Fantastic V11n05

by Murray Leinster m May Amazing ?

A PAWN IN THE DEADLIEST GAME OF ALL!

For untold centuries he circled the cold,

dead moon . . . and he himself was just as cold and dead. Suddenly he was brought back from exile—to be a pawn in a mighty galactic struggle! Edmond Hamilton brings you a thrilling tale,

“THE STARS, MY BROTHERS”

In the same issue, Frank Tinsley continues his fiction-fact series on space exploration as he takes you on a voyage in the Cosmic Caravel.

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FANTASTIC, Stories of Imagination, Vol. 11, No. 5, May, 1962, is published monthly by

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is the fascinating adventure of the brilliant men and women of interstellar rank who keep Earth in permanent contact with the entire Cosmos. 1 “THE HEART OF THE SERPENT * forecasts Interspace life two thousand years hence. This volume contains also outstanding s-f stories by five of Russia’s most gifted scientific writers. “THE LAND OF FOAM" will remind you of Conan the legend- ary adventurer. Through its pages come olive once more the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. Its hero, Pandion, creates a magic cameo which bestows strange powers on its owner. USE THE HANDY COUPON BELOW to order ALL THREE CROSS WORLD advantage BOOKS and take Direct Importers of the special introductory sav- front tht US.S.R. ings which CROSS WORLD Center for every known Rus- sian publication. We arc sup- BOOKS AND PERIODICALS, pliers to the nation's leading INC. passes on youl you universities, colleges and high to Now schools; the Armed Forces. can get "Andromeda" (regu- The Library of Congress, Fed- eral and State agencies, and larly $2.50), "The Heart of the industrial research organiza- Serpent" ($1.25) and "The Land tions. CROSS of Foam" for only $4.15, WORLD BOOKS ($2) AND PERIODICALS, INC. postage free. And be sure to 33.1 S. Wacker Drive ask for the special free cata- Chicago 6, Illinois logs listed belowl

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ZIFF-DAVIS PUBLISHING COMPANY PLANET OF DREAD By Murray Leinster 8 William B. Ziff. Chairman of the Board (1946-1953) RIPENESS IS ALL William Ziff. Prosldem By Jesse Roarke 61 W. Bradford Briggs, Eiecuttve Vice President DOUBLE OR NOTHING and Ilershel B. Barbln. Vico President By Jack Sharkey 104 General Manager

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EDITORIAL 6

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4 . .

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5 —

S I write this, we are but a few days shy of A an astronomical configuration which has not occurred for several thousand years. Five planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn—along with the Sun and the Moon, are lined up in a 16-degree wedge of the celestial zodiac. All about us occultists are predicting everything from earthquakes and eruptions to rebellions and nuclear wars, from the arrival of aliens to the end of the world. If you are reading this peacefully in the quiet of your room, you will know that they were wrong. If

you are not . . . * * * A S some of you who write us letters pleading EDITORIAL for a — fanzine column may know, we try to — ^ stay neutral on this point. However, there has just arrived on our desk a copy of a fascinating and (for new fen, especially) useful publication called A Key to the Terminology of S-F Fandom, by Donald Franson, and published by the National Fantasy Fan Federation. It is a dictionary of several hundred fan terms, among them some that even we had not been clear about. For instance: Blog—Mythical drink of fans; any potable consisting of an incredible mismatch of ingredients. Faaan—Fan who is interested more in fans and fandom than in stf. Fafia—Forced away from it all by mundane considerations. (That’s us.)

Pamphlet is available at 20tf from Ron Ellik, 1825 Greenfield Ave., Los Angeles 25, Calif. * * * F you can bear another plug, some of you may be interested to I know that NL has written a book which is, most likely, now on sale at your local bookstore. It is called Is Anybody Happy ? A Study of the American Search for Pleasure, and has nothing to do with sf or fantasy. It is strictly mainstream non-fiction, but you might like it anyway. It is all about how Americans strive for fun, but actually have very little of it. If you go so far as to buy it and read it, let me know what you think of it. —NL.

6 .

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Moran cut apart the yard-long monstrosity with a

slash of flame. The thing presumably died, but it continued to writhe senselessly. He turned to see other horrors crawling toward him. Then he knew he was being marooned on a planet of endless terrors.

L ORAN, naturally, did not M mean to help in the carrying out of the plans which would mean his destruction one way or another. The plans were thrashed out very painstakingly, in formal conference on the space-yacht Nadine, with Moran present and allowed to take part in the discussion. From the viewpoint of the Nadine’s ship’s company, it was simply necessary to get rid of Moran. In their predicament he might have come to the same conclusion; but he was not at all enthusiastic about

their decision. He would die of it. The Nadine was out of overdrive and all the uncountable suns of the galaxy shone steadily, remotely, as infinitesimal specks of light of every color of the rainbow. Two hours since, the sun of this solar system had been a vast glaring disk off to port, with streamers and promi- nences erupting about its edges.

9 ;

Now it lay astern, and Moran TV/TORAN observed these things could see the planet that had IVi from the control-room of been chosen for his marooning. the Nadine, then approaching It was a cloudy world. There the world on planetary drive. He were some dim markings near was to be left here, with no rea- one lighted limb, but nowhere son ever to expect rescue. Two of

else. There was an ice-cap in the Nadine ' s four-man crew view. The rest was—clouds. watched out the same ports as the planet seemed to approach. HE ice-cap, by its existence Burleigh said encouragingly Tand circular shape, proved that "It doesn’t look too bad, Mo- the planet rotated at a not un- ran !” reasonable rate. The fact that it Moran disagreed, but he did was water-ice told much. A wa- not answer. He cocked an ear inter-ice ice-cap said that there stead. He heard something. It were no poisonous gases in the was a thin, wabbling, keening planet’s atmosphere. Sulfur di- whine. No natural radiation oxide or chlorine, for example, sounds like that. Moran nodded would not allow the formation of toward the all-band speaker. water-ice. It would have to be “Do you hear what I do?” he Bulphuric-aeid or hydrochloric- asked sardonically. acid ice. But the ice-cap was sim- Burleigh listened. A distinct- ple snow. Its size, too, told about ly artificial signal came out of temperature-distribution on the the speaker. It wasn’t a voice- planet. A large cap would have signal. It wasn’t an identification meant a large area with arctic beacon, such as are placed on and sub-arctic temperatures, certain worlds for the conven- with small temperate and tropi- ience of interstellar skippers who cal climate-belts. A small one like need to check their courses on this meant wide tropical and extremely long runs. This was sub-tropical zones. The fact was something else. verified by the thick, dense cloud- Burleigh said;

masses which covered most of “Hm . . . Call the others, Har- the surface,—all the surface, in per.” fact, outside the ice-cap. But Harper, prudently with him In since there were ice-caps there the control-room, put his head would be temperate regions. In into the passage leading away. short, the ice-cap proved that a He called. But Moran observed man could endure the air and with grudging respect that he temperature conditions he would didn’t give him a chance to do find. anything drastic. These people

10 FANTASTIC on the Nadine were capable. be sent back where they came They’d managed to recapture the from. In effect, with six people Nadine from him, but they were on board instead of five, the Na- matter-of-fact about it. They dine could not land anywhere for didn’t seem to resent what he’d supplies. With five on board, as tried to do, or that he’d brought her papers declared, she could. them an indefinite distance in an And Moran was the extra man indefinite direction trom their whose presence would rouse / last landing-point, and they had space-port officials’ suspicion of still to relocate themselves. the rest. So he had to be dumped. He couldn’t blame them. He’d HEY’d been on Coryus Three made another difficulty, too. Tand they'd gotten departure Blaster in hand, he’d made the clearance from its space-port. Nadine take off from Coryus III With clearance-papers in order, with a trip-tape picked at ran- they could land unquestioned at dom for guidance. But the trip- any other space-port and take off tape had been computed for an- again—provided the other space- other starting-point, and when port was one they had clearance the yacht came out of overdrive for. Without rigid control of it was because the drive had space-travel, any criminal any- been dismantled in the engine- where could escape the conse- room. So the ship’s location was quences of any crime simply by in doubt. It could have travelled buying a ticket to another world. at almost any speed in practi- Moran couldn’t have bought a cally any direction for a length ticket, but he'd tried to get off of time that was at least indef- the planet Coryus on the Nadine. inite. A liner could re-locate it- The trouble was that the Nadine self without trouble. It had elab- had clearance papers covering orate observational equipment five persons aboard—four men and tri-di star-charts. But small- and a girl Carol. Moran made er craft had to depend on the six. Wherever the yacht landed, Galactic Directory. The process such a disparity between its doc- would be to find a planet and uments and its crew would spark check its climate and relation- an investigation. A lengthy, in- ship to other planets, and its credibly minute investigation. flora and fauna againBt descrip- Moran, at least, would be picked tions in the Directory. That was out as a fugitive from Coryus the way to find out where one Three. The others were fugitives was, when one’s position became too, from some unnamed world doubtful. The Nadine needed to Moran did not know. They might make a planet-fall for this.

PLANET OF DREAD 11 The rest of the ship’s company “Calling ground," he said came into the control-room. Bur- briskly. “Calling ground 1 We leigh waved his hand at the pick up your signal. Please re- speaker. ply.” !” “Listen He repeated the call, over and over and over. There was no an- HEY heard it. All of them. It swer. Cracklings and hissings Twas a trilling, whining sound came out of the speaker as be- among the innumerable random fore, and the thin and reedy noises to be heard in supposedly wabbling whine continued. The empty space. Nadine went on toward the en- “That’s a marker,” Carol an- larging cloudy mass ahead. nounced. “I saw a costume-story Burleigh said; tape once that had that sound in “Well?" it. It marked a first-landing spot "I think,” said Cfcrol, “that we on some planet or other, so the should land. People have been people could find that spot again. here. If they left a beacon, they It was supposed to be a long time may have left an identification of ago, though." the planet. Then we’d know “It’s weak,” observed Bur- where we are and how to get to leigh. "We’ll try answering it.” Loris.” Moran stirred, and he knew Burleigh nodded. The Nadine that every one of the others was had cleared for Loris. That was conscious of the movement. But where it should make its next they didn’t watch him suspi- landing. The little yacht went on. ciously. They were alert by long All five of its proper company habit. Burleigh said they’d been watched as the planet’s surface Underground people, fighting enlarged. The ice-cap went out the government of their native of sight around the bulge of the world, and they’d gotten away to globe, but no markings appeared. make it seem the revolt had col- There were cloud-banks every- lapsed. They’d go back later where, probably low down in the when they weren’t expected, and atmosphere. The darker vague start it up again. Moran consid- areas previously seen might have ered the story probable. Only been highlands. people accustomed to desperate “I think,” said Carol, to Mo- actions would have remained ran, “that if it’s too tropical so calm when Moran had used des- where this signal’s coming from, perate measures against them. we'll take you somewhere near Burleigh picked up the trans- enough to the ice-cap to have an mitter-microphone. endurable climate. I’ve been fig-

12 FANTASTIC uring on food, too. That will de- to fight and killed him in fair pend on where we are from Loris combat made no difference. Mo- because we have to keep enough ran had needed to get off-planet, for ourselves. But we can spare and fast. But space-travel regu- some. We’ll give you the emer- lations are especially designed to gency-kit, anyhow.” prevent such escapes. He’d made a pretty good try, HE emergency-kit contained at that. One of the controls on Tantiseptics, seeds, and a space-traffic required a ship on weapon or two, with elaborate landing to deposit its fuel-block advice to castaways. If some- in the space-port’s vaults. The body were wrecked on an even fuel-block was not returned until possibly habitable plane, the es- clearance for departure had been pecially developed seed-strains granted. But Moran had waylaid would provide food in a mini- the messenger carrying the Na- mum of time. It was not an en- dine's fuel-block back to that couraging thought, though, and space-yacht. He’d knocked the Moran grimaced. messenger cold and presented She hadn’t said anything himself at the yacht with the about being sorry that he had to fuel. He was admitted. He put be marooned. Maybe she was, the block in the engine’s gate. but rebels learn to be practical He duly took the plastic receipt- or they don’t live long. Moran token the engine only then re- wondered, momentarily, what leased, and he drew a blaster. sort of world they came from He’d locked two of the Nadine’s and why they had revolted, and crew in the engine-room, rushed what sort of set-back to the re- to the control-room without en- volt had sent the five off in what countering the others, dogged they considered a strategic re- the door shut, and threaded in treat but their government would the first trip-tape to come to think defeat. Moran’s own situa- hand. He punched the take-off tion was perfectly clear. button and only seconds later the He’d killed a man on Coryus overdrive. Then the yacht—and III. His victim would not be Moran—was away. But his pres- mourned by anybody, and some- ent companions got the drive dis- body formerly in very great mantled two days later and once danger would now be safe, which the yacht was out of overdrive was the reason for what Moran they efficiently gave him his had done. But the dead man had choice of surrendering or else. been very important, and the He surrendered, stipulating that fact that Moran had forced him he wouldn’t be landed back on

