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Vol. 11, Nuniber 6 fiction
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NOVELETTES The Yillian Way by Keith Laumer 8 The Last Place on Earth by Jim Harmon 30 SHORT STORIES An Incident on Route Twelve by James H. Schmitz 23 The Talkative Tree by H. B. Fyfe 48 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 59 SERIAL - Conclusion Masters of Space by Edward E. Smith & E. E. Evans 66 SPECIAl. FEATURES A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea 6 Science Briefs 28 Fcom Plynck to Planck by Theodore Sturgeon 56 Hue and Cry 126 COVER by Francis from ,.The Yillian Way'' Next issue (March) on sale January 10th
IF published bi-monthly by Dl~e&t Productions Corporation, Vol. 11, Jl!o. I 3talll Office: 4.21 Hudson Street, New Yorl< 14, New York 35c. p.::r <·opy. l:iubscriptions 12 issues $3.00 In the United States, Canada1 Mex1co, South and Central .America and U. S. possessions, elsewhere $4.u0. Second-class postage paid at New York, New York, and at additional mailin.p; offices. Copyright by Digest Productions Corporation, 1961. All rights including translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All stories printed in this magazine are fic tion, and any similarity bP.tween characters and actual persons is coinciden tal. Printed In the U. S. A. by the Guinn Company, !nc., New York U, N. Y, . Just peel off protective bac-king. Sticks to any smooth surface.
,, \ .l:o. ·,, ,: '· ''· i;i,{;~·'i :::, i>''~ ··. ) .. . .,. :: ,,, .·. '. ,. ',:. .:·:: ·:.:' ·.,, ''· .... ,,. ,,, .' . ·.. ,,,,, :,,, } "' ,s:,~KBiii/Jfiiihiif An assortment of humorous Bumper Signs created to put fun back into driving. FITS ALL CARS Big, bright Day-Gio letters for long. range visibility. 25c EACH or SIX FOR $1.00 MAIL CHECK. CASH OR MONEY ORDER TO BOX 188 • HARTSDALE, NEW YORK ...a ..."' -< ..."'m A HOLE IN. THE BOTIOM OF THE SEA HAT look~ very like a sweatily looked at each other, T Fred Pohl story title, and at that moment the or doesn't it? It happens not to ganization got its name : the be, however, but instead the American Miscellaneous Soci name of an extra-ordinary ety. book by Willard Bascom, To this day the now re published by Doubleday at spectable deep-drilling pro $4.95. ject has the cable address Bascom is the head of the AMSOC, Washington, D.C., Mohole Project, which in and its letterhead bears the tends to drill a hole right figure of a geophysicist ram through the earth's crust into pa: .. ~ on his fields of action the mantle to see if they can't earth, air, fire and water. bring up a core. They'll drill Right at the start the organ where the crust is thinnest, ization (which has no mem and that happens to be under bership rolls, dues, officers, some miles of sea-water. You bylaws or meetings) was effi have to be crazy in some very cently organized into five di special way even to tbink of visions : Etceterology, Phe such a thing, and that's Bas nomenology, Calamitology, com. G:mera!ogy and Triviology. The book includes an ac T h e s e men got together at count of the orP,"anization brainstorming sessions which from which this h'.:;ady idea would take the breath away sprang: AMSOC. AMSOC from E. E. Smith. Once, iust had its beginnings somewhere for kicks, they conceived a in the inner circle of the Of plan to bring water to Cali fice of Naval Research, which fornia by hauling, with tug guides the Navy's basic re boats, an Antarctic iceberg search program and keeps up (the Arctic ones are salty) contacts with universities and 600 feet thick and 10 miles private laboratories. One hot long from Little America and summer day in '52, two of (bccat!se of prevailing cur these broad-spectru'n geniuses rents) around Hawaii so that tried to organize a huge pile it could be moore d in the of incoming proposals and Channel Islands near Los suggestions for research, by Angeles. They worked the putting them in a few neat project out in such detail that piles. When they were fin it looked not only feasible but ished, desks, tables, chairs and perhaps too e f f i c i e n t: it floor were covered with neat might well change the climate piles-each one paper deep. too much. They then gathered them to Yet project Mohole is now a gether into one pile and serious, practical endeavor, 6 for all its wild letterhead; and ing a monster five-pronged in telling about it, Bascom Soviet m a n t 1 e-drilling pro briefs you in everything con ject: one in the Caspian, four nected with it-the creation on land : In Karelia, the Ural of the earth, the origins of Mountains, the Caucasus and life, the structure of stars, the the Kuriles. natural history of the ocean Bascom goes on to say that and the land and the atmos though scientists all over wel phere. There's drilling, as it come t•he competition-it is, and as it's going to have to makes more work get done be before they're through; the fact remains that this "sci ships, navigation, explosives, entific Olympics," as he calls buoys and anchors-why, the it, isn't altogether just a jolly man's a whole corps of speci game. Bascom, who certainly alists all by himself. should know, says we have the initial advantage. On land we T HERE'S one sharp and have drilled to 25,000 feet, the time I y point connected Soviets about 17,000. Project with this whole astonishing M o h o 1 e ' s test drilling in effort. Last September a let water, totaling 11,700 feet, is ter appeared in a New York nearly 100 times their rec paper, pouncing on an article ord. "Nevertheless," Bascom a few days before headed SO writes, "I am concerned that VIET CONSIDERS FIVE another hare and tortoise race EARTH PROBES. The let will develop .. Although they te~ was written by this same have a long way to go, they Bascom, and, even admitting have accepted the conditions that it's his own pony he's of the race. . . We must ... be riding, I think you'll agree he wary that even in areas where has something to say. they are not superior, propa On August 24, he reports, ganda may make them seem he was invited to show pic so. We must run, and win, and tures and to lecture on Pro tell the world we have won." ject Mohole before the scien This department cou1dn't tists of the Soviet research agree more; and it seems time ship Vityaz. He did so. He to remind the world that at says they were warmly con Sputnik time, and at Russian gratulatory and seemed sur H-bomb time, and even at as prised by the scale of the U.S. tronaut time, sleepy people deep sea operations. He says were stumbling about, bleat they spoke vaguely about a ing that no one had warned Russian effort on land in the them. near future. W'ell, about this one Bas So along comes this Sept. 10 com has issued the warning. release from Moscow desc;: lb- Let's see what happens. END 7 By KEITH LAUMER THE YILLIAN WAY
I lounged in deep couches, sip ping lavender drinks from AME Retief, vice-consul slender glass tubes. Black Jand third secretary in the tunicked servants moved Diplomatic Corps, followed about inconspicuously, offer the senior members of the ter ing trays. A party of brightly restrial mission across the dressed Yill moved toward the tarmac and into the gloom of entrance doors. One of the the reception building. The party, a tall male, made to step gray-skinned Yill guide who before another, who raised a had met the arriving embassy hand languidly, fist clenched. at the foot of the ramp hur The first Yill stepped back ried away. The councillor, and placed his hands on top two first secretaries and the of his head. Both Yill were s en i or attaches gathered smiling and chatting as they around the ambassador, their passed through the doors. ornate uniforms bright in the Retief turned away to re vast dun-colored room. join the Terrestrial delegation Ten minutes passed. Retief waiting beside a mound of strolled across to the nearest crates made of rough greenish door and looked through the wood stacked on the b3re con glass panel at the room be crete floor. yond. Several dozen Yill As Retief came up, Ambas- The ceremonious protocol of the Vilis was impliessive, cc~oriul - and. in the !ong run. deadly! • sador Spradley glanced at his smile was replaced abruptly finger watch and spoke to the by pursed lips. man beside him. "We'll start by asking for "Ben, are you quite certain the entire Sirenian System, our arrival time was made and settle for half. We'll es clear?" tablish a foothold on all the Second Secretary Magnan choicer worlds. And, with nod de d emphatically. "I shrewd handling, in a century stressed the point, Mr. Ambas we'll be in a position to assert sador. I communicated with a wider claim." Mr. T'Cai-Cai just before the T h e ambassador glanced lighter broke orbit, and I around. ''If there are no ques specifically-" tions-" "I hope you didn't appear truculent, Mr. Magnan," the ETIEF stepped forward. ambassador said sharply. R"It's my understanding, "No indeed, Mr. Ambassa Mr. Ambassador, that we hold dor. I merely-" the prior claim to the Sirenian ''You're sure there's no VIP System. Did I understand room here?" The ambassador your Excellency to say that glanced around the cavernous we're ready to concede half room. "Curious that not even of it to the Yill without a chairs have been provided." struggle?" "If you'd care to sit on one Ambassador S p r a d I e y of these crates-" looked up at Retief, blinking. "Certainly not." The ambas The younger man loomed sad.or looked at his watch over him. Beside him, Mag again and cleared his throat. nan cleared his throat in the "I may as well make use of silence. these few moments to outline "Vice-Consul Retief merely our approach for the more means--'' junior members of the staff; "I can interpret Mr. Reti it's vital that the entire mis ef's remark," the ambassador sion work in harmony in the snapped. He assumed a father presentation of the image. We ly expression. Terrestrials are a kindly, "Young man, you're new to peace-loving race." The am the Service. You haven't yet bassador smiled in a kindly, learned the team play, the peace-loving way. give-and-take of diplomacy. I "We seek only a reasonable shall expect you to observe division of spheres of influ closely the work of the expe ence with the Yill." He rienced negotiators of the spread his hands, looking rea mission. You must learn the sonable. importance of subtlety." "We are a people of high "Mr. Ambassador," Magnan culture, ethical, sincere." The said, "I think the reception THE YILLIAN WAY. St committee is arriving." He course, during the voyage pointed. Half a dozen tall, out." short-necked Yill were enter "Oh, no criticism intended, ing through a side door. The of course, Mr. Ambassador." leading Yill hesitated as an "Heavens," Magnan put in. other stepped in his path. He "Who would have thought-" raised a fist, and the other Retief moved up behind the moved aside, touching the top ambassador. of his head perfunctorily with ''Mr. Ambassador," he said, both hands. The group started UJ-" across the room toward the "Later, young man," the am Terrestrials. Retief watched bassador snapped. He beck as a slender alien came for on""d to the first councillor, ward and spoke passable Ter an,~- ;:he two moved off, heads ran in a reedy voice. together. "I am P'Toi. Come this Outside, a b I u i s h sun way ... " He turned, and the gleamed in a dark sky. Retief group moved toward the door, watched his breath form a the ambassador leading. As he frosty cloud in the chill air. reached for the door, the in A broad doughnut-wheeled terpreter darted ahead and vehicle was drawn up to the shouldered him aside. The platform. The Yill gestured other Yill stopped, waiting. the Terran party to the gap The ambassado:- almost ing door at the rear, then glared, then remembered the stood back, waiting. image. He smiled and beck Retief looked curiously at oned the Yill ahead. They the gray-painted van. The milled uncertainly, muttering legend written on its side in in the native tongue, then alien symbols seemed to read passed through the doo~ "egg nog." The Terran party followed. "-give a great deal to know HE ambassador entered what they're saying," Retief T the vehicle, the other Ter overheard as he came up. restrials following. It was as "Our interpreter has forged bare of seats as the Terminal to the van," the ambassador building. What appeared to said. "I can only asst!me he'll be a defunct electronic chassis appear when needed." lay in the center of the floor. "A pity we have to rely on Retief glanced back. The a native interpreter," someone Yill were talking excitedly. said. None of them entered the car. "Had I known we'd meet The door was closed, and the this rather uncouth recep Terrans braced themselves tion," the ambassador said under the low roof as the en stiffly, "I would have audited gine started up with a whine the language personally, of of worn tubos. 10 by Keith Laumer The van moved off. past him, pulled the lid from It was an uncomfortable a large box by the door and ride. Retief put out an arm dropped in a paper tray as the vehicle rounded a cor heaped with refuse. There ner, just catching the ambas were alien symbols in flaking sador as he staggered, off-bal paint on the box. They ance. The ambassador glared seemed, Retief noticed, to at him, settled his heavy tri spell "egg nog." corner hat and stood stiffly until the car lurched again. II Retief stooped, attempting to see out through the single THE shrill pipes and whin- dusty window. They seemed ing reeds had been warm to be in a wide street lined ing up for an hour when with low buildings. Retief emerged from his cu They . passed through a bicle and descended the stairs massive gate, up a ramp, and to the banquet hall. stopped. The door opened. Standing by the op::n doors, Retief looked out at a blank he lit a slender cigar and gray facade, broken by tiny watched through narrowed windows at irregular inter eyes as obsequious servants in vals. A scarlet vehicle was black flitted along the low drawn up ahead, the Yill re wide corridor, carrying laden ception committee emerging trays into the broad room, ar from it. Through its wide ranging settings on a great windows Retief saw rich up four-sided table forming a holstery and caught a glimpse hollow square that almost of glasses clamped to a tiny filled the room. Rich brocades bar. were spread across the center P'Toi, the Yill interpreter, of the side nearest the door, came forward, gestured to a flanked by heavily decorated small door. Magnan opened it, white cloths. Beyond, plain waiting for the ambassador. white extended to the far As he stepped to it, a Yill side, where metal dishes were thrust himself ahead and hesi arranged on the bare table top. tated. Ambassador Spradley A richly dressed Yill ap drew himself up, glaring. proached, stepped aside to al Then he twisted his mouth low a servant to pass and en into a frozen smile and tered the room. stepped aside. Retief turned at the sound The Yill looked at each oth of Terran voices behind him. er, then filed through the The ambassador came up, door. trailed by two diplomats. He Retief was the last to en glanced at Retief, adjusted ter. As he stepped inside, a his ruff and looked into the black-clad servant slipped banquet hall. THE YILLIAN WAY 11 "Apparently we're to be yourr intesstinss, and creep kept waiting again," he mut to fesstive board there." He tered. "After having been in pointed across the room. formed at the outset that the "Intestines?" Ambassador Yill have no intention of Spradley looked about wildly. yielding an inch, one almost "Mr. P'Toi means our stom wonders ... " achs, I wouldn't wonder," "Mr. Ambassador," Retief Magnan said. "He just wants said. "Have you noticed-" us to lie down and crawl to "However," Ambassador our seats, Mr. Ambassador." Spradley said, eyeing Retief, "What the devil are you "a seasoned diplomatist must grinning at, you idiot?" the take these little snubs in ambassador snapped. stride. In the end- Ah, there, Magnan." He turned away, MAGNAN'S face fell. talking. Spradley glanced down Somewhere a gong clanged. at the medals across his In a moment, the corridor paunch. was filled with chattering "This is. . . I've never ... " Yill who moved past the "Homage to godss," the in group of Terrestrials into the terpreter said. banquet hall. P'Toi, the Yill "Oh. Oh, religion," someone interpreter, came up and said. raised a hand. ''Well, if it's a matter of re "Waitt heere ... " ligious beliefs ... " The ambas More Yill filed into the din sador 1 o o k e d dubiously ing room to take their places. around. · A pair of helmeted guards ap "Golly, it's only a couple proached, waving the '1;'erres of hundred feet," Magnan of· trials back. An immense gray fered. jowled Yill waddled to the Retief stepped up to P'Toi. doors and passed through, fol "His Excellency the Terres lowed by more guards. trial Ambassador will not "The Chief of State," Retief crawl," he said clearly. heard Magnan say. "The Ad "Here, young man! I said mirable F'Kau-Kau-Kau." nothing-" "I have yet to present "Not to crawl?" The in my credentials," Ambassador terpreter wore an unreadable Spradley said. "One expects Yill expression. some latitude in the ob "It is against our religion," servances of protocol, but I Retie.£ said. confess ... " He wagged his "Againsst?" head. "We are votaries of the The Yill interpreter spoke Snake Goddess," Retief said. up. "It is a sacrilege to crawl." "You now wbill lbie on Ho brushed past the in- 12 b:r K•ltl• Lau••r. terpreter and marched toward tables rose ever higher in the distant table. competition. The others followed. A tall Yill in black was at Puffing, the ambassador the ambassador's side now. came to Retief's side as they T-he nearby Yill fell silent as approached the dozen empty he began ladling a whitish stools on the far side of the soup into the largest of the square opposite the brocaded bowls before the Terrestrial position of the Admirable envoy. The interpreter hov F'Kau-Kau-Kau. ered, watching. "Mr. Retief, kindly see me "That's quite enough," Am after this affair-," he hissed. bassador Spradley said, as the "In the meantime, I hope you bowl overflowed. The Yill will restrain any further rash servant rolled his eyes, drib impulses. Let me remind you bled more of the soup into I am chief of mission here." the bowl. Magnan came up from be "Kindly serve the other hind. members of my staff," the am "Let me add my congratula bassador said. The interpreter tions, Retief," he said. "That said something in a low voice. was fast thinking-'' The servant moved hesitantly "Are you out of your mind, to the next stool and ladled Magnan 1" t h e ambassador more soup. barked. "I am extremely dis pleased!"- ETIEF watched, li~tening "Why," Magnan stuttered, Rto the whispers around "I was speaking sarcastically, him. The Yill ·at the table of course, Mr. Ambassador. were craning now to watch. Didn't you notice the kind of The wt:p !adler was ladling shocked little gasp I gave rapidly, rolling his eyes side when he did it?" ways. He came to Retief, The Terrestrials took their reached out with the full ladle places, Retief at the end. The for the bowl. table before them was of bare "No," Retief said. green wood, with an array of The ladler hesitated. shallow pewter dishes. "None for me," Retief said. Some of the Yill at the ta The interpreter came up ble were in plain gray, others and motioned to the servant, in black. All eyed them silent who reached again, ladle ly. There was a constant stir brimming. among them as one or another "I - -. DON'T .. _ LIKE __ . rose and disappeared and oth IT!" Retief said, his voic~ tlis ers sat down. The pipes and tinct in the sudden l::.:.;sh. He reeds were shrilling furiously, stared at the interprete1·, \-:ho and the susurration of Yillian stared back, then wave.:! the conversation from the other servant away. THE YILLIAN WAY 13 "Mr. Retief!" a voice "Pleass ... " The interpreter hissed. stood at Retief's side. Retief looked down at the "My apologies," Ambassador table. The ambassador was Spradley said, mopping his leaning forward, glaring at forehead. "My profound apol him, his face a mottled crim- ogies."· son. "Be quiet," Retief said. "I'm warning you, Mr. "Wha--what?" Retief," he said hoarsely. "I've "Don't apologize," Retief eaten sheep's eyes in the Su said. P'Toi was beckoning. dan, ka swe in Burma, hun "Pleasse, arll come." dred-year cug on Mars and Retief turned and followed everything else that has been him. placed before me in the course The portion of the table of my diplomatic career. And, they were ushered to was cov by the holy relics of Saint .ered with an embroidered Ignatz, you'll do the same!" white cloth, set with thin por He snatched up a spoon-like celain dishes. The Yill already utensil and dipped it into his seated there rose, amid bab bowl. bling, and moved down the ta "Don't eat that, Mr. Ambas ble. The black-clad Yill at the sador," Retief said. end table closed ranks to fill The ambassador stared, eyes the vacant seats. Retief sat wide. He opened his mouth, down and found Magnan at guided the spoon toward it- his side. Retief stood, gripped the "What's going on here?" table under its edge and the second secretary said an heaved. The immense wooden grily. slab rose and tilted, dishes "They were giving us dog sliding. It crashed to the floor food," Retief said. ''I over with a ponderous slam. heard a Yill. They seated us Whitish soup splattered at the bottom of the servants' across the terrazzo. A couple table-" of odd bowls rolled across the "You mean you know their room. Cries rang out from the language?" Yill, mingling with a stran "I learned it on the way gled yell from Ambassador out. Enough, at least." Spradley. The music burst out with a Retief walked past the wild clangorous fanfare, and a eyed members of the mission throng of jugglers, dancers to the sputtering chief. "Mr. and acrobats poured into the Ambassador," he said.· ''I'd center of the hollow square, like-" frantically juggling, dancing "You'd like! I'll break you, and back-flipping. Black-clad you young hoodlum I Do you servants swarmed suddenly, realize-" heaping mounds of fragrant
14 by ~eith Laumer food on the plates of Yill and wing. Then we were seated Terrestrials alilte, pouring a with the coolie class sweepers pale purple liquor into slen at the bottom of the table." der glasses. Retief sampled "You must be. . . I mean, the Yill food. It was deli we're the Terrestrial delega cious. tion! Surely these Yill must Conversation was impossi realize our power." ble in the din. He watched "Precisely, Mr. Magnan. the gaudy display and ate But-" heartily. With a clang of cymbals the musicians launched a re III newed assault. Six tall, hel meted Yill sprang into the RETIEF leaned back, grate center of the floor and paired ful for the Iu!l in the mu off !n a wild performance, half sic. The last of the dishes dance, half combat. Magnan were whisked away, and more pulled at Retief's arm, his glasses filled. The exhausted mouth moving. entertainers stopped to pick Retief shook his head. No up the thick square coins the one could talk against a Yill diners threw. orchestra in full cry. He sam Retief sighed. It had been pled a bright red wine and a rare feast. watched the show. "Retief," Magnan said in There was a flurry of ac the comparative quiet, "what tion, and two of the dancers were you saying about dog stumbled and collapsed, their food as the music came up?" partner-opponents whirling Retief looked at h i m. away to pair off again, de "Haven't you noticed the pat scribe the elaborate pre-com tern, Mr. Magnan? The series bat ritual, and abruptly set to, of deliberate affronts?" dulled sabres clashing-and "Deliberate affronts! Just a two more Yill were down, minute, Retief. They're un stunned. It was a violent couth, yes, crowding into dance. doorways and that sort of Retief watched, the drink thing ... " He looked at Retief forgotten. uncertainly. The last two Yill ap "They herded us into a bag proached a n d retreated, gage warehouse at the ter whirled, bobbed and spun, minal. Then they hauled us feinted and postured-and on here in a garbage truck-" the instant, clashed, straining ''Garbage truck!" chest-to-chest-then b r o k e "Only symbolic, of course. apart, heavy weapons chop They ushered us in the trades ping, parrying, as the music man's entrance, and assigned mounted to a frenzy. us cubicles in the servants' Evenly matched, the two THE YILLIAN WAY 15
