would be that point in space tions, and the spectral types." where the meteor struck, and the "So that on one of those five radius of which would be the vec- stellar systems," said Biron, "is lo- " tor sum of the remaining Jumps. cated the 'rebellion world?'

"I plotted such a sphere, and "Only that conclusion would fit that surface intersects a thick ex- the facts we know."

154 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION "

"Assuming Gil's story can be "It is a Tyrannian warship. We accepted." would be wrong in abandoning it."

"I make that assumption." "As a Tyrannian warship, it "My story is true," interrupte4 would be dangerously conspicuous." Gillbret intensely. "I swear it." "Not in the Nebula. I'm sorry, "I am about to leave," said the Jonti. I'm joining you out of ex- Autarch, "to investigate each of the pediency. I can be frank, too. I five worlds. My motives in doing want to find the 'rebellion world.' so are obvious. As Autarch of Lin- But there's no friendship between gane 1 can take an equal part in us. I stay at my own controls." their efforts." "Biron," said Artemisia, gently, "And with two Hinriads and a "the ship is too small for three."

Widemos on your side, your bid "As it stands, yes, Arta. But it for an equal part, and, presumably, can be fitted with a trailer. Jonti a strong and secure position in the knows that as well as I do. We'd new, free worlds to come, would have all the space we needed, then, be so much the better," said Biron. and still be masters at our own con-

"Your cynicism doesn't disturb trols. And it would effectively dis- me, Farrill. The answer is obvious- guise the nature of the ship." ly yes. If there is to be a successful The Autarch considered. "If rebellion, it would, again obviously, there is to be neither friendship nor be desirable to have your fist on trust, Farrill, I must protect my- the winning side." self. You may have your own ship "Otherwise some successful pri- and a trailer to boot, outfitted as vateer or rebel captain might be you may wish. But I must have rewarded with the Autarchy of Lin- some guarantee for your proper be- gane." havior. The lady Artemisia, at least, "Or the Ranchy of Widemos." must come with me."

"And if the rebellion is not suc- "No/" said Biron. cessful?" The Autarch lifted his eyebrows. "There will be time to judge "No? Let the lady speak." He when we find what we look for." turned toward Artemisia, and his nostrils flared slightly. "I dare say IRON said slowly, "I'll go with you would find the situation very B you. comfortable, my Lady."

"Good ! Then suppose we make "You, at least, would not find arrangements for your transfer it comfortable, my Lord. Be as- from this ship." sured of that," she retorted. "I shall "Why that?" remain here." "It would be better for you. This "I think you might reconsider ship is a toy." if—

TYRANN 155 "I think not," interrupted Biron. bret had folded into the pilot's seat, "The lady Artemisia has made her his face screwed up as though he choice." were going to burst into tears. The "And you back her choice?" limp straps of the pilot's stress- "Entirely. All three of us will absorbing outfit dangled about him remain on the Remorseless. There and increased the lugubrious effect. will be no compromise on that." Biron, paper-white, fists clenched, "You choose your company faced the Autarch. Artemisia, her oddly." thin nostrils flaring, kept her eyes "Do I?" not on the Autarch, but on Biron. "I think so." The Autarch The radio signaled, the soft click- seemed idly absorbed in his finger- ings crashing with the effect of cym- nails. "You seem so annoyed with bals in the small pilot room. me because I deceived you and Gillbret jerked upright, then placed your life in danger. It is whirled on the seat. strange then, is it not, that you The Autarch said lazily, "I'm should seem on such friendly terms afraid we've been more talkative with the daughter of a man such as than I'd anticipated. I told Rizzett

Hinrik, who in deception is certain- to come get me if I had not re- ly my master." turned in an hour." "I know Hinrik. Your opinions The visual screen was alive now of him change nothing." with Rizzett's grizzled head. "You know everything about Gillbret said to the Autarch, "He Hinrik?" would like to speak to you." He "I know enough." made room. "Do you know that he killed The Autarch rose from his chair your father?" The Autarch's finger and advanced so that his own head stabbed toward Artemisia. "Do you was within the zone of visual trans- know that the girl you are so deep- mission. ly concerned to keep under your He said, "I am perfectly safe, protection is the daughter of your Rizzett." father's murderer?" The other's question was heard clearly. "Who are the crew mem- CHAPTER XIV bers on the cruiser, sir?" And Biron stood next to the Au- The Autarch Leaves tarch, suddenly. "I am Rancher of Widemos," he said, proudly. THE tableau remained unbroken Rizzett smiled gladly and broad- for a moment. The Autarch lit ly. A hand appeared on the screen another cigaret. He was quite re- in sharp salute. "Greetings, sir." laxed, his face untroubled. Gill- The Autarch interrupted, "I will

156 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION be returning soon with a young your own inferences. First, the lady. Prepare to maneuver for con- Rancher of Widemos visited Hin- tact airlocks." iHe broke the visual rik six months ago. I've said that connection between the two ships. already. I can add here that he was He turned to Biron. "I assured somewhat over-enthusiastic in his them it was you on board ship. efforts, or perhaps he overestimated There was some objection to my Hinrik's discretion. At any rate, he coming here alone otherwise. Your talked more than he should have. father was extremely popular with My lord Gillbret can verify that." my men." Gillbret nodded miserably. He

"Which is why you can use my faced Artemisia, who had turned name." to him with moist and angry eyes.