PLANET OF DREAD 13 ;

Coryus ; he still clung to hope of The Nadine went down and avoiding return—which was al- down. At fifteen hundred feet most certain anyhow. Because above the unseen surface, the nobody would want to go back to clouds ended. Below, there was a planet from which they’d car- only haze. One could see the ried away a criminal, even ground, at least, but there was though they’d done it unwilling- no horizon. There was only an ly. Investigation of such a mat- end to visibility. The yacht de- ter might last for months. scended as if in the center of a Now the space-yacht moved sphere in which one could see toward a vast mass of fleecy clearly nearby, less clearly at a whiteness without any visible little distance, and not at all be- features. Harper stayed with the yond a quarter-mile or so. direction-finder. From time to There was a shaded, shadow- time he gave readings requiring less twilight under the cloud- minute changes of course. The bank. The ground looked ljke no wabbling, whining signal was ground ever seen before by any- louder now. It became louder one. Off to the right a rivulet than all the rest of the space- ran between improbable-seeming noises together. banks. There were a few very small hills of most unlikely ap- rT^HE yacht touched atmosphere pearance. It was the ground, the and Burleigh said matter on which one would walk, “Watch our height, Carol.” which was strangest. It had She stood by the echometer. color, but the color was not Sixty miles. Fifty. Thirty. A cor- green. Much of it was a pallid, rection of course. Fifteen miles dirty-yellowish white. But there to surface below. Ten. Five. At were patches of blue, and curious twenty-five thousand feet there veinings of black, and here and were clouds, which would be par- there were other colors, all of ticles of ice so small that they them unlike the normal color of floated even so high. Then clear vegetation on a planet with a air, then lower clouds, and lower sol-type sun. ones still. It was not until six Harper spoke from the direc-

thousand feet above the surface tion-finder ; that the planet-wide cloud-level “The signal’s coming from seemed to begin. From there on that mound, yonder.” down it was pure opacity. Any- There was a hillock of elon- thing could exist in that dense, gated shape directly in line with almost palpable grayness. There the Nadine’s course in descent. could be jagged peaks. Except for the patches of color,

14 FANTASTIC it was the only considerable of the burned area smoked noise- landmark within the half-mile somely, and somehow it looked circle in which anything could be as if it would reek. And there seen at all. were places where it stirred. The Nadine checked her down- Burleigh blinked and stared. ward motion. Interplanetary Then he reached up and flicked drive is rugged and sure, but it on the outside microphones. In- does not respond to fine adjust- stantly there was bedlam. If the ment. Burleigh used rockets, is- landscape was strange, here, the suing great bellowings of flame, sounds that came from it were to make actual contact. The unbelievable. yacht hovered, and as the rocket- flames diminished slowly she sat 'T’HERE were grunting noises. down with practically no im- There were clickings, un- pact at all. But around her there countable clickings that made a was a monstrous tumult of smoke background for all the rest. and steam. When the rockets There were discordant howls and went off, she lay in a burned-out honkings. From time to time hollow some three or four feet some thing unknown made a cry deep with a bottom of solid stone. that sounded very much like a The walls of the hollow were small boy trailing a stick against black and scorched. It seemed a picket fence, only much louder. that at some places they quiv- Something hooted, maintaining ered persistently. the noise for an impossibly long There was silence in the con- time. And persistently, sounding trol-room save for the whining as if they came from far away, noise which now was almost there were booming noises, un- deafening. Harper snapped off speakably deep-bass, made by the switch. Then there was true something alive. And something silence. The space-yacht had shrieked in lunatic fashion and come to rest possibly a hundred something else still moaned from yards from the mound which was time to time with the volume of the source of the space-signal. a steam-whistle. . . . That mound shared the peculi- “This sounds and looks like a arity of the ground as far as nice place to live,” said Moran they could see through the haze. with fine irony. It was not vegetation in any or- Burleigh did not answer. He dinary sense. Certainly it was no turned down the outside sound. mineral surface! The landing- “What’s that stuff there, the pockets had burned away three ground?” he demanded. “We or four feet of it, and the edge burned it away in landing. I’ve

PLANET OF DREAD 15 seen something like it some- turned the beacon off. Maybe where, but never taking the they got the lifeboats to work place of grass!” and got away. Maybe they lived “That,” said Moran as if as I’m expected to live until they brightly, “that’s what I’m to died as I’m expected to die.” make a garden in. Of evenings Burleigh said angrily;

I’ll stroll among my thrifty “You’d do what we are doing plantings and listen to the de- if you were in our shoes!” lightful sounds of nature.” “Sure," said Moran, “but a Burleigh scowled. Harper man can gripe, can’t he?” flicked off the direction-finder. “You won’t have to live here," “The signal still comes from said Burleigh. "We’ll take you that hillock yonder,” he said somewhere up by the ice-cap. As with finality. Carol said, we’ll give you every- Moran said bitingly; thing we can spare. And mean- “That ain’t no hillock, that’s while we’ll take a look at that my home!” wreck yonder. There might be an Then, instantly he’d said it, he indication in it of what solar sys- recognized that it could be true. tem this i3. There could be some- The mound was not a fold in the thing in it of use to you, too. ground. It was not an up-crop- You’d better iome along when we ping of the ash-covered stone on explore.” which the Nadine rested. The “Aye, aye, sir,” said Moran enigmatic, dirty-yellow-dirty- with irony. “Very kind of you, red - dirty - blue-and-dirty-black sir. You’ll go armed, sir?" ground-cover hid something. It Burleigh growled; blurred the shape it covered, “Naturally!” very much as enormous cobwebs “Then since I can’t be trusted made solid and opaque would with a weapon,” said Moran, “I have done. But when one looked suggest that I take a torch. We carefully at the mound, there may have to burn through that was a landing-fin sticking up to- loathesome stuff to get in the ward the leaden skies. It was at- ship.” tached to a large cylindrical ob- "Right,” growled Burleigh ject of which the fore part was again. “Brawn and Carol, you’ll crushed in. The other landing- keep ship. The rest of us wear fins could be traced. suits. We don’t know what that “It’s a ship,” said Moran curt- stuff is outside.” ly. “It crash-landed and its crew set up a signal to call for help. ORAN silently went to the None came, or they’d have M space-suit rack and began

16 FANTASTIC to get into a suit. Modern space- air specifically. The suits would suits weren’t like the ancient take care of that. Anyhow the crudities with bulging metal cas- ice-cap said there were no water- ings and enormous globular hel- soluble gases in the atmosphere, mets. Non-stretch fabrics took and a gas can’t be an active poi- the place of metal, and constant- son if it can’t dissolve. volume joints were really practi- They filed out of the airlock. cal nowadays. A man could move They stood on ash-covered stone, about in a late-model space-suit only slightly eroded by the proc- almost as easily as in ship-cloth- esses which made life possible on ing. The others of the landing- this planet. They looked dubi- party donned their special gar- ously at the scorched, indefinite ments with the brisk absence of substance which had been ground fumbling that these people dis- before the Nadine landed. Moran played in every action. moved scornfully forward. He "If there’s a lifeboat left," kicked at the burnt stuff. His said Carol suddenly, “Moran foot went through the char. The might be able to do something hole exposed a cheesy mass of with it.” soft matter which seemed rid- “Ah, yes!” said Moran. “It’s dled with small holes. very likely that the ship hit hard Something black came squirm- enough to kill everybody aboard, ing frantically out of one of the but not smash the boats!” openings. It was eight or ten “Somebody survived the inches long. It had a head, a crash,” said Burleigh, “because thorax, and an abdomen. It had they set up a beacon. I wouldn’t wing-cases. It had six legs. It count on a boat, Moran.” toppled down to the stone on “I don’t!” snapped Moran. which the Nadine rested. Agitat- He flipped the fastener of his edly, it spread its wing-covers suit. He felt all the openings and flew away, droning loudly. catch. He saw the others com- The four men heard the sound plete their equipment. They took above even the monstrous caco- arms. So far they had seen no phony of cries and boomings and moving thing outside, but arms grunts and squeaks which were simple sanity on an un- seemed to fill the air. .” known world. Moran, though, “What the devil— would not be permitted a weapon. Moran kicked again. More He picked up a torch. They filed holes. More openings. More small into the airlock. The inner door tunnels in the cheese-like, curd- closed. The outer door opened. It like stuff. More black things was not necessary to check the squirming to view in obvious

PLANET OF DREAD 17 panic. They popped out every- animals. But still terrestrial where. It was suddenly apparent creatures had to be introduced if that the top of the soil, here, was a colony was to feed itself. Alien a thick and blanket-like sheet plants did not supply satisfac- over the whitish stuff. The black tory food. So an elaborate adap- creatures lived and thrived in tation job had to be done on tunnels under it. every planet before native and terrestrial living things settled AROL’S voice came over the down together. It wasn’t impos- C helmet-phones. sible that the scuttling things “They’re—bugs!" she said in- were truly beetles, grown large " credulously. They’re beetles! and monstrous under the condi- They’re twenty times the size of tions of a new planet. And the the beetles we humans have been ground . . . carrying around the galaxy, but “This ground stuff," said Mo- that’s what they are!" ran distastefully, “is yeast or Moran grunted. Distastefully, some sort of toadstool growth. he saw his predicament made This is a seedling world. It didn’t worse. He knew what had hap- have any life on it, so somebody pened here. He could begin to dumped germs and spores and guess at other things to be dis- bugs to make it ready for plants covered. It had not been practi- and animals eventually. But no- cal for men to move onto new body’s come back to finish up planets and subsist upon the the job.” flora and fauna they found there. Burleigh grunted a somehow On some new planets life had surprised assent. But it wasn’t never gotten started. On such surprising; not wholly so. Once worlds a highly complex opera- one mentioned yeasts and toad- tion was necessary before hu- stools and fungi generally, the manity could move in. A com- weird landscape became less than plete ecological complex had to incredible. But it remained ac- be built up; microbes to break tively unpleasant to think of be- down the rock for soil, bacteria ing marooned on it. to fix nitrogen to make the soil "Suppose we go look at the fertile; plants to grow in the ship?” said Moran unpleasantly. new-made dirt and insects to fer- “Maybe you can find out where tilize the plants so they would you are, and I can find out what’s multiply, and animals and birds ahead of me.” to carry the seeds planet-wide. He climbed up on the un- On most planets, to be sure, there scorched surface. It was elastic. were local, aboriginal plants and The parchment-like top skin

18 FANTASTIC ; yielded. It was like walking on a at its tail end. It progressed se- mass of springs. dately by reaching forward with “We’d better spread out,” its fore-part, securing a foot- added Moran, “or else we’ll break hold, and then arching its mid- through that skin and be flound- dle portion like a cat arching its ering in this mess.” back, to bring its hind part “I’m giving the orders, Mo- forward. Then it reached for- ran !” said Burleigh shortly. ward again. It was of a dark “But what you say does make olive color from one end to the sense.” other. Its manner of walking was insane but somehow sedate. E and the others joined Moran heard muffled noises in H Moran on the yielding sur- his helmet-phone as the others face. Their footing was uncer- tried to speak. Carol’s voice came tain, as on a trampoline. They anxiously staggered. They moved toward “What’s the matter? What do the hillock which was a covered- you see?" over wrecked ship. Moran said with savage pre-

The ground was not as level as cision ; it appeared from the Nadine's “We’re looking at an inch- control-room. There were undula- worm, grown up like the beetles tions. But they could not see only more so. It’s not an inch- more than a quarter-mile in any worm any longer. It’s a yard- direction. Beyond that was mist. worm.” Then he said harshly to But Burleigh, at one end of the the men with him; "It’s not a uneven line of advancing men, hunting creature on worlds suddenly halted and stood staring where it’s smaller. It’s not likely down at something he had not to have turned deadly here. Come seen before. The others halted. on!” Something moved. It came out He went forward over the sin- from behind a very minor spire guarly bouncy ground. The others of whitish stuff that looked like followed. It was to be noted that a dirty sheet stretched over a tall Hallet the engineer, avoided the stone. The thing that appeared huge harmless creature more was very peculiar indeed. It was widely than most. a—worm. But it was a foot thick and ten feet long, and it had a 'T'HEY reached the mound group of stumpy legs at its fore which was the ship. Moran un- end—where there were eyes hid- limbered his torch. He said sar- den behind bristling hair-like donically ; growths—and another set of feet “This ship won’t do anybody

PLANET OF DREAD 19 any good. It’s old-style. That flame cut across things that thick belt around its middle was writhed, and he was sickened. dropped a hundred years ago, But above all he raged because and more.” There was an abrupt he was to be marooned here. He thickening of the cylindrical hull could not altogether blame the at the middle. There was an others. They couldn’t land at any equally abrupt thinning, again, colonized world with him on toward the landing-fins. The board without his being detected sharpness of the change was as an extra member of the crew. blurred over by the revolting His fate would then be sealed. ground-stuff growing every- But they also would be investi- where. “We’re going to find that gated. Official queries would go this wreck has been here a cen- across this whole sector of the tury at least!” galaxy, naming five persons of Without orders, he turned on such-and-such description and the torch. A four-foot flame of such-and-such fingerprints, voy- pure blue-white leaped out. He aging in a space-yacht of such- touched its tip to the fungoid and-such size and registration. soil. Steam leaped up. He used The world they came from would the flame like a gigantic scalpel, claim them as fugitives. They cutting a square a yard deep in would be returned to it. They’d the whitish stuff, and then cut- be executed. ting it across and across to de- Then Carol’s voice came in his stroy it. Thick fumes arose, and helmet-phone. She cried out; quiverings and shakings began. “Look out! It’s coming! Kill it! Black creatures in their laby- Kill it—." rinths of tunnels began to panic. He heard blast-rifles firing. He Off to the right the blanket-like heard Burleigh pant commands. surface ripped and they poured He was on his way out of the out. They scuttled crazily here hollow he’d carved when he and there. Some took to wing. By heard Harper cry out horribly. instinct the other men—the He got clear of the newly armed ones—moved back from burned-away stuff. There was the smoke. They wore space-hel- still much smoke and stream. But mets but they felt that there he saw Harper. More, he saw the should be an intolerable smell. thing that had Harper. Moran slashed and slashed an- It occurred to him instantly grily with the big flame, cutting that if Harper died, there would a way to the metal hull that had not be too many people on the fallen here before his grandfa- Nadine. They need not maroon ther was born. Sometimes the him. In fact, they wouldn’t dare.