hacked, thrust, blow for blow, Twice more the dancer across the floor, then back, struck the table in ritualistic defense forgotten, slugging it challenge, exchanged gestures, out. bent his neck and passed on. And then one \\•as slipping, He circled the broa.d floor, going down, helmet awry. The sabre twirling, arms darting other, a giant, muscular Yill, in an intricate symbolism. spun away, whirled in a mad The orchestra blared shrilly, skirl of pipes as coins show unmuffled now by the surf ered--then froze before a roar of conversation. The Yill, gaudy table, raised the sabre Retief noticed suddenly, were and slammed it down in a re sitting silent, watching. The sounding blow across the gay dancer was closer now, and cloth before a lc_ce and bow then he was before Retief, bedecked Yill in the same in poised, towering, sabre above stant that the music stopped. his head. In utter silence the dancer The music cut, and in the fighter stared across the table startling instantaneous si at the seated Yill. lence, the heavy sabre With a shout, the Yill whipped over and down with leaped up, raised a clenched an explosive concussion that fist. The dancer bowed his set dishes dancing on the ta head, spread his hands on his ble-top. helmet. Retief took a deep gulp of HE Yill's eyes held on a pale. yellow liqueur and T Retief's. In the silence, leaned forward to watch. The Magnan tittered drunkenly. beribboned Yil! waved a hand Retief pushed back his stool. negligently, spilled a handful "Steady, my boy," Ambas of coins across the table and sador Spradley called. Reticf sat down. stoo~l. the Yill topping- his six The challenger spun away foot three by an inch. In a in a screeching shrill of mu motion almost too q·.1ick to sic. Retief caur:ht his eye for follow, Retief reached for the an instant as he nassed. sabre, twitched it from the And then the dancer stood Yill's grip, swung it in a whis rigid before the brocaded ta tling cut. The Yill ducked, ble--and the music stopped sprang back, snatched up a off short as the sabre slammed sabre dropped by c:nother down before a heavy Yill in dancer. ornate metallic coils. The "Someone stop the mad challenged Yill rose and man!" Spradley how lee:. raised a fist. The other ducked Retief leaped acrosE the ta his head, put his hands on his ble, sending fragile ~1 ishes helmet. Coins rolled. The spinning. dancer moved on. The other danced back, and
THE YILLIAN WAY 17 only then did the orchestra someone in the Terrestrial spring to life with a screech mission groaned. and a mad tattoo of high Retief whipped the sabre pitched drums. down. The dull blade split the Making no attempt to fol cloth and clove the hardwood lowin~ the weaving pattern of table. There was utter silence. the Y ill bolero, Retief pressed The Admirable F'Kau-Kau the other, fending off vicious Kau rose, seven feet of obese cuts with the blunt weapon, gray Yill. Broad face expres chopping back relentlP.ssly. sionless to any Terran eyes, Left hand on hip, RP.tief he raised a fist like a jewel matched blow for blow, driv studded ham. ing the other back. Retief stood rigid for a Abruptly, the Yill aban long moment. Then, graceful doned the double role. Danc ly, he inclined his head, ing forgotten, he settled down placed his finger tips on his in earnest, cutting, thrusting, temples. parrying; and now the two Behind him, there was a stood toe to toe, sabres clash clatter as Ambassador Sprad ing in a lightning exchange. ley collapsed. Then the ·Ad The Yill gave a step, two, mirable F'Kau-Kau-Kau cried then rallied, drove Retief out and reached across the ta back, back- ble to embrace the Terrestrial, And the. Yill stumbled. His and the orchestra went mad. sabre clattered, and Retief Gray hands helped Retief dropped his point as the other across the table, stools were wavererl past him and crashed pushed aside to make room at to the floor. F'Kau-Kau-Kau's side, Retief The orchestra fell silent in sat, took a tall flagon of coal a descending wail of reeds. black brandy pressed on him Retief drew a deep breath and by his neighbor, clashed glass wiped his forehead. es with Th:! Admirable and "Come back here, you young drank. fool!" S p r ad I e y called hoarsely. IV Retief hefted the sabre, turned, eyed the brocade ETIEF t u r n e d at the draped table. He started across R touch on his shoulder. the floor. The Yill sat as if "The Ambassador wants to paralyzed. speak to you, Retief," Mag "R e t i e f, no!" Spradley nan said. yelped. Retief looked across to Retief walked directly to where Ambassador Spradley the Admirable F'Kau-Kau sat glowering behind the plain Kau, stopped, raised the sabre. tablecloth. ''Not the chief of state," "Under the circumstances," 18 by Keith Laumer Retief said, "you'd better ask least they have very fat him to come over here." watchamacallits." ''The ambassador?" Mag ''The king is most consid nan's voice cracked. erate," Retief said. "Never mind the protocol," "Let us to it then, Retief. Retief said. "The situation is I may hazard a fling with one still delicate." Magnan went of your Terries, myself. I away. fancy an occasional perver "The feast ends," F'Kau sion." F'Kau-Kau-Kau dug an Kau-Kau said. "Now you and elbow into Retief's side and I, Retief, must straddle the bellowed with laughter. Council Stool." Ambassador Spradley hur "I'll be hon·ored, Admi ried to intercept Retief as he rable," Retief said. "I must in crossed to the door at F'Kau form my colleagues." Kau-Kau's side. "Colleagues?" F'Kau-Kau "Retief, kindly excuse your Kau said. ''It is for chiefs to self. I wish a word with you." parley. Who shall speak for a His voice was icy. Magnan king while he yet has tongue stood behind him, goggling. for talk?" "Mr. Ambassador, forgive "The Yill way is wise," my apparent rudeness," Retief Retief said. said. ''I don't have time to F'Kau-Kau-Kau emptied a explain now-" squat tumbler of pink beer. "R u d e n e s s !" Spradley "I will treat with you, Retief, barked. "Don't have time, eh? as viceroy, since as you say Let me tell you-" your king is old and the space "Lower your voice, Mr. between worlds is far. But Ambassador," Retief said. there shall be no scheming un Spradley quivered, mouth derlings privy to our deal open, speechless. ings." He grinned a Yill grin. "If you'll sit down and wait "Afterwards we shall carouse, q u i e t I y," Retief said, "I Retief. The Council Stool is think-" hard and the waiting hand "You think t" S p r a d 1 e y maidens delectable. T h i s spluttered. makes for quick agreement." Retief s~iled. ''The king is "SILENCE!" Retief said. wise." Spradley looked up at "Of course, a being prefers Retief's face. He stared for a wenches of his own kind," moment into Retief's gray F'Kau-Kau-Kau s a i d. He eyes, closed his mouth and belched. "The Ministry of swallowed. Culture has imported several "The Yill seem to have Terry-excuse me, Retief gotten the impression I'm in Terrestrial joy-girls, said to charge," Retief said. "We'll be top-notch specimens. At have to keep it up."· THE YILLIAN WAY 19 "But-but-" S p r ad I e y "What are you going to do, stuttered. Then he straight Retief?" ened. ''That is the last straw," "I'm going to handle the ne he whispered hoarsely. ••1 am gotiation," Retief said. He the Terrestrial Ambassador handed Magnan his empty Extraordinary and Minister glass. "Now go sit down and Plenipotentiary. Magnan has work on the Image." told me that we've been stud iedly insulted, repeatedly, T his desk in the VIP since the moment of our ar A suite aboard the orbiting rival. Kept waiting in bag C o r p s vessel, Ambas!'ador gage rooms, transported in Spradley pursed his lips and refuse lorries, herded about looked se•Jcrely at Vice-Con with servants, offered swill sul Retief. at table. Now I and my senior "Further," he said, "vou staff, are left cooling our have displayed a complete heeJs, without so much as an lack of understanding of a u d i e n c e while this-this Corps discipline, the respect multiple Kau person hobnobs due a senior agent, even the with-with-" basic courtesies. Your aggra Spradley's voice broke. ••I vated displays of temper, ill may have been a trifle hasty, timed outbursts of violence Retief, in attempting to re and almost incredible arro strain you. Blaspheming the gance ia the assumption of native gods and dumping the authority make your further banquet table are rather ex retention as an officer-agent treme measures, but your re of the Diplomatic Corps im sentment was perhaps partial possib1e. It will therefore be ly justified. I am prepared to my unb.ppv duty to recom be lenient with you." He mend vot1r immediate-·• fixed a choleric eye on Re There was a muted hilzz tief. from th:- communicator. The "I am walking out of this ambassador cleared his throat. meeting, Mr. Retief. I'H take "V/el1 ?" no more of ther;e deJibC"rate ••A sir;nal from Sector HQ, personal-" Mr. Ambassador," a voice "That's enough," R~!tief said. snapped. "You're keeoin_,. the "V"l e11, read it," Spr;.,dley king waiting. Get back to snapped. "Skip the prelimi your chair and sit there uTltil naries." I come back." "Congrr.tulations on the Snradley's face purpJ:-d. unprecedented s u c c e s s of "One more word, ann I'J1 your m!ssion. The artic~es of si!-:-nce you forcibly," Retief agreement transmitted by said. you emhndy a most favori!ble Magnan found his voice. resolution of the difficult 20 By Keith Laumer Sirenian situation, and will room, glanced at Spradley, form the basis of continued turned to greet Retief in vol amicable relations between uble Yilt. He rounded the the Terrestrial States and the desk to the ambassador's Yill Empire. To you and your chair, motioned him from it staff, full credit is due for a and sat down. job well done. Signed, Dep uty Assistant Secretary-" "I have a surprise for you, Spradley cut off the voice Retief," he said, in Ter impatiently. ran. "I myself have made use He shuffled papers, eyed of the teaching machine you Retief sharply. so kindly lent us." "Superficially, of course, "That's fine T'Cai-Cai " an uninitiated observer might Retief said. •+m sure M~. leap to the conclusion that Spradley will be interested in the-ah-results that were hearing what we have to say." produced in spite of these ... "Never mind," the Yill ah ... irregularities justify the said. "I am here only social 1 at t e r." The Ambassador ly." He looked around the smiled a sad, wise smile. room. "This is far from the case," "So plainly you decorate he said. "I-" your chamber. But it has a The communicator burped certain austere charm." He softly. laughed a Yill laugh. "Confound it!" Spradley "Oh, you are a strange muttered. "Yes?" breed, you Terrestrials. You "Mr. T'Cai-Cai has ar surprised us all. You know, rived," the voice said. "Shall one hears such outlandish 1-" stories. I tell you in confi "Send him in at once." dence, we had expected you Spradley glanced at Retief. to be overpushes." "Only a two-syllable man, "Pushovers," Spradley said, but I shall attempt to correct tonelessly. these false impressions, make "Such r e s t r a i n t! What some amends ... " pleasure you gave to those of The two Terrestrials wait us, like myself of course, who ed silently until the Yill Pro appreciated your grasp of tocol chief tapped at the protocol. Such finesse! How door. subtly you appeared to ig "I hope," the ambassador nore each overture, while said, "that you will resist the neatly avoiding actual con impulse to take advantage of tamination. I can tell you, your unusual position." He there were those who thought looked at the door. "Come -poor fools-that you had no in." grasp of etiquette. How grati T'Cai-Cai stepped into the fied we were, we profession- THE YILLIAN WAY 21 als, who could appreciate ness I shall take pleasure in your virtuosity-when you attending to, my dear Re placed matters on a comfort tief," T'Cai-Cai went on. He able basis by spurning the drew a large paper from his cats'-meat. It was sheer pleas reticule. "The Admirable is ure then, waiting, to see what determined than none other form your compliment would than y o u r s e 1 f shall be ac take!' credited here. I have here my The Yill offered o r a n g e government's exequatur con cigars, stuffed one in his nos firming you as Terrestrial tril. consul-general to Yill. We "I confess even I had not shall look forward to your hoped that you would honor prompt return." our Admirable so signally. Retief looked at Spradley. Oh, it is a pleasure to deal "I'm sure the Corps will with fellow professionals, agree," he said. who understand the meaning "Then I shall be going," of protocol !" T'Cai-Cai said. He stood up. Ambassador Spradley made "Hurry back to us, Retief. a choking sound. There is much that I would "This fellow has caught a show you of Yill." chill," T'Cai-Cai said. He "I'll hurry," Retief said eyed S p r ad 1 e y dubiousiy. and, with a Yill wink: "To "Ste.p back, my man. I am gether we shall see many highly susceptible. high and splendid things!" "There is one bit of busi- by Keith Laumer END * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Coming in the March issue of If -
THE MADMAN FROM EARTH by Keith Laumer
TYBALT by Stephen Barr
A great new cover novelette by Poul Anderson plus short stories, Theodore Sturgeon's column, features, etc. On. sale January 14th at all newsstands.
22 He was already a thief, prepared to steal again. He didn•t know that he himself w.:~s only booty! AN INCIOENT ON ROUTE 12
By JAMES H. SCHMITZ HIL Garfield was thirty and he had another hundred Pmiles south of the little and ten miles to cover to town of Redmon on Route reach the small private air Twelve when he was startled field where Madge waited by a series of sharp, clanking for him and the thirty thou noises. They came from un sand dollars in the suitcase der the Packard's hood. on the Packard's front seat. The car immediately began If he didn't make it before to lose speed. G a r f i e 1 d daylight ... jammed down the accelerator, He t h o u g h t of the bank had a sense of sick helpless guard. The man had made a ness at the complete lack of clumsy play at being a hero, response from the motor. The and that had set off the fool Packard rolled on, getting rid woman who'd run screaming of its momentum, and came into their line of fire. One to a stop. · dead. Perhaps two. Garfield Phil Garfield swore shak hadn't stopped to look at an ily. He checked his watch, evening paper. switched off the headlights But he knew they were and climbed out into the dark hunting for him. road. A delay of even half an He glanced up and down hour here might be disas the road. No other headlights trous. It was past midnight, in sight at the moment, no 23 light from a building show empty, both front doors open ing on the forested hills. He and inviting a passerby's in reached back into the car and vestigation. brought out .the suitcase, his Garfield carried the suit gun, a big flashlight and the case and flashlight across the box of shells which had been right-hand shoulder of the standing beside the suitcase. road and moved up among the He broke the box open, trees and undergrowth of the shoved a handful of shells slope above the shoulder. and the .38 into his coat pock Placing the suitcase between et, then took suitcase and the bushes, he brought out the flashlight over to the shoul .38, clicked the safety off der of the road and set them and stood waiting. down. Some ten minutes later, a There was no point in grop set of headlights appeared ing about under the Pack speeding up Route Twelve ard's hood. When it came to from the direction of Red mechanics, Phil Garfield was mon. Phil G a r f i e 1 d went a moron and well aware of it. down on one knee before he The car was useless to him came within range of the now ... except as bait. lights. Now he was complete But as bait it might be very ly concealed by the vegeta useful. tion. Should he leave it standing The car slowed as it ap where it was? No, Garfield proached, braking nearly to a decided. To anybody driving stop sixty feet from the past it would merely suggest stalled Packard. There were a necking party, or a drunk several people inside it; Gar sleeping off his load before field heard v o i c e s, then a continuing home. He might w o rna n' s loud laugh. The have to wait an hour or more driver tapped his horn inquir before someone decided to ingly twice, moved the car stop. He didn't have the time. slowly forward. As the head He reached in through the lights went past him, Gar window, hauled the top of the field got to his feet among steering wheel towards him the bushes, took a step down and put his weight against towards t.he road, raising the the rear window frame. gun. The Packard began to move Then he caught the distant slowly backwards at a slant gleam of a second set of across the road. In a minute headlights approaching from or two he had it in position. Redmon. He swore under his Not blocking the road entire breath and dropped back out ly, which would arouse im of sight. The car below him mediate suspicion, but an reached the Packard, edged gled across it, lights out, cautiously around· it, rolled 24 by James H. Schmitz on with a sudden roar of ac- down the slope to the road. celeration. The bullet had flung the man sideways to the pavement. HE s e c o n d car stopped Garfield darted past him to Twhen still a hundred yards the left, crossed the beam of away, the Packard caught in the headlights, and was in the motionless glare of its darkness again on the far lights. Garfield heard the side of the road, snapping on steady purring of a powerful his flashlight as he sprinted motor. up to the car. For almost a minute, noth- The motor hummed quietly ing else happened. Then the on. The flashlight showed the car came gliding smoothly on, seats empty. Garfield dropped stopped again no more than the light, jerked both doors thirty feet to Garfield's left. open in turn, gun pointing He could see it now through into the car's interior. Then the screening bushes-a big he stood still for a moment, job, a long, low four-door se- weak and almost dizzy with dan. The motor continued to relief. purr. After a moment, a door There was no one inside. on the far side of the car The sedan was his. opened and slammed shut. The man he had shot A man walked quickly out t h r o u g h the head lay face into the beam of the head- down on the road, his hat lights and started towards flung a dozen feet away from the Packard. him. Route T w e 1 v e still Phil Garfield rose from stretched out in dark silence his crouching position, the to east and west. There .38 in his right hand, flash- should be time enough to light in his left. If the driver clean up the job before any was alone, the thing was now one else came along. Gar cinched! But if· there was field brought the suitcase somebody else in the car, down and put it on the front somebody capable of fast, de- seat of the sedan, then start cisive action, a slip in the ed back to get his victim off next ten seconds might cost the road and out of sight. He him the sedan, and quite scaled the man's hat into the probably his freedom and bushes, bent down, grasped life. Garfield lined up the the ankles and started to haul .38's sights steadily on the him towards the left side of center of the approaching the road where the ground man's head. He let his breath dropped off sharply beyond out slowly as the fellow came the shoulder. level with him in the road The body made a high, and squeezed off one shot. squealing sound and began to Instantly he went bounding writhe violently. AN INCIDENT ON ROUTE TWELVE 25 HOCKED, Garfield squealing began again, and Sdropped the legs and hur the body's back arched up as riedly took the gun from his if another sticklike arm were pocket, moving back a step. pushing desperately against The squealing noise rose in the ground beneath it. intensity as the wounded Garfield acted in a blur of man quickly flopped over horror. He emptied the .38 twice like a struggling fish, into the thing at his feet al arms and legs sawing about most without realizing he with startling energy. Gar was doing it. Then, dropping field clicked off the safety, the gun, he seized one of the pumped three shots into his ankles, ran backwards to the vi~tim's back. shoulder of the road, drag The grisly squeals ended ging the body behind him. abruptly. The body continued In the darkness at the edge to jerk for another second or of the shoulder, he let go of twJ, then lay still. it, stepped around to the oth Garfield shoved the gun er side and with two franti bad~ into his pocket. The un cally savage kicks sent the exp:;cted interruption had un body plunging over the shoul nerved him; his hands shook der and down the steep slope a':' he reached down again for beyond. He heard it crash the stranger's ankles. Then through the bushes for some he jerked his hands back, and seconds, then stop. He turned, straightened up, staring. and ran back to the sedan, From the side of the man's scooping up his gun as he chest, a few inches below the went past. He scrambled into r:~ht arm, something like a the driver's seat and slammed t.1~ck black stick, three feet the door shut behind him. long, protruded now through His hands shook violently th~ material of the coat. on the steering wheel as he . It sho~e, gleaming wetly, pressed down the acceler m the hght from the car. ator. The motor roared into Even in that f i r s t uncom life and the big car surged prehending i n stan t, soljl1e forward. He edged it past t h i n fY, in its appearance the Packard, cursing aloud in brought a surge of sick dis horrified shock, j am me d gust to Garfield's throat. down the accelerator and Then the stick bent slowly went f I ash in g up Route h a 1 f way down its length Twelve, darkness racing be ~c>rmi?g a sharp angle, and side and behind him. Its tip opened into what could have been three blunt WTHAT had it been? Some b 1
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
AN INCIDENT ON ROUTE TWELVE 27 --~------~~~------~iF ·~. .~ F~e·amtu·r-e•
science• briefs EMEMBER, a few years of Bimini, less than half an R ago, the brilliant work hour by air from Miami, the done by a graduate student American Museum of Natural who duplicated Earth's pri History founded the Lerner m o r d i a 1 atmosphere, shot Marine Laboratory. Long the "lightning" through it, and happy hunting ground for came up with a "soup" which sport fishermen, Bimini is contained amino acids, the now attracting scientists from bas i c substances of life? A all over the world. Mr. Mi Dr. Carl Sagan has recently chael Lerner, who donated the done somewhat the same with land and houses to start the the known substances of J u project, is associated with the piter's atmosphere. He flood Museum's renown e d Dr. ed them with ultraviolet light. James Oliver and one-time s-f The result, he says, "would writer Philip (When Worlds create the conditions neces Collide) Wylie. One of the sary for complex pre-biologi many things being studied cal organic reactions." He there is-of all things-can theorizes that due to induced cer, which afflicts birds and infra-red under the clouds, Ju amphibia, as well as fish. Can piter may be a comf~rtable 70° cer is after all a phenome or so, with seas of ammonia or non of chemically-directed even water. Let's go find out. growth, and the teeming wa ters of Bimini offer simple In 1948, on the little island animals with life-cycles per• 28 SCIENCE BRIEFS fectly suited for the study of even higher. Such a machine inherited characteristics over might cost upwards of $700 many brief generations. Oth million; it would be a pre ers have the mysterious power cision-built hollow steel-and to grow new limbs-and to concrete doughnut four miles stop the growth when it's across! finished. Still others produce poisons-which is to say, Have you ever met a coypu? drugs. And sea water itself is If we call it a nutria, you known to kill certain strains might recognize it as the of the stubborn staphylococ source of a pretty fair fur for cus. So keep an eye on Bimini. coats. But in England just now it's called not only coypu Add to the list of subatomic but a great number of other particles (if you haven't lost things we couldn't possibly count by now) the omega, an print here. Seems some were elusive little beauty which imported from their native hangs around for all of ten Argentina about 30 years ago sextillionths of a second. It by farmers who wanted to get ·took a specially designed com into the skin trade. Then puter to scan 2500 photo nutria got (a) unfashionable graphs of the star-shaped col and (b) loose in the swamps of lision tracks resulting from East Anglia. Now there are anti-proton collisions with thousands of them, lacking na protons in the U. of Cal.'s tural enemies and breeding bevatron. 93 of the "stars" three litters a year. Thev like showed the predicted slight farm products best of ail, but c u r v a t u r e indicating that don't mind sections of moor sometimes the proton breaks ing cable regardless of the into five instead of four pi river-boats that get lost; new mesons-two positive, two ly-planted oats and wheat, negative, and one with no and even, if the complaint is charge at all. This latter is the true, a f a r m e r ' s window short-lived omega. frames.
At last fall's Conference on Small World Dept.: The Asa· High Energy Accelerators, hi Chemical Co. of Osaka has the boys decided to think big just completed the second of -real big. An international five water-desalting plants for gathering, they looked past U. S. towns. Webster S.D., Brookhaven's monstrous 33 now enjoys salt-r e d u c e d billion electron-volt synchro drinking water from its brack tron, and set their sights on ish supply, thanks to the Jap machines with outputs all the anese-designed electrodialysis way up to a trillion e-v, and installation. END
SCIENCE BRIEFS 29 Naturally an undertaker will get the last word. But shouldn't he wait until his clients are dead?
THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH
By JIM HARMON Illustrated by Gaughan
I sunset. Collins felt the twi light stealing under the arms AM Collins flashed the un of his tee-shirt. The overdue Sdertaker a healthy smile, hair on the back of his rangy hoping it wouldn't depress neck stood up in attention. old Candle too much. He sa It was a joke, but the first luted. The skeletal figure in one Collins had ever known endless black nodded gravely, Doc Candle to make. and took hold of Sam Collins' "In time, I guess you'll arm with a death grip. bury me all right, Doc." "I'm going to bury you, "In my time, not yours, Sam Collins," the undertak Earthling." er said. "Earthling?" Collins re The tall false fronts of peated the last word. Main Street spilled out a lake The old man frowned. His of shadow, a canal of liquid face was a collection of lines. heat that soaked through the When he frowned, all the iron weave of Collins' jeans lines pointed to hell, the and turned into black ink grave, decay and damnation. stains. The old window of the "Earthling," the undertaker hardware store showed its repeated. "Earthman? Ter age in soft wrinkles, ripples restrial? Solar ian? Space that had caught on fire in the Ranger? Homo sapiens?" 30 Collins decided Candle was sided gait limping, sliding, sure in a jokey mood. "Kind hopping, skipping, at a re of makes you think of it, fined leisurely pace. He was don't it, Doc? The spaceport a collection of dancing, going right up outside of straight black lines. town. Rocketshi ps are going Collins stared after the old to be out there taking off for man, shook his head and for the Satellite, the Moon, places got about him. like that. Reminds you that He moved into the hard we are Earthlings, like they ware store. The bell tinkled say in the funnies, all right." behind him. The store was "Not outside town." cramped with shadows and the "What?" smell of wood and iron. It "Inside. Inside town. Part was lined off as precisely as of the spaceship administra a checkerboard, with counters, tion building is going to go drawers, compartments. smack in the middle of where Ed Michaels sat behind the your house used to be." counter, smoking a pipe. He "My house is." was a handsome man, looking "For less time than you will young in the uncertain light, be yourself, Earthling." even at fifty. "Earthling yourself! What's "Hi, Ed. You closed?" wrong with you, Doc?" "Guess not, Sam. What are "No. I am l'!.ot an Earthling. you looking for?" I am a superhuman alien from "A pound of tenpenny outer space. My mission on nails." Earth is to destroy you." Michaels stood up. Sarah Comstock waddled OLLINS pulled away gen energetically out of the back. Ctly. When you lived in a Her sweet, angelic face lit up town all your life and knew its with a smile. "Sam Collins. people, it wasn't unusual to Well, I guess you'11 want to see some old person snap un help us murder them." der the weight of years. "Murder?" Collins repeat "You have to destroy the ed. "Who?" rocketship station, huh, Doc, "Those Air Force men who before it sends up space want to come in here and ships?" cause all the trouble." "No. I want to kill you. "How are you going to That is my mission." murder them, Mrs. Com "Why?" stock?" "Because," Candle said, "I "When they see our peti am a basically evil entity." tion in Washington, D.C., The undertaker turned they'll call those men back away and went skithering pretty quick." down Main Street, his lop- "Oh," Collins said. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 31 Mrs. Comstock produced Collins turned around and the scroll from her volumi saw Sarah Comstock still nous handbag. "You want to waiting, the petition in her sign, don't you? They're go hand. ing to put part of the airport "Now whafs a pretty girl on your place. They'll tear like you doing, wasting her down your house." time in politics?" Collins "They can't tear it down. I heard himself ask. won't sell." Mrs. Comstock twittered. "You know government "I'm old enough to be your men. T~1ey'll just take it and mother, Sam Collins." give you some money for it. "I like mature women." Sign right there at the top of Collins watched his hand new column, Sam." in fascination as it reached Collins shook his head. "I out to touch one of Sarah d o n ' t believe in signing Comstock's plump cheeks, things. They can't take what's then dropped to her shoulder mine." and ripped away the strap "But Sam, dear, they will. sleeve of her sununer print They'll come in and push dress. your house down with those A plump, rosy shoulder was big tractors of theirs. They'll revealed, splattered w i t h bury it in concrete and set off freckles. those guided missiles of theirs Sarah Comstock put her right over it." hands over her ears as if to "They can't make me get keep from hearing her own out," Sam said. shrill scream. It reached out into pure soprano range. D Michaels scooped up a Sarah Comstock backed E pound, one ounce of nails away, into the shadows, and and spilled them onto his Sam Collins followed her, scale. He pinched off the ex trying to explain, to apolo cess, then dropped it back in gize. ' and fed the nails into a brown "Sam! Sam!" paper bag. He crumpled the The voice cut through to top and set it on the counter. him and he looked up. "That's twenty-nine plus one, Ed Michaels had a double Sam. Thirty cents." barreled shotgun aimed at Collins laid out a quarter him. Mrs. Michaels' face was and a nickel and picked up looking over his shoulder in the bag. "Appreciate you do the door to the, back, her face ing this after store hours, a sick white. Ed." "You get out of here, Sam," M i c h a e I s chuckled. "I Michaels said. "You get out wasn't exactly getting ready and don't you come back. for the opera, Sam." Ever." 32 by Jim Harmo11 Collins' hands moved emp He walked across the flow tily in air. He was always ered carpet. The carpet didn't better with his hands than mind footsteps or bright sun. words, but this time even It never became worn or they seemed inexpressive. faded. It grew brighter with He crumpled the sack of the years, the roses turning nails in both fists, and turned redder, the sunflowers be and left the hardware store. coming yellower. The parlor looked the same II as it always did, clean and waiting to be used. The cane IS house was still there, backed sofa and chairs eager H sitting at the end of Elm ly waiting to be sat upon, the Street, at the end of town, on bead-shaded kerosene lamps the edge of the prairie. It ready to burst into light. was a very old house. It was Sam went into his work decorated with gingerboard, shop. This had once b:en the a rusted-out tin rooster-comb ground level master bedroom, running the peak of the roof but he had had to make the and stained glass window change. The work table held transoms; and the top of the its share of radios, toasters, house was joined to the TV sets, an electric train, ground floor by lapped fish a spring-wind Victrola. Sam scales, as though it was a threw the nails onto the table mermaid instead of a house. and crossed the room, running The house was a golden his fingers along the silent house. It had been painted keyboard of the player piano. brown against the dust, but He looked out the window. the keening wind, the relent The bulldozers had made the less sun, the savage rape of ground rectangular, level and the thunderstorms, they had brown, turning it into a gi all bleached the brown paint gantic half-cent stamp. He -into a shining pure gold. remembered the mail and Sam stepped inside and raised the w i n d o w and leaned back against the front reached down into the mail door, the door of full-length box. It was on this side of glass with a border of glass t~e house, because only this emeralds and rubies. He · s1de was technically within leaned back and breathed city limits. deep. As he came up with the The house didn't smell old. letters, Sam Collins saw a It smelled new. It smelled man sighting along a plumb like sawdust and fresh-hewn line towards his house. He lumber as bright and blond shut the window. as a high school senior's Some of the letters didn't crewcut. have any postage stamps, just
THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 33 a line of small print about a yond the sliding doors was $300 fine. Government letters. deeply shadowed. In the sew He went over and forced ing room, he remembered, in them into the tightly packed the drawers of the treadle , coal stove. All the trash would machine the radio was cap be burned out in the cold tured. The rings and secret weather. manuals of the days when Collins sat down and looked radio had been alive. He through the rest of his mail. hadn't looked over those A new catalogue of electron things in some little time. ic parts. A bulky envelope He looked up the shadowed with two paperback ·novels stairway. He remembered the by Richard S. Prather and night, a few weeks before Robert Bloch he had ordered. Christmas when he had been A couple of letters from twelve and really too old to hams. He tossed the mail on believe, his mother had said the table and leaned back. she was going up to see if Santa Claus had left any E thought about what packages around a bit early. H had happened in the They often gave him his pres hardware store. ents early, since they were It wasn't surprising it had never quite sure he would happened to him. Things like live until Christmas. that were bound to happen to But his mother had been him. He had just been lucky playing a trick on him. She that Ed Michaels hadn't hadn't been going up after called the sheriff. What had packages. She had gone up got into him? He had never those stairs to murder his been a sex maniac before! father. But still ... it was hardly un She had shot him in the expected. back of the head with his Might as well wait to start Army Colt .45 from the first on those rabbit cages until war. Collins never quite un tomorrow, he decided. This derstood why the hole in evening he felt like exploring. back was so neat and the one The house was so big, and in front where it came out packed with so many things was so messy. that he never found and ex After he went to live with amined them all. Or if he Aunt Amy and the house had did, he forgot a lot about the been boarded up, he heard things between times, so it them talking, Aunt Amy and was like reading a favorite her boy friend, fat Uncle book over again, always dis Ralph. And they had said his covering new things in it. mother had murdered his The parlor was red in the father because he had gone fading light, and the hall be- ahead and made her get preg- 34 by Jim Harmon nant again and she was afraid ments, only he returned the it would be another one like money order for the last fif Sam. ty d·ollars and wished them Sam Collins knew she must Merry Christmas. have planned it a long time Sam Collins could work in advance. She had filled up after that. When Aunty Amy the bathtub with milk, real and Uncle Ralph disappeared, milk, and she went in after he opened up the old house she had done it and took a and started doing odd jobs bath in the milk. Then she for people who weren't very slit her wrists. afraid of him any more. When Sam Collins had run That first day had been down the stairs, screaming, quite a shock, when he dis and barged into the bathroom, covered that not in all these he had found the tub looking years had anybody cleaned li~e a giant stick of pepper the bathtub. mmt candy. Sometimes, when he was taking his Saturday night UNT Amy had been good soaker he still got kind of a A to him. funny feeling. But he knew Because he didn't talk for it was only rust from the about a year after he found faucets. the bodies, most p e o p 1 e Collins sighed. It seemed thought he was simple-mind like a long time since he had ed. But Aunt Amy had al seen his mother coming down ways treated him just like a thos~ stairs ... regular boy. That was embar He stopped, his throat rassing sometimes, but still aching with tightness. it was better than what he S o m e t h i n g was very got from the others. strange. The doctor hadn't wanted His mother was coming to perform the operation on down the stairs right now. his clubfoot. He said it would She was walking down the be an unproductive waste of stai~s, one step, two steps, his time and talent, that lte commg closer to him. owed it to the world to use Collins ran up the stairs, them to the very best advan prepared to run through the tage. Finally he agreed. The phantom to prove it wasn't operation took about thirty there. seconds. He stuck a knife The figure raised a gun into Sam's foot and went and pointed it at him. snick-snick. A c o u p 1 e of This time, she was going to weeks later, his foot was shoot him. healed and it was just like It figured. anybody else's, Aunt Amy He always had bad luck. had paid him $500 in pay- "Stop!" the woman on the; ~HE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 35 stairs said. "Stop or I'll tection. I came to help you shoot, Mr. Collins!" Mr. Collins." ' "Help me?" OLLINS stopped, catch "Yes, Mr. Collins. You're C ing to the bannister. He sick. You need help." squinted hard, and as a ster He looked the girl over. eoptic slide lost its depth She was a half-dozen years when you shut one eye, the younger than he was. In most woman on the stairs was no states, she couldn't even vote longer his mother. She was yet. But still, maybe she young, pretty, brunette and could help, at that. He didn't sweet-faced, and the gun she know much about girls and held shrunk from an old their abilities. Army Colt to a .22 target pis "Why don't we go into the tol. kitchen and have some cof "Who are you?" Collins fee?" Collins suggested. demanded. The girl took a grip on .the III gun with both hands and held it steady on him. ANCY sipped her coffee "I'm Nancy Comstock," N and kept her eyes on his. she said. "You tried to as The gun lay in her lap. The sault my mother a half hour big kitchen was a place for ago." coffee, brown and black, wood "Oh," he said. "I've never ceiling and iron stove and seen you before." pans. Collins sat across the "Yes, you have. I've been twelve square feet of table away to school a lot, but from her, and nursed the you've seen me around. I've smoking mug. had my eye on you. I know "Sam, I want you to take about men like you. I know whatever comfort you can what has to be done. I came from the fact that I don't looking for you in your think the same thing about bouse for this." you as the rest of Waraxe." The bore of the gun was "What does the rest of the level with his eye as he stood town think about me?" a few steps below her. Prob "They think you are a ably if she fired now, she pathological degenerate who would kill him. Or more like should be lynched. But I ly he would only be blinded don't believe that." or paralyzed; that was about "Thanks. That's a big com his luck. fort." "Are you going to use "I know what you were af that gun?" he asked. ter when you tore :r~'l:om's "Not unless I have to. I dress." only brought it along for pro- In spite of himself. Collins M 1tr Jha HarMOft felt his face warming in a only get deeper and deeper blush. into your makebelieve world. "You were only seeking the It will be like quicksand. Ad mother love you missed as a mit your mistakes-face up boy," the girl said. to them-lick them." Collins chewed on his lip a Collins stood up, and came moment, and considered the around the end of the table. idea. Slowly he shook his ''You're too pretty to be so head. serious all the time," he said. "No," he said. "No. I don't think so." "SAM, I want to help you. "Then what do you think?" Please don't spoil it by "I think old Doc Candle misinterpreting my inten made me do it. He said he tions." was going to bury me. Get "You should get a little ting me lynched would be fun out of life," Collins lis one good way to do it. Ed tened to himself say. Michaels almost blew my He came on around the big head off with his shotgun. It table towards her. was close. Doc Candle almost The first · time he hadn't made it. He ·didn't miss by realized what was happening, far with you and that target but this time he knew. Some pistol either.'' body was pulling strings and "Sam-! may call you making him jump. He had as 'Sam' ?-just try to think much control as Charlie Mc calmly and reasonably for a Carthy. minute. How could Dr. Can "Don't come any closer, dle, the undertaker, possibly Sam." make you do a thing like you Nancy managed to keep did in Mr. Michaels' hard her voice steady, but he could ware store?" tell she was frightened. "Well ... he said he was a He took another step. superhuman alien from outer She threw her coffee in his space." face. "If he said that, do you be The liquid was only luke lieve hiin, Sam?" warm but the sudden dash "Something made me do had given him some aware that. It just wasn't my own ness of his own body again, idea.'' like the first sound of the "It's easier that way, isn't alarm faintly pressing through it, Sam?" Nancy asked. "It's deep layers of sleep. easy to say. 'It wasn't me; "Sam, Sam, please don't some space monster made me make me do it! Please, Sam, do it.' But you really know don't!" better, don't you, Sam? Don't Nancy had the gun in her take the easy way out! You'll hand, rising from her chair. THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 37. His hands wanted to grab "Damn it, yes! What did her clothes and tear. you expect? A marksman But that's s u i c i d e, he medal?" screamed at his body. "Okay, Ed, okay. Did you As his hand went up with call Doc Van der Lies like the intention of ripping, he I told you when I phoned?" deflected it just enough to Michaels took a folded shove the barrel of the gun white handkerchief from his away from him. pocket and wiped his square The shot went off, but he jawed face. "You sure are knew instantly that it had taking this calm, Sam. I'm not hit him. telling you, Sam, it would The gun fell to the floor, look better for you if you at and with its fall, something least acted like you were sor else dropped away and he was ry. . Doc Van der Lies is up in command of himself again. in Wisconsin with Mike. I Nancy sighed, and slumped called Doc Candle." against him, the left side of "l-Ie's an undertaker," Col her breast suddenly glossy lins whispered. with blood. "Don't you expect we need one:?" Michaels asked. Then D Michaels stared at him. as if he wasn't sure of the E Both eyes unblinking, just answer to his own question, staring at him. He had only he said, "Did you examine taken one look at the girl her to see if she wai'l dead? lying on the floor, blood all 1-1 don't know much about over her chest. He hadn't women. I wouldn't be able to looked back. tell." "I didn't know who else to It didn't sound like a very call, Ed." Collins said. "Sher good excuse to Collins. iff Thurston being out of "I guess she's dead," Col town and all." lins said. "That's the way he "It's okay, Sam. Mike must have wanted it." swore me in as a special "He? Wait a minute, Sam. deputy a couple years back. Yon mean you've got one of The badge is at the store." those split personalities like "They'll han: me for this, that girl on TV the other won't they, Ed?" night? There's somebody else Michaels put his hand on inside you that takes over and Collins' shoulder. "No, they makes you do things?" won't do that to you, boy. We "I never thought of it just know you around here. They'll like that before. I guess that's just put you away for a one way to look at it." while." The knock shook the back "The asylum at Hannah, door before Michaels could huh?" say a n y t h i n g. The door
38 by Jim Harmo11 opened and Doc Candle slith~ "Ed ! Doc ! She moved ! ered in disjointedly,. a rolled She's still alive." up stretcher over his shoul "Cut that out now, Sam," der. Ed Michaels snapped. "Just "Hello, boys," Candle said. carry your end." "A terrible accident, it brings "She's alive," Collins in sorrow to us all. Poor Nancy. sisted. "She moved again. Has the family been noti Just turn around ·and take a fied?" look, Ed. That's all I ask." "Good gosh, I forgot about "I hefted this thing once, it," Michaels said. "But may and that's enough. You move, be we better wait until you Sam. I've got a .38 in my belt, get her-arranged, huh, Doc?" and I went to Rome, Italy, for the Olympics about the "QUITE so." The old man time you were getting your laid the canvas stretch- self born, Sam. I ought to be er out beside the girl on able to hit a target as big as the floor and unrolled it. He you. Just go ahead and do as flipped the body over expert you're told." ly like a window demonstrat Collins turned desperately or flipping a pancake over towards Candle. Maybe Nan on a griddle. cy had been right, maybe he "Ed, if you'd just take the had been imagining things. front, I'll carry the rear. My "Doc, you take a look at vehicle is in the alley." her," Collins begged. "Sam, you carry that end The old man vibrated over for Doc. You're a few years to the stretcher and looked younger." · down. The girl twisted in Collins wanted to say that pain, throwing her head back, he couldn't, but he didn't spilling her hair over the have enough yet to argue head of the stretcher. with. He picked up the "Rigor mortis," Doc "Can stretcher and looked down at dle diagnosed, with a wink to the white feet in the Scotch Collins. plaid slippers. "No, Doc! She needs a doc Candle opened the door and tor, blood transfusions .•• ,.. w a i t e d for them to go through. "NONSENSE," C an d 1 e The girl on the stretcher snapped. "I'll take her parted her lips and rolled her in my black wagon up to my head back and forth, a puz place, put her in the tiled zled expression of pain on her basement. I'll pump out all face. her blood and flush it down Collins nearly dropped the the commode. Then I'll feed stretcher, but he made him· in Formaldi-Forever Number self hold on tight. Zero. P'ormaldi-Forevet", for ~HE LAST PLACE ON EARTH .. the Blush of Death. 'When "DIDN'T you hear that?" you think of a Pretty Girl, Collins asked. think of Formaldi-Forever, "Hear what?" Michaels the Way to Preserve that said. Beauty/ Then I'll take a "What are you hearing needle and some silk thread now, Sam?" Candle inquired and just a few stitches on solicitously. the eyelids and around the "Oh. Sure," Michaels said. mouth ... " "Kind of a voice, wasn't it, "Doc, will you ... ?" Mich Sam? Didn't understand what aels said faintly. it said. Wasn't listening too "Of course. I just wanted close, not like you." to show Sam how foolish he Thud-thud-thump-thud. was in saying the Beloved "No voice," Collins whis was still alive." pered. "That infernal sound, Nancy kicked one leg off don't you hear it, Ed?" the stretcher and Candle "I must hurry along." the picked it up and tucked it undertaker said. "Must get back in. ready to work on Nancy, get "Ed, if you'd just turn her ready for her parents to around and look." Collins see." said. "All right, Doc. I'll take "I don't want to have to care of Sam." look at your face, you mur "Where you going to jail dering son. You make me, me, Ed?" Collins asked, his you say one more word, and eyes on the closed truck I'll turn around and shoot doors. "In your storeroom you between the eyes." like you did Hank Petrie?" Doc Candle nodded. Col Michaels' face suddenly be lins knew then that Michaels gan to work. "Jail? Jail you? really would shoot him in Jail's too good for you. Doc, the head if he said anything have you got a tow rope in more, so he kept quiet. that truck?" Candle held the door. They Ed Michaels was the best managed to get the stretcher shot in town, probably one down the back steps, and of the best marksmen in the right into the black panel world. He had been in the truck. They fitted the stretch Olympics about thirty years er into the special sockets ago. He was Waraxe's one for it, and Doc Candle closed claim to fame. But he wasn't the double doors and slapped a cowboy. He wasn't a fast his dry palm down on the draw. sealing crevice. Collins put all of his Instantly, there was an an weight behind his left fist swering knock from inside the and landed it on the point of truck, a dull echo. Michaels' jaw, just the way 40 ° lay J&• Harmon ~HE LAST PLACE PN EARTH 41 he used to do when gangs of remote, sterile gray sweep. boys jumped onto him. The McHenty Road would Michaels sprawled out, soon be closed to civilian spread-eagled. traffic. But right now that Then Collins wanted to the government wanted people take the revolver out of Ed's to drive along and see that belt, and press it into Ed's the spaceship was nothing hand, curling his fingers terrible, nothing to fear. around the grip and over the The girl, Nancy Comstock, trigger, and then he wanted was alive in the back. He to shake Ed awake, slap his knew that. But he couldn't face and shake him ... stop to prove it or to help Collins spun around, clawed her. Candle would make them open the door to the truck lynch him first. cab and threw himself behind Why hadn't Candle stopped the steering wheel. him from getting away? He stopped wanting to He had managed to break make Ed Michaels shoot him. his control for a second. He He flipped the ignition had done that before when switch, levered the floor shift he deflected Nancy's aim, and drove away. But he couldn't resist Candle And he was going to drive for long. Why hadn't Candle on and on and on and on. made him turn around and And on and on and on. come back? Candle's control of him had IV seemed to stop when he got inside the cab of the truck. OLLINS turned onto the Could it be that the metal C old McHenty blacktop, his shield of the cab could pro foot pressed to the floor tect an Earthling from the boards. Ed Michaels didn't strange mental powers of the own a car; he would have to creature from another planet borrow one from somebody. which was inhabiting the That would take time. Maybe body of Doc Candle? Candle would give him his Collins shook his head. hearse to use to follow the More likely Candle was do Black Rachel. ing this just to get his hopes Trees, fences, barns whizzed up. He probably would seize past the windows of the control of him any time he cab and then the steel link wanted to. But Collins decid mesh fence took up, the fence ed to go on playing it as if surrounding the New Kansas he did have some hope, as if National Spaceport. Behind a shield of metal could pro it, further from town, some tect him from Candle's con of the concrete had been trol. Otherwise ... there was poured and the horizon was a no otherwise.
42 By Jim Harmon ~LL~NS suddenly saw an "Murdered me? But I'm openmg. alive. Can"t they see I'm The steel mesh fence was alive?" ruptured by a huge semi Collins shook his head. ••I trailer truck turned on its doubt it. I don't know why, side. Twenty feet of fence on but I don't think it would be either side was down. This that simple. Come with me." was restricted government The blood on her breast property, but of course space had dried, and he could see ships were hardly prime mil it was only a shallow groove itary secrets any longer. Re dug by the bullet. But she pairs in the fence had not flinched in pain as she began been made instantaneously, to walk, pulling the muscles. and the wreckage was not They stopped and leaned guarded. against a half-finished metal Collins swerved the wheel lic shed. and drove the old wagon "Where are we? Where are across the waffle-plate ob you taking me?" struction, onto the smooth "This is the spaceport. Now tarmac beyond. shut up." He raced, raced, raced "Let me go." through the falling night, not "No~" sure where he was headed. "I'm not dead," Nancy in Up above he saw the shel sisted. "You know I'm not ter of shadows from a cluster dead. I won't press charges of half-finished buildings. He against you-just let me go drove into them and parked. free." Collins sat still for a mo "I told you it wasn't that ment, then tht·ew open the simple. He wants them to door and ran around to the think you're dead, and that's back of the truck, jerking what they'll think." open the handles. Nancy passed fingers Nancy fell out into his across her eyes. "Who? Who arms. are you talking about?" "What kind of ambulance "Doc Candle. He won't let is this?" she demanded. "It them know you're alive." doesn't look like an ambu Nancy rubbed her forehead lance. It doesn't smell like an with both hands. "Sam, you ambulance. It looks like don'~ know what you're do looks like-" ing. You don't-know what Collins said, "Shut up. Get you're getting yourself into. out of there. \V e've got to Just let me show myself to hide." someone. They'll know I'm "Why?" not dead. Really they will." "They think I murdered "Okay," he said. "Let's find you." somebody." THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 43 E led her towacd a more Nancy. But you can't be her, H nearly. completed build because she's dead." ing, showing rectangles of "I'm here, and I tell you light. They looked through I'm not dead." the windows to see several "Nancy's dead," Elston re men in unifonns bending over peated mechanically. "Say, blueprints on a desk jury what are you trying to pull?'' r i g g e d of sawhorses and "Terry, behind you. A ma planks. niac!'' "Sam," Nancy said, ••one of "Sure," Elston said. "Sure. those men is Terry Elston. There's a maniac behind me." He's a Waraxe boy. I went to Collins stepped forward school with him. He'll know and hit Elston behind the ear. me. Let's go in ... " He fell silently. "No," Collins said. "We Nancy stared down at him. don't go in." "He refused to recognize "But-" Nancy started to me. He acted like I was crazy, protest, but stopped. "Wait. pretending to be Nancy Com-· He's coming out." stock." Collins slid along the wall "Come on along," Collins and stood behind the door. urged. "They'll probably "Tell him who you are when shoot us on sight as trespass he comes out. I'll stay here." ers." They waited. After a few She looked around herself seconds, the door opened. without comprehension. Nancy stepped into rec "Which way?" tangle of light thrown on the "This way." concrete from the window. Collins did not say those "Terry," she said. "Terry, words. it's me-Nancy Comstock." They were said by the man The blue-jawed young man with the gun in the uniform in uniform frowned. "Who like the one worn by Elston. did you say you were? Have He motioned impatiently. you got clearance from this "This way, this way.'• area?" "It's me, Terry. Nancy. "NO priority," C o 1 one 1 Nancy Comstock." Smith-Boerke said as Terry Elston stepped front he paced back and forth, gun and center. "That's not a very in hand. good joke. I knew Nancy. From time to time he Hell of a way to die, killed waved it threateningly at Col by some maniac." lins and Nancy who sat on "Terry, I'm Nancy. Don't the couch in Smith-Boerke's you recognize me?" office. They had been sitting Elston squinted. "You look for close to two hours. Col familiar. You look a little like lins now knew the Colonel 44 by Jim Harmon did not intend to turn him you like to be the first man over to the authorities. They to travel faster than light?" were being held for reasons Coll,ins knew the-re was no of Smith-Boerke's own. way out. "They sneak the ship in ''All right," he said. here, plan for an unscheduled Smith-Boerke wiped a hop from an uncompleted hand across his dry mouth. base-the strictest security "Project Silver has to come we've used in ten or fifteen off. My whole career depends years-and now they cancel on it. You don't have any it. This is bound to get thing to do. Everything's cy leaked by somebody! They'll bernetic. Just ride along and call it off. It'll never fly prove a human being can sur now." vive. Nothing to it. No hyper Collins sat quietly. He had drives, none of that kind of been listening to this all eve stuff. Vv e had an engine that ning. Smith-Boerke had been could go half lightspeed and drinking, although it wasn't now we've made it twice as very obvious. efficient and more. No super Smith-Boerke t u r·n e d to stitions about Einstein, I Collins. hope? No? Good." "I've been w a i t i n g for "I'll go," Collins said. "But somebody like you. Just what if I had said 'no'." waiting for you to come Smith-Boerke put the gun along. And here you are, a away in a desk drawer. wanted fugitive, completely "Then you c o u 1 d have in my power! Perfect, per walked out of here, straight fect." into the MP's." Collins nodded to himself. "Why didn't they come in Of course, Colonel Smith here after me?" Boerke had been waiting for "They don't have security him. And Doc Candle had clearance for this building." driven him right to him. It "Don't leave me alone," was inescapable. He had been Nancy said urgently. "I don't intended to escape and turn understand what's happening. up right here all along. I feel so helpless. I need "What do you want with help." me?" "You're asking the wrong Smith-Boerke's f 1 us he d man," Collins said briefly. face brightened. "You want to become a hero? A hero so OLLINS felt safe when big that all these trumped-up C the airlock kissed shut its charges against you will be metal lips. dropped? It'll be romantic. It was not like the house, Back to Lindbergh-to-Paris. but yet he felt safe, sur Tell me, Collins, how would rounded by all the compli- THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 45 cated, expensive electronic untoward happened when you equipment. It was big, solid, reached lightspeed. It was sterilely gleaming. only an arbitrary number. All Another thing-he had rea else was superstition. Forget son to believe that Doc Can it, forget it, forget it. dle's power could not reach Something was telling him him through metal. that. At first he thought it "But I'm not outside," Doc was Doc Candle but then he Candle said, "I'm in here, knew it was the ship. with you." Collins sat back and took it, Collins yelled and cursed, and what he was taking was he tried to pull off the ac death. It was creeping over celeration webbing and claw him, seeping into his feet, through the airlock. Nobody filling him like liquid does paid any attention to him. a sponge. Count downs had been auto Not will, but curiosity, mate d. Smith-Boerke was caused him to turn his head. handling this one himself, He saw Doc Candle. and he cut off the Audio-In The old body was dying. switch from the spaceship. He was in the emergency Doc Candle said nothing else seat, broken, a ribbon of for a moment, and the space blood lacing his chin. But ship, almost an entity itself, Doc Candle continued to went on with its work. laugh triumphantly in Col The faster-than-light space lins' head. ship took off. "Why? Why do you have At first it was like any to kill me?" Collins asked. other rocket takeoff. "Because I am evil." The glow of its exhaust "How do you know you're spread OlVer the field of the evil?" spaceport, then over the hills "They told me so!'' Candle and valleys, and then the shouted back in the thun town of Waraxe, spreading dering silence of Death's illumination even as far as approach. "They were always Sam Collins' silent house. saying I was bad." After a time of being sick, They. Collins lay back and accepted this too. OLLINS got a picture of "That's right, that's it," C something incredibly old Doc Candle said. "Take it and incredibly wise, but long and die with it. That's the unused to the young, clumsy ticket." gods. Something that could Collins' eyes settled on a mar the molding of a godling gauge. Three quarters light and make it mortal. speed. Climbing. "Bu't I'm not really so very Nothing strange, nothing bad.'' Doc Candle went on• ... bl JIM Har1110• "I had to destroy, but I move sli pwise under him, and picked someone who really then a crash. didn't care if he were de And Doc Candle got help stroyed or not. An almost ab too, the only help even the solutely passive human being, older, wiser ones could give Sam. You." him. Collins nodded. "And even then," said the HEY pulled him out of superhuman alien from outer T the combined wreckage of space, "I could not just de the spaceship and his house. stroy. I have created a work Both were demolished. of art." It was strange how the "Work of art?" spaceship Sam Collins was on "Yes. I have taken your crashed right into his house. life and turned it into a hor Ed Michaels recalled a time ror story, Sam! A chilling, in a tornado when Sy Baxter's demonic, black-hearted hor car was picked up, lifted ror!" across town and dropped Collins nodded again. into his living room. LIGHTSPEED. When the men from the There was finally some spaceport lifted away tons of thing human within Sam Col rubble, they found him and lins that he could not deny. said, "He's dead." He wanted to live. It wasn't No, I'm not, C o 11 i n s true. He did care what hap thought. I'm alive. pened. And then they saw that he You do? said somebody. reallv was alive, that he had He does? asked somebody come through it alive some else, surprised. and suddenly how, and nobody remembered he again got the image of anything like it since the wiser, older creatures, a lit airliner crash in '59. tle ashamed because of what A while later, after they they had done to the creature found Doc Candle's body and named Doc Candle. c o u r t-m a r t i a 1 e d Smith He does, chorused several Boerke, who took drugs, Nan voices, and Sam Collins cried cy was nuzzling him on his aloud: "I do! I want to live!" hospital bed. It was nice, They were just touching but he wasn't paying much lightspeed; he felt it. attention. This time it was not just I'm free, Collins thought as a biological response. He real the girl hugged him. Free! ly wanted help. He wanted He kissed her. to stay alive. Well, he thought while she From the older, wiser voices was kissing him back, as he got help, though he never free as I want to be, anyway. knew how; he felt the ship END THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH 47. By H. B. Fyfe THE T-ALKATIVE TREE
DanCJ vines! Beats all how some plants have no manners-but what do you ex pec:t, when they used to be men!