The Autarch shrugged. "I'm sorry, Arta, but it's true. I've told you this. It was from Widemos BIRON said, "It is all you can that I heard about the Autarch." use. Your last statement to The Autarch said, "And it was your officer was inaccurate." fortunate for myself that my Lord "In what way?" had developed such long mechani- "Artemisia oth Hinriad stays cal ears with which to sate his live- with me." ly curiosity concerning the Direc-

"After what I have told you?" tor's meetings of state. I was Biron said sharply, "You have warned of the danger, quite un- told me nothing. You have made wittingly, by Gillbret when he first a bare, statement, but I am not like- approached me. I left as soon as I ly to take your unsupported word could, but the damage, of course, for anything. I tell you this with- had been done. out any attempt at tact. I hope you "Now, to our knowledge, it was understand me." Widemos's only slip, and Hinrik, "Is your knowledge of Hinrik certainly, has no enviable reputa- such that my statement seems im- tion as a man of any great inde- plausible to you?" pendence and courage. Your father, Biron was staggered. Visibly and Farrill, was arrested within half a apparently, the remark had struck year. If not through Hinrik, home. He made no answer. then how?"

Artemisia said, "I say it's not so. "In our business, we take our Do you have proof?" chances, Farrill, but he was warned. "No direct proof, of course. I After that, he made no contact, was not present at any conferences however indirect, with any of us, between your father and the Ty- and destroyed whatever proof of

ranni. But I can present certain' connection with us he had. Some known facts and allow you to make among us believed that he should

TYRANN 157 leave the Sector, or, at the very pany you and that you will give us least, go into hiding. He refused needed supplies. That is enough. to do either. Granting that all you have just said

"I think I can understand why. is true, it is still beside the point. To alter his way of life would The crimes of the Director of Rho- prove the truth of what the Ty- dia do not involve his daughter. ranni must have learned, endan- Artemisia oth Hinriad stays here gered the entire movement. He with me, provided she agrees." decided to risk his own life only. "I do," said Artemisia.

He remained in the open. "Good. I think that covers every- "For nearly half a year, the Ty- thing. I warn you, by the way. You ranni waited for a betraying ges- are armed; so am I. Your ships are ture. They are patient, the Tyranni. fighters, perhaps; mine is a Tyran- None came, so that when they nian cruiser." could wait no longer, they found "Don't be silly, Farrill. My in- nothing in their het but him." tentions are quite friendly. You "It's a lie!" cried Artemisia. "It's wish to keep the girl here? So be all a lie. It's a smug, sanctimoni- it. May I leave by contact airlock?" ous, lying story with no truth in Biron nodded. "We will trust it! If all you said were true, they you that far." would be watching you, too. You would be in danger yourself." THE two ships maneuvered "My Lady, I do not waste my closer, until the flexible airlock time. I have already tried to do extensions pouted outward toward what I could toward discrediting one another. Carefully, they edged your father as a source of informa- about, seeking the perfect fit. tion. I think I have succeeded some- The airlock extensions reached what. The Tyranni will wonder if out, hovered on the brink of insta- they ought to listen further to a bility and then, with a noiseless jar, man whose daughter and cousin the vibrations of which hummed its are obvious traitors. And then way into the pilot room, settled again, if they are still disposed to into place, clamps automatically believe him, why, I am on the point locking in position. An airtight seal of vanishing into the Nebula where had been formed. they will not find me. I should Biron drew the back of his hand think my actions tend to prove my slowly across his forehead and some story rather than otherwise." of the tension oozed out of him.

Biron drew a deep breath and "There it is," he said. . . said, "Let us consider the interview The Autarch lifted his spacesuit. at an end, Jonti. We have agreed There was still a thin film of mois- to the extent that we will accom- ture- under it.

158 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION " —

"Thanks," he said, pleasantly. no need. I know it. I won't hold "An officer of mine will be right you to anything." back. You will arrange the details "No. Oh, no!" She caught his of the supplies necessary with him." arm and placed her cheek against The Autarch left. his hard shoulder. She was speak-

ing rapidly. "That's not it at all. It BIRON said, "Take care of doesn't matter about Hinriad and Jonti's officer for me for a Widemos at all. I—I love you, while, will you, Gil? When he Biron." comes in, break the airlock contact. Her eyes went up, meeting his.

All you'll have to do is remove the "I think you love me, too. I think magnetic field. This is the photonic you would admit it if you could switch you'll flash." forget I were a Hinriad. Maybe you He turned and stepped out of will now that I've said it first. You the pilot room. Right now, he told the Autarch you would not needed time for himself. Time to hold my father's deeds against me. think, mostly. Don't hold his rank against me, But there was the hurried foot- either." step behind, him, and the soft voice. Her arms were around his neck He stopped. now. Biron could feel the softness "Biron," said Artemisia, "I want of her breasts against him and the to speak to you." warmth of her breath on his lips. He faced her. "Later, if you don't Slowly his own hands went up and mind, Area." gently grasped her forearms. As She was looking up at him, in- gently, he disengaged her arms. tently. "No, now." He said, "I am not quits with Her arms were poised as though the Hinriads, my Lady." she would have liked to embrace She was— startled. "You told the him, but was not sure of her recep- Autarch tions. She said, "You didn't believe He looked away. "Sorry, Arta. what he said about my father." Don't go by what I told the Au- "It has no bearing," said Biron. tarch."

"Biron," she began. It was hard She wanted to cry out that it

for her to say it. "I know that part wasn't true, that her father had not of what has been going on between done this thing, that in any case us has been because we've been But he turned into the cabin and alone and together and in danger, left her standing in the corridor, but—" She stopped again. her eyes filling with hurt and Biron said, "If you're trying to shame. say you're a Hinriad, Arta, there's —ISAAC ASIMOV Concluded Next Month TYRANN 159 Science and Fantasy Fiction: —CURRENT NEW BOOKS- FREE: With orders for at least $3.00: Your choice of any ONE of the following:

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