20 FANTASTIC A ship that came in to port with cated. It had turned out, in fact, two few on board would be in- to be the ecological system of vestigated as thoroughly as one Earth, and unless all parts of the that had too many. Perhaps more complex were present, the total thoroughly. So if Harper were was subtly or glaringly wrong. killed, Moran would be needed to So mankind distastefully ferried take his place. He’d go on from pests as well as useful creatures here in the Nadine, necessarily to its new worlds as they were accepted as a member of her crew. made ready for settlement. Mos- Then he rushed, the flame- quitos throve on the inhabited torch making a roaring sound. globes of the Rim Stars. Roaches twitched nervous antennae on II. the settled planets of the Coal- HEY went back to the Nadine sack. Dogs on Antares had fleas, Tfor weapons more adequate and scratched their bites, and for encountering the local fauna humanity spread through the when it was over. Blast-rifles galaxy with an attendant train were not effective against such of insects and annoyances. If creatures as these. Torches were they left their pests behind, the contact weapons but they killed. total system of checks and bal- Blast-rifles did not. And Harper ances which make life practical needed to pull himself together would get lopsided. It would not again, too. Also, neither Moran maintain itself. The vagaries nor any of the others wanted to that could result were admirably go back to the still un-entered illustrated in and on the land- wreck while the skinny, somehow scape outside the Nadine. Some- disgusting legs of the thing still thing had been left out of the kicked spasmodically—quite sep- seeding of this planet. The ele- arate—on the whitish ground- ment—which might be a bac- stuff. Moran had disliked such terium or a virus or almost any- creatures in miniature form on thing at all—the element that other worlds. Enlarged like this. kept creatures at the size called It seemed insane that such “normal” was either missing or creatures, even in miniature, inoperable here. The results were should painstakingly be brought not desirable. across light-years of space to the new worlds men settled on. But ARPER drank thirstily. Car- it had been found to be necessary. H ol had watched from the con- The ecological system in which trol-room. She was still pale. She human beings belonged had looked strangely at Moran. turned out to be infinitely compli- “You’re sure it didn’t get

PLANET OF DREAD 21 ” — through your suit?” Burleigh at the spaceport on Loris. Not asked insistently of Harper. many men would have done what Moran said sourly; you did.” “The creatures have changed “Oh, I’m a hero,” said Moran. size. There’s no proof they’ve “Noble Moran, that’s me! What changed anything else. Beetles the hell would you want me to live in tunnels they make in fun- do? I didn’t think! I won’t do it gus growths. The beetles and again. I promise!” the tunnels are larger, but that’s The last statement was almost all. Inchworms travel as they al- true. Moran felt a squeamish ways did. They move yards in- horror at the memory of what stead of inches, but that’s all. he’d been through over by the Centipedes— wrecked ship. He’d come running "It was—” said Carol unstead- out of the excavation he’d made. ily. “It was thirty feet long!” He had for weapon a four-foot “Centipedes,” repeated Mo- blue-white flame, and there was ran, “catch prey with their legs. a monstrous creature running di- They always did. Some of them rectly toward him, with Harper trail poison from their feet. We lifted off the ground and clutched can play a blowtorch over Har- in two gigantic, spidery legs. It per’s suit and any poison will be was no less than thirty feet long, burned away. You can’t burn a but it was a centipede. It trav- space-suitl” elled swiftly on grisly, skinny, “We certainly can’t leave Mo- pipe-thin legs. It loomed over ran here!” said Burleigh uneasi- Moran as he reached the surface ly. and he automatically thrust the

“He kept Harper from being flame at it. The result was shock- killed!” said Carol. “Your blast- ing. But the nervous systems of rifles weren’t any good. The insects are primitive. It is ques- creatures are hard to kill.” tionable that they feel pain. It is “Very hard to kill,” agreed Mo- certain that separated parts of ran. “But I’m not supposed to them act as if they had inde- kill them. I’m supposed to live pendent life. Legs—horrible with them ! I wonder how we can things—sheared off in the flame make them understand they’re of the torch, but the grisly furry not supposed to kill me either?" thing rushed on until Moran “I’ll admit,” said Burleigh, slashed across its body with the “that if you’d let Harper get blue-white fire. Then it collapsed. killed, we’d have been forced to But Harper was still held firmly let you take his identity and not and half the monster struggled be marooned, to avoid questions mindlessly to run on while an-

22 FANTASTIC other part was dead. Moran from Loris that you can’t make fought it almost hysterically, port without raising questions slicing off legs and wanting to anyhow. But you might be almost be sick when their stumps con- on course. I don’t know ! But let’s tinued to move as if purposeful- see if that wreck can tell us. I’ll ly, and the legs themselves kicked go by myself if you like.” and writhed rhythmically. But He went into the airlock, where he bored in and cut at the body his suit and the others had been and ultimately dragged Harper sprayed with a corrosive solution clear. while the outside air was pumped Afterward, sickened, he com- out and new air from inside the pleted cutting it to bits with the yacht admitted. He got into the torch. But each part continued suit. Harper joined him. nauseatingly to move. He went “I’m going with you,” he said back with the others to the Na- shortly. "Two will be safer than dine. The blast-rifles had been one,—both with torches.” almost completely without effect “Too, too true!” said Moran upon the creature because of its sardonically. insensitive nervous system. He bundled the other suits out of the airlock and into the ship. T THINK,” said Burleigh, “that He checked his torch. He closed *- it is only fair for us to lift the inner lock door and started from here and find a better part the pump. Harper said; of this world to land Moran in.” “I’m not going to try to thank “Why not another planet?” you—.” asked Carol. “Because,” Moran snapped, “It could take weeks,” said "you wouldn’t have been on this Burleigh harassedly. “We left planet to be in danger if I hadn’t Coryus three days ago. We ought tried to capture the yacht. I to land on Loris before too long. know it!” There’d be questions asked if we “That wasn’t what I meant to turned up weeks late! We can’t say!” protested Harper. afford that ! The space-port police Moran snarled at him. The would suspect us of all sorts of lock-pump stopped and the things. They might decide to ready-for exit light glowed. They check back on us where we came pushed open the outer door and from. We can’t take the time to emerged. Again there was the hunt another planet!” discordant, almost intolerable “Then your best bet,” said Mo- din. It made no sense. The cries ran caustically, “is to find out and calls and stridulations they where we are. You may be so far now knew to be those of insects

PLANET OF DREAD 23 bad no significance. The unseen five inches across, seemed to re- huge creatures made them with- gard him in a peculiarly daunt- out purpose. Insects do not chal- ing fashion. The creature had a lenge each other like birds or narrow, unearthly, triangular make mating-calls like animals. face, with mandibles that worked They make noises because it is from side to side instead of up their nature. The noises have no and down like an animal’s jaws. meaning. The two men started The head was utterly unlike any toward the wreck to which animal such as breed and raise Moran had partly burned a pas- their young and will fight for sage-way. There were clickings them. There was a small thorax, from underfoot all around them. from which six spiny, glistening Moran said abruptly; legs sprang. There was a bulbous “Those clicks come from the abdomen. beetles in their tunnels under- “This,” said Moran coldly, “is foot. They’re practically a foot an ant. I’ve stepped on them for long. How big do you suppose no reason, and killed them. I’ve bugs grow here,—and why ?” probably killed many times as many without knowing it. But ARPER did not answer. He this could kill me.” H carried a flame-torch like the The almost yard-long enormity one Moran had used before. They standing two and a half feet went unsteadily over the elastic, high, was in the act of carrying yielding stuff underfoot. Harper away a section of one of the legs halted, to look behind. Carol’s of the giant centipede Moran had voice came in the helmet-phones. killed earlier. It still moved. The “We’re watching out for you. leg was many times the size of

We’ll try to warn you if—any- the ant. Moran moved toward it. thing shows up.’’ It made a louder buzzing sound, “Better watch me!” snapped threatening him. Moran. "If I should kill Harper Moran cut it apart with a after all, you might have to pass slashing sweep of the flame that a me for him presently!” finger-touch sent leaping from He heard a small, inarticulate his torch. The thing presumably sound, as if Carol protested. died, but it continued to writhe Then he heard an angry shrill senselessly. whine. He’d turned aside from “I killed this one,” said Moran the direct line to the wreck. savagely, “because I remembered Something black, the size of a something from my childhood. fair-sized dog, faced him bellig- When one ant finds something to erently. Multiple lensed eyes, eat and can’t carry it all away, it

24 FANTASTIC PLANET OF DREAD 25 ;

brings back its friends to get the into Moran’s helmet-phone; rest. The big thing 1 killed would "Are you all right?" be such an item, flow'd you like “So far, both of us,” said Mo- to have a horde of these things ran sourly. “I’ve just uncovered about us? Come on I” the crack of an airlock door." Through his helmet-phone he He swept the flame around heard Harper breathing harshly. again. A mass of undercut fun- He led the way once more toward gus toppled toward him. He the wreck. burned it and went on. He swept the flame more widely. There LACK beetles swarmed about was carbonized matter from the B when he entered the cut in previously burned stuff on the the mould-yeast soil. They metal, but he cleared all the met- popped out of tunnels as if in al. Carol’s voice again “ astonishment that what had been There’s something flying subterranean passages suddenly . . . It’s huge! It’s a wasp! It’s opened to the air. Harper stepped —monstrous!" on one, and it did not crush. It Moran growled; struggled frantically and he al- "Harper, we’re in a sort of most fell. He gasped. Two of the trench. If it hovers, you’ll burn creatures crawled swiftly up the it as it comes down. Cut through legs of Moran’s suit, and he its waist. It won’t crawl toward knocked them savagely away. He us along the trench. It’d have found himself grinding his teeth to back toward us to use its in invincible revulsion. sting.” They reached the end of the He burned and burned, white cut he’d made in the fungus- light glaring upon a mass of stuff. Metal showed past burned- steam and smoke which curled away soil. Moran growled; upward and looked as if light-

"You keep watch. I'll finish the ning-flashes played within it. cut.” Carol’s voice; " The flame leaped out. Dense It—went on past. . . . It was clouds of smoke and steam poured as big as a coiv!" out and up. With the intolerably bright light of the torch over- ORAN wrenched at the port- whelming the perpetual grayness M door. It partly revolved. He under the clouds and playing pulled. It fell outward. The wreck upon curling vapors, the two was not standing upright on its space-suited men looked like fig- fins. It lay on its side. The lock ures in some sort of inferno. inside the toppled-out port was Carol’s voice came anxiously choked with a horrible mass of

26 FANTASTIC ; ; thread-like fungi. Moran swept sound of murmurings in the con- the flame in. The fungus shriv- trol-room behind her. “Yes!. . . . eled and was not. He opened the Oh,—wonderful! It’s not far off inner lock-door. There was pure the course we should have fol- blackness within. He held the lowed! We won’t be suspiciously torch for light. late at Loris! Wonderful!” For an instant everything was “I share your joy,” said Mo- confusion, because the wreck ran sarcastically. "More infor- was lying on its side instead of mation ! The ship’s name was the standing in a normal position. Malabar. She carried bessendium Then he saw a sheet of metal, among her cargo. Her crew went propped up to be seen instantly on to Candida III a hundred by anyone entering the wrecked and fifty years ago, leaving a space-vessel. promise to pay in more bessen- Letters burned into the metal dium whoever should rescue gave a date a century and a half them. More bessendium! Which old. Straggly torch-writing said suggests that some bessendium baldly was left behind.” “This ship the Malabar Silence. The bald memorandum crashed here on Tethys II a left behind the vanished crew week ago. We cannot repair. was, of course, pure tragedy. A We are going on to Candida ship’s lifeboat could travel four III in the boats. We are car- light-years, or possibly even six. rying what bessendium we But there were limits. A cast- can with us. We resign sal- away crew had left this world on vage rights in this ship to its a desperate journey to another finders, but we have more in the hope that life there would bessendium with us. We will be tolerable. If they arrived, they give that to our rescuers. waited for some other ship to Jos. White, Captain.” cross the illimitable emptiness Moran made a peculiar, sar- and discover either the beacon donic sound like a bark. here or one they’d set up on the “Calling the Nadine!” he said other world. The likelihood was in mirthless amusement. “This small, at best. It had worked out planet is Tethys Two. Do you zero. If the lifeboats made Can- read me? Tethys II! Look it dida III, their crews stayed there up!” because they could go no farther. A pause. Then Carol’s voice, They’d died there, because if relieved they’d been found this ship would “Tethys is in the Directory! have been visited and its cargo That’s good!" There was the salvaged.