LL things considered "Since the crew will be on A the obscure star, the un emergency watches repairing determined. damage to the the damage," announced the stellar drive and the way the Chief in clipped, aggressive small planet's murky atmos tones, "I have volunteered my phere defied precision scan section for preliminary scout ners-the pilot made a rea ing, as is suitable. It may be sonably good landing. Despite useful to discover temporary sour feelings for the space sources in this area of natural service of Haurtoz, steward foods." Peter Kolin had to admit that V nlunteered HIS section! casualties might have been thought Kolin rebelliously. far worse. Like the Supreme Director Chief Steward Slichow led of Haurtoz! Being conscript his little command, less two ed into this idiotic space fleet third-class ration k e e p e r s that never fights is bad thought to have been trapped enough without a tin god on in the lower hold, to a point jets like Slichow! two hundred meters from the Prudently, he did not ex steaming hull of the Peace press this resentment overtly. State. He lined them up as if His well-schooled features on parade. Kolin made him revealed no trace of the idea self inconspicuous. -or of any other idea. The 4.D Planetary State of Haurtoz rocket pistol and a plastic wa had been organized some fif ter tube. Chief Slichow em teen light-years from old phasized that the keepers of Earth, but many of the home rations could hardly, in an world's less kindly techniques emergency, give even the ap had been employed. Lack of pearance of favoring them complete loyalty to the state selves in regard to food. They was likely to result in a siege would go without. Kolin of treatment that left the sub maintained a standard expres ject suitably "re-personal sion as the Chief's sharp ized." Kolin had heard of in stare measured theDL stances wherein mere unen Yrtok, a dark, lean-faced thusiastic posture had be girl, led the way with a quiet trayed intentions to harbor monosyllable. She carried the treasonable thoughts. small radio they would be "You will scout in five de permitted to use for messages tails of three persons each," of utmost urgency. Ammet Chief Slichow said. "Every followed, and Kolin brought hour, each detail will send up the rear. one person in to report, and he will be replaced by one of O reach their assigned the five I shall keep here to T sector, they had to climb issue rations." a forbidding ridge of rock Kolin permitted himself to within half a kilometer. Only wonder when anyone might a sparse creeper grew along get some rest, but assumed a their way, its elongated leaves mildly willing look. (Too ea shimmering with b r o n z e ger an attitude could arouse green reflections against a suspicion of disguising an im stony surface; but when they proper viewpoint.) The main topped the ridge a thick for tenance of a proper viewpoint est was in sight. was a necessity if the Plane Y rtok and Ammet paused tary State were to survive momentarily before descend the hostile plots of Earth and ing. the latter's decadent colonies. Kolin shared their sense of That, at least, was the offi isolation. They would be out cial line. of sight of authority and re Kolin found himself in a sponsible for their own ac• group with Jak Ammet, a tions. It was a strange sensa• third cook, and Eva Yrtok, tion. powdered foods storekeeper. They marched down into Since the crew would be eat the valley at a brisk pace, be ing packaged rations during coming more aware of the repairs, Y rtok could be spared clouds and atmospheric haze. to command a scout detail. Distant objects 1 e e m c d Each acout was isaue.d a blurred by the miet, taking on THE TALKATIVE TREE ... a somber, brooding grayness. der of the odd-looking trees. For all Kolin could tell, he E x c e p t for one thick and the others were isolated trunked giant, all of them in a world bounded by the were about the same height. rocky ridge behind them and They craned their necks to es a semi-circle of damp trees timate the altitude of the and bushes several hundred monster, but the top was hid meters away. He suspected den by the wide spread of that the hills rising mistily branches. The depths behind ahead were part of a contin it looked dark and impenetra uous slope, but could not be ble. sure. "We'd better explore along Yrtok led the w3y along the edge," decided Yrtok. the most nearly level ground. "Ammet, now is the time to Low creepers ~arne more go back and tell the Chief plentiful, interspersed with which way we're-Ammet!" scrubby thickets of tangled, Kolin looked over his shoul spike-armored bushes. Occa der. Fifty meters away, Am sionally, small flying things me·t sat beside the bush with flickered among the foliage. the purple berries, utterly Once, a shrub puffed out an relaxed. e n o r m o u s cloud of tiny "He must have t a s t e d spores. some !" exclaimed Kolin. "I'll "Be a job to find anything see how he is." edible here," grunted Ammet, He ran back to the cook and and Kolin agreed. shook him by the shoulder. Finally, after a longer hike Arnmet's head lolled loosely than he had anticipated, they to one side. His rather heavy approached the edge of the features were vacant, lending deceptively d i s tan t forest. him a doped appearance. Ko Yrtok paused to examine some lin straightened up and beck purple berries glistening dan oned to Y rtok. gerously on a low shrub. Ko For some reason, he had lin regarded the trees with trouble attracting her atten misgiving. tion. Then he noticed that she "Looks as tough to get was kneeling. through as a tropical jungle," "Hope she didn't eat some he remarked. stupid thing too!" he grum "I think the stuff puts out bled, trotting back. shoots t_hat grow back into As he reached her, what the ground to root as they ever Yrtok was examining spread," said the woman. came to life and scooted into .. Maybe we can find a way the underbrush with a flash through." of greenish fur. All Kolin In two or three minutes, saw was that it had several they reached the abrupt bor· legs too inany. IG. H. 8. FYFE He pulled Yrtok to her When he reached the first feet. She pawed at him weak t h i c k limbs, twice head ly, eyes as vacant as Ammet's. height, he felt safer. When he let go in sudden Later, at what he hoped was horror, she folded gently to the halfway mark, he hooked the ground. She lay comfort one knee over a branch and ably on her side, twitching paused to wipe sweat from his one hand as if to brush some eyes. Peering down, he dis thing away. covered the ground to be ob When she began to smile scured by foliage. dreamily, Kolin backed away. "I should have checked from down there to see how HE comers of his mouth open the top is," he mused. T felt oddly stiff; they had "I wonder how the view will involuntarily drawn back to be from up there?" expose his clenched teeth. He "Depends on what you're glanced warily about, but looking for, Sonny!" some nothing appeared to threaten thing remarked in a soughing him. wheeze. "It's time to en.d this scout," Kolin, slipping, grab be d he told himself. "It's danger desperately for the branch. ous. One good look and I'm His fingers clutched a hand jetting off I What I need is ful of twigs and leaves, which an easy tree to climb." just barely supported him un He considered the massive til he regained a grip with giant. Soaring thirty or forty the other hand. meters into the thin fog and The branch quivered resent dwarfing other growth, it fully under him. seemed the most promising "Careful, there !" whooshed choice. the eerie voice. "It took me At first, Kolin saw no way, all summer to grow those !" but then the network of vines Kolin could feel the skin clinging to the rugged trunk crawling along his backbone. suggested a route. He tried "Who are you?" he gasped. his weight gingerly, then be The answering sigh of gan to climb. laughter gave him a distinct "I should have b r o u g h t chill despite its suggestion of Yrtok's radio," he muttered. amiabilty. "Oh, well, I can take it when "Name's Johnny Ashlew. I come down, if abe hasn't Kinda thought you'd start snapped out of her spell by with what I am. Didn't figure then. Funny ..• I wonder if you'd ever seen a man grown that green thing bit her." into a tree before.'' Footholds were plentiful Kolin looked about, seeing among the interlaced lianas. little but leaves and fog. K o 1 i n progreased rapidlY.• "I have to climb do.wn1,. he THE TALKATIVI; TRI:IE St. told himself in a reasonable world ain't all it looks like." tone. "It's bad enough that the "It isn't, Mr. Ashlew?" other two passed out without asked Kolin, twisting about me going space happy too." in an effort to see what the "What's your hurry?" de higher branches might hide. manded the voice. "I can talk "Nope. M o s t everything to you just as easy all the way here is run by the Life-that down, you know. Airholes in is, by the thing that first my bark-I'm not like an grew big enough to do some Earth tree." thinking, and. set its roots Kolin examined the bark of down all over until it had the crotch in which he sat. It control. That's the outskirts did seem to have assorted of it down below." holes and hollows in its rough "The other trees? That jun surface. gle?" "I never saw an Earth tree," "It's more'n a jungle, Son he admitted. ''VIe came from ny. When I landed here, along Haurtoz." with the others from the. "Where's that? Oh, never Arcturan Spark, the planet mind-some little planet. I looked pretty empty to me, don't bother with them all, just like it must have to since I came here and found Watch it, there, Boy! If I out I could be anything I didn't twist that branch over wanted." in time, you'd be bouncing off "What do you mean, any my roots right now!" thing you wanted?" asked "Th-thanks !" grunted Ko Kolin, testing the firmness of lin, hanging on grimly. a vertical vine. "Doggone vine!" comment ed the windy whisper. "He "JUST what I said," con- ain't one of my crowd. Land tinued the voice, sound ed years later in a ship from ing closer in his ear as his some star towards the center cheek brushed the ridged bark of the galaxy, You should of the tree trunk. "And, if have seen his looks before I do have to remind you, it the Life got in touch with his would be nicer if you said mind and set up a mental field 'Mr. Ashlew,' considering my to help him change form. He age." looks t w i c e as good as a "Your age? How old-?" vine!" .. Can't really count it in "He's very handy," agreed Earth years any more. Lost Kolin politely. He groped for track. I always figured bein' a foothold. a tree was a nice, peaceful "Well ... matter of fact, I life; and when I remembered can't get through to him how long some of them live, much, even with the Life's that settled it. Sonny, this mental field helping. Gueu S2 ILIJ. FYFE be started living with a dif place. A Planetary State I You ferent way of thinking. It have to think and even look burns me. I thought of being 'the way that's standard thir a tree, and then he came along ty hours a day, asleep or to take advantage of it!" awake. You get scared to Kolin braced himself se sleep for fear you might curely to stretch tiring mus dream treason and they'd find cles. out somehow." "Maybe I'd better stay a "Whooeee! Heard about while," he muttered. "I don't them places. Must be tough know where I am." just to live." "You're about fifty feet Suddenlv, Kolin found him up," the sighing voice in self telling the tree about life formed him. "You ought to on Haurtoz, and of the offi let me tell you how the Life cially announced threats to helps you change form. You the Planetary State's planned don't have to be a tree." expansion. He dwelt upon the "No?" desperation of having no "Uh-uh! Some of the boys place to hide in case of trou that landed with me wanted ble with the authorities. A to get around and see things. m u 1 t i p 1 e system of such Lots changed to animals or w o r 1 d s was agonizing to birds. One even stayed a man imagine. -on the outside anyway. Most of them have to change OMEHOW, the oddity of as the bodies wear out, which Stalking to a tree wore off. I don't, and some made bad Kolin heard opinions spout mistakes tryin' to be things ing out which he had pru they saw on other planets." dently kept bottled up for "I wouldn't want to do years. that, Mr. Ashlew." The more he talked and ''There's just one thing. stormed and complained, the The Life don't like taking more relaxed he felt. chances on word about this "If there was ever a fellow place gettin' around. It sorta ready for this planet," decid ~lieves in peace and quiet. ed the tree named Ashlew, You might not get back to "you're it, Sonny! Hang on your ship in any form that there while I signal the Life could tell tales." by root!" . "Listen!" Kolin blurted Kolin sensed a lack of di out. "I wasn't so much en rect attention. The rustle joying being what I was that about him was natural, caused getting back matters to me!" by an ordinary breeze. He "Don't like your home plan noticed his hands shaking. et, whatever the name was?" "Don't know what got into "'Haurtoz. It's a rotten me1 talking that way to a .:r~ Talkatve Tree 53 tree," he muttered. "If Yrtok "Why?" wheezed Ashlew. snapped out of it and heard, "They're scared that with I'm as good as re-personalized out talk of war, and scouting right now." for Earth fleets that never As he brooded upon the come, people would have time sorry choice of arousing a to think about the way they search by hiding where he have to live and who's run was or going back to bluff ning things in the Planetary things out, the tree spoke. State. Then the gravy train "Maybe you're all set, Son would get blown up-and I ny. The Life has been think mean blown up!" in' of learning about other The tree was silent for a worlds. If you can think of a moment. Kolin felt the safe form to jet off in, you branches stir meditatively. might make yourself a deal. Then Ashlew offered a sug How'd you like to stay here?" gestion. "I don't know," said Kolin. "I could tell the Life your "The penalty for desertion-" side of it," he hissed. "Once "Whoosh! Who'd find you? in with us, you can always You could be a bird, a tree, make thinking connections, even a cloud." no matter how far away. Silenced but doubting, Ko Maybe you could make a deal lin permitted himself to try to kill two birds with one the dream on for size. stone, as they used to say on He considered what form Earth ... " might most easily escape the notice of search parties and HIEF Steward Slichow still be tough enough to live Cpaced up and down beside a long time without renewal. the ration crate turned up to Another factor slipped into serve him as a field desk. He his musings: mere hope of es scowled in turn, impartially, cape was unsatisfying after at his watch and at the weary the outburst that had defined stewards of his headquarters his fuming hatred for Haurt detail. The latter stumbled oz. about, stacking and distribu I'd better watch myself! he ting small packets of emer thought. Don't drop diamonds gency rations. to grab at stars! The line of crewmen re "What I wish I could do is leased temporarily from re not just get away but get even pair work was transient as to for the way they make us individuals but immutable as live ... the whole damn set-up. to length. Slichow muttered They could just as easy make something profane about dis peace with the Earth colo regard of orders as he glared nies. You know why they at the rocky ridges surround- don't?" ing the landing place. · 54 H. B. FYF'E He was so intent upon plan He paused to consider the ning greetings with which to state of the tree named Ash favor the tardy scouting par lew, half immortal but rooted ties that he failed to notice to one spot, unable to float on the loose cloud drifting over a breeze or through space it the ridge. self on the pressure of light. It was tenuous, almost a Especially, it was unable to haze. C 1 o s e examination insinuate any part of itself would have revealed it to be into the control center of an made up of myriads of tiny other form of life, as a second spores. They resembled those spore was taking charge of cast forth by one of the the body of Chief Slichow at b u s h e s Kolin's party had that very instant. passed. Along the edges, the There are not enough men, haze faded raggedly into thin thought Kolin. Some of me air, but the units evidently must drift through the air formed a cohesive body. They lock. In space, I can spread drifted together, approaching through the air system to the the men as if taking intelli command group. gent advantage of the breeze. Repairs to -the Peace State One of Chief Slichow's and the return to Haurtoz staggering flunkies, stealing passed like_ weeks to some of a few seconds of relaxation the crew but like brief mo on the pretext of dumping an ments in infinity to other armful of light plastic pack units. At last, the ship parted ing, wandered into the haze. the air above Headquarters He froze. City and landed. After a few heartbeats, he The unit known as Captain dropped the trash and stared Theodor Kessel hesitated be at ship and men as if he had fore descending the ramp. He never seen either. A hail from surveyed the field, the city his master moved him. and the waiting team of in "Coming, Chief!" he called specting officers. but, returning at a moderate "Could hardly be better, pace, he murmured, "My could it?" he chuckled to the name is Frazer. I'm a second companion unit called Secur assistant steward. I'll think as ity Officer Tarth. Unit One." "Hardly, sir. All ready for Throughout the cloud of the liberation of Haurtoz." spores, the mind formerly "Reformation of the Plane known as Peter Kolin con tary State," mused the cap gratulated itself upon its tain, smiling dreamily as he choice of form. grasped the handrail. "And Nearer to the original then-formation of the Plane shape of the Life than Ash tary :Mind!" lew got, he thought. E.ND J'H£ TALKATIVI J'REI 155 F·ROM PLYNCK TO PLANCK
by THEODORE STURGEON
ROM San Francisco, reader R e a d e r Eaves to about the FKirsten Eaves writes to same degree as (another read pose a question: er wrote me of this convic tion) I wrote Dianetics. Read "Why do people who er Eaves must therefore an read Philip Wylie read swer her own last question. As Theodore Sturgeon? And to the matter of character why do people who read types, I usually hold myself all the Lewis Carroll they against categorizations cate can find read both the gorically, because of an early former?. . . Is there a and deep conviction that peo character type that takes ple who begin sentences with naturally to this symbio "Redheads are-" or "Hungar sis of ideas? Are there ians are-" are about to speak vast crowds of these peo nonsense. ple? I have never to my Yet as to this matter of knowledge met one. Or if character type. . . I think per this character type is just haps she has something. I a product of your literary think she is talking about sci imagination, what am I?" ence fiction people-readers, To answer the last question writers, editors. (I purposely first and work backwards, I don't say fen because the field can only say that I invented has regular loving readers •• whom even fen wouldn't call ship. There's Wells' Time Ma fans: is Gilbert Highet a fan? chine. Dunsany's The Char or Orville Prescott?) I am woman's Shadow. Pangborn's quite sure, however, that any A Mirror lor Observers. Ar sf con, whether -ference or thur Eddison's The Worm -vention, would afford Reader Ouroborous. Hudson's Green Eaves the experience of-to Mansions. Guy Endore's The her knowledge-meeting a Werewo/1 of Paris. Wylie's large percentage of people Finnley Wren and Chap. 13 of who have read what she reads, The Disappearance. Muriel like what she likes and will Spark's Memento Mori. Wil listen, as she mentions else liam Morris' Golden Wings. where in her letter, to her re De Quincy's The English citing The Pobble Who Has Mail-Coach. Karle Wilson No Toes. Baker's The Garden of the As to the first question, I Plynck . .. these aren't .all, by have evidence that Sturgeon any means, but I've reached reads Wylie and I have no the one I wanted to talk about. doubt that Wylie reads Wylie, but I have as yet no evidence have NEVER met anyone that Wylie reads Sturgeon. I who has read the Plynck. It This is the kind of thing that was published by Yale Uni makes me back off from cate versity Press in 1924. It is, if gorizations. you like, a children's book ... Reader Eaves isn't through which, if you like, Alice in with me yet. Since I frequent Wonderland also is. A series ly mention books read by peo of adventures of a little girl ple in my stories, and music called Sara who has learned too, she asks, "Perhaps if you to "go inside her head and can spare the time you can shut the doors," it deals with write out a more complete the Garden she finds there, recommended r e a d i n g li~t and all its wonders. than you include in your sto Something-and I honestly ries." I have the time, but not don't know what-keeps the the space; however, I am de book from being impossibly lighted to be able to mention cute. To this day I find it full some of the books which my of lovely twists and surprises. characters have found influ There's a curly path just in ential, and my character as side the doors (only on a later well. Some of them fall into visit it was pink instead of the class of Books That No curly) which led to the Gar body Has Read but Me, or So den itself, a pool in which It Seems. It's hard to love 'em there is a tree on which there so much and find them un sits the Plynck, a beautiful, known. 0 t he r s actually do somewhat haughty, but very have a certain small reader- kind bird. She looks down at FROM PLYNCK TO PLANCK 57 the water where her Echo I drop them over, and some lives. Fluttering about among day one of them may stick to t·he branches, more often than the bottom-" not, is a Teacup (a widow; her "But t.here isn't any!" Saucer was broken some time " ... But there's an imagi ago.) There's the Snimmy's nary bottom. One might stick wife, who when indignant un on that, you know. And then, screws and angrily hems a with that to build to, if I drop doorknob, and her pet the them in very fast, I may be Snoodle, whose mother was a able to fill it up-:-~' snail and whose father was a "But there aren't any sides pedigreed noodle, and who has to it either!" a drawback. The drawback is a A vrillia betrayed a faint little isinglass window in his exasperation (it showed a lit back which, when you pick tle around the edges, like a him up, draws back and re green petticoat under a black leases the odor of castor oil. dress). "Oh, these literal peo There are Zizzes, which fly ple," she said, half to her right into dimples unless you self. . . "Isn't it as easy to remove same and put them in imagine sides as a bottom? a dimple-holder. And then Well ... if I write them fast there's Avrillia. enough to fill it up ... some "Has any mortal but Sara body a hundred years from ever seen Avrillia? Certainly now may eome along and no there never was another fairy tice one of my poems; and so wan and wild and beautiful then I shall be Immortal." ... she was leaning over the And at that a lovely smile marble balustrade, looking crossed Avrillia's face. down into Nothing, and one hand still stretched out as if N ow, you either dig this or it had just let something fall. you don't. Me, I never She seemed to be still watch write my congressman or try ing its descent. Her body, as a new kind of story or argue she leaned, was like a reed, with a jingoist but I get a and her hair was pale-gold flash of A vrillia leaning rapt and cloudy. But all that was ly over the balustrade ... and nothing beside A vrilla's eyes. go inside my mind and shut " ... It didn't stick," she the doors is something I com said. pletely understand ... and out •.. "Do you t h r ow your er space, and hydrogen trans poems down there?" asked formations, and Planck's Con Sara. stant, live there along with "Of course," said A vrillia. Schlorge at the dimplesmithy "I write them on rose-leaves -in a world of things to mar .•• petals, I mean, all colors, vel at, which need not neces but especially blue. And then sarily be understood. END 58 by Theodore Sturgeon VERYTHING was per E fectly swell. Th«e were no prisons, no Got a problem? Just slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. pick up the phone. It All d i s e a s e s were con quered. So was old age. solved them all Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for· volun and all the same way! teers. The population of the Unit ed States was stabilized at forty-million souls. One bright morning in the 2 Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. W eh ling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many peo B ple were born a day any more. Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a popula tion whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine. R X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first. Young W e h 1 i n g was 0 hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rum pled, so still and colorless as to be Yirtually invisible. His 2 camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a dis orderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the B walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths. The room was being redec orated. It was being redeco by KURT VONNEGUT, JR. rated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die. A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on
58 a stepladder, painting a mural the mural and the muralist. he did not like. Back in the "Looks so real," he said, "I days when people aged visi can practically imagine I'm bly, his age would have been standing in the middle of it." guessed at thirty-five or so. "What makes you think Aging had touched him that you're not in it?'' said the much before the cure for ag painter. He gave a satiric ing was found. smile. '·'It's called 'The Hap The mural he was working py Garden of Life,' you on depicted a very neat gar know." den. Men and women in white, "That's good of Dr. Hitz," doctors and nunes, turned said the orderly. the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertili E was referring to one of zer. H the male figures in white, Men and women in purple whose head was a portrait of uniforms pulled up weeds, Dr. Benjamin Hitz, the hos cut down plants that were old pital's Chief Obstetrician. and sickly, raked leaves, car Hitz was a blindingly hand ried refuse to trash-burners. some man. Never, never, never-not "Lot of faces still to fill even in medieval Holland nor in," said the orderly. He old Japan--had a garden been meant that the faces of many more formal, been better tend of the figures in the mural ed. Every plant had all the were still blank. All blanks loam, light, water, air and were to be filled with por nourishment it could use. traits of important people on A hospital orderly came either the hospital staff or down the corridor, singing from the Chicago Office of under his breath a popular the Federal Bureau of Ter song: mination. "Must be nice to be able to If you don't like my kisses, make pictures that look like honey, something," said the orderly. Here's what I will do: The painter's face curdled I'll go see a girl in purple, with scorn. "You think I'm Kiss this sad world toodle- proud of this daub?" he said. oo. "You think this is my idea of If you don't want my Iovin', what life really looks like?" Why should I take up all "What's your idea of what this space? life looks like?" said the or I'll get off this old planet, derly. Let some sweet baby have The painter gestured at a my place. foul dropcloth. "There's a good picture of it," he said. The orderly looked , in at "Frame that, and you'll have