PLANET OF DREAD 27 ORAN went inside. He Harper’d killed it as it neared M climbed through the com- him. partments of the toppled craft, “That’s three of them I’vo using his torch for light. He killed,” said Harper in a dogged found where the cargo-hold had voice. “There seem to be more.” been opened from the living part “Did you hear my news?” of the ship. He saw the cargo. asked Moran sardonically. There were small, obviously “Yes,” said Harper. “How’ll ?” heavy boxes in one part of the we get back to the Nadine hold. Some had been broken open. “Oh, we’ll fight our way He found scraps of purple bes- through,” said Moran, as sardon- sendium ore dropped while being ically as before. “We’ll practice carried to the lifeboats. A cen- splendid heroism, giving battle to tury and a half ago it had not ants who think we’re other ants seemed worth while to pick them trying to rob them of some frag- up, though bessendium was the ments of an over-sized dead cen- most precious material in the tipede. A splendid cause to fight galaxy. It couldn’t be synthe- for, Harper!” sized. It had to be made by some He felt an almost overpower- natural process not yet under- ing sense of irony. The quantity stood, but involving long-contin- of bessendium he’d seen was ued pressures of megatons to the riches incalculable. The mere square inch with temperatures in pocketfull of crystals in his pock- the millions of degrees. It was et would make any man wealthy purple. It was crystalline. Frac- if he could get to a settled planet tions of it in blocks of other met- and sell them. And there was als made the fuel-blocks that much, much more back in the carried liners winging through cargo-hold of the wreck. He’d the void. But here were pounds seen it. of it dropped carelessly. . . . But his own situation was un- Moran gathered a double changed. Bessendium could be handful. He slipped it in a pock- hidden somehow,—perhaps be- et of his space-suit. He went tween the inner and outer hulls clambering back to the lock. of the Nadine. But it was not He heard the roaring of a possible to land the Nadine at flame-torch. He found Harper any space-port with an extra man playing it squeamishly on the aboard her. In a sense, Moran wriggling fragments of another might be one of the richest men yard-long ant. It had explored in the galaxy in his salvagers’ the trench burned out of the fun- right to the treasure in the gus soil and down to the rock. wrecked Malabar’s hold. But he

28 FANTASTIC could not use that treasure to thing of which Carol spoke. It buy his way to a landing on a was truly huge, and it had a colonized world. gross, rounded body, and a ridic- Carol’s voice; she was fright- ulously small thorax, and its ened. head was tiny and utterly mild “Something’s coming! It’s— in expression. It walked with an terribly big! It’s coming out of enormous, dainty deliberation, the mist!” placing small spiked feet at the end of fifteen-foot legs very deli- ORAN pushed past Harper cately in place as it moved. Its M in the trench that ended at eyes were multiple and huge, the wreck’s lock-door. He moved and its forelegs though used so on until he could see over the deftly for walking had a horrify- edge of that trench as it shal- ing set of murderous, needle- lowed. Now there were not less sharp saw-teeth along their than forty of the giant ants edges. about the remnants of the mons- It looked at the squabbling trous centipede Moran had killed. ants with its gigantic eyes that They moved about in great agita- somehow appeared like dark tion. There was squabbling. An- glasses worn by a monstrosity. gry, whining stridulations filled It moved primly, precisely toward the air beneath the louder and them. Two small black creatures more gruesome sounds from far- tugged at a hairy section of a theraway places. It appeared that giant centipede’s leg. The great scouts and foragers from two pale-green creature—a mantis ; a different ant-cities had come praying mantis twenty feet tall upon the treasure of dead—if in its giraffe-like walking posi- twitching—meat of Moran’s tion—the great creature loomed providing. They differed about over them, looking down as where the noisesome booty through sunglasses. A foreleg should be taken. Some ants moved like lightning. An ant pulled angrily against each oth- weighing nearly as much as a er, whining shrilly. He saw in- man stridulated shrilly, terribly, dividual ants running franti- as it was borne aloft. The mantis cally away in two different closed its arm-like forelegs directions. They would be cour- upon it, holding it as if piously

iers, carrying news of what and benignly contemplating it. amounted to a frontier incident Then it ate it, very much as a in the city-state civilization of man might eat an apple, without the ants. regard to the convulsive writh- Then Moran saw the giant ings of its victim. PLANET OF DREAD 29 T moved on toward the denser the quarrel became hundreds. I fracas among the ants. Sud- But more and more arrived. The denly it raised its ghastly saw- special caste of warriors bred for toothed forelegs in an extraordi- warfare was not numerous nary gesture. It was the mantis’ enough to take care of the pro- spectral attitude, which seemed vocative behavior of foreign for- a pose of holding out its arms in agers. There was a general mo- benediction. But its eyes re- bilization in both unseen ant-city mained blind-seeming and enig- states. They became nations in matic,—again like dark glasses. arms. Their populations rushed Then it struck. Daintily, it to the scene of conflict. The bur- dined upon an ant. Upon another. rows and dormitories and eat- Upon another and another and ing-chambers of the underground another. nations were swept clean of occu- From one direction parties of pants. Only the nurseries re- agitated and hurrying black ob- tained a skeleton staff of nurses jects appeared at the edge of —the nurseries and the excavat- the mist. They were ants of a ed palace occupied by the ant- special caste,—warrior-ants with queen and her staff of servants huge mandibles designed for and administrators. All the re- fighting in defense of their city sources of two populous ant-na- and its social system and its tions were flung into the fray. claim to fragments of dead centipedes. From another direction L’KOM a space of a hundred other parties of no less truculent yards or less, containing mere warriors moved with the swift- dozens of belligerent squabblers, ness and celerity of a striking the dirty-white ground of the task-force. All the air was filled fungus-plain became occupied by with the deep-bass notes of some- hundreds of snapping, biting thing huge, booming beyond vis- combatants. They covered—they ibility, and the noises as of sticks fought over—the half of an acre. trailed against picket fences, and There were contending battalions hootings which were produced by fighting as masses in the center, the rubbing of serrated leg-joints while wings of fighting creatures against chitinous diaphragms. to right and left were less solidly But now a new tumult arose. arranged. But reinforcements From forty disputatious form- poured out of the mist from two icidae, whining angrily at each directions, and momently the sit- other over the stinking remains uation changed. Presently the of the monster Moran had killed, battle covered an acre. Groups of the number of ants involved in fresh fighters arriving from the

30 FANTASTIC city to the right uttered shrill yacht’s ports the fighting ants stridulations and charged upon looked like infuriated machines, the flank of their enemies. Sim- engaged in each other’s destruc- ultaneously, reinforcements from tion. One might see a warrior of the city to the ieft flung them- unidentified allegiance with its selves into the fighting-line near own abdomen ripped open, furi- the center. ously rending an enemy without Formations broke up. The bat- regard to its own mortal wound. tle disintegrated into an indefi- There were those who had literal- nite number of lesser combats; ly been torn in half, so that only troops or regiments fighting to- head and thorax remained, but gether often moved ahead with they fought on no less valiantly an appearance of invincibility, than the rest. but suddenly they broke and broke again until there was only T the edges of the fighting a complete confusion of unor- A such cripples were more nu- ganized single combats in which merous. Ants with antenna shorn the fighters rolled over and over, off or broken, with legs missing, struggling ferociously with utterly doomed,—they sometimes mandible and claw to destroy wandered forlornly beyond the each other. Presently the battle fighting, the battle seemingly raged over five acres. Ten. Thou- forgotten. But even such dazed sands upon thousands of black, and incapacitated casualties glistening, stinking creatures came upon each other. If they tore at each other in murderous smelled alike, they ignored each ferocity. Whining, squealing bat- other. Every ant-city has its par- tle-cries arose and almost ticular smell which its inhabi- drowned out the deeper notes of tants share. Possession of the na- larger but invisible creatures off tional odor is at once a certifi- in the mist. cate of citizenship in peacetime Moran and Harper got back to and a uniform in war. When such the Nadine by a wide detour past victims of the battle came upon warriors preoccupied with each enemy walking wounded, they other just before the battle fought. reached its most savage stage. In And the giant praying mantis that stage, the space-yacht was remained placidly and invulnera- included in the battleground. bly still. It plucked single fight- Fights went on about its landing- ers from the battle and dined fins. Horrifying duels could be upon them while they struggled, followed by scrapings and bump- and plucked other fighters, and ings against its hull. From the consumed them. It ignored the

PLANET OF DREAD 31 battle and the high purpose and shoulder. The air seemed to shine self-sacrificing patriotism of the slightly in the glare of the torch. ants. Immune to them and dis- The pattering sound was abrupt- regarded by them, it fed on them ly explained. Large, slow, wide- while the battle raged. ly-separated raindrops fell heav- Presently the gray light over- ily and steadily from the cloud- head turned faintly pink, and be- banks overhead. Moran could see came a deeper tint and then crim- them strike. Each spot of wet- son. In time there was darkness. ness glistened briefly. Then the The noise of battle ended. The rain-drop was absorbed by the sounds of the day diminished ground. and ceased, and other monstrous But there were other noises outcries took their place. than the ceaseless tumult on the There were bellowings in the ground. There were sounds in the blackness without the Nadine. air;, the beating of enormous There were chirpings become wings. Moran looked up, squint- baritone, and senseless uproars ing against the light. There were which might be unbelievable things moving about the black modifications of once-shrill and sky. Gigantic things. once-tranquil night-sounds of Something moved, too, across other worlds. And there came a the diminishingly lighted surface peculiar, steady, unrhythmic pat- about the yacht. There were glit- tering sound. It seemed like terings. Shining armor. Multi- something falling upon the blank- faceted eyes. A gigantic, horny, ket-like upper surface of the soil. spiked object crawled toward the Moran opened the airlock door torch-glare, fascinated by it. and thrust out a torch to see. Its Something else dived insanely. It intolerably bright glare showed splashed upon the flexible white the battlefield abandoned. Most surface twenty yards away, and of the dead and wounded had struggled upward and took cra- been carried away. Which, of zily off again. It careened blindly. course, was not solicitude for the wounded or reverence fcr the T hit the yacht, a quarter-ton dead heroes. Dead ants, like dead I of night-flying beetle. The air centipedes, were booty of the only seemed filled with flying things. kind the creatures of this world There were moths with twenty- could know. The dead were meat. foot wings and eyes which glowed The wounded were dead before like rubies in the torch’s light. they were carried away. There were beetles of all sizes Moran peered out, with Carol from tiny six-inch things to mon- looking affrightedly over his sters in whom Moran did not be-

32 FANTASTIC lieve even when he saw them. “That wasn’t exactly what I All were drawn by the light had in mind,” said Burleigh dis- which should not exist under the tastefully. “You’ve gotten us in- cloud-bank. They droned and flut- to the devil of a mess, Moran!” tered and performed lunatic evo- “For which,” said Moran with lutions, coming always closer to ironic politeness, “there is a per- the flame. fect solution. You kill me, either Moran cut off the torch and directly or by leaving me ma- closed the lock-door from the in- rooned here." side. Burleigh scowled. “We don’t load bessendium to- “We have to land at spaceports night,” he said with some grim- for supplies. We can’t hope to ness. “To have no light, with hide you, it’s required that land- what crawls about in the dark- ed ships be sterilized against in- ness, would be suicide. But to use fections from off-planet. We can’t lights would be worse. If you pass you as a normal passenger. people are going to salvage the You're not on the ship’s papers stuff in that wreck, you’ll have to and they’re alteration-proof. No- wait for daylight. At least then body’s ever been able to change a you can see what’s coming after ship’s papers and not be caughtl you.” We could land and tell the truth, They went into the yacht prop- that you hijacked the ship and er. There was no longer any we finally overpowered you. But question about the planet’s air. there are reasons against that.” If insects which were descend- “Naturally!” agreed Moran. ents of terrestrial forms could “I’d be killed anyhow and you’d breathe it, so could men. When be subject to intensive investiga- the first insect-eggs were brought tion. And you’re fugitives as here, the air had to be fit for much as I am.” them if they were to survive. It “Just so,” admitted Burleigh. would not have changed. Moran shrugged. Burleigh sat in the control- “Which leaves just one answer. room with a double handful of You maroon me and go on your purple crystals before him. way.” “This,” he said when Moran and Carol reentered, “this is bes- URLEIGH said painfully; sendium past question. I’ve been B “There’s this bessendium. thinking what it means.” If there’s more—especially if “Money,” said Moran drily. there’s more—we can leave you “You’ll all be rich. You’ll prob- here with part of it. When we get ably retire from politics.” far enough away, we charter a

PLANET OF DREAD 33 ”

ship to come and get you. It’ll be Carol was very pale. Burleigh arranged. Somebody will be list- stood up. ed as of that ship’s company, but “You said that, I didn’t. But he’ll slip away from the space- I don’t think we should leave you port and not be on board at all. here. Up near the ice-cap should Then you’re picked up and land- be infinitely better for you. We’ll ed using his name.” load the rest of the bessendium “If,” said Moran ironically, “I tomorrow, find you a place, leave am alive when the ship gets here. you a beacon, and go.” If I’m not, the crew of the char- He went out. Carol turned a tered ship will be in trouble, short white face to Moran. one man on return to port. You’ll “Is that—is that the real trou- have trouble getting anybody to ble? Do you really— run that risk!” Moran looked at her stonily. “We’re trying to work out a “I like to make heroic ges- way to save you!” insisted Bur- tures,” he told her. “Actually, leigh angrily. “Harper would Burleigh’s a very noble sort of have been killed but for you. And character himself. He proposes to —this bessendium will finance leave me with treasure that he the underground work that will could take. Even more remark- presently make a success of our ably, he proposes to divide up revolution. We’re grateful ! We’re what you take, instead of apply- trying to help you!” ing it all to further his political “So you maroon me,” said Mo- ideals. Most men like him would ran. Then he said; “But you’ve take it all for the revolution!” .” skipped the real problem ! If any- "But—but— thing goes wrong, Carol’s in it! Carol’s expression was pure There’s no way to do anything misery. Moran walked deliber- without risk for her! That’s the ately across the control-room. He problem ! I could kill all you glanced out of a port. A face characters, land somewhere on a looked in. It filled the transpar- colonized planet exactly as you ent opening. It was unthinkable. landed here, and be gone from It was furry. There were glisten- the yacht on foot before anybody ing chitinous areas. There was could find me ! But I have a slight a proboscis like an elephant’s avei’sion to getting a girl killed trunk, curled horribly. The eyes or killing her just for my own were multiple and mad. convenience. It’s settled. I stay It looked in, drawn and hyp- here. You can try to arrange the notized by the light shining out other business if you like. But on this nightmare world from it’s a bad gamble.” the control-room ports.

34 FANTASTIC —

Moran touched the button that cloud-bank no more than fifteen closed the shutters. hundred feet overhead. The red became brighter, and presently III. was as brilliant as dried blood. HEN morning came, its ar- Again presently it was crimson Wrival was the exact reversal over all the half-mile circle that of the coming of night. In the be- human eyes could penetrate. La- ginning there was darkness, and ter still—but briefly—it was in the darkness there was horror. pink. Then the sky became gray. The creatures of the night un- From that color it did not change tiringly filled the air with sound, again. and the sounds were discordant Moran joined Burleigh in a and gruesome and revolting. The survey of the landscape from the creatures of this planet were gi- control-room. The battlefield was gantic. They should have adopted empty now. Of the thousands new customs appropriate to the upon thousands of stinking com- dignity of their increased size. batants who’d rent and torn each But they hadn’t. The manners other the evening before, there and customs of insects are im- remained hardly a trace. Here mutable. They feed upon specific and there, to be sure, a severed prey—spiders are an exception, saw-toothed leg remained. There but they are not insects at all were perhaps as many as four and they lay their eggs in spe- relatively intact corpses not yet cific fashion in specific places, salvaged. But something was be- and they behave according to in- ing done about them. stincts which are so detailed as There were tiny, brightly- to leave them no choice at all in banded beetles hardly a foot long their actions. They move blindly which labored industriously over about, reacting like automata of such frayed objects. They worked infinite complexity which are ca- agitatedly in the yeasty stuff pable of nothing not built into which on this world took the them from the beginning. Centu- place of soil. They excavated, be- ries and millenia do not change neath the bodies of the dead ants, them. Travel across star-clusters hollows into which those carcas- leaves them with exactly the cases could descend. They pushed pacities for reaction that their the yeasty, curdy stuff up and remotest ancestors had, before around the sides of those to-be- men lifted off ancient Earth’s desired objects. The dead war- green surface. riors sank little by little toward The first sign of dawn was oblivion as the process went on. deep, deep, deepest red in the The up-thrust, dug-out material

PLANET OF DREAD 35 collapsed upon them as they de- for minerals on some plausible scended. In a very little while planet. You can get such a clear- they would be buried where no ance. Then you can return with larger carrion-eater would dis- bessendium coming out of the cover them, and then the bright- Nadine’s waste-pipes and people ly-colored sexton beetles would will be surprised but not suspi- begin a banquet to last until only cious. You’ll file for mineral fragments of chitinous armor re- rights, and cash your cargo. Ev- mained. erybody will get busy trying to grab off the mineral rights for UT Moran and Burleigh, in themselves. You can clear out B the Nadine’s control-ro£>m, and let them try to find the bes- could hardly note such details. sendium lode. You’ll be allowed to “You saw the cargo,” said Bur- go, all right, and you can settle leigh, frowning. “How’s it down somewhere rich and highly packed? The bessendium, I respected." mean.” "Hmmm,” said Burleigh. Then “It’s in small boxes too heavy he said uncomfortably; “One to be handled easily,” said Mo- wonders about the original own- ran. “Anyhow the Malabar’s crew ers of the stuff.” broke some of them open to load “After a hundred and fifty the stuff on their lifeboats.” years,” said Moran, “who’d you “The lifeboats are all gone?” divide with? The insurance com- “Naturally,” said Moran. “At pany that paid for the lost ship? a guess they’d have used all of The heirs of the crew? How’d them even if they didn’t need you find them?” Then he added them for the crew. They could amusedly, "Only revolutionists carry extra food and weapons and enemies of governments and such.” would be honest enough to worry “How much bessendium is about that!" left?” Brawn came into the control- “Probably twenty boxes un- room. He said broodingly that opened,” said Moran. “I can’t breakfast was ready. Moran had guess at the weight, but it’s a lot. never heard him speak in a nor- They opened six boxes.” He mally cheerful voice. When he paused. “I have a suggestion.” went out, Moran said; “What?” “I don’t suppose he’ll be so “When you’ve supplied your- gloomy when he’s rich!” selves,” said Moran, "leave some “His family was wiped out,” space-port somewhere with pa- said Burleigh curtly, "by the pers saying you’re going to hunt government we were fighting.

36 FANTASTIC ;

The girl he was going to marry, they’re all full of the same stuff, too.” you can guess almost any sum ‘‘Then I take back what I you please.” said,” said Moran ruefully. “Millions, eh?” said Hallet. His eyes glistened. “Billions? HEY went down to breakfast. Plenty for everybody?”

T Carol served it. She did not “There’s never plenty for more look well. Her eyes seemed to than one,” said Moran mildly. show that she’d been crying. But “That’s the way we seem to be she treated Moran exactly like made.” anyone else. Harper was very Burleigh said suddenly; quiet, too. He took very seriously “I’m worried about getting the the fact that Moran had saved his stuff aboard. We can’t afford to life at the risk of his on the day lose anybody, and if we have to before. Brawn breakfasted in a fight the creatures here and ev- subdued, moody fashion. Only ery time we kill one its carcass Hallet seemed to have reacted to draws others.” the discovery of a salvageable Moran took a piece of bread. shipment of bessendium that He said should make everybody rich, “I’ve been thinking about sur- —everybody but Moran, who was vival-tactics for myself as a cast- ultimately responsible for the away. I think a torch is the an- find. swer. In any emergency on the “Burleigh,” said Hallet ex- yeast surface, I can burn a hole pansively, “says the stuff you and drop down in it. The mon- brought back from the wreck is sters are stupid. In most cases worth fifty thousand credits, at they’ll go away because they least. What’s the whole shipment stop seeing me. In the others, worth ?” they’ll come to the hole and I’ll “I’ve no idea,” said Moran. "It burn them. It won’t be pleasant, would certainly pay for a fleet of but it may be practical.” space-liners, and I’d give all of Burleigh considered it. it for a ticket on one of them.” “It may be,” he admitted. “It “But how much is there in may be.” bulk?” insisted Hallet. Hallet said; “I saw that half a dozen boxes "I want to see that work before had been broken open and emp- I trust the idea.” tied for the lifeboat voyagers,” “Somebody has to try it,” Moran told him. “I didn’t count agreed Moran. “Anyhow my life’s the balance, but there were sev- going to depend on it.” eral' times as many untouched. If Carol left the room. Moran

PLANET OF DREAD 37 looked after her as the door clos- the people on board, and he had- ed. n’t really expected to succeed. His “She doesn’t like the idea of real hope was to be killed without our leaving you behind,” said preliminary scientific question- Burleigh. “None of us do.” ing. Modern techniques of inter- “I’m touched.” rogation were not torture, but “We’ll try to get a ship to come they stripped away all conceal- for you, quickly,” said Burleigh. ments of motive and to a great “I’m sure you will,” said Mo- degree revealed anybody who’d ran politely. helped one. Moran had killed a man in a fair fight the other UT he was not confident. The man did not want to engage in. B laws governing space-travel If he were caught on Coryus or were very strict indeed, and en- returned to it, his motivation forced with all the rigor possible. could be read from his mind. And On their enforcement, indeed, de- if that was done the killing—and pended the law and order of the the sacrifice of his own future planets. Criminals had to know and life—would have been use- that they could not escape to less. But he’d been prepared to space whenever matters got too be killed. Even now he’d prefer to hot for them aground. For a die here on Tethys than in the spaceman to trifle with interstel- strictly painless manner of exe- lar-traffic laws meant at the least cutions on Coryus. But he was that they were grounded for life. now deeply resistant to the idea But the probabilities were much of dying at all. There was worse than that. It was most Carol . . . likely that Burleigh or any of He thrust such thoughts aside. the others would be reported to space-port police instantly they ORNING was well begun attempted to charter a ship for M when they prepared to trans- any kind of illegal activity. Mo- fer the wreck’s treasure to the ran made a mental note to warn Nadine. Moran went first. At fif- Burleigh about it. teen-foot intervals he burned By now, though, he was aware holes in the curd-like, elastic of a very deep irritation at the ground-cover. Some of the holes idea of being killed, whether by went down only four feet to the monsters on this planet or men stone beneath it. Some went sent to pick him up for due pro- down six. But a man who jumped cess of law. When he made the down one of them would be safe grand gesture of seizing the Na- against attack except from di- dine, he’d known nothing about rectly overhead, which was an un-