60 by Kurt Vonn4igut, Jr. a picture a damn sight more The painter expressed with honest than this one." an obscenity his lack of con "You're a gloomy old duck, cern for the tribulations of aren't you?" said the orderly. his survivors. "The world "Is that a crime?" said the could do with a good deal painter. more mess, if you ask me," The orderly shrugged. "If he said. you don't like it here, Grand The orderly laughed and pa-" he said, and he finished moved on. the thought with the trick Wehling, the waiting fath telephone number that people er, mumbled something with who didn't want to live any out raising his head. And more were supposed to call. then he fell silent again. The zero in the telephone A coarse, formidable wom number he p r o n o u n c e d an strode into the waiting "naught." room on spike heels. Her The number was: "2 B R 0 shoes, stockings, trench coat, 2 B." bag and overseas cap were all It was the telephone num purple, the purple the paint ber of an institution whose er called "the color of grapes fanciful sobriquets included: on Judgment Day." "Automat," "Birdland," "Can The medallion on her pur nery," "Catbox," "De-louser," ple musette bag was the seal "Easy-go," "Good-by, Moth of the Service Division of the er," "Happy Hooligan," "Kiss Federal Bureau of Termina me-quick," "Lucky Pierre," tion, an eagle perched on a "Sheepdip,'' "Waring Blen turnstile. dor,'' "Weep-no-more" and The woman had a lot of fa "Why Worry?" cial hair-an unmistakable "To be or not to be" was mustache, in fact. A curious the telephone number of the thing about gas-chamber hos municipal gas chambers of t,he tesses was that, no matter Federal Bureau of Termina how lovely and feminine they tion. were when recruited, they all sprouted mustaches within 'T'HE painter thumbed his five years or so. J:. nose at the o r d e r 1 y. "Is this where I'm sup "When I decide it's time to posed to come?" she said to go," he said, "it won't be at the painter. the Sheepdip." "A lot would depend on "A do-it-yourselfer, eh?" what your business was,'' he said the orderly. "Messy bus said. "You aren't about to iness, Grandpa. Why don't have a baby, are you?" · you have a little considera "They told me I was sup tion for the people who have posed to pose for some pic to clean up after you?" ture," ehe 18id. "Ky name's 28R02B &1 Leora Duncan.'' She waited. figure in purple who was "And you dunk people," he sawing a dead branch from an said. apple tree. "How a:bout her?" "What?" she said, he said. "You like her at all?" "Skip it," he said. "Gosh-" she said, and she "That sure is a beautiful blushed and became humble picture," she said. "Looks just -"that-that puts me right like heaven or something." next to Dr. Hitz.'" "Or something," said the "That upsets you?" he said. painter. He took a list of "Good gravy, no!" she said. names from his smock pocket. "It's-it's just such an honor." "Duncan, Duncan, Duncan," "Ah, You admire him, 'eh?" he said, scanning the list. he said. "Yes-here you are. You're "Who doesn't admire him?" entitled to be immortalized. she said, worshiping the por See any faceless body here trait of Hitz. It was the por you'd like me to stick your trait of a tanned, white head on? We've got a few haired, omnipotent Zeus, two choice ones left." hundred and forty years old. She studied the mural "Who doesn't admire him?" b 1 e a k 1 y. "Gee," she said, she said again. "He was re "they're all the same to me. sponsible for setting up the I don't know anything about very first gas chamber in Chi art." cago." "A body's a body, eh ?" "Nothing would please me he said "All righty. As a mas more," said the painter, "than ter of fine art, I recommend to put you next to him for all this body here." He indicated time. Sawing off a limb a faceless figure of a woman that strikes you as appro who was carrying dried stalks priate?" to a trash-burner. "That is kind of like what "Well," said Leora Duncan, I do," she said. She was de "that's more the disposal peo mure about what she did. ple, isn't it? I mean, rm in What she did was make peo service. I don't do any d·is ple comfortable while she posing." killed them. The painter clapped his hands in mock delight. "You ND, while Leora Duncan say you don't know anything A was posing for her por about art, and then you prove trait, into the waitingroom in the next breath that you bounded Dr. Hitz himself. know more about it than I do ! He was seven feet tall, and Of course the sheave-carrier he boomed with importance, is wrong for a hostess! A accomplishments, and the joy snipper, a pruner-that's more of living. your line.'' He pOinted to a "'Well, :Miss Duncan! Kiss N " Kurt .Vo•...... _ k. Duncan !" he said, and he through today, unless some made a joke. "What are you body called in after I left. doing here?" he said. "This What's the name?" isn't where the people leave. "Wehling," said the wait This is where they come in !" ing father, sitting up, red "We're going to be in the eyed and frowzy. "Edward K. same picture together," she Wehling, Jr., is the name of said shyly. the happy father-to-be." "Good!" said Dr. Hitz He raised his right hand, heartily. "And, say, isn't that looked at a spot on the wall, some picture?" gave a hoarsely wretched "I sure am honored to be chuckle. "Present," he said. in it with you," she said. "Oh, Mr. Wehling," said "Let me tell you," he said, Dr. Hitz, "I didn't see you." ''I'm honored to be in it with "The invisible man," said you. Without women like Wehling. you, this wonderful world "They just phoned me that we've got wouldn't be possi your triplets have been born," ble." said Dr. Hitz. "They're all He saluted her and moved fine, and so is the mother. I'm toward the door that led to on my way in to see them the delivery rooms. "Guess now." what was just born," he said. "Hooray," said Wehling "I can't," she said. emptily. "Triplets!" he said. "You don't sound very hap "Triplets!" she said. She py," said Dr. Hitz. was exclaiming over the legal "What man in my shoes implications of triplets. wouldn't be happy?" said The law said that no new Wehling. He gestured with born child could survive un his hands to symbolize care less the parents of the child free simplicity. "All I have could find s o m e o n e who to do is pick out which one would volunteer to die. Tri of the triplets is going to live, plets, if they were all to live, then deliver my maternal called for three volunteers. grandfather to the Happy "Do the parents have three Hooligan, and come back volunteers?" said Leora Dun here with a receipt." can. "Last I heard," said Dr. R. Hitz became rather se Hitz, "they had one, and were D vete with Wehling, tow trying to scrape another two ered over him. "You don't be up... lieve in population control, "I don't think they made Mr. Wehling ?'• he said. it," she said. "Nobody made "I think it's p e r f e c t I y three appointments with us. keen," said Wehling tautly. Nothing but singles going "Would you like to go back 2BR02B 63 to the good old days, when .. I wish people wouldn't the population 01£ the Earth call it that," said Leora Dun- was twenty billion-about to can. become forty billion, then "What?" said Dr. Hitz. eighty billion, then one hun "I wish people wouldn't dred and sixty billion? Do call it 'the Catbox,' and things you know what a drupelet is, like that," she said. "It gives Mr. Wehling?,., said Hitz. people the wrong impres "Nope,'' said Wehling sulk· sion," ily. ..You're absolutely right,'' "A drupelet, Mr. Wehling, said Dr. Hitz. "Forgive me." is one of the little knobs, He corrected himself, gave one of the little pulpy grains the municipal gas chambers of a blackberry,'' said Dr. their official title, a title no Hitz. "Without population one ever used in conversation. control, human beings would "I should have said, 'Ethical now be packed on this sur Suicide Studios,' " he said. face of this old planet like "That sounds so much bet drupelets on a blackberry! ter,'' said Leora Duncan. Think of it!,., "This child of yours Wehling continued to stare whichever one you decide to at the same spot on the wall. keep, Mr. Wehling," said Dr. "In the year 2000,'' said Dr. Hitz. "He or she is going to Hitz, "before s c i en t is t s live on a happy, roomy, clean, stepped in and laid down the rich planet, thanks to popu law, there wasn't even enough lation control. In a garden drinking water to go around, like that mural there." He and nothing to eat but sea shook his head. "Two centur weed-and still people in ies ago, when I was a young sisted on their right to re man, it was a hell that no·body produce like jackrabbits. And thought could last another their right, if possible, to live twenty years. Now centuries forever." of peace and plenty stretch "I want those kids," said before us as far as the imag Wehling quietly. "I want all ination cares to travel." three of them." He smiled luminously. "Of course you do,'' said The smile faded as he saw Dr. Hitz. "That's only hu that Wehling had just drawn man." a revolver. "I don't want my grand Wehling shot Dr. Hitz father to die, either," said dead. "There's room for one Wehling. -a great big one,'' he said. "Nobody's really happy And then he shot Leora about taking a close relative Duncan. "It's only death," he to the Catbox," said Dr. Hitz said to her as she fell. "There! gently, sympathetically. Room for two.", b)' Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. And then he shot himself, "Federal Bureau of Ter making room for all three of mination:' said the very warm his children. voice of a hostess. Nobody came running. No "How sc>on could I get an body, seemingly, heard the appointment?" he asked, shots. speaking very carefully. The painter sat on the top "We could probably fit you of his stepladder, looking in late this afternoon, sir," down reflectively on the sorry she said. "It might even be s-cene. earlier, if we get a cancella tion." HE painter pondered the "All right," said the paint T mournful puzzle of life er, "fit me in, if you please."· demanding to be born and, And he gave her his name, once born, demanding to be spelling it out. fruitful. .. to multiply and to "Thank you, sir," said the live as long as possible-to hostess. "Your city thanks do all that on a very small you; your country thanks planet that would have to last you ; your planet thanks you. forever. But the deepest thanks of all All the answers that the is from future generations." painter could think of were END grim. Even grimmer, surely, !han a Catbox, a Happy Hool Igan, an Easy Go. He thought COMPLETE of war. He thought of plague. SETS fOR SALE He thought of starvation. l. AMJ'~Zli\G .MON'l'ULY vul. 1 no. He knew that he would 1 April 1926 through April 1961. 35 complete years condition never paint again. He let his g·ood to fine $600. paintbrush fall to the drop 2. \YJ<;IRD 'l'ALES Almost com plete 1923 to 1954. Some good cloths below. And then he de copies, some poor, some cover cided he had had about less, some tine, and includes 12 uound volumes $1000. enough of life in the Happy 3. Jl.!!'l'OlJNDING STORIES 3 sets Garden of Life, too, and he a. Complete Oct. 1933 to 1961 came slowly down from the condition very good $300. b. Almost complete Dec. 1930 ladder. to 1961 missing a few 1931- He took Wehling's pistol, 1933 issues good condi•tion !~00. really intending to shoot him c. Complete mint set July 19U self. to June 1961 including H "ing·le Issues bound pro But he didn't have the fessionally. A real f·ine nerve. set $800. Many Oltber complete sets. Send And then he saw the tele your want list. All prices F.O.B. phone booth in the corner of Brooklyn, N.Y. the room. He went to it, JAYS COINER dialed the well-remembered 6401 :ua• ATe, •.. Brookly• 4.llr.Y. number: "2 B R 0 2 B." 2BR02B •••••••••••••••••••••• •:PART TWO OF A TWO PART SERIAL: • • •: Th.ey were tile Masters, and they e had only to c:hoose: eternal life, •: as inhuman mons.ters - or death! ! MASTERS OF :• SPACE ••• • BY EDWARD E. SMITII a I. EVERETT IVMS • • Illustrated bl Berty • • • - ...... • .-.:.-. .. .:: ...... •.~·-·· ••••••••••••••••••••• , • What has gone before: The erew of the starshl"p Orion found themselves i.n the middle of a great space war be • tween the creatures called Stretts and the lost android • servants of their own human ancestors. Helped by the • androids, the Earthmen formed themselves into the pow erful telepathic b'nkage called "peyondix" ro invade the • Strett planet itself. As their minds joined they heard the • android Tuly cry out, "Good ... " And then their minds • were out in interstellar space. • • • X one Lord Ynos, and absorbed• everything she knew. Then, ILTON did not have to the minds of all the other H drive the peyondix-beam Thinkers being screened, he to the planet Strett; it was al studied the whole St~ett plan ready there. And there was the et, foot by foot, ana every monstrous First Lord Thinker thing that was on it. Zoyar. Then, mission accomplished, Into that mind his multi Hilton snapped his attention mind flashed, its every mem back to his office and the ber as responsive to his will multi-mind fell apart. As he as his own fingers-almost in opened his eyes he heard Tuly finitely more so, in fact, be scream: " •.... Luck!" cause of t h e tremendous "Oh-you still here, Tuly? lengths of time required to How long have we been .send messages along nerves. gone?" That horrid m i n d was "Approximately one and scanned cell by cell. Then, af one-tenth seconds, sir... ter what seemed like a few "WHAT!" hours, when a shield began Beverly Bell, in the haven sluggishly to form, Hilton of Franklin Poynter's arms, transferred his probe to the fainted quietly. S an d r a mind of the Second Thinker, shrieked piercingly. The four MASTERS OF SPACE 67 men stared, goggle-eyed. Tem language could even begin to ple and Teddy, as thou•gh by portray. common thought, burrowed "It doesn't seem to, but their faces into brawny shoul there it is." Teddy Blake ders. shook her head hopelessly. Hilton recovered first. "So Big Bill Karns, hands still that's what peyondix is." shaking, lit a cigarette before "Yes, sir-I mean no, sir. he spoke again. "Well, I've No, I mean yes, but ... " Tuly never been a proponent of paused, licking her lips in that genocide. But it's my consid peculiarly human-female ges ered opinion that the Stretts ture of uncertainty. are one race the galaxy can "Well, what do you mean? get along without." It either is or isn't. Or is that "A hell of a lot better with necessarily so?" out," Poynter said, and all "Not exactly, sir. That is, it agreed. started as peyondix. But it be "The point is, what can we came something else. Not even do about it?" Kincaid asked. the most powerful of the old "The first thing, I would say, Masters-nobody--ever did or is to see whether we can do ever could possibly generate this-whatever it is-without such a force as that. Or handle Tuly's help. Shall we try it? it so fast." Although I, for one, don't feel "Well, with seven of the like doing it right away." best minds of Terra and a ... " "Not I either." Beverly "Chip-chop the chit-chat!" Bell held 'up her right hand, Karns said, harshly. "What I which was shaking uncontrol· want to know is whether I lably, "I feel as though _I'd was having a nightmare. Can been bucking waves, wmd there possibly be a race such and t i d e for forty-eight as I thought I saw? So ut straight hours without food, terly savage-ruthless-merci water or touch. Maybe in less r So devoid o£ every hu about a week I'll be ready for man trace and so hell-bent de another try at it. But today termined on the extermination not a chance !" of every other race in the Gal "Okay. Scat, all of you," axy? God damn it, it simply Hilton ordered. "Take the doesn't make sense!."· rest of the day off and rest up. Put on your thought YES went from eyes to screens and don't take them E eyes to eyes. off for a second from now on. All had seen the same in Those Stretts are tough hom 'describably horrible, abysmal bres." ly atrocious, things. Qualities Sandra was the last to leave. and quantities and urges and "And you, boss?" she asked, drives that no words in any pointedly. • 68 by Edward E. Smith Be E. Evere.tt Evans "I've got some thinking to "The probability must be do." evaluated a n d considered. "I'll stay and help you Was it or was it not through think?" human aid that the Omans de "Not yet." He shook his stroyed most of our task h e a d, frowned and then force?" grinned. "You see, chick, I "Highly probable, but im . don't even know yet what it possible of evaluation with the is I'm going to have to think data now available." about." "Obtain more data at once. "A bit unclear, but I know That point must be and shall what- you mean-I think. be fully evaluated and fully Luck, chief." considered. This entire situa JN their subterranean sanc- tion is intolerable. It must be tum on distant Strett, two abated." of the deepest thinkers of that "True, First Lord. But eve horribly unhu:nan race were ry operator and operation is in coldly intent conference via now tightly screened. Oh, if thought. I could only go out there my· "My mind has been plun self ... " dered, Ynos," First Lord "Hold, fool! Your thought Thinker Zoyar radiated, is completely disloyal and un harshly. "Despite the extreme Strettly." ly high reactivity of my shield "True, oh First Lord Think some information- I do not er Zoyar. I will forthwith re know how much-was taken. move my unworthy self from The operator was one of the this plane of existence." humans of that ship." "You will not ! I hereby "I, too, felt a plucking at abolish that custom. Our num my mind. But those humans bers are too few by far. Too could not peyondire, First many have failed to adapt. Lord." Also, as Second Thinker, your "Be logical, fool! At that death at this time would be contact, in the matter of which slightly detrimental to certain you erred in not following up matters now in work. I will continuously, they succeeded myself, however, slay the un in concealing their real abili fit. To that end repeat The ties from you." Vv ords under my peyondir "That could be the truth. ing." Our ancestors erred, then, in "I am a Strett. I will devote recording that all those weak my every iota of mental and and timid humans had been of physical strength to for slain. These offenders are warding the Great Plan. I am, probably their descendants, a!!d will remain, a Strett." returning to reclaim their "You do believe in The former world." Words." MASTERS OF SPACE 69 "QF course I believe in ical ultimate of capability." them! I know that in a "And as to the Great few more hundreds of thou Brain?" sands of years we will be rid "I have been able to think of material bodies and will be of nothing, First Lord, to add come invincible and invulner to the undertakings you have able. Then comes the Con already set forth." quest of the Galaxy ... and "It was not expected that then the Conquest of the Uni you would. Now: is it your verse!" final thought that these inter "No more, then, on your lopers are in fact the descen life, of this weak and coward dants of those despised hu ly repining! Now, what of mans of so long ago?" your constructive thinking?" "It is." "Programming must be such "It is also mine. I return, as to obviate time-lag. We then, to my work upon the must evaluate the factors al Brain. You will take whatever ready mentioned and many measures are necessary. Use others, such as the reactiva every artifice of intellect and tion of the spacecraft which of ingenuity and our every re was thought to have been de source. But abate this intoler stroyed so long ago. After able nuisance, and soon." having considered all these "It shall be done, First evaluations, I will construct a Lord." Minor Plan to destroy these Omans, whom we have permit HE Second Thinker issued ted to exist on sufference, and T orders. Frenzied, round with them that shipload of the-clock a c t i v i t y ensued. despicably interloping hu Hundreds of mechs operated mans." upon the brains of hundreds "That is well." Zoyar's mind of others, who in turn operat seethed with a malevolent ed upon the operators. ferocity starkly impossible for Then, all those brains any human mind to grasp. charged with the technolog "And to that end?" ical advances of many thou "To that end we must in sands of years, the combined tensify still more our program hundreds went unrestingly to of proouring data. We must work. Thousands of work revise our mechs in the light mechs were built and put to of our every technological ad work at the construction of vance during the many thou larger and more powerful sands of cycles since the last space-craft. such revision was made. Our As has been implied, those every instrument of power, of battle-skeletons of the Stretts offense and of defense, must were controlled by theiT own be brought up to the theoret- built-in mechanical braiu, 70 br Edward E. Smith A E. Everett Evens which were programmed for bine and recombine any num only the simplest of battle ber of items required to form maneuvers. Anything at all new concepts. Five, to formu out of the ordinary had to be late theories, test them and handled by remote control, by draw conclusions helpful to the speeialist-mechs at their us in any matter in work." two-miles-long control board. It will have been not·iced This was now to be changed. that these specifications vary Programming was to be made in one important respect from so complete that almost any those of the Eniacs and Uni situation could be handled by vacs of Earth. Since we of the warship or the missile it Earth can not peyondire, we self-instantly. do not expect that ability from The Stretts knew that they our computers. were the most powerful, the The Stretts could, and did. most highly advanced race in the universe. Their science WTHEN Sandra came back was the highest in the uni W into the office at five verse. Hence, with every op o'clock she found Hilton still eratin~ unit brought up to the sitting there, in almost exact full possibilities of that sci ly the same position. ence, that would be more than "Come out of it, Jarve !" enough. Period. She snapped a finger. "That This work, while it re much of that is just simply quired much time, was very too damned much." much simpler than the task "You're so right, child." He which the First Thinker had got up, stretched, and by main laid out for himself on the strength shrugged off his foul giant computer-plus which the mood. "But we're up against Stretts called "The Great something that is really a Brain." In stating his project, something, and I don't mean First Lord Zoyar had said: perchance." "Assignment: To construct "How well I know it." She a machine that will have the put an arm around him, gave following abilities: One, to him a quick, hard hug. "But contain and retain all knowl after all, you don't have to edge and information fed into solve it this evening, you it, however great the amount. know." Two, to feed itself additional "No, thank God." information by peyondiring "So why don't you and all planets, wherever situate, Temple have supper with me? bearing intelligent life. Three, Or better yet, why don't all to call up instantly any and eight of us have supper to all items of information per gether in that bachelors' para taining to any problem we dise of yours and Bill's?" may give it. Four, to com- "That'd be fun." MASTERS Of SPACE 71 And it was. ened suddenly and Hilton Nor did it take a week for snapped it back to Ardry. Beverly Bell to recover from Beverly was almost in col the Ordeal of Eight. On the lapse. The other girls were following evening, she herself white, shaken and trembling. suggested that the team should Hilton himself, strong and take another shot at that ut rugged as he was, felt as terly fantastic terra incognita though he had done two weeks of the multiple mind, jolting of hard labor on a rock-pile. though it had been. He glanced questioningly at "But are you sure you can Larry. take it again so soon?" Hil "Point six three eight sec ton asked. onds, sir," the Omans said, "Sure. I'm like that famous holding up a millisecond tim gangster's moll, you know, er. who bruised easy but healed "How do you explain that?" quick. And I want to know Karns demanded. about it as much as anyone "I'm afraid it means that else does." without Oman backing we're They could do it this time out of luck." without any help from Tuly. The linkage fairly snapped to ILTON had other ideas, gether and shrank instantane H but he did not voice any ously to a point. Hilton of them until the following thought of Terra and there it day, when he was rested and was; full size, yet occupying had Larry alone. only one infinitesimal section "So carbon-based brains of a dimensionless point. The can't take it. One second of multimind visited relatives of that stuff would have killed all eight, but could not make all eight of us. Why? The intelligible contact. If asleep, Masters had the same kind of it caused pleasant dreams; if brains we have." awake, pleasant thoughts of "I don't know, sir. It's some the loved one so far away in t h i n g completely new. No space ; but that was all. It Master, or group of Masters, visited mediums, in trance and ever generated such a force otherwise-many of whom, as that. I can scarcely believe not surprisingly now, were such power possible, even genuine-with whom it held though I have felt it twice. It lucid conversations. Even in may be that over the genera linkage, however, the multi tions your individual powers, mind knew that none of the never united or controlled, mediums would be believed, have d e v e I o p e d so much even if they all told, simul strength that no human brain taneously, exactly the same can handle them in fusion." story. The multi-mind weak- "And none of us ever knew 72 by Edward L Smith Be E. Everett Evans anything about any of them. "'I was sure of it. They were I've been doing a lot of think committing race suicide by ing. The Masters had qualities letting you Omans do every and abilities now unknown to thing they themselves should any of us. How come? You have been doing. Finally they Omans--and the Stretts, too saw the truth. In a desperate think we're descendants of the effort to save their race they Masters. Maybe we are. You pulled out, leaving you here. think they came originally Probably they intended to from Arth-Earth or Terra come back when they had bred to Ardu. That'd account for enough guts back into them our legends of Mu, Atlantis selves to set you Omans down and so on. Since Ardu was where you belong ... " within peyondix range of "But they were alvv-ays the Strett, the Stretts attacked it. Masters, sir!" They killed all the Masters, "They were not ! They were they thought, and made the hopelessly enslaved. Think it planet uninhabitable for any over. Anyway, say they went kind of life, even their own. to Terra from here. That still But one shipload of . Masters accounts for the legends and escaped and came here to so on. However, they were too Ardry-far beyond peyondix far gone to make a recovery, range. They stayed here for a and yet they had enough fix long time. Then, for some rea ity of purpose not to manu son or other-which may be facture any of you Omans someplace in their records there. So their descendants they left here, fully intending went a long way down the to come back. Do any of you scale before they began to Omans know why they left? work back up. Does that make Or where they went?" sense to you?" "No, sir. We can read only the simplest of the Masters' "IT explains many things, records. They arranged our sir. It can very well be the brains that way, sir." truth." "I know. They're the type. "Okay. However it was, However, I suspect now that we're here, and facing a con your thinking is reversed. dition that isn't funny. While Let's turn it around. Say the we were teamed up I learned Masters didn't come from a lot, but not nearly enough. Terra, but from some other Am I right in thinking that I planet. Say that they left here now don't need the other sev- because they were dying out. . en at all-that my cells are They were, weren't they?" fully charged and I can go it "Yes, sir. Their numbers be alone?" came fewer and fewer each "Probably, sir, but ... " century." "'I'm coming to that. Every MASTERS OF SPACE 73 time I do it-up to maximum it was really going to do ... " performance, of course-it "Let's talk the · same lan comes easier and faster and guage, shall we? Say 'he' and hits harder. So next time, or 'she.' Not 'it.' " maybe the fourth or fifth "She thought she was set time, it'll kill me. And the ting up the peyondix, the same other seven, too, if they're as all of us Omans have. But along." after she formed in your mind "I'm not sure, sir, but I the peyondix matrix, your think so." mind went on of itself to form "Nice. Very, very nice." a something else; a thing we Hilton got up, shoved both can not understand. That was hands into his pockets, and why she was so extremely .... prowled about the room. "But I think 'frightened' might be can't the damned stuff be con your term.'' trolled? C h o k e d-throttled "I knew something was bit down - damped - muzzled, ing her. Why?" so.me way or other?" "Because it very nearly "We do not know of any killed you. You perhaps have way, sir. The Masters were al not considered the effect upon ways working toward more us all if any Oman, however power, not less." unintentionally, should kill a "That makes sense. The Master?" more power the better, as long "No, I hadn't ... I see. So as you can handle it. But I she won't play with fire any can't handle this. And neither more, and none of the rest of can the team. So how about you can?" organizing another team, one "Yes, sir. Nothing could that hasn't got quite so much force her to. If she could be whammo? Enough punch to so coerced we would destroy do the job, but not enough her brain before she could act. to backfire that way?" That brain, as you know, is "It is highly improbable imperfect, or she could not that such a team is possible, have done what she did. It sir." If an Oman could be should have been destroyed acutely embarrassed, Larry long since.'' was. "That is, sir. • • I should "Don't ever act on that as tell you, sir ... " sumption, Larry.'' Hilton "You certainly s h o u 1 d. thought for minutes. "Simple You've been stalling all along, peyondix, such as yours, is not and now you're stalled. Spill enough to read the Masters' it." records. If I'd had three brain "Yes, sir. The Tuly begged cells working I'd've tried them me not to mention it, but I then. I wonder if I could read must. When it organized your them?" team it had no idea of what "You have all the old Mas- 74 bV Edward E. Smltll A: E. Everett Even• ters' powers and more. But "Since we, too, are on you must not assemble them strange ground the probability again, sir. It would mean is vanishingly small. We have death." been making inquiries, howev "But I've got to .know ... er, and scanning. You were se I've got to know I Anyway, a lected from all the minds of thousandth of a second would Terra as the one having the be enough. I don't think that'd widest vision, the greatest hurt me very much." scope, the most comprehensive grasp. The ablest at synthesis E concentrated-read a and correlation and so on." H few feet of top-secret "That's printing it in big braided wire-and came back letters, but that was more or to consciousness in the sick less what they were after." bay of the Perseus, with two "Hence the probability ap· doctors working on h i m; proaches unity that any more Hastings, the top Navy medi such ignorant meddling as this co, and Flandres, the surgeon. obnoxious Tuly did well re· "What the hell happened to sult almost certainly in failure you?" Flandres demanded. and death. Therefore we can "Were you trying to kill your not and will not meddle self?" again." "And if so, how?" Hastings wanted to know. "YOU'VE go t a point "No, I was trying not to," there. . . So what I am is Hilton said, weakly, "and I some kind of a freak. Maybe guess I didn't much more than a kind o.f super-Master and succeed." maybe something altogether "That was just about the different. Maybe duplicable in closest shave I ever saw a man a less lethal fashion, and may come through. Whatever it be not. Veree helpful-! don't was, don't do it again." think. But I don't want to kill "I won't," he promised, feel anybody, either ... especially ingly. if it wouldn't do any good. When they let him out of But we've got to do some the hospital, four days later, thing!" Hilton scowled in he called in Larry and Tuly. thought for minutes. "But an "The next time would be Oman brain could take it. As the last time. So there won't you told us, Tuly, 'The brain be any," he told them. "But of the Larry is very, very just how sure are you that tough.'" some other of our boys or girls ''In a way, sir. Except that may not have just enough of the Masters were very careful whatever it takes to do the to make it physically impos job? Enough oompa, but not sible for any Oman to go very too much?" far along that line. It was MASTERS OF SPACe 75 only their oversight of my one "Fine-or is it? How did it imperfect brain that enabled work out?" me, alone of us all, to do that "Perfectly, sir ... except that wrong." they destroyed themselves. It "S t o p thinking it was was thought that they wearied wrong, Tuly. I'm mighty glad of existence." you did. But I wasn't think "I don't wonder. Well, if it ing of any regular Oman comes to that, I can do the brain ... " Hilton's voice pe same. You can convert me, tered out. then." "I see, sir. Yes, we can, by ''Yes, sir. But before we do using your brain as Guide, re it we must do enough pre produce it in an Oman body. liminary work to be sure that You would then have the pow you will not be harmed in any ers and most of the qualities way. Also, there will be many of both .