38 FANTASTIC ;

likely direction for attack by an “We’ll fill it,” said Moran. “Not

• insect. Carol had seen a wasp fly too full. The stuff’s heavy.” past the day before. She said it Harper watched while Moran was as big as a cow. A sting poured purple crystals Into it from such a monster would in- from his cupped hands. stantly be fatal. But no wasp “There you are,” said Moran. would have the intelligence to use “Take it away.” its sting on something it had not “Look!” said Harper. "I owe .” seized. A man should be safe in you plenty— such a fox-hole. If a creature did “Then pay me,” said Moran, try to investigate the opening, a exasperatedly, “by shutting up! torch could come into play. It By making Burleigh damned was the most practical possible careful about who he tries to hire way for a man to defend himself to come after me! And by get- on this world. ting this cargo-shifting business Moran made more than a dozen in operation! The Nadine’s al- such holes of refuge in the line most due on Loris. You don’t between the Nadine and the want to have the space-port po- !” wreck. Carol watched with pas- lice get suspicions. Get moving sionate solicitude from a control- room port as he progressed. He ARPER clambered over the entered the wreck through the H side of doorways. He disap- lock-doors he’d uncovered. Har- peared. Moran was alone in the per followed doggedly, not less ship. He explored. He found that than two fox-holes behind. Car- the crew that had abandoned the ol’s voice reassured them, the Malabar had been guilty of a while, that within the half-mile singular oversight for a crew circle of visibility no monster abandoning ship. But, of course, walked or flew. they’d been distracted not only Inside the wreck, Moran placed by their predicament but by the emergency-lanterns to light the decision to carry part of the dark interior. He placed them ship’s precious cargo with them, along the particularly inconven- so they could make it a profitable ient passageways of a ship lying enterprise to rescue them. They on its side instead of standing hadn’t taken the trouble to fol- upright. He was at work break- low all the rules laid down for a ing open a box of bessendium crew taking to the boats. when Harper joined him. Harper Moran made good their omis- said heavily sion. He was back in the cargo- “I've brought a bag. It was a hold when Brawn arrived. Bur- pillow. Carol took the foam out.” leigh came next. Then Harper PLANET OF DREAD 39 again. Hallet came last of the nearest bolt-hole, his torch held four men of the yacht. They did ready. Brawn stood beside an- not make a continuous chain of other refuge, sixty feet away. men moving back and forth be- Carol’s voice came to their hel- tween the two ships. Three men met-phones, anxious and exact. came, and loaded up, and went Hallet, in the lock-door, heard back. Then three men came her tell Harper that the beetle again, one by one. There could would pass very close to him and never be a moment when a sin- to stay still. It moved on and on. gle refuge-hole in the soil could It would be very close indeed. be needed by two men at the Carol gasped in horror. same time. The monster passed partly Within the first hour of work over the hole in which Harper at transferring treasure, the crouched. One of its clawed feet bolt-holes came into use. Carol slipped down into the opening. called anxiously that a gigantic But the beetle went on, unaware beetle neared the ship and would of Harper. It crawled toward the apparently pass between it and encircling mist upon some errand the yacht. At the time, Brawn of its own. It was mindless. It and Harper were moving from was like a complex and highly the Malabar toward the Nadine, decorated piece of machinery and Hallet was about to leave the which did what it was wound up wreck’s lock. to do, and nothing else. He watched with wide eyes. Harper came out of the bolt- The beetle was truly a monster, hole when Carol, her voice shaky the size of a hippopotamus as with relief, told him it was safe. pictured in the culture-books He went doggedly on to the Na- about early human history. Its dine, carrying his bag of purple jaws, pronged like antlers, pro- crystals. Brawn followed, moodi- jected two yards before its huge, ly- faceted eyes. It seemed to drag itself effortfully over the elastic ALLET, with a singularly surface of the ground. It passed H exultant look upon his face, a place where red, foleated fun- ventured out of the airlock and gus grew in a fantastic absence moved across the fungoid world. of pattern on the surface of the He carried a king’s ransom to ground. It went through a streak be added to the riches already of dusty-blue mould, which it transferred to the yacht. stirred into a cloud of spores as it Moving the bessendium was a passed. It crawled on and on. tedious task. One plastic box in Harper popped down into the the cargo-hold held a quantity of

40 FANTASTIC crystals that three men took two turned on the phone once more. trips each to carry. In mid-morn- He went toward the lock-door. ing the bag in Hallet's hand Moran heard him exchange seemed to slip just when Moran words with Harper and Brawn, completed filling it. It toppled back with empty bags to fill with and spilled half its contents on crystals worth many times the the cargo-hold floor, which had price of diamonds. But diamonds been a sidewall. He began pain- were made in half-ton lots, now- stakingly to gather up the pre- adays. cious stuff and get it back in the Moran followed their bags. He bag. The others went on to the was frowning. As Harper was Nadine. Hallet turned off his hel- about to follow Brawn, Moran al- met-phone and gestured to Mo- most duplicated Hallet’s gestures ran to remove his helmet. Moran, to have him remove his helmet. his eyebrows raised, obeyed the "I want Burleigh to come next suggestion. trip,” he told Harper, “and make “How anxious,” asked Hallet some excuse to stay behind a abruptly, gathering up the moment and talk to me without dropped crystals, “how anxious the helmet-phones picking up ev- are you to be left behind here?” erything I say to him. Under- “I’m not anxious at all,” said stand?” Moran. Harper nodded. But Burleigh “Would you like to make a deal did not come on the next trip. It to go along when the Nadine was not until near midday that lifts? —If there’s a way to get he came to carry a load of treas- past the space-port police?” ure to the yacht. “Probably,” said Moran. "Cer- When he did come, though, he tainlyl But there’s no way to do took off his helmet and turned it.” off the phone without the need “There is,” said Hallet. “I of a suggestion. know it. Is it a deal?” “I’ve been arranging storage “What is the deal?” for this stuff,” he said. “I’ve “You do as I say,” said Hallet opened plates between the hulls significantly. “Just as I sayl to dump it in. I’ve told Carol, too, .” Then . . that we’ve got to do a perfect job The lock-door opened, some of cleaning up. There must be no distance away. Hallet stood up stray crystals on the floor.” and said in a commanding tone; “Better search the bunks, too,”

“Keep your mouth shut. I’ll said Moran drily, “so nobody will tell you what to do and when.” put aside a particularly pretty !” He put on his helmet and crystal to gloat over. Listen

PLANET OF DREAD 41 He told Burleigh exactly what but I’d hate for it not to do any- Hallet had said and what he’d body any good.” answered. Burleigh looked acute- “Carol," said Burleigh unhap- ly unhappy. pily, “is much distressed.” “Hallet isn’t dedicated like the “That’s very kind,” said Moran rest of us were,” he said dis- sarcastically. “Now take your tressedly. “We brought him along bag of stuff and get going.” partly out of fear that if he were Burleigh obeyed. Moran went captured he’d break down and back to the business of breaking reveal what he knows of the Un- open the strong plastic boxes of derground we led, and much of bessendium so their contents which we had to leave behind. could be carried in forty-pound

But I’ll be able to finance a real lots to the Nadine. revolt, now!” Thinking of Carol, he did not like the way things seemed to be ORAN regarded him with going. Since the discovery of the M irony. Burleigh was a capa- bessendium, Hallet had been de- ble man and a conscientious one. veloping ideas. They did not look It would be very easy to trust as if they meant good fortune him, and it is all-important to for Moran without correspond- an Underground that its leaders ing bad fortune for the others. be trusted. But it is also impor- Obviously, Moran couldn’t be tant that they be capable of flint- hidden on the Nadine during the like hardness on occasion. To space-port sterilization of the Moran, it seemed that Burleigh ship which prevented plagues had not quite the adamantine from being carried from world to resolution required for leader- world. Hallet could have no rea- ship in a conspiracy which was son to promise such a thing. Be- to become a successful revolt. He fore landing here, he’d urged was—and to Moran it seemed re- that Moran simply be dumped out grettable—capable of the virtue the air-lock. This proposal to save of charity. his life. . . . “I’ve told you,” he said evenly. Moran considered the situation “Maybe you’ll think it’s a scheme grimly while the business of fer- on my part to get Hallet dumped rying treasure to the yacht went and myself elected to take his on almost monotonously. It had identity. But what happens from stopped once during the forenoon now on is your business. Begin- while a giant beetle went by. La- ning this moment, I’m taking ter, it stopped again because a care of my own skin. I’ve gotten gigantic flying thing hovered reconciled to the idea of dying. overhead. Carol did not know

42 FANTASTIC what it was, but its bulging ab- ings from somewhere far away. domen ended in an organ which Moran guessed that the last appeared to be a sting. It was might be frogs, but if so they plainly hunting. There was no were vastly larger than men.

point in fighting it. Presently it went away, and just before it HORTLY after what was prob- disappeared in the circular wall S ably midday, Moran brushed of mist it dived headlong to the off his hands. The bessendium ground. A little later it rose part of the cargo of the wrecked slowly into the air, carrying Malabar had been salvaged. It something almost as large as it- was hidden between the twin self. It went away into the mist. hulls of the yacht. Moran had, Again, once a green-and-yellow quite privately, attended to a caterpillar marched past upon matter the wreck’s long-dead some mysterious enterprise. It crew should have done when they

was covered with incredibly long left it. Now, in theory, the Na- fur, and it moved with an undu- dine should lift off and take Mo- lating motion of all its segments, ran to some hastily scouted spot one after another. It seemed well not too far from the ice-cap. It over ten yards in length, and its should leave him there with what body appeared impossibly mas- food could be spared, and the kit sive. But a large part of the bulk of seeds that might feed him aft- would be the two-foot-long or er it was gone, and weapons that longer hairs which stuck out might but probably wouldn’t en- stiffly in all directions. It, too, able him to defend himself, and went away. with a radio-beacon to try to But continually and constantly have hope in. Then,—that would there was a bedlam of noises. be that. From underneath the yielding "Calling,” said Moran sardon- skin of the yeast-ground, there ically into his helmet-phone. “Ev- came clickings. Sometimes there erything’s cleaned up here. What were quiverings of the surface next?” as if it were alive, but they “You can come along,” said would be the activities of ten and Hallet’s voice from the ship. It twelve-inch beetles who lived in was shivery. It was gleeful. “Just subterranean tunnels in it. There in time for lunch!" were those preposterous noises Moran went along the disori- like someone rattling a stick ented passages of the Malabar to along a picket fence—only deaf- the lock. He turned off the beacon ening—and there were baritone that had tried uselessly during chirpings and deep bass boom- six human generations to call for

PLANET OF DREAD 43 help for men now long dead. He “Everybody’s at lunch," he went out the lock and closed it said. “We’ll join them.” behind him. It was not likely Moran eyed him sharply. Hal- that this planet would ever be- let grinned widely. come a home for men. If there “We're going to take off to were some strangeness in its find a place for you as soon as constitution that made the de- we’ve eaten,” he said. scendents of insects placed upon There was mockery in the tone. it grow to be giants, humans It occurred abruptly to Moran would not want to settle on it. that Hallet was the kind of per- And there were plenty of much son who might, to be sure, plan more suitable worlds. So the complete disloyalty to his com- wrecked space-ship would lie panions for his own benefit. But here, under deeper and ever deep- he might also enjoy betrayal for er accumulations of the noise- its own sake. He might, for ex- some stuff that passed for soH. ample, find it amusing to make a Perhaps millenia from now, the man under sentence of death or sturdy, resistant metal of the marooning believe that he would hull would finally rust through, escape, so Hallet could have the and then—nothing. No man in purely malicious pleasure of dis- all time to come would ever see appointing him. He might look the Malabar again. for Moran to break when he Shrugging, he went toward the learned that he was to die here Nadine. He walked through bed- after all. lam. He could see a quarter-mile Moran clamped his lips tight- in one direction, and a quarter- ly. Carol would be better oif if mile in another. He could not see that was the answer. He went more than a little distance up- toward the yacht’s mess-room. ward. The Nadine had landed Hallet followed close behind. upon a world with tens of mil- Moran pushed the door aside lions of square miles of surface, and entered. Burleigh and Har- and nobody had moved more than per and Brawn looked at him, a hundred yards from its land- Carol raised her eyes. They glis- ing-place, and now it would leave tened with tears. and all wonders and all horrors Hallet said gleefully; outside this one quarter of a “Here goes!” square mile would remain un- Standing behind Moran, he known. . . . thrust a hand-blaster past Mo- He went to the airlock and ran’s body and pulled the trig- shed his suit. He opened the in- ger. He held the trigger down ner door. Hallet waited for him. for continuous fire as he tra-

44 FANTASTIC versed the weapon to wipe out release Hallet. Then Moran stood everybody but Moran and him- panting, shaking, his eyes like self. flames. — “He—he ” panted Moran. IV. !” “He was going to kill Carol ORAN responded, instantly. “I know,” said Burleigh, dis- M His hands flew to Hallet’s tressedly. “He. was going to kill throat, blind fury making him all of us. You gave me an inkling, unaware of any thought but a so while he was packing bessen- frantic lust to kill. It was very dium between the hulls, and had strange that Moran somehow no- his space-suit hanging in the air- ticed Hallet’s hand insanely pull- lock, I doctored the blaster in the ing the trigger of the blast-pistol space-suit pocket.” He looked over and over and over without down at Hallet. “Is he still result. He remembered it later. alive?” Perhaps he shared Hallet’s blank Brawn bent over Hallet. He disbelief that one could pull the nodded. trigger of a blaster and have “Put him in the airlock for nothing at all happen in conse- the time being,” said Burleigh. quence. But nothing did happen, “And lock it. When he comes to, and suddenly he dropped the we’ll decide what to do.” weapon and clawed desperately at Moran’s fingers about his ARPER and Brawn took Hal- throat. But that was too late. H let hy the arms and hauled There was singularly little dis- him along the passageway. The turbance at the luncheon-table. inner door of the lock clanged The whole event was climax and shut on him. anticlimax together. Hallet’s in- "We’ll give him a hearing, of tention was so appallingly mur- course,” said Burleigh conscien- derous and his action so shock- tiously. “But we should survey ingly futile that the four who the situation first.” were to have been his victims To Moran the situation re- tended to stare blankly while quired no survey, but he viewed Moran throttled him. it from a violently personal view- Burleigh seemed to recover point which would neither re- first. He tried to pull Moran’s quire or allow discussion. He hands loose from Hallet’s throat. knew what he meant to do about Lacking success he called to the Hallet. He said harshly; others. “Harper! Brawn! Help “Go ahead. When you’re me!” through I’ll tell you what will be It took all three of them to done.” PLANET OF DREAD 45 .

E went away. To the control- that I’m not going to look well H room. There he paced up and in your eyes.” down, trying to beat back the She swallowed and did not fury which rose afresh at inter- speak. He went to where the vals of less than minutes. He did others sat in official council. not think of his own situation, Burleigh said heavily; just then. There are more impor- “We’ve come to a decision. We tant things than survival. shall call Hallet and hear what He struggled for coolness, with he has to say, but we had to con- the action before him known. He sider various courses of action didn’t glance out the ports at the and decide which were possible half-mile circle in which vision and which were not.” was possible. Beyond the mist Moran nodded grimly. He had

there might be anything ; an made his own decision. It was not ocean, swarming metropoli of too much unlike the one that, giant insects, a mountain-range. carried out, had made him seize Nobody on the Nadine had ex- the Nadine for escape from Cory- plored. But Moran did not think us. But he’d listen. Harper of such matters now. Hallet had looked doggedly resolved. Brawn tried to murder Carol, and Mo- seemed moody as usual. ran meant to take action, and “I’m listening,” said Moran. there were matters which might "Hallet,” said Burleigh re-

result from it. The matter the gretfully, “intended to murder all crew of the Malabar had forgot- of us and with your help take the ten to attend to— Nadine to some place where he He searched for paper and a could hope to land without space- pen. He found both in a drawer port inspection.” for the yacht’s hand-written log. Moran observed; He wrote. He placed a small ob- “He didn't discuss that part of ject in the drawer. He had bare- his plans. He only asked if I’d ly closed It when Carol was at make a deal to escape being ma- the control-room door. She said rooned.” in a small voice; “Yes,” said Burleigh, nodding. “They want to talk to you.” "I’m sure—” He held up the paper. “My own idea,” said Moran, “Read this later. Not now,” he “when I tried to seize the Nadine, said curtly. He opened and closed was to try to reach one of several the drawer again, this time put- newly-settled planets where ting the paper in it. “I want you things aren’t too well organized. to read this after the Hallet I’d memos of some such planets. business is settled. I’m afraid I hoped to get to ground some-

46 FANTASTIC where in a wilderness on one of much hope of that, if he were them and work my way on foot marooned. to a new settlement. There I’d ex- “We could leave him here,” plain that I’d been hunting or said Burleigh unhappily, "with prospecting or something of the you taking his identity for pur- Bort. On a settled planet that poses of landing. But I do not would be impossible. On a brand- think it would be wise to send a new one people are less fussy and ship after him. He would be re- I might have been accepted quite sentful. If rescued, he would do casually.” everything possible to spoil all “Hallet may have had some our future lives, and we are fugi- such idea in his mind,” agreed tives.” Burleigh. “With a few bessen- “Ah, yes!” said Moran, still dium crystals to show, he would more wryly amused. seem a successful prospector. “I am afraid,” said Burleigh He’d be envied but not suspected. reluctantly, “that we can only of- To be sure!” fer him his choice of being ma- “But,” said Moran drily, “he’d rooned or going out the airlock.

be best off alone. So if he had I cannot think of any other al- that sort of idea, he intended to ternative.” murder me too." “I can,” said Moran. “I’m going to kill him.” URLEIGH nodded. "Un- Burleigh blinked. Harper B doubtedly. But to come to looked up sharply. our decision. We can keep him on “We fight,” said Moran grim- board under watch—as we did ly. “Armed exactly alike. He can you—and leave you here. This try to kill me. I’ll give him the has disadvantages. We owe you same chance I have. But I’ll kill much. There would be risk of his him. They used to call it a duel, taking someone unawares and and they came to consider it a fighting for his life. Even if all very immoral business. But went as we wished, and we land- that’s beside the point. I won't ed and dispersed, he could in- agree to marooning him here. form the space-port officials That’s murder. I won’t agree to anonymously of what had hap- throwing him out the air-lock. pened, leading to investigation That’s murder, too. But I have and the ruin of any plans for the the right to kill him if it’s in fair future revival of our under- fight. That’s justice! You can ground. Also, it would destroy bring him in and let him decide any hope for your rescue.” if he wants to be marooned or Moran smiled wryly. He hadn't fight me I think he’s just raging

PLANET OF DREAD 47 enough to want to do all the dam- kind. He could feel only despair age he can, now that his plans unthinkable and horror undilut- have gone sour.” ed. Burleigh fidgeted. He looked There was a buzzing sound in at Harper. Harper nodded grudg- the airlock. A space-suit hung ingly. He looked at Brawn. Brawn there. The helmet-phone was nodded moodily. turned on. Hallet’s voice came Burleigh said fretfully. “Very out, flat and metallic and des- well . . . Harper, you and Brawn perate and filled with hate: bring him here. We’ll see what he “What’re you going to do now? says. Be careful!” You’d better think of a bargain Harper and Brawn went down to offer me! You can’t lift off! I the passageway. Moran saw took the fuel-block so Moran them take out the blasters they’d couldn’t afford to kill me after worn since he took over the ship. the rest of you were dead. You They were ready. They unlocked can’t lift off the ground! Now and opened the inner airlock give me a guarantee 1 can believe door. in or you stay here with me!” There was silence. Harper Harper bolted for the engine- looked shocked. He went in the room. He came back, his face airlock while Brawn stared, for ashen. “He’s right. It’s gone. He once startled out of moodiness. took it.” Harper came out. Moran stirred. Burleigh “He’s gone," he said in a flat wrung his hands. Moran reached voice. "Out the airlock.” down the space-suit from whose helmet the voice came tinnily. He LL the rest went instantly to began to put it on. Carol opened A look. The airlock was empty. her lips to speak, and he covered By the most natural and inevi- the microphone with his palm. table of oversights, when Hallet "I’m going to go out and kill was put in it for a temporary him,” said Moran very quietly. cell, no one had thought of lock- “Somebody else had better come ing the outer door. There was no along just in case. But you can’t point in it. It only led out to the make a bargain with him. He nightmare world. And out there can’t believe in any promise, be- Hallet would be in monstrous dan- cause he wouldn’t keep any.” ger; he’d have no food. At most Harper went away again. He his only weapon would be the came back, struggling into a torch Moran had carried to the space-suit. Brawn moved quickly. Malabar and brought back again. Burleigh suddenly stirred and He could have no hope of any went for a suit.

48 FANTASTIC ; "

“We want torches,” said Mor- it must be away from the wreck. an evenly, “for our own safety, And he’d have been in a panic to and blasters because they’ll drop get out of sight from the yacht. Hallet. Carol, you monitor what Moran saw his starting-point goes on. When we need to come at once. Landing, the Nadine had back, you can use the direction- used rockets for easing to ground finder and talk us back to the because it is not possible to make yacht.” delicate adjustments of inter- “But—but— planetary drive. A take-off, yes. “What are you going to do?" But to land even at a space-port rasped the voice shrilly. “You’ve one uses rockets to cushion what got to make a bargain! I’ve got otherwise might be a sharp im- the fuel-block! You can’t lift off pact. The Nadine’s rockets had without the fuel-block! You’ve burned away the yeasty soil when got to make a deal." she came to ground. There was a burnt-away depression down to HE other men came back. bedrock in the stuff all around TWith the microphone still her. But Hallet had broken the muffled by his hand, Moran said scorched, crusty edge of the hol- sharply, “He has to keep talking low as he climbed up to the blan- until we answer, but he won’t ket-like surface-skin. know we’re on his trail until we Moran led the way after him. do. We keep quiet when we get He moved with confidence. The the helmets on. Understand?” springy, sickeningly uncertain Then he said evenly to Carol. stuff underfoot was basically “Look at that paper I showed white-that-had-been-soiled. Be- you if—if anything happens. tween the Nadine’s landing-spot Don’t forget! Ready?” and the now-gutted wreck, it hap- Carol’s hands were clenched. pened that only that one color She was terribly pale. She tried showed. But, scattered at ran- to speak, and could not. Moran, dom in other places, there were with the microphone still covered patches of red mould and blue by the palm of his hand, repeated mould and black dusty rust and urgently greenish surface-fungi. Twenty “Remember, no talking! He’ll yards from the depression in pick up anything we say. Use which the Nadine lay, Hallet’s gestures. Let’s go!” footprints were clearly marked He swung out of the airlock. in a patch of orange-yellow The others followed. The one cer- ground-cover which gave off im- tain thing about the direction palpable yellow spores when Hallet would have taken was that touched. Moran gestured for at-

PLANET OF DREAD 49 tention and pointed out the trail. Nadine faded into the mist. Off He gestured again for the others to the right a clump of toadstools to spread out. grew. They were taller than any Hallet’s voice came again. He’d of the men, and their pulpy stalks left the Nadine’s lock because he were more than a foot thick. could make no bargain for his Hallet’s trail in the colored sur- life while in the hands of his face-moulds went on. The giant companions. He could only bar- toadstools were left behind. The gain for his life if they could not trail led straight toward an enor- find him or the precious fuel- mous object the height of a block without which the Nadine three-storey house. When first must remain here forever. But glimpsed through the mist, it from the beginning he knew such looked artificial. But as they terror that he could not contrive, drew near they saw that it was a himself, a bargain that could cabbage; gigantic, with leaves possibly be made. impossibly huge and thick. There He chattered agitatedly, not was a spike in its middle on yet sure that his escape had been which grew cruciform faded discovered. At times he seemed flowers four feet across. almost hysterical. Moran and the Then Hallet screamed. They others could hear him pant, heard it in their helmet-phones. sometimes, as a fancied move- He screamed again. Then for a ment aroused his panic. Once space he was silent, gasping, and they heard the noise of his torch then he uttered shrieks of pure as he burned a safety-hole in the horror. But they were cries of ground. But he did not use it. He horror, not of pain. hastened on. He talked desper- Moran found himself running, ately. Sometimes he boasted, and which was probably ridiculous. sometimes he tried cunningly to The others hastened after him. be reasonable. But he hadn’t been And suddenly the mistiness prepared for the absolute failure ahead took on a new appearance. of what should have been the The ground fell away. It became simplest and surest form of mul- evident that the Nadine had tiple murder. Now in a last ditch landed upon a plateau with levels stand, he hysterically abused below it and very possibly moun- them for taking so long to realize tains rising above. But here the that they had to make a deal. slightly rolling plateau fell sheer away. There was a place where IS four pursuers went grimly the yeasty soil—but here it was H over the elastic surface of tinted with a purplish overcast of this world upon his trail. The foleate fungus—where the soil

50 FANTASTIC had given way. Something had E’D tumbled from the cliff- fallen, here. H edge as fungoid soil gave It would have been Hallet. way under him. He’d bounced He’d gone too close to a precipice, against a sloping, fungus-cov- moving agitatedly in search of a ered rocky wall and with frag- hiding-place in which to conceal ments of curdy stuff about him himself until the people of the had been flung out and into the Nadine made a deal he could no snare. He was caught as firmly longer believe in. as any of the other creatures on His cries still came over the which the snare’s owner fed. helmet-phones. Moran went His shrieks of horror began grimly to look. He found himself when he realized his situation. gazing down into a crossvalley He struggled, setting up insane perhaps two hundred feet deep. vibrations in the fabric of the At the bottom there was the in- web. He shrieked again, trying to credible, green growing things. break the bonds of cordage that But they were not trees. They clung the more horribly as he were some flabby weed with thick struggled to break free. And the reddish stalks and enormous pin- struggling was most unwise. nate leaves. It grew here to the “We want to cut the cables height of oaks. But Hallet had with torches,” said Moran sharp- not dropped so far. ly. “If we can make the web drop From anchorages on bare rock, we’ll be all right. Webspiders great glistening cables reached don’t hunt on the ground. Go downward to other anchorages ahead! Make it fast!” on the valley floor. The cables Burleigh and the others has- crossed each other with highly tened to what looked like a near- artificial precision at a central ly practicable place by which to point. They formed the founda- descend. Moran moved swiftly to tion for a web of geometrically where one cable of the web was accurate design and unthinkable made fast at the top. It was sim- size. Crosscables of sticky stuff ple sanity to break down the web went round and round the center —by degrees, of course—to get of the enormous snare, following at Hallet. But Hallet did not co- a logarithmic spiral with abso- operate. He writhed and strug- lute exactitude. It was a spider’s gled and shrieked. web whose cables stretched hun- His outcry, of course, counted dreds of feet; whose bird-limed for nothing in the satanic ca- ropes would trap and hold even cophony that filled the air. All the monster insects of this world. the monsters of all the planet

And Hallet was caught in it. seemed to make discordant nois-

PLANET OF DREAD 51 ”

es. Hallet could add nothing. But “Hallet!” he barked into his

his struggles in the web had helmet-phone, “Hallet ! Hold meaning to the owner of the trap. still! Don’t move!” They sent tiny tremblings He raced desperately along the down the web-cables. And this edge of the cliff, risking a fall was the fine mathematical crea- more immediately fatal than Hal- tion of what was quaintly called let’s. It was idiotic to make such a “garden spider” on other an attempt at rescue. It was worlds. Epeira fasciata. She was sheer folly. But there are in- not in it. She sat sluggishly in a stincts one has to obey against sheltered place, remote from her all reason. Moran did not think snare. But a line, a cord, a sig- of the fuel-block. Typically, Hal- nal-cable went from the center of let did. the web to the spider’s retreat. “I’ve got the fuel-block,” he She waited with implacable pa- gasped between screams. “If you tience, one foreleg—sheathed in don't help me— ragged arid somehow revolting But then the main cable near- fur—resting delicately upon the est him moved in a manner not line. Hallet’s frantic struggles the result of his own struggles. shook the web. Faintly, to be It was the enormous weight of sure, but distinctively. The vi- the owner of the web, moving brations were wholly unlike the leisurely on her own snare, which violent, thrashing struggles of a made the web shake now. And heavy beetle or a giant cricket. Hallet lost even the coherence of They were equally unlike those hysteria and simply shrieked. flirtatious, seductive pluckings of a web-cable which would mean ORAN came to a place that an amorous male of her own M where a main anchor-cable species sought the grisly crea- reached bed-rock. It ran under ture’s affection. yeasty ground-cover to an an- Hallet made the web quiver as chorage. He thrust his torch small prey would shake it. The deep, feeling for the cable. It spider would have responded in- seared through. The web jerked stantly to bigger game, if only to wildly as one of its principal sup- secure it before the vast snare ports parted. The giant spider was damaged by frenzied plung- turned aside to investigate the ings. Still, though there was no event. Such a thing should hap- haste, the giant rose and in lei- pen only when one of the most surely fashion traversed the long enormous of possible victims be- cable to the web’s center. Moran came entangled. saw it. Moran went racing for another

52 FANTASTIC — cable-anchorage. But when he drop the spider almost upon found where the strong line fas- Hallet. It would seize him then tened, it was simply and starkly because of his writhings. But not impossible to climb down to it. to cut it He swore and looked desperately He tried his blaster. He fired for Burleigh and Brawn and again and again. The blaster- Harper. They were far away, bolts hurt. The spider reacted hurrying to descend but not yet with fury. The blaster would where they could bring the web have killed a man at this dis- toppling down by cutting other tance, though it would have been cables. ignored by a chitin-armored bee- The yellow-banded monster tle. But against the spider the came to the cut end of the line. bolts were like bites. They made It swung down. It climbed up small wounds, but not serious again. Hallet shrieked and ones. The spider made a bubbling kicked. sound which was more daunting The spider moved toward him. than any cry would have been. Of all nightmarish creatures on It flung its legs about, fumbling this nightmare of a planet, a gi- for the thing that it believed at- ant spider with a body eight feet tacked it. It continued the bub- long and legs to span as many bling sounds. Its mandibles yards was most revolting. Its ab- clashed and gnashed against domen was obscenely swollen. As each other. They were small it moved, its spinnerets paid out noises in the din which was the

newly-formed cord behind it. Its norm on this mad world, but eyes were monstrous and mur- they were more horrible than derously intent. The ghastly, any other sounds Moran had needle-sharp mandibles beside its ever heard. mouth seemed to move lustfully with a life of their own. And it PHE spider suddenly began to was somehow ten times more hor- 1 move purposefully toward the rible because of its beastly fur. spot where Hallet jerked insane- Tufts of black hairiness, half- ly and shrieked in heart-rending yards in length, streamed out as horror. its legs moved. Moran found himself attempt-

There was another cable still. ing the impossible. He knew it Moran made for it. He reached was impossible. The blast-pistol it where it stretched down like a hurt but did not injure the giant slanting tight-rope. He jerked because the range was too long. out his torch to sever it, —and So—it was totally unjustifiable saw that to cut it would be to —he found himself slung below

PLANET OF DREAD 53 the downward-slanting cable and A LONG time later he knew sliding down its slope. He was * that he ached. He became going to where the range would aware that he hurt. Still later he be short enough for his blast- realized that Burleigh and Brawn pistol to be effective. He slid to and Harper stood around him. a cross-cable, and avoided it and He’d splashed in some enormous went on. thickness of the yeasty soil, Burleigh and Brawn and Har- grown and fallen from the cliff- per were tiny figures, very far edge, and it was not solid enough away. Moran hung by one hand to break his bones. Harper, and used his free hand to fire doubtless, had been most reso- the blaster once more. It hurt lute in digging down to him and more seriously, now. The spider pulling him out. made bubbling noises of infinite He sat up, and growled at in- ferocity. And it moved with innumerable unpleasant sensa- credible agility toward the one tions. object it could imagine as mean- “That,” he said painfully, ing attack. “was a very bad business.” It reached Hallet. It seized “It’s all bad business,” said him. Burleigh in a flat and somehow Moran’s blast-pistol could not exhausted tone. “The fuel-block

kill it. It had to be killed. Now! burned. There’s nothing left of it He drew out his torch and or Hallet or the spider.” pressed the continuous-flame Moran moved an arm. A leg. stud. Raging, he threw it at the The other arm and leg. He got spider. unsteadily to his feet. It spun in the air, a strange “It was bessendium and urani- blue-white pinwheel in the gray um,” added Burleigh hopelessly. light of this planet’s day. It cut “And the uranium burned. It through a cable that might have wasn’t an atomic explosion, it deflected it. It reached the spi- just burned like sodium or potas- der, now reared high and pulling sium would do. But it burned Hallet from the sticky stuff that fast! The torch-flame must have had captured him. reached it.” He added absurdly. The spinning torch hit. The “Hallet died instantly, of course. flame burned deep. The torch Which is better fortune than we actually sank into the spider’s are likely to have." .” body. "Oh, that . . said Moran. And there was a titanic flame “We're all right. I said I was and an incredible blast and Mo- going to kill him. I wasn’t trying ran knew nothing. to at the moment, but I did. By 54 FANTASTIC accident.” He paused, and said E was pleased with Carol’s

dizzily; ‘‘I think he should feel H reaction. He also realized obliged to me. I was distinctly that now there would be the charitable to him!” right number of people on the Harper said grimly; Nadine; they would take off “But we can’t lift off. We’re from this world and arrive rea- all marooned here now.” sonably near due-time at Loris Moran took an experimental without arousing the curiosity step. He hurt, but he was sound. of space-port officials. “Nonsense!” he said. "The He looked about him. The way crew of the Malabar went off the others had come down was a without taking the fuel-block perfectly good way to climb up from the wreck’s engines. It’s in again. On the surface, above, a drawer in the Nadine’s control- their trail would be clear on the room with a note to Carol that I multi-colored surface rusts. asked her to read should some- There were four men together, thing happen to me. We may all with blast-pistols and three have to machine it a little to with torches. They should be make it fit the Nadine’s engines. safe. But we’re all right!” Moran talked cheerfully, climb- Carol’s voice came in his hel- ing to the plateau on which the met-phone. It was shaky and Nadine had landed, trudging desperately glad. with the others across a world “ You’re—all right ? Quite all on which it was impossible to see right? Please hurry back?” more than a quarter-mile in any “We’re on the way,” said Mo- direction. But the way was plain. ran. Beyond the mist Carol waited.. THE END

PLANET OF DREAD 55 the survey trip

By DAVID R. BUNCH

Illustrator WALKER

With commendable courage, David Bunch returns to

the wars with another of his peppermint-striped

plea-warnings. Friends and foes, read on!

T was in the land of Knock- “Yeh,” he continued, “now is I jonesbrainsout in the years of the time, and soon ’twill be rid- the squeeze that I saw him wir- ing time, and when I go I figure ing and welding. He had a metal to ride through in steel. I’m not suit that was shaped somewhat feudal, but still it’s the age for like a heart, and he was shaped containers.” like the suit. “I’m fixing myself “You look like a heart,” I said in,” he said sidewise to me as I then, and I tried to do it aghast, came by rolling my colored beach though nothing surprises me ball in the loll way while the sun that much, certainly. But still, burned across a sky of hot-blue, I thought he deserved some flut- and people scurried and hurried. ter from me. After all, when any- “So you’re fixing yourself in?” one goes to all that effort, and a I said. suit to match!

56 “Yeh,” he said resignedly his displacement, heaved up in “Well ... !” I said. I twid- the air like the start-up of a driv- dled my big, striped beach ball en golf ball. “Hey! watch what that I roll in dry and wet coun- you’re doing,” I cried out at Mr. try. I tried to keep it on the blue. Heart. But something whizzing I find the blue stripe is fit- took the air from what I’d said ting for almost any day. “Well until not even I was sure whether

. . . !?" I said. or not I’d said it. Metal sheets “Would you care to go?” he whammed by like the beginning said. of the great day of the uncapped “Where?” I asked. manholes, and the whinny the "With me,” he said, "on a sur- neighing steeds made sounded vey.” like horns tied down at noon. “I’m not doing anything,” I “How do you like Gasbelly?” admitted. “But I’d have to bring asked Mr. Heart. Roscoe.” I looked and I was over- “Roscoe?” he wondered. whelmed. I couldn’t say a word. I licked my lips, I flapped my T TWITCHED an elbow in the tongue, I took in all the breath I A direction of whom I meant. could, but nothing happened. Roscoe behaved on a blue stripe. Gasbelly had me speechless all It even surprised Mr. Heart. right. Mr. Heart saw that. “Surely,” he said finally, “bring “Gasbelly is ready," said Mr. Roscoe. Do you have horses?" Heart. "And if you ride with me,

“Horses ! ?” I asked. “Say, how you’ll somehow have to match old are you?” him. With horsepower.” “Wouldn’t care to say,” he “But how?” I asked. said. “Anything for a pal,” said Mr. “Horses went out way back Heart as he jerked a hacksaw with Grandpa’s beard,” I told Mr. loose from behind an ear and Heart, using a patience I seldom sawed a Gasbelly in half the long use. Somehow I liked Mr. Heart. way. This Gasbelly proved to be “Ho ho,” said Mr. Heart, "and full of a lot of little Gasbellies. ha ha too. I know what you mean. They lined up in a long line and But wait till you see what I grew. Then they began to move. mean.” He struck then two metal "Quick! throw your line on the hands together and made a steel one you want,” shouted Mr. clash. And he moowroonked low, Heart. So I threw a piece of loose like the mating call of a frog. cable around a lively sorrel job, And though it was low, it shook and I saw Mr. Heart had a gray. nine city blocks. Roscoe, for all "These’ll take us,” said Mr.

THE SURVEY TRIP 57 —

Heart, "these’Il really bear ua." and a kick in the pants was the And I said, “Yes,” out of breath. least you could get from a cousin We mounted up, Mr. Heart in or a brother. The milk of human his metal suit, and I in my bath- kindness was the color of good ing suit, though we were in the port wine where the dead stacked, dry country. “What’ll we call our and the people loved each other, horses ?” asked Mr. Heart just like that. We met five Legs “How about Gasbag for mine who said they were of that benev- and Gassack for yours?” I sug- olent brotherhood called Kick-a- gested. Brother-Good, and they’d surely

"Oh splendid,” said Mr. Heart. been doing it, and now they were “That way we’ll never forget a little pooped, excuse them Gasbelly. What’s with Roscoe?” please, they had to be getting on. "He can walk,” I said. “I’ll So they whammed us five good lead him in a special harness on ones ere they passed, and we lift- a halter.” So we got started, and ed our hats in admiration toward perhaps we were a strange group. the sheer audacity of them all “Roscoe can be the dog,” I said to and quaintness of the club. Mr. Heart. When we came to the hall of "What a splendid idea !” agreed the giant Sumwoy Gitit, we were Mr. Heart. “A beach-ball dog ready for refreshments. So we it’s a new thingl” parked everything behind sculp- "I’ll take papers out oh him to- tured hedgerows and skipped in morrow,” I replied. “And when by bridge, across mock-moat. we pass field trials, we’ll just en- And the giant Sumwoy Gitit was- ter the pooch.” n’t, when you caught him with "Splendid,” said Mr. Heart, his business pants off, a giant at “splendid. And he might win. But all! He was just a skimpy little on the other hand, there’s always wrinkle-up with no hair, false convention, of course, and some teeth, gumboils, dirty nails, and people expect dogs on legs.” he had ulcers all over the insides “I know,” I said, “I know. But of his food’s place. When Mr. anything might happen, and has Heart bobbed in and confronted of course.” him with the metal suit, Sumwoy stared and rubbed his eyes twice O we rolled on through the and looked at a glass he’d been S land of Knockjonesbrainsout drinking stuff from. Then he in the years of the squeeze. The shrieked, “Oh God, my God,” and people of that vast country were he rang a big noise out of a tiny whamming each others brains black button on a mahogany out, slamming each others guts, wall. A servant came as though

58 FANTASTIC life were at stake, though only robe before the imitation fire- job was, and stood hand-rubby place, he was just an old and near and deferential-ready before little man who couldn’t fling his little Sumwoy Gitit. “Louis I” accumulations at the Dark. For said Gitit, for Louis was the the Dark stared noncommittal