•. " more changes involved than "No, you don't see, because simple substitution." I've got my screen on. Which "Of course. I realize that. I will now take off-" he suit Just see what you can do, ed action to word-"since the please, and let me know." whole planet's screened and I "We will, sir, and thank you have nothing to hide from you. very much." Teddy Blake and I both thought of that, but we'll con XI sider it only as the ultimate ly last resort. We don't want s has been intimated, no to live a million years. And A Terran can know what re we want our race to keep on searches Larry and Tuly and developing. But you folks can the other Oman specialists replace carbon-based mole performed, or how they ar cules with silicon-based ones rived at the conclusions they just as easily as, and a hell of reached. However, in less than a lot faster than, mineral wa a week Larry reported to Hil ter petrifies wood. What can ton. you do along the line of re "It can be done, sir, with building me that way? And complete safety. And you will if you can do any such con live even more comfortably version, what would happen? than you do now." Would I live at all? And if "How long?" so, how long? How would I "The mean will be about live? What would I live on? five thousand Oman years All that kind of stuff." you don't know that an Oman "Shortly before they left, year is equal to one point two two of the Masters did some nine three plus Terran years?" work on that very thing. Tuly "I didn't, no. Thanks." and I converted them. sir." "The maximum, a little less 76 by Edward E. Smith a E. Everett Evana than six thousand. The mini urges and satisfactions the mum, a little over four thou same. Fertilization and period sand. I'm very sorry we had of gestation unchanged. Your no data upon which to base children will mature at the a closer estimate." same ages as they do now." "Close enough." He stared "How do you---oh, I see. at the Oman. "You could also You wouldn't change any convert my wife?" molecular linkages or config "Of course, sir." urations in the genes or "Well, we might be able to chromosomes." stand it, after we got used to "We could not, sir, even if the idea. Minimum, over five we wished. Such substitutions thousand Terran years ... bar can be made only in exact one ring- accidents, of course?" for-c;me replacements. In the "No, sir. No accidents. near · future you will, of Nothing will be able to kill course, have to control births you, except by total destruc quite rigorously." tion of the brain. And even "We sure would. Let's see then, sir, there will be the pat •.. say we want a stationary tern." population of a hundred mil "I'll ... be . . . damned ... " lion on our planet. Each cou Hilton gulped twice. "Okay, ple to have two children, a go ahead." boy and a girl. Born when the "Your skins will be like parents are about fifty ... ours, energy-absorbers. Your um-m-m. The gals can have 'blood' will carry charges of all the children they want, energy instead of oxygen. then, until our population is Thus, you may breathe or not, about a million; then slap on as you please. Unless you the limit of two kids per cou wish otherwise, we will con ple. Right?" tinue the breathing function. "Approximately so, sir. And It would scarcely be worth after conversion you alone while to alter the automatic will be able to operate with mechanisms that now control the full power of your eight, it. And you will wish at times without tiring. You will also, to speak. You will still enjoy of course, be able to absorb al eating and drinking, although most instantaneously all the everything ingested will be knowledges and abilities of eliminated, as at present, as the old Masters." waste." Hilton gulped twice before "We'd add uranexite to our he could speak. "You wouldn't food, I suppose. Or drink ra be holding anything else back, dioactive&, or sleep under co would you?" balt-60 lamps." "No t h i n g important, sir. "Yes, sir. Your family life Everything else is minor, and will be normal; your sexual probably known to you." MASTERS OF. SPACE 77 "I doubt it. How long will "I know, but ... but I know the job take, and how much just how close Tuly came to notice will you need?" killing you. And that wasn't "Two days, sir. No notice. anything compared to such a Everything is ready." radical transformation as this. Hilton, face somber, thought I'm afraid it'll kill you, dar for minutes. "The more I ling. And I just simply think of it the less I like it. couldn't stand it!" But it seems to be a forced She threw herself into his put ... and Temple wii.l blow arms, and he comforted her in sky high ... and have I got the the ages-old fashion of man guts to go it alone, even if with maid. she'd let me ... " He shrugged "Steady, bon," he said, as himself out of the black mood. soon as he could lift her tear "I'll look her up and let you streaked face from his shoul know, Larry." der. "I'll live through it. I thought you were getting the E looked her up and told howling howpers about having H her everything. Told her to live for six thousand years bluntly; starkly; drawing the and never getting back to Ter full picture in jet black, with ra except for a Q strictly T very little white. visit now and then." "There it is, sweetheart. She pulled away from him, The works," he concluded. flung back her wheaten mop "We are not going to have ten and glared. "So that's what years; we may not have ten you thought! What do I care months. So-if such a brain how long I live, or how, or as that can be had, do we or where, as long as it's with do we not have to have it? I'm you? But what makes you putting it squarely up to think we can possibly live you." through such a horrible con Temple's face, which had version as that?" been getting paler and paler, "Larry wouldn't do it if was now as nearly colorless as there was any question what it could become; the sickly ever. He didn't say it would yellow of her skin's light tan be painless. But he did say I'd unbacked by any flush of red live." blood. "Well, he knows, I guess Her whole body was tense . .. I hope." Temple's natural and strained. fine color began to come back. "There's a horrible snapper "But it's understood that just on that question. . . Can't I do the second you come out of it? Or anybody else except the vat, I go right in." you?" "I hadn't ought to let you, "No. Anyway, whose job is of course. But I don't think it, sweetheart?" I could take it alone." 78 by Edward E. Smith & E. Everett Evans That statement required a not anyone was noticing any special type of conference, change. No one seemed to no which consumed some little tice anything out of the ordi time. Eventually, however, nary. So, finally, she asked. Temple answered it in words. "Don't any of you, really, "Of course you couldn't, see anything different?" sweetheart, and I wouldn't let The six others all howled at you, even if you could." that, and Sandra, between gig There were a few things gles and snorts, said: "No, that had to be done before precious, it doesn't show a bit. those two secret conversions Did you really think it could be made. There was the would?" matter of the wedding, which Temple blushed furiously was now to be in quadrupli and Hilton came instantly to cate. Arrangements had to be his bride's rescue. ''Chip-chop made so that e i g h t Big the comedy, gang. She and I Wheels of the Project could aren't human any more. We're all be away on honeymoon at a good jump toward being once. Omans. I couldn't make her All these things were done. believe it doesn't show." That stopped the levity, F the conversion opera cold, but none of the six could O tions themselves, nothing really believe it. However, af more need be said. The honey ter Hilton had coiled a twen mooners, having left ship and ty-penny spike into a perfect town on a Friday afternoon, helix between his fingers, and came back one week from the especially after he and Tem following Monday* morning. ple had each chewed up and The eight met joyously in swallowed a piece of uran Bachelors' Hall; the girls exite, there were no grounds kissing each other and the left for doubt. men indiscriminately and en "That settles it ... it tears thusiastically; the men coop it," Karns said then. "Start all erating zestfully. over again, Jarve. We'll lis Temple scarcely blushed at ten, this time." all, she was so engrossed in Hilton told the long story trying to find out whether or again, and added : "I had to re-work a couple of cells of *While it took wme time to re Temple's brain, but now she compute the exact Ardrian calen can read and understand the dar, Terran day names and Terran weeks were used from the first. records as well as I can. So I The Omans manufactured watches, thought I'd take her place on clocks, and chronometers which Team One and let her boss divided the Ardrian day into the job on all the other teams. twenty-four Ardrian hours, with Okay?" minutes and seconds as usual. "So you don't want to let MASTERS OF. SPACE 79 the rest of us in on it.'" in bra and panties. "Look. I Karns's level stare was a far can keep most of this for five cry from the way he had years. Quite a lot of it for ten. looked at his chief a moment Then comes the struggle. before. "If there's any one What do you think I'd clo for thing in the universe I never the ability, whenever it begins had you figured for, it's a dog to get wrinkly or flabby, to in the manger." peel the whole thing off and "Huh? You mean you ac put on a brand-spanking-new tually want to be a ... a ... hell, smooth one? You name it, I'll we don't even know what we do it! Besides, Bill and I will are!" both just simply and. cold "I do want it, Jarvis. We all bloodedly murder you 1£ you do." This was, of all people, try to keep us out." Teddy! "No one in all history "Okay." Hilton locked at has had more than about fifty Temple; she looked at him; years of really productive beth looked at all the ethers. thinking. And just the idea of There was no revulsion at all. having enough time ... " Nothing but eagerness. "Hold it, Teddy. Use your Temple took over. brain. The Masters couldn't "I'm surprised. W e'rc both take it-they committed sui surprised. You see, Jarve cide. How do you figure we didn't want to do it at all, but can do any better?" he had to. I not only didn't "Because we'll use our want to, I was scarc.d green brains!'' she snapped. "They and yellow at just the idea of didn't. The Omans will serve it. But I had to, too, of course. us; and that's all they'll do.'' We didn't think anybody "And do you think you'll be would really want to. We able to raise your children an!l thought we'd. be left here grandchildren and so on to do alone. We still will be, I the same? To have guts think, when you've thought it enough to resist the pull of clear through, Teddy. You such an ungodly habit-form just haven't realized yet that ing drug as this Oman service we aren't even human any is?" more. We're simply noth ing but monsters!" Temple's "I'M sure of it." She nod- voice became a wail. ded positively. "And we'll "I've said my piece," Teddy run all applicants through a said. "You tell 'em, Bill." fine enough screen to-that is, "Let me say something if we ever consider anybody first," Kincaid said. "Temple, except our own BuSci people. I'm ashamed of you. This line And there's another reason.'' isn't at all your usual straight She grinned, got up, wriggled thinking. What you actually out of her coverall, and posed are is homo superior. Bill?" 80 by Edward E. Smith & E. Everett Evans "I can add one '&It to that. I ,.Spread it, I'd say," Kincaid don't wonder that you were said. scared silly, ~emple. Utterly "'We can't keep it secret, new concept and you went any w a y," Teddy argued. into it stone cold. But now "Since Larry and Tuly were we see the finishe'i! product in on the whole deal, every and we like it. In fact, we Oman on the planet knows all drool." about it. Somebody is going "I'll say we're Cirooling," to ask questions, arid Omans Sandra said. ,.I could do hand always answer questions and stands and pinwheels with always tell the truth." joy." "Let's see you,• Hilton said. "~UESTIONS have al "That we'd all get a kick out ready been asked and of." answ red," Larry said, going "Not now--(Jon't want to to the door and opening it. hold this up-but sometime I Stella rushed in. "We've just will. Bevr' been hearing the damnedest "'I'm for it-and h.ow I And things!" She kissed every won't Bernadine be amazed," body, ending with Hilton, Beverly laughed gleefully, "at whom she seized by both her wise-crack about the 'race shoulders. "Is it actually true, to end all human races' com boss, that you can fix me up ing true?" so I'll live practically forever "I'm in fawt of it, too, one and can eat more than eleven hundred per cent:" Poynter calories a day without getting said. "Has it occur·red to you, fat as a pig? Candy, ice cream, Jarve, that this opens up in· cake, pie, eclairs, cream puffs, tergalactic exploration? No French pastries, sugar and supplies to carry and plenty gobs of thick cream in my cof· of time and fuel?"· fee ..• ?" "No, it hadn't. You've got a Half a dozen others, includ point there, Frank. That ing the van der Moen twins, might take a little of the came in. Beverly emitted curse off of it, at that." a shriek of joy. "Bernadine! "When some o£ our kids get The mother of the race to end to be twenty years old or so all human races !" and get married, I'm going to "You whistled it, birdie t•t. take a crew of them to Andro· Bernadine caroled. "I'm going meda. ·we'll arrange, then, to to have ten or twelve, each extend our honeymoons an one weir'der than all the oth other week," Hilton said. ers. I told you I was a prophet "What will our policy be? -I'm going to hang out my Keep it dark for a while with shingle. Wholesale and retain just us eight, or spread it to prophecy; special rates for the rest?'' · large parties." Her voice was MASTERS OF. SPACE 81 'drowned out in a general IS listeners, however, did elamor. H not need days, or even "Hold it, everybody I" Hil seconds, to decide. Before ton yelled. "Chip-chop it! Hilton's feet hit the floor Quit it!" Then, as the noise there was a yell· of unanimous subsided, "If you thin.k I'm approval. going to tell this taU tale over He looked at his wife... Do and over again for the next you suppose we're nuts?" two weeks you're all crazy. So "Uh-uh. Not a bit. Alex was shut down the plant and get right. I'm going to just Jove everybody out here." it!" She hugged his elbow "Not everybody, Jar v e !" ecstatically. "So are you, dar Temple snapped. "We don't ling, as soon as you stop look want scum, and there's some ing at only the black side." of that, even in BuSci." "You know ... you could be "You're so right. Who, right?" For the first time then?" since the "ghastly" transfor "The rest of the heads and mation Hilton saw that there assistants, of course ... and all really was a bright side and the lab girls and their hus began to study it. "With most bands and boy-friends. I know of BuSci-and part of the they are all okay. That will be Navy, and selectees from Ter enough for now, don't you ra-it wi/1 be slightly terrific, think?" at that!" "I do think;" and the indi "And that 'habit-forming cated others were sent for; drug' objection isn't insuper and in a few minutes arrived. able, darling," Temple said. The Omans brought chairs "If the younger generations and Hilton stood on a table. start weakening we'll fix the He spoke for ten minutes. Omans. I wouldn't want to Then: "Before you decide wipe them out entire I y, whether you want to or not, but ... " think it over very carefully, "But how do we settle pri because it's a one-way street. ority, Doctor Hilton?" a girl Fluorine can not be displaced. called out; a tall, striking, Once in, you're stuck for life. brunette laboratory technician There is no way back. I've whose name Hilton needed a told you all the drawbacks and second to recall. "By pulling disadvantages I know of, but straws or hair? Or by shoot there may be a lot more that ing dice or each other or I haven't thought of yet. So what?" think it over for a few days "Thanks, Betty, you've got and when each of you has def a point. Sandy Cummings and initely made up his or her department heads first, then mind, let me know." He assistants. Then you girls, in jumped down of£ the table. alphabetkal order, each with 82 by Edward E. Smltb Be E. Everett Evans her own husband or fiance." telepathy would be. If any "And my name is Ames. thing, however, it was more. Oh, goody!" It was a lumping together of "La r r y, please tell them all five known human senses to ... " and half a dozen unknown "I already have, sir. We ones called, collectively, "in are set up to handle four at tuition"-into one super-sense once." that was all-inclusive and all "Good boy. So scat, all of informative. If he ever could you, and get back to work learn exactly what it was and except Sandy, Bill, Alex, and exactly what it did and how it Teddy. You four go with did it ... but he'd better chip Larry." chop the wool-gatherin~ and Since the new sense was not get back onto the job. peyondix, Hilton had started calling it "perception" and HE Stretts had licked the the others adopted the term T old Masters ve·ry easily, as a matter of c.ourse. Hilton and intended to wipe out the could use that sense for what Omans and the humans. They seemed like years-and actu had no doubt at all as to their ally was whole minutes ability to do it. Maybe they at a time without fatigue or could. If the Masters hadn't strain. He could not, how made some progress that the ever, nor could the Omans, Omans didn't know about, give his tremendous power to they probably could. That was anyone else. the first thing to find out. As As he had said, he could do soon as they'd been converted a certain amount of rework he'd call in all the experts ing; but the amount of im and they'd go through the provement possible to make Masters' records like a dose depended entirely upon what of salts through a hillbilly there was to work on. Thus, schoolma'am. T e m p 1 e could cover about At that point in Hilton's six hundred light-years. It de cogitations Sawtelle came in. veloped later that the others He had come down in his of the Big Eight could cover gig, to confer with Hilton as from one hundred up to four to the newly beefed-up fleet. hundred or so. The other de Instead of being glum and partment heads and assistants pessimistic and foreboding, he turned out to be still weaker, was chipper and enthusiastic. and not one of the rank and They had rebuilt a thousand file ever became able to cover Oman ships. By combining more than a single planet. Oman and Terran science, and This sense was not exactly adding everything the First telepathy; at least not what Team had been able to reduce Hilton had always thought to practise, they had hyped up MASTERS OF SPACE 83 the power by a good fifteen ond-line, smaller and some per cent. Seven hundred of p r e t t y old, seventy-three. those ships, and all his men, Counting everything armed were now arrayed in defense that will hold air, something around Ardry. Three hundred, over two hundred.'' m a n n e d by Omans, were "I thought it was something around Fuel Bin. like that. How would you like "Why?" Hilton asked. "It's to be Five-Jet Admiral Saw Fuel Bin they've been attack telle of the Ardrian Navy?" ing." "I wouldn't. I'm Terran "Uh-uh. Minor objective," Navy. But you knew that and the captain demurred, posi you know me. So-what's on tively. "The real attack will your mind?" be here at you; the headquar ters and the brains. Then ILTON told him. I ought Fuel Bin will be duck soup. H to put this on a tape, he But the thing that pleased me thought to himself, and broad most is the control. Man, you cast it every hour on the hour. never imagined such control! "They took the old Masters No admiral in history ever like dynamiting fish in a bar had such control of ten ships rel," he concluded, "and I'm as I have of seven hundred. damned afraid they're going Those Omans spread orders to lick us unless we take a so fast that I don't even finish lot of big, fast steps. But the thinking one and it's being hell of it is that I can't tell executed. And no misunder you anything-not one single standings, no slips. For in thing-about any part of it. stance, this last batch-fifteen There's simply no way at all skeletons. Far out; they're of getting through to you getting cagy. I just thought without making you over into 'Box 'em in and slug 'em' and the same kind of a thing I -In! Across! Out! Socko! am." Pffft! Just like that and just "Is that bad?" Sawtelle was that fast. None of 'em had used to making important de time to light a beam. Nobody cisions fast. "Let's get at it." before ever even dreamed of "Huh? Skipper, do you real such control!" ize just what that means? If "That's great, and I like it you think they'll let you re ... and you're only a captain. sign, forget it. They'll cruci How many ships can Five-Jet fy you-brand you as a traitor Admiral Gordon put into and God only knows what space?" else." "That depends on what you "Right. How about you and call ships. Superdreadnoughts, your people?" Perseus class, six. First-line "Well, as civilians, it won't battleships, twenty-nine. Sec- be as bad ... " 84 by Edward E. Smith & E. Everett Evans "The hell it won't. Every "What is. all this senseless man and woman that stays idiocy we've been getting, here will be posted forever as Jarve?" Elliott demanded. the blackest traitors old Ter Hilton eyed all six with pre ra ever disgraced herself by tended disfavor. "You six spawning." guys are the hardest-headed "You've got a point there, at b u n c h of skeptics that that. We'll all have to bring ever went unhung," he re our relatives-the ones we marked, dispassionately. "So think much of, at least-out it wouldn't do any good to here with us" tell you anything-yet. The "Definitely. New see what skipper and I will show you a you can do about getting me thing first. Take her away, run through your mill." Skip." By exerting his authority, The Orion shot away under Hilton got Saw t e II e put interplanetary drive and for through the "Preservatory" in several hours Hilton and Saw the second batch processed. telle worked at re-wiring and Then, linking minds with the practically rebuilding two de captain, he flashed their joint vices that no one, Oman or attention to the Hall of Rec human, had touched since the ords. Into the right room; into Perseus had landed on Ardry. the right chest ; along miles "What are you. . . I don't and miles of braided wire car understand what you are do rying some of the profoundest ing, sir," Larry said. For the military secrets of the ancient first time since Hilton had Masters. known him, the Oman's mind Then: was confused and unsure. "Now you know a little of "I know you don't. This is it," Hilton Eaid. "Maybe a a bit of top-secret Masters' thousandth of what we'll have stuff. Maybe, some day, we'll to have before we can take be able to re-work your brain the Stretts as they will have to take it. But it won't be for to be taken." some time." For seconds Sawtelle could not speak. Then: "My .... XII God. I see what you mean. You're right. No Omans can HE Orio.n hung in space, ever go to Terra; and no Ter T a couple of thousands of rans can ever come here ex miles away from an asteroid cept to stay forever." which was perhaps a mile in The two then went out into average diameter. Hi Ito n space, to the flagship-which straightened up. had been christened the Orion "Put Triple X Black filters -and called in the six com on your plates and watch that manders. asteroid." The commanders MASTERS OF SPACE 85 did so. "Ready?" he asked. ly nodded. Then again-for "Ready, sir." the last time, he hoped ! Hilton didn't move a mus Hilton spoke his piece. The cle. Nothing actually moved. response was prompt and Nevertheless there was a mo vigorous. Only Sam Bryant, tionlessly writhing and crawl one of Hilton's staunchest al ing distortion of the ship and lies, showed any uncertainty everything in it, accompanied at all. by a sensation that simply can "I've been married only a not be described. year and a half, and the baby It was not like going into was due about a month ago. or emerging from the sub How sure arc you that you ether. It was not even remote can make old Gordon sit still ly like space-sickness or sea for us skimming the cream off sickness or free fall or any of Terra to bring out here?" thing else that any Terran had "Doris Bryant, the cream of ever before experienced. Terra!" Elliott gibed. "How And the asteroid vanished. modest our Samuel has be It disappeared into an out come!" rageously incandescent, furi "Well, damn it, she is!" ously pyrotechnic, raveningly Bryant insisted. expandin~ atomic fireball that "Okay, she is," Hilton in seconds seemed to fill half agreed. "But either we get our of space. people or Terra doesn't get After ages-long minutes of its uranexite. That'll work. In the most horrifyingly devas the remote contingency that tating fury any man there had it doesn't, there are still tight ever seen, the frightful thing er screws we can put on. But expired and Hilton said·: you missed the main snapper, "That was just a kind of a Sam. Suppose Doris doesn't firecracker. Just a feeble imi want to live for five thousand tation of the first-stage deto years and is allergic to be nator for what we'll have to coming a monster?" have to crack the Stretts' "Huh; you don't need to ground-based screens. If the ,. orr y about that." Sam skipper and I had taken time '>rushed that argument aside to take the ship down to the with a wave of his hand. shops and really work it over "Show me a girl who doesn't we could have put on a show. want to stay young and beau Was this enough so you iron tiful forever and I'll square heads are ready to listen with you the circle. Come on. your ears open and your What's holding us up?" mouths shut?" They were. So much so that HE Orion hurtled through not even Elliott opened his T space back toward Ardry mouth to say yes. They mere- and Hilton, struck by a sud- 86 by Edward E. Smith & E. Everett Evan• den thought, turned to the peek at the Stretts-oh-oh; captain. they've screened their whole "Skipper, why wouldn't it planet. Well, we can do that, be a smart idea to clamp a too, of course." blockade onto Fuel Bin? Cut "How are you going to se the Stretts' fuel supply?" lect and reject personnel? It "I thought better of you looks as though everybody than that, son." Sawtelle wants to stay. Even the men shook his head sadly. "That whose main object in life is was the first thing I did." to go aground and get drunk. "Ouch. Maybe you're 'way The Omans do altogether too ahead of me too, then, on the good a job on them and there's one that we should move to no such thing as a hangover. Fuel Bin, lock, stock and bar I'm glad I'm not in your rel?" boots." "Never thought of it, no. "You may be in it up to the Maybe you're worth saving, eyeballs, Skipper, so don't after all. After conversion, of chortle too soon." course. . . Yes, there'd be Hilton had already devoted three big advantages." mnch time to the problems of "Four." selection; and he thought of Sawtelle raised his eye little else all the way back to brows. Ardry. And for several days "One, only one planet to de afterward he held conferences fend. Two, it's self-defending with small groups and con against sneak landings. Noth ducted certain investigations. ing remotely human can land on it except in heavy lead ar UD Carroll of Sociology mor, and even in that can stay B and his assistant Sylvia healthy for only a few min Banister had been married for utes." weeks. Hilton called them, to "Except in the city. Omlu. gether with Sawtelle and Bry That's the weak point and ant of Navy, into conference would be the point of attack." with the Big Eight. "Uh-uh. Cut off the decon "The more I study this taminators and in five hours thing the less I like it," Hil it'll be as hot as the rest of ton said. "With a civilization the planet. Three, there'd be having no government, no po no interstellar supply line for lice, no laws, no medium of the Stretts to cut. Four, the exchange ... " environment matches our new "No money?, Bryant ex physiques a lot better than claimed. "How's old Gordon any normal planet could." going to pay for his uranex "That's the one I didn't ite, then?" think about." "He gets it free," Hilton "I think I'll take a quick replied, flatly. "When anyone MASTERS OF SPACE 87 can have anything he wants, Hilton, I'm very glad you're merely by wanting it, what along," Hilton said. "But just good is money? Now, remem how sure are you that even bering how long we're going you can stand up under the to have to live, what we'll be load?" up against, that the Masters "Alone, I couldn't. But failed, and so on, it is clear don't underestimate Mrs. Car that the prime basic we have roll and the Messrs. Together, to select for is stability. We and with such a goal, I'm sure twelve have, by psychodynam we can." ic measurement, the highest stability ratings available." HUS, after four-fifths" of "Are you sure I belong T his own group and forty here?" Bryant asked. one Navy men had been con "Yes. Here are three lists." verted, Hilton called an eve Hilton passed papers around. ning meeting of all the con "The list labeled 'OK' names verts. Larry, Tuly and Javvy those I'm sure of-the ones were the only Omans present. we're converting now and "You all knew, of course, their wives and whatever on that we were going to move Terra. List 'NG' names the to Fuel Bin sometime," Hil ones I know we don't want. ton began. "I can tell you List 'X'-over thirty percent now that we who are here are -are in-betweeners. We have all there are going to be of to make a decision on the 'X' us. We are all leaving for Fuel list. So-what I want to know Bin immediately after this is, who's going to play God. meeting. Everything of any I'm not. Sandy, are you?" importance, including all of "Good Heavens, no !" San your personal effects, has al dra shuddered. "B u t I'm ready been moved. All Omans afraid I know who will have except these three, and all to. I'm sorry, Alex, but it'll Oman ships except the Orion, have to be you four-Psychol have already gone." ogy and Sociology." He paused to let the news Six heads nodded and there sink in. was a flashing interchange of Thoughts flew everywhere. thought among the four. Tem The irrepressible Stella Wing ple licked her lips and nod -now Mrs. Osbert F. Hark ded, and Kincaid spoke. ina-was the first to give "Yes, I'm afraid it's our tongue. "\Vhat a wonderful baby. By leaning very heavily job! Why, everybody's here on Temple, we can do it. Re that I really like at all!" member, Jarve, what you said That sentiment was, of about the irresistible force? course, unanimous. It could We'll need it." not have been otherwise. Bet "As I said once before, Mrs. ty, the ex-Ames, called out: 88 by Edward E. Smith & E. Ev,rett Evans "How did you get their fe and you--or somebody-start male Omans away from Cecil ed calling us 'Ardans' to dis Calthorpe and the rest of that tinguish us converts from the chasing, booze-fighting bunch Terrans. So let's keep up the without them blowing the same line." whole show?" There was general laughter "Some suasion was neces at that, but the name was ap sary," Hilton admitted, with proved. a grin. "Everyone who isn't here is time-locked into the BOUT midnight the meet Perseus. Release time eight A ing ended and the Orion hours tomorrow." set out for A r d v or. It "And they'll wake up to reached it and slanted sharply morrow morninrr with no downward. The whole BuSci Omans?" Berna,dine tossed staff was in the lounge, watch back her silvery mane and ing the big tri-di. laughed. "Nor anything else "Hey! That isn't Omlu !" except the Perseus? In a way, Stella exclaimed. "It isn't a
I'm sorry, but 0 0 0 maybe I've city at all and it isn't even got too much stinker blood in in the same pla(;e !" me, but I'm very glad none "No, ma'am," Larry said. of them are here. But I'd like "Most of you wanted the to ask, Jarvis-or rather, I ocean, but many wanted a riv suppose you have already set er or the mountains. There up a new Advisory Board?" fore we razed Omlu and built "We have, yes." Hilton read your new city, Ardane, at a off twelve names. place where the ocean, two "Oh, nice. I don't know of rivers, and a range of moun any people I'd rather have on tains meet. Strictly speaking, it. But what I want to gripe it is not a city, but a place of about is calling our new home pleasant and rewardful liv world such a horrible name as ing." 'Fuel Bin,' as though it were The space-ship was coming a wood-box or a coal-scuttle in, low and fast, from the or something. And just think south. To the left, the west, of the complexes it would set there stretched the limitless up in those super-children expanse of ocean. To the we're going to have so many right, mile after mile, were of." rough, rugged, jagged, partial "What would you suggest?" ly-timbered mountains, mass Hilton asked. piled upon mass. Immediately "'Ardvor', of course," Her below the speeding vessel was mione said, before her sister a wide, white-sand beach all could answer. "We've had of ten miles long. 'Arth' and 'Ardu' and 'Ardry' Slowing rapidly now, the MASTERS OF SPACE as 90 by Edward E. Smith & E. Everett Evan• Orion flew along due north. Across the turbulent White "Look ! Look ! A natatori water and a mile farther um!" B~verly shrieked. "I north, the mountains ended as know I wanted a nice big abruptly as though they had place to swim in, besides my been cut off with a cleaver backyard pool and the ocean, and an apparently limitless ex but I didn't tell anybody to panse of treeless, grassy build that-I swear I didn't!" prairie began. And through "You didn't have to, pet." that prairie, meandering slug Poynter put his arm around gishly to the ocean from the her curvaceous waist and northeast, came the wide, deep squeezed. "They knew. And I River Placid. did a little thinking along that The Orion halted. It began line myself. There's our to descend vertically, and only house, on top of the cliff over then did Hilton see the space the natatorium-you can al port. It was so vast, and there most dive into it off the were so many spaceships on it, patio." that from any great distance "Oh, wonderful!" it was actually invisible! Each Immediately north of the six-acre bit of the whole im natatorium a tremendous riv mense expanse of lever prairie er-named at f i r s t sight between the Placid and the the "Whitewater"- rushed mountains held an Oman su through its gorge into the perdreadnought! ocean; a river and gorge strangely reminiscent of the HE staff paired off and Colorado and its Grand Can Theaded for the airlocks. yon. On the south bank of Hilton said: "Temple, have that river, at its very mouth you any reservations at all, looking straight up that tre however slight, as to having mendous canyon; on a rocky Dark Lady as a permanent fix p r o m o n t o r y commanding ture in your home?" ocean and beach and moun "Why, of course not- I tains-there was a house. At like her as much as you do. the sight of it Temple hugged And besides-" she giggled Hilton's arm in ecstasy. like a schoolgirl-"even if she "Yes, that's ours," he as is a lot more beautiful than I sured her. "Just about every am-I've got a few things she thing either of us has ever never will have ... but there's wanted." The clamor was now something else. I gof just a so great-everyone was recog flash of it before you blocked. nizing his-and-her house and Spill it, please." was exclaiming about it-that "You'll see in a minute." both Temple and Hilton fell And she did. silent and simply watched the Larry, Dark Lady and Tem scenery unroll. ple's Oman maid Moty were MASTERS OF SPACE &1: standing beside the Hilton's my bedroom, but I haven't, car-and so w a s another yet ... Oh, do you itch, too?" Oman, like none ever before Hilton had peeled to the seen. Six feet four; shoulders waist and was scratching vig that would just barely go orously all around his waist through a door; muscled like line, under his belt. "Like the Atlas and Hercules combined; very devil," he admitted, and skin a gleaming, s a t i n y stared at her. For she, three bronze; hair a rippling mass quarters stripped, was scratch of lambent flame. Temple ing, tool came to a full stop and caught "It started the minute we her breath. left the Orion," he said, "The Prince," she breathed, thoughtfully. "I see. These in awe. "Da Lormi's Prince new skins of ours like hard of Thebes. T h e ultimate radiation, but don't like to be bronze of all the ages. You smothered while they're en did this, Jarve. How did you joying it. By about tomorrow, ever dig him up out of my we'll be a nudist colony, I schoolgirl crushes?" think." All six got into the car, "I could stand it, I suppose. which was equally at home on What makes you think so?" land or water or in the air. "Just what I know about In less than a minute they radiation. Frank would be the were at Hilton House. one to ask. My hunch is, The house itself was circu though, that we're going to be lar. Its living-room was an im nudists whether we want to mense annulus of glass from or not. Let's go." which, by merely moving along its circular length, any HEY went in a two-seater, desired view could be had. Tleaving the Omans at home. The pair walked around it Three-quarters of the staff once. Then she took him by were lolling on the sand or the arm and steered him firm were seated on benches beside ly toward one of the bedrooms the immense pool. As they in the center. watched, Beverly ran out "This house is just too along the line of spring much to take in all at once," boards; testing each one and she declared. "Besides, let's selecting the stiffest. She then put on our swimsuits and get climbed up to the top plat over to the Nat." form--a good twelve feet In the room, she closed the above the board-and plum door firmly in the faces of the meted down upon the board's Omans and grinned. "Maybe, heavily padded take-off. Legs sometime, I'll get used to hav and back bending stubbornly ing somebody besides you in to take the strain, she and the
92 by Edward E. Smith a E. Everett Evans board reached low-point to the pool any-which-way, cov gether, and, still in sync with ering her breasts with her it, she put every muscle she hands and hiding in water up had into the effort to hurl to her neck. herself upward. Meanwhile, the involuntari She had intended to go up ly high diver had come to the thirty feet. But she had no surface, laughing apologetical idea whatever as to her pres ly. Surprised by the hair dan ent strength, or of what that gling down over her eyes, she Oman board, in perfect syn felt for her cap. It was gone. chronization with that tre So was her suit. Naked as a mendous strength, would do. fish. She swam a couple of Thus, instead of thirty feet, easy strokes, then stopped. she went up very nearly two "Frank! Oh, Frank!" she hundred; which of course called. spoiled completely her pro "Over here, Bev." Her hus posed graceful two-and-a-half. band did not quite know In midai·r she struggled whether to laugh or not. madly to get into some ac "Is it the radiation or the ceptable position. Failing, she water? Or both?" curled up into a tight ball "Radiation, I think. These just before she struck water. new skins of ours don't want What a splash I to be covered up. But it prob "It won't hurt her-you ably makes the water a pretty couldn't hurt her with a good imitation of a universal club!" Hilton snapped. He solvent." seized Temple's hand as eve ryone else rushed to the pool's "Good-by, clothes!" Beverly e d g e. "Look-Bernadine rolled over onto her back, that's what I was thinking fanned water carefully with about." her hands, and gazed approv Temple stopped and looked. ingly at herself. "I don't itch The platinum-haired twins any more, anyway, so I'm very had been basking on the sand, much in favor of it." and wherever san d had touched fabric, fabric had dis HUS the Ardans came to appeared. T their new home world and Their suits had of course to a life that was to be more approached the minimum to comfortable by far and hap start with. Now Bernadine pier by far than any of them wore only a wisp of nylon had known on Earth. There perched precariously on one were many o t h e r surprises breast and part of a ribbon that day, of course; of which that had once been a belt. Dis only two will be mentioned covering the catastrophe, she here. When they finally left shrieked once and leaped into the pool, at about seventeen MASTERS 0~ SPACE 93 hours G. M. T.*, everybody with us. In. the room, I mean. was ravenously hungry. And they suffer so. They're "But why should we be?" simply radiating silent suf Stella demanded. "I've been fering and oh-so-submissive eating everything in s i g h t, reproach. Shall we let 'em just for fun. But now I'm ac come in?" tually hungry enough to eat a "That's strictly up to you, horse and wagon and chase sweetheart. It always has the driver!" been." "Swimming makes e v e r y "I know. I thought they'd body hungry," Beverly said, quit it sometime, but I guess "and I'm awfully glad that they never will. I still want hasn't change d. Why, I an illusion of privacy at wouldn't feel human if I times, even though they know didn't!" all about everything that Hilton and Temple went goes on. But we might let 'em home, and had a long-drawn in now, just while we sleep, out and very wonderful sup and throw 'em out again as per. Prince waited on Tem soon as we wake up in the ple, Dark Lady on Hilton; morning?" Larry and Moty ran the syn "You're the boss." Without thesizers in the kitchen. All additional invitation the four four Omans radiated happi Omans came in and arranged ness. themselves n e a t 1 y on ·the A n o t h e r surprise came floor, on all four sides of the when they went to bed. For bed. Temple had barely time the bed was a raised platform to cuddle U•P against Hilton, of something that looked like and he to put his arm closely concrete · and, except for an around her, before they both uncanny property of molding dropped into profound and itself somewhat to the con dreamless sleep. tours of their bodies, was al most as hard as rock. Never T eight hours next morn- theless, it was the most com A ing all the specialists met fortable bed either of them at the new Hall of Records. had ever had. When they This building, an exact du were ready to go to sleep, plicate of the old one, was lo Temple said: cated on a mesa in the foot "Drat it, those Omans still hills southwest of the nata want to come in and sleep torium,· in a luxuriant grove at sight of which Karns •Greenwich Mean Time. Ardvor stopped and began to laugh. was, always and everywhere, full "I thought I'd seen every daylight. Terran time and calen thing," he remarked. "But dar were adopted as a matter of yellow pine, spruce, tama course. rack, apples, oaks, palms, or- 94 by Edward E. Smith 6 E. Everett Evans anges, cedars, joshua trees it, and how to study it. and cactus-just to name a "The First Team doesn't few-all growing on the same need you now too much, does quarter-section of land?" it, J arve ?" Sawtelle asked. "Just everything anybody "Not particularly. In fact, wants, is all," Hilton said. I was just going to get back "But are they really grow onto my own job." ing? Or just straight syn "Not yet. I want to talk to thetics? Lane- Kathy- this you," and the two went into a is your dish." long discussion of naval af "Not so fast, Jarve; give fairs. us a chance, please!" Kath ryn, now Mrs. Lane Saunders, XIII pleaded. She shook her spec HE Stretts' fuel-supply tacular head. "We don't see T line had been cut long how any stable indigenous since. Many Strett cargo life can have developed at all, carriers had been destroyed. unless ... " The enemy would of course "Unless what? Natura 1 have a very heavy reserve of shielding?" Hilton asked, and fuel on hand. But there was Kathy eyed her husband. no way of knowing how "R i g h t," Saunders said. large it was, how many war "The earliest life-forms must ships it could supply, or how have developed a shield be long it would last. fore they could evolve and Two facts were, howc;.ver, stabiliz,e. Hence, whatever it unquestionable. First, the is that is in our skins was not Stretts were building a fleet a triumph of Masters' sci that in their minds would be ence. They took it from Na i n v i n c i b I e. Second, they ture." would attack Ardane as soon "Oh? Oh !" These were two as that fleet could be made of Sandra's most expressive ready. The unanswerable monosyllables, followed by a question was: how long third. "Oh. Could be, at that. would that take? But how could .. . no, cancel "So we want to get every that." ship we have. How many? "You'd better cancel it, Five thousand? Ten? Fif Sandy. Give us a couple of teen? We want them convert months, and maybe we can ed to maximum possible pow answer a few elementary er as soon as we possibly questions." can," Sawtelle said. "And I Now inside the Hall, all want to get out there with the teams, from Astronomy to my boys to handle things." Zoology, went efficiently to "You aren't going to. N ei work. Everyone now knew ther you nor your · boys what to look for, how to find are expendable. Particularly MASTERS OF SPACE 95 you." Jaw hard-set, Hilton ermzmg all the Oman ships studied the situation for you want and doing any minutes. "No. What we'll do thing else you say. Check?" is take your Oman, Kedy. Sawtelle thought for a We'll re-set the ·Guide to couple of minutes. "A few drive into him everything details, is all. But that can be you and the military Masters ironed out as we go along." ever knew about arms, arma Both men worked then, al ment, strategy, tactics and so most unremittingly for six on. And we'll add everything solid days; at the end of I know of coordination, syn which time both drew tre thesis, and perception. That mendous sighs of relief. ought to make him at least They had done everything a junior-grade military ge possible for them to do. The nius." defense of Ardvor was now "You can play that in rolling at fullest speed to spades. I wish you could do ward its gigantic objective. it to me." Then captain and director, "I can-if you'll t a k e in two Oman ships with fifty the full Oman transfonna men and a thousand Omans, tion. Nothing else can stand leaped the world-girdling the punishment." ocean to the mining opera "I know. No, I don't want tion of the Stretts. There to be a genius that badly." they found business strictly "Check. And we'll take the H usual. The strippers still resultant Kedy and make stripped; the mining mechs nine duplicates of him. Each still roared and snarled their one will learn from and prof inchwise ways along their it by the mistakes made by geometrically perfect ter preceding numbers and will races; the little carriers still assume command the instant skittered busily between the his preceding number is varous miners and the stor killed." age silos. The fact that there "Oh, you expect, then ... ?" was enough concentrate on "Expect? No. I know it hand to last a world for a damn well, and so do you. hundred years made no dif That's why we Ardans will ference at all to these auto all stay aground. Why the matics; a crew of erector Kedys' first job will be to mechs was building new silos make the heavy stuff in and as fast as existing ones were around Ardane as heavy as it being filled. can be made. Why it'll all be Since the men now under on twenty-four-hour alert. stood everything that was go Then t h e y can put as ing on, it was a simple matter many thousands of Omane as for them to stop the whole you please to work at ltlod- Strett operation in its tracks. 96 by Edward E. Smith a E. Everett Evans Then every man and every leasing a public-address tape Oman leaped to his assigned -that they were now free to job. Three days later, all the return to Terra. mechs went back to work. Three days later, one day Now, however, they were short of Sol, Sawtelle got working for the Ardans. Five-Jet Admiral Gordon's The miners, i n s t e a d of office on the sub-space radio. concentrate, now em i t t e d An officious underling tried v a s t 1 y larger streams of to block him, of course. Navy-Standard pelleted uran "Shut up, Perkins, and lis exite. The carriers, instead ten," Sawtelle said, bruskly. of one-gallon cans, carried "Tell Gordon I'm bringing in five-ton drums. The silos one hundred twenty thousand were immensely 1 a r g e r two hundred forty-five rnet thirty feet in diameter and rk tons of pelleted uranex towering two hundred feet ite. And if he isn't on this into the air. The silos were beam in sixty seconds he'll not, however, being used as never get a gram of it." yet. One of the two Oman The admiral, outraged al ships had been conv-erted into most to the point of apo a fuel-tanker and its yawning plexy, carne in. "Sawtelle, re holds were being filled first. port yourself for court-mar The Orion went back to tial at ... " Ardane and an eight-day wait "Keep still, Gordon," the began. For the first time in captain snapped. In sheer as over seven months Hilton tonishment old Five-Jets found time actually to loaf; obeyed. "I am no longer Ter and he and Temple, lolling ran Navy; no longer subject on the beach or hiking in the to your orders. As a matter mountains, e n j o y e d them of cold fact, I am no longer selves and each other to the human. For reasons which I full. will explain later to the full AU too soon, however, the Advisory Board, some of the h e a v i I y laden tanker ap. personnel of Project Theta peared in the sky over Ar Orionis underwent transfor dane. The Orion joined it; mation into a form of life and the two ships slipped into able to live in an environment sub-space for Earth. of radioactiv-ity so intense as to kill any human being in T HREE days out, Hilton ten seconds. Under certain used his sense of percep conditions we will sup pI y, tion to release the thought free of charge, F. 0. B. Terra controlled blocks that had or Luna, all the uranexite the been holding all the controls Solar System can use. The of the Perseus in neutral. He conditions are these," and he informed her offic~rs-by re- gave them. ''Do you accept MASTERS OF SPACE 97 these c-onditions or not?" have this beam switched to "1 ••. I would vote to accept Astrogation, please?" them, C a p t a i n. But that "Of course. And thanks, weight! One hundred twenty Captain. I'll see you at White thousand m e t r i c tons-in Sands." ·~redible ! Are you sure of Then, as the now positively that figure?" glowing Gordon faded away, "Definitely. And that is Sawtelle turned to his own minimum. The error is plus, staff. "Fenway- Snowden not minus." take over. Better d o ubI e "This crippling power check micro-timing with As s'hortage would really be tro. Put us into a twenty over?" For the first time four-hour orbit over White since Sawtelle had known Sands and hold us there. We him, G.ordon showed that he won't go down. Let the load was not quite solid Navy down on r e m o t e, wherever brass. they want it." "It's over. Definitely. For good." HE arrival of the Ardvor "I'd not only agree; I'd T ian superdreadnought Or raise you a monument. While ion and the UC-1 (Uranexite I can't speak for the Board, Carrier Number One) was I'm sure they'll agree." one of the most sensational "So am I. In any event, e v e n t s old Earth had ever your cooperation is all that's known. Air and space craft required for this first load." went clear out to Emergence The chips had vanished from Volume Ninety to meet them. Sawtelle's shoulders. "Where By the time the UC-1 was do you want it, Admiral? coming in on its remote-con A r i s t a r c h u s or White trolled landing spiral the Sands?" press of small ships was so "White Sands, pIe as e. great that all the police forces While there may be some de available were in a lather lay in releasing it to indus trying to control it. try ... " This was exactly what Hil "While they figure out ton had wanted. It made pos how much they can tax it?" sible the completely unob Sawtelle asked, sardonically. served launching of several "Well, if they don't tax it dozen small craft from the it'll be the first thing in his Orion herself. tory that isn't. Have you any One of these made a very objections to releasing all this high and very fast flight to to the press?" Chicago. With all due for "None at all. The harder mality and under the aegis of they hit it and the wider they a perfectly authentic Regis spread it, the better. Will you try Number it landed on 98 by Edward E. Smith & _E. Everett Evan• O'Hare Field. Eleven deeply to flip the communicator's tanned young men emerged switch. At the first word, from it and made their way however, she stiffened rigid to a taxi stand, where each ly-froze solid. engaged a separate vehicle. Smiling, he opened the Sam Bryant stepped into door, walked in, and closed it his cab, gave the driver a behind him. Nothing short of number on Oakwood Avenue a shotgun blast could have in Des Plaines, and settled taken Doris Bryant's atten back to scan. He was lucky. tion from that recorder then. He w o u 1 d have gone any "T.hat simply is not so," she where she was, of course, but told the instrument firmly, the way things were, he could with both eyes resolutely give her a little warning to shut. "They made him stay on soften the shock. She had the Perseus. He won't be in taken the baby out for an air for at least three days. This ing down River Road~ and is some cretin's idea of a was on her way back. By hav joke." ing the taxi kill ten minutes "Not this time, Dolly hon or so he could arrive Just af ey. It's really me." ter she did. Wherefore he Her eyes popped open as stopped the cab at a public she whir I e d. "SAM!" she communications booth and shrieked, and hurled herself dialed his home. at him with all the pent-up "Mrs. Bryant is not at ardor and longing of two home, but she will return at hundred thirty-four meticu fifteen thirty," the instru lously counted, husbandless, ment said, crisply. "Would loveless days. you care to record a message After an unknown length for her?" of time Sam tipped her face He punched the RECORD up by the chin, nodded at the button. "This is Sam, Dolly stroller, and said, "How about baby. I'm right behind you. introducing me to the little Turn around, why don't you, stranger?" and tell your ever-lovin' star "What a mother I turned hoppin' husband hello?" out to be! That was the first The taxi pulled up at the thing I was going to rave curb just as Doris closed the about, the very first thing I front door; and Sam, after saw you! Sam u e 1 Jay the handing the driver a five Fourth, seventy-six days old dollar bill, ran up the walk. today." And so on. He waited just outside the Eventually, however, the door, key in hand, while she proud young mother watched lowered the stroller handle, the s 1 i g h t I y apprehensive took off her hat and by long young father carry their established habit reached out first-born upstairs; where to- MA$TERS OF SPACE . 99 gether, they put him-still will, but I might-don't wait sound asleep-to bed in his until you're r e a 11 y hurt to crib. Then again they were in start screaming. Promise?" each other's arms. "I promise." Her eyes went wide. "But tell me!" OME time later: she twist He told her. She was in S ed around in the circle of turn surprised, amazed, ap his arm and tried to dig her prehensive, frightened and fingers into the muscles of f i n a 11 y eager; and she be his back. She then attacked came more and more eager his biceps and, leaning back right up to the end. ward, eyed him intently. "You mean that we ... that "You're you, I know, but I'll stay just as I am-for you're different. No athlete thousands of years?" or any 1 a b o r e r could ever "Just as you are. Or differ possibly get the muscles you ent, if you like. If you really have all over. To say nothing mean any of this yelling of a space officer on duty. you've been doing about be And I know it isn't any kind ing too big in the hips-! of a disease. You've been act think you're exactly right, ing all the time as though I my s e I £-you can rebuild were fragile, made out of yourself any way you please. glass or s o m e t h i n g-as Or change your shape every though you were afraid of hour on the hour. But you breaking me in two. So haven't accepted my invita what is it, sweetheart?" tion yet." "I've been trying to figure "Don't be silly." She went out an easy way of telling into his arms again and nib you, but there isn't any. I am bled on his left ear. "I'd go different. I'm a hun d r e d anywhere with you, of course, times as strong as any man any time, but this-but you're ever was. Look." He upended positively sure Sammy Small a chair, took one heavy hard will be all right?" wood leg between finger and "Positively sure." thumb and made what looked "Okay, I'll call mother ... " like a gentle effort to bend Her face fell. "I can't tell her it. The leg broke with a pis that we'll never see them tol-sharp r e p o r t and Doris again and that we'll live ... " leaped backward in surprise. "You don't need to. She "So you're right. I am afraid, and Pop-Fern and Sally, not only of breaking you in too, and their boy-friends two, but killing you. And if I are on the list. Not this time, break any of your ribs or but in a month or so, proba arms or legs I'll never forgive bly." myself. So if I let myself go Doris brightened like a for a secorid-I don't think I sunburst. "And your folks, 100 by Edward E. Smith & E. Eyerett Evans too, of course?" she asked. not leak--'Which was reason "Yes, all the close ones." able enough, since each was "Marvelous! How soon are lined with Masters' plastics. we leaving?" Then into lead-lined test ing cells, where each opened T six o'clock next morn his face-plate b r i e f 1 y to a A ing, two hundred thirty sensing element. Whereupon five days after leaving Earth, the indicating needles of two Hilton and Sawtelle set out meters in the main laboratory to make the Ardans' official went enthusiastically through call upon Terra's Advisory the full range of red and Board. Both were wearing held unwaveringly against prodigiously heavy lead ar their stops. mor, the inside of which was Both Ardans felt the wave furiously radioactive. They of shocked, astonished, al did not need it, of course. But most unbelieving consterna it would make all Ardans tion that swept through the monstrous in Terran eyes observing scientists and, in and would conceal the fact slightly lesser measure (be that any other Ardans were cause they knew less about landing. radiation) through the Ad Their gig was met at the visory Board itself in a big spaceport; not by a limou room halfway a c r o s s town. sine, but by a five-ton truck, And from the Radiation Lab into which they were loaded oratory they were taken, via one at a time by a hydraulic truck and freight elevator, to lift. Cameras clicked, report the Office of the Command ers scurried, and tri-di scan ant, where the Board was sit ners whirred. One of those ting. scanners, both men knew, The story, which had been was reporting directly and sent in to the Board the day only to the Advisory Board before on a scrambled beam, -whkh, of course, never was one upon which the Ar took anything e i t h e r for dans had labored for days. granted or at its face value. Many facts could be with Their first stop was at a held. However, every man truck-scale, where each visitor aboard the Perseus would was weighed. Hilton tipped agree on some things. Indeed, the beam at four thousand six the Earthship's communica hundred f i f t e e n pounds; tions officers had undoubted Sawtelle, a smaller man, ly radioed in already about weighed in at four thousand longevity and perfect health one hundred ninety. Thence and Oman service and many to the Radiation Laboratory, other matters. Hence all such where it was ascertained and things would have to be ad reported that the armor did mitted and countered. MASTERS OF SPAC~ .101 Thus the report, while it stantly•. "Reasonable, or not,. was air-tight, perfectly logi that's exactly what will ha,p cal, perfectly consistent, and pen. And, reasonable or f\Ot, apparently complete, did not it'll be suicide, not murder. please the Board at all. It There isn't a thing that either wasn't intended to. Hilton or I can do about it." Hilton broke the ensuing "WE cannot and do not silence. "You can say with approve of such un equal truth that every human warranted favoritism," the being has the right to run a Chairman of the Board said. four-minute mile or to com "Longevity has always been pose a great symphony. It man's prime goal. Every hu isn't a matter of right at all, man being has the inalienable but of ability. In this case the right to .. " mental qualities are even "F!apdoodle !" Hilton snort more n e c e s s a r y than the ed. "This is not being broad physical. You as a Board did cast and this room is proofed, a very fine job of selecting so please climb down off your the BuSci personnel for Proj soapbox. You don't need to ect Theta Orionis. Almost talk like a politician here. eighty per cent of them D i d n ' t you read paragraph proved able to withstand the 12-A-2, one of the many Ardan conversion. On the marked 'Top Secret'?" other hand, only a very small "Of course. But we do not percentage of the Navy per understand how purely men sonnel did so." tal qualities can possibly have "Your report said that the any effect upon purely physi remaining personnel of the cal transformations. Thus it Project were not informed as does not seem reasonable that to the death aspect of the any except r i g o r o u sl y transformation," A d m i r a 1 screened personnel would die Gordon said. "Why not?" in the process. That is, of "That should be self-ex course, unless you contem planatory," Hilton said, flat plate deliberate, cold-blooded ly. "They are still human and murder." still Terrans. We did not and That stopped Hilton in his will not encroach upon either tracks, for it was too close for the duties or the privileges of comfort to the truth. But it Terra's A d v i s o r y Board. did not hold the captain for What you tell all Terrans, an instant. He was used to and how much, and how, must death, in many of its grisliest be decided by yourselves. fonns. This also applies, of course, "There are a lot of things to the other 'Top Secret' no Terran ever will under paragraphs of the r e p o r t, stand," Sawtelle replied in- none of. which are known to 102 by Edward E. Smith A E. Everett Evan• any Terran ·outside the the truth, to connive at ... " Board." "We aren't asking you to "But you haven't said any do a n yt h in g !, . Hilton thing about the method of se snapped. "We don't give a lection," another A d v is o r damn what you do. Just study complained. "Why, that will that record, with all that it take all the psychologists of implies. Read between the the world, working full time; lines. As for those on the continuously." Perseus, no two of them will "We said we would do the tell the same story and · not selecting. We meant just one of them has even the re that," Hilton said, coldly. motest idea of what the real "No one except the very few story is. I, personally, not selectees will know anything only did not want to become about it. Even if it were an a monster, but would have unmixed blessing-which it given everything I had to very definitely is not-do you stay human. My wife felt the want all humanity thrown same way. Neither of us into such an uproar as that would have c on v e r t e d if would cause? Or the quite there'd been any other way possible r a c i a I inferiority in God's universe of getting complex it might set up? To the uranexite and doing some say nothing of the question other things that simply must of how much of Terra's best be done." blood do you want to drain "What other things?" Gor off, irreversibly and perma don demanded. nently? No. What we suggest "You'll never know," Hil is that you paint the picture ton answered, q u i e t 1 y. so black, using Sawtelle and "Things no Terran ever will me and what all humanity know. We hope. Things that has just seen as horrible ex would drive any Terran stark amples, that nobody would mad. Some of them are hinted take it as a gift. Make them at-as much as we dared...... be shun it like the plague. Hell, tween the lines of the re I don't have to tell you what port." your propaganda machines The report had not men can do." tioned the Stretts. Nor were they to be mentioned now. If HE C h a i r m a n of the the Ardans coulrl stop them, T. Board again mounted his no Terran need ever know invisible rostrum. "Do you anvthing abovt them. mean to intimate that we are If not, no Terran should to falsify the record?" he de know anything about them claimed. "To try to make liars except wh!r probable and Sawtelle were almost as to our ships. We can not ar much surprised as relieved rive at any reliable estimate that the Stretts had not al- as to how long that will take. ready attacked. "As to the effectiveness of Sawtelle, confident that his our cutting off their known defenses were fully ready, fuel supply, opinion is divid took it more or less in stride. ed. We must therefore assume Hilton worried. And after a that fuel shortage will not be couple of days he began to do a factor. some real thinking about it. "Neither are we unanimous The first result of his on the basic matter as to why thinking was a conference the Masters acted as they did with Temple. As soon as she just before they left Ardry. got the drift, she called in Why did they set the status Teddy and Big Bill Karns. so far below their top ability? Teddy in turn called in Becky Why did they make it impos and de Vaux; Karns wanted sible for the Omans ever, of Poynter and Beverly; Poyn- themselves, to learn their ter wanted Braden and the higher science? Why, if they twins; and so on. Thus, what did not want that science to started out as a conference of become known, did they leave two became a full Ardan staff complete records of it? The meeting; . a meeting which, majority of us believe that starting immediately after the Masters coded their rec lunch, ran straight through ords in such fashion that the into the following afternoon. Stretts, even if they con- "To sum up the consensus, quered the Omans or de for the record," Hilton said stroyed them, could never 114 by Edward E. Smith a E. Everett EvaM break that code; since it was up their planetary defenses to keyed to the basic difference match. That way, we'd blow between the Strett mentality all their ships out of space, and the human. Thus, they probably easily enough, but left it deliberately for some Strett itself will be just as human race to find. safe as though it were in "Finally, and most impor God's left-hand hip pocket. So tant, our physicists and the what's the answer?" oreticians are not able to ex "It isn't that simple, Jarve," trapolate, from the analysis Sawtelle said. "Let's hear of our screen, to the concepts from you, Kedy." underlying the Masters' ulti "Thank you, sir. There is mate weapons of offense, the an optimum mass, a point of first-stage booster and its fi maximum efficiency of fire nal end-product, the Vang. If, power as balanced against loss as we can safely assume, the of maneuverability, for any Stretts do not already have craft designed for attack," those weapons, they will know Kedy thought, in his most nothing about them until we professonial manner. "We as ourselves use them in battle. sume that the Stretts know "These are, of course, only that as well as we do. No such the principal points covered. limitation applies to strictly Does anyone wish to amend defensive structures, but both this summation as recorded?" the Strett craft and ours must be designed for attack. We o one did. have built and are building N The meeting was ad many hundreds of thousands journed. Hilton, however, ac of ships of that type. So, un companied Sawtelle and Kedy doubtedly, are the Stretts. to the captain's office. "So Ship for ship, they will be you see, Skipper, we got pretty well matched. There troubles," he said. "If we fore one part of my strategy don't use t h o s e boosters will be for two of our ships to against their skeletons it'll engage simultaneously one of boil down to a stalemate last theirs. There is a distinct ing God only knows how long. probability that we will have It will be a war of attrition, enough advantage in speed of outcome dependent on which control to make that tactic side can build the most and operable." biggest and strongest ships "But there's another that we the fastest. On the other won't," S a w t e II e objected. hand, if we do use 'em on de "And maybe they can build fense here, they'll analyze more ships than we can." 'em and have everything "Another point is that they worked out in a day or so. The may build, in addition to their first thing they'll do is beef big stuff, a lot of small, ultra- MASTERS OF SPACE 115 fast ones," Hilton put in. ties. All of us together make "Suicide jobs-crash and de up the a c t u a 1 Kedy-that tonate-simply super-missiles. which is meant when we say How sure are you that you '1'. That is, I am the sum total can stop such missiles with of all Kedys everywhere, not ordinary beams?" merely this individual that "Not at all, sir. Some of you call Kedy One." them would of course reach "You mean you're all talk and destroy some of our ships. ing to me?" Which brings up the second "Exactly, sir. Thus, no one part of my strategy. For each element of the Kedy has any one of the heavies, we are need of, or any desire for, building many small ships of s e 1 £-preservation. The de the type you just called 'su struction of one element, or per-missiles'." of thousands of elements, "Superdreadnoughts versus would be of no more conse superdreadnoughts, s u p e r quence to the Kedy than ... missiles v e r s u s super-mis well, they are strictly ana siles." Hilton digested that logous to the severed ends of concept for several minutes. the hairs, every time you get "That could still wind up as a haircut." a stalemate, except for what "My God!" Hilton stared you said about control. That at Sawtelle. Sawtelle stared isn't much to depend on, es back. "I'm beginning to see pecially since we won't have •.. maybe ... I hope. What the time-lag advantage you control that would be! But Omans had before. They'll see just in case we should have to that. Also, I don't like to to use the boosters ... " Hil sacrifice a million Omans, ton's voice died away. Scowl either." ing in concentration, he clasped his hands behind his "I haven't explained the back and began to pace the newest development yet, floor. sir. There will be no Omans. "Better give up, Jarve. Each ship and each missile Kedy's got the same mind has a built-in Kedy brain, you have," Sawtelle began, to sir." Hilton's oblivious back; but "What? That makes it in- Kedy silenced the thought finitely worse. You Kedys, almost in the moment of its unless it's absolutely neces- inception. sary, are not expendable!" "By no means, sir," he con- "Oh, but we are, sir. You tradicted. "I have the brain don't quite understand. We only. The mind is entirely Kedys are not merely similar, different.'" but are in fact identical. Thus "Link up, Kedy, and see we are not independent enti- what you think of this," Hil- 118 by Edward E. Smith & E. Everett Evans ton broke in. There ensued off the ends of assembly lines an interchange of thought so like half-pint tin cans out of fast and so deeply mathemat can-making machines. ical that Sawtelle was lost The Strett warcraft, skele in seconds. "Do you think tons and missiles, would it'll work?" emerge into normal space any "I don't see how it can fail, where within a million miles sir. At what point in the ac of Ardvor. The Ardan missiles tion should it be put into ef were powered for an acce}~ra fect? And will you call the tion of one hundred gravtttes. time of initiation, or shall That much the Kedy brains, I?" molded solidly into teflon "Not until all their reserves lined, massively braced steel are in action. Or, at worst, spheres, could just withstand. all of ours except that one To be certain of breaking task-force. Since you'll know the Strett screens, an impact a lot more about the status of velocity of about six miles per the battle than either Saw second was necessary. The telle or I will, you give the time required to attain this signal and I'll start things velocity was about ten sec going." onds, and the flight distance "What are you two talking something over thirty miles.. about?" Sawtelle demanded. Since the Stretts could ort "It's a long story, chum. ent themselves in less than Kedy can tell you about it one second after emergence, better than I can. Besides, it's even this extremely tight getting late and Dark Lady packing of missiles-only six and Larry both give me hell ty miles apart throughout the every time I hold supper on entire emergence volume of plus time u n 1 e s s there's a space-would still give the mighty good reason for it. Stretts the initiative by a So, so long, guys." time-ratio of more than ten to one. XV Such tight packing was of course impossible. It called OR many weeks the pro for many billions of defend Fduction of Ardan warships ers instead of the few millions and missiles had been spiral it was possible for the Omans ing upward. to produce in the time they Half a mountain range of had. In fact, the average spac solid rock had been converted ing was well over ten thou into fabricated super-steel and sand miles when the invading annament. Superdreadnoughts h o r d e of Strett missiles were popping into existence emerged and struck. at the rate of hundreds per How they struck ! minute. Missiles were rolling There was nothing of fi- MASTERS OF SPACE .117 nesse about that attack·; noth RDAN superdreadnoughts ing of skill or of tactics: noth A in their massed thousands ing but the shee-r brute force poured out through Ardvor's of overwhelming superiority one-way screen. Each went in of numbers and of over stantly to work. Now the matching power. One instant Kedy control system, doing all space was empty. The next what it was designed to do, instant it was full of invading proved its full worth. For the missiles-a superb exhibition weapons of the big battle-wag of coordination and timing. ons did not depend upon ac And the Kedy control, upon celeration, but were driven at which the defenders had the speed of light; and Grand counted so heavily, proved Fleet 0 per at ions were useless. For each Strett mis planned and were carried out sile, within a fraction of a sec at the almost infinite velocity ond of emergence, darted to of thought itself. ward the nearest Oman mis Or, rather, they were not sile with an acceleration that p tanned at all. They were sim made the one-hundred-gravity ply carried out, immediately defenders seem to be standing and without confusion. still. For all the Kedys were one. One to one, missiles crashed Each Kedy element, without into missiles and detonated. any lapse of time whatever There were no solid or liquid for consultation with any end-products. Each of those other, knew exactly where frightful weapons carried so every other element was; ex many megatons-equivalent of actly what each was doing; atomic concentrate that all and exactly what he himself nearby space blossomed out should do to make maximum into superatomic blasts hun contribution to the common dreds of times more violent cause. than the fireballs of lithium Nor was any time lost in re hydride fusion bombs. laying · orders to crewmen For a moment even Hilton within the ship. There were was stunned; but only for a no crewmen. Each Kedy ele moment. ment was the sole personnel "Kedy !" he barked. "Get of, and was integral with, his your big stuff out there! Use vessel. Nor were there any the boosters!" He started for wires or relays to impede and the door at a full run. "That slow down communication. tears it-that really tears it! Operational instructions, too, Scrap the plan. I'll board the were transmitted and were Sirius and take the task-force acted upon with thought's to Strett. Bring your stuff transfinite speed. Thus, if de along, Skipper, as soon as cision and execution were not you're ready.'' quite mathematically simulta- 118 by Edward E. Smith &: E. Everett Evans neous, they were ·separated by the atmosphere as it screamed a period of time so infinitesi its way to Ardane Field. mally small as to be impossi- It landed with a thump; ble of separation. . Heavy black streaks of syn Wherever a Strett missile thetic rubber marked the was, or wherever a Strett pavement as it came to a skeleton-ship appeared, an. screeching, shrieking stop at Oman bearr. reached it, usual the flagship's main lock. And, ly in m..1ch less than one sec in the instant of closing that ond. Beam clung to screen lock's outer portal, all twen caressingly, hungrily-absorb ty-thousand-plus warships of ing its total energy and form the task force took off as one ing the first-stage booster. at ten gravities. Took off, and T h e n, three microseconds in less than one minute went 'ater, that booster went off into overdrive. into a ragingly incandescent, All personal haste was now glaringly violent burst of fury over. Hilton went up into so hellishly, so inconceivably what he still thought of as hot that less than a thousandth t h e "control room," even of its total output of energy though he knew that there was below the very top of the were no controls, nor even visible spectrum! any instruments, anywhere If the previous display of aboard. He knew what . he atomic violence had been so would find there. Fast as he spectacular and of such mag had acted, Temple had not nitude as to defy understand had as far to go and she had ing or description, what of got there first. this? When hnndreds of thou - He could not have said, for sands of Kedys, each wield the life of him, how he actual ing world-wrecking powers as ly felt about this direct defi effortlessly and as deftly and ance of his direct orders. He as precisely as thought, at walked into th-: room, sat tacked and destroyed millions down beside her and took her of those tremendously power ·hand. ful war-fabrications of the "I told you to stay home, Stretts? The only simple an Temple," he s<1id. swer is that all nearby space "I know you did. But I'm might very well have been not only the assistant head of torn out of the most radiant your Psychology Departme-nt. layers of S-Doradu~ itself. I'm your wife, remember? 'Until death do us part.' And ILTON made the hundred if there's any way in the uni H yards from ofUce door to ver,se I can manas: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Don't miss the next Galaxy Magazine! THE BIG ENGINE by Fritz Leiber CRITICAL MASS by Pohl & Kornbluth THE RAG AND BONE MEN by Algis Budrys And many more, including Willy Ley science column and the great conclusion of Poul Anderson's THE DAY AFTER DOOMSDAY! February Galaxy on sale December lOth - ask your newsdealer to reserve it for you I MASTERS OF SPACE 125 HUE AND CRY The plac:e where reader and editor meet ..• E'VE got a little more What you need now that W space than usual this you've got good s t o r i e s month-which ought to please (everyone hands out advice I) some persistent voices in the is some good interior art. Par back row-so without wasting don the odor, but your interior any of it, let's start reading art stinks! Wenzel did a fair the mail. ly nice job on the cover, but if you can't get better interior * * * art· than that, you ought to give the whole thing up. Dear Editor: Ken Gentry Well, after reading the Sep Nashville, Tennessee tember issue of If .. . and look ing at that long letter col. . . I * * * am awed into giving you something to cut, my s e I f. Dear Sir: D.amn, If is coming up in the Okay! I might as well get wodd. All the stories were my two bits worth in, to ease good, and Call Him Nemesis my conscience-for your egos, was excellent. The ending of your Hue and Cry or your tba~ story was even better "ci~cular file." I imagine that ~han the story itself. you bave a. ~ump truck full of ,~6 these letters by now. But a ing Ground and Tolliver's fairly recent convert to sf Orbit standing out above all. wishes to comment anyway. Some authors whom you I have had you and Galaxy celebrate have not appeared on my "must read or else" list recently, and I wish they for quite some time. My only would. Here they are: gripe is that each of you is Fredric Brown bi-monthly. Is good material Edgar Pangborn THAT scarce? If so--please F. L. Wallace keep it good-and bi-monthly Robert Sheckley if necessary. Zenna Henderson Though all were refreshing Clifford D. Simak to a degree in your September Robert Bloch yarns, I especially enjoyed Christopher Grimm The Frozen Pl.anet, Valley of Robert Silverberg the Masters, Mirror Image Alan E. Nourse and Lorelei. Though long on Damon Knight Mickey Spillane and short on Evelyn E. Smith science- The Frozen Planet Robert Heinlein was very little short of being Alfred Bester terrific. James Blish Science Briefs seemed, at Theodore Sturgeon least in your past two issues, -and others. like a poor man's For Your George Sarant Information. Howzabout elab Brooklyn, N. Y. oration-or :mother approach? * We wish they would, too. Cheers! And keep up the We keep asking them. -Ed. good work! Wes Alan * * * San Fernando, Cal. Dear Editor: * * * You must be Frederik Pohl. No other editor, especially not Dear Editor: H.L. Gold, who abandoned the The August issue of Gal idea of a Galaxy letter column axy Was a good one, as was simply because the readers the September issue of If. were against it, would go The cover on Galaxy, how against what are obviously the ever, was not up to Emsh's readers' wishes. Readers like own standards, while Wen longer letters, even if it mea'ris zel's was. As far as contents leaving them uncut, in ex go they both were good with treme cases.' Not letters pages The Moon M'>th, The God long, to be sure, nor 10 pages Next Door. The Fro ten of letters. That would be "the Planet:. -v,,.. ., of th,. Mas opposite· extreme. But to be ters,· Miuor Image, Spawn- interesting, the letters must be t2T more than one short para Dear Editor: graph, with space enough to Here is hoping f.or a much say nothing but "I liked this bigger and better "Hue and but didn't like that." By put Cry" next time. The present ting your own conunents down issue of If with The Frozen to the size of the conunents of Planet was better than it bas the readers, and maybe upping been for quite some time. the pages of letters to five, in James W. Ayers stead of three, If can again Attalla, Alabama have one of the best letter columns in sf ... and, believe * * * me, it needs to have the best of something. Gentlemen: In the September If (which I have just finished read should be subtitled Worlds of ing your September If. I en Galaxy Rejects) you had a joyed it very much. Keep up nice cover, but by the interior the good work! It had every illos I can only assume that thing I could want, except your Art Director is black and no book review. I would like white blind (the opposite of to see it back. color blind.) As far as in William Hoffman terior illustrations go, I rate Chicago, Illinois F&SF before Galaxy and If. It seems incredible that any • * * one should have accepted such a story as The Frozen Planet. Dear Editor: Even Imaginative Tales would Congratulations for an II have rejected this one ... which is getting better every Frederick Norwood issue. Most of the stories are Franklin, Louisiana actually readable now. A couple months back, I was * Art? We're working on it. lucky to find one or two de Starting next issue, you'll see cent ones in a whole ish. changes. Letter c o 1 u m n? Best stories in the Sep We're still not all the way tember If were Spawning convinced--despite what we Ground (let's have more del admit to be a lot of mail urg Rey) and Valley of the Mas ing a 1-o-n-g one-for all it ters. Blackford seems like a really proves is that letter pretty good new writer. writing readers like letters Sturgeon is good on the (which we already know.) features, but how about some What about those who don't? stories from him? ' -Ed. Edward V. Moore Roslyn Heights, N .Y. * Yeah, how about tbat, • * • Ted?-Ed. 128 * * * offer my sincerest congratula tions. Dear Editor: Laumer is superb. A little of Thank heavens you're not Russell, a little of William planning to have 10 to 16 son, a little of the best Leins pages of letters I Even the ter and a lot of his capable old· If. seldom, if ever, had self combine to make him the more than (at the most) 5 best new writer since Schmitz. pages for letters. David G. Hulan I do regret, though, that Redstone Arsenal, Ala. you're not planning to run book reviews a g a i n in the * * * near future ... but with a book review column in 4 of Dear Editor: the 6 If magazines being pub Why not get the readers to lished, you might as well use hold written discussions in the extra space for more fic Hue and Cry? As a starter, tion. why not have the readers try I think that If has been im to pin down the meaning of proving with every issue since and idea behind the oft-used, the time Twelve Times Zero ambiguous term "sense of was published. Now, with the wonder?" Book reviewers Lester del Rey story in the have long since worn out this September issue and the "Sky term ... and have yet to define lark" Smith-E. E. Evans col it. laboration scheduled, you may Ken Winkes have hit an all-time high. Arlington, Wash. David Charles Paskow Philadelphia, Penn. * * * That's the works-not all * * * the mail we have, but all we Dear Editor: can find room for. Thanks to I picked up the new If yes all of you. te~day, mainly because my Next issue? Some fine sto fnend Lawrence Crilly sug ries coming up. Pout Ander gested it, and when I saw you son, Fritz Leiber, Keith Lau bad a story by my current fa mer, Jim Hannon, Kris Ne vorite--Keith Laumer, with ville, Allen Kim La:ng and a !he ~roze'? J:'lanet- I bought dozen others have some real 1t. I JUSt f1mshed reading the ly first-rate stuff on hand. mag and I can only say We're not sure yet which WOW! From a mag that will fit in-but we're sure should have been discontinued you'll find something you !~mg ago you jump right up !ike-next issue, and every anto the front rank! I can only 1ssue to come I END .129 Give Galaxy SCIENCE FICTION the gift you'd like to receive We admit it-we're pushovers for the Xmas spirit. "Don't do it," our accountant pleads. "We can't afford to sell subscriptions at those prices!" But our eye goes past his piteous figure to the di$· tant corners of the land. " Readers straining budgets to introduce GALAXY to friends and relatives, and have enough scratch left over for their own subscriptions. We can't leave the job to them!" we thunder. "GALAXY must bear its share of the burden! And not only that-by the Lord Harry, we'U even include handsome Gift Card Announcements with their names as donors!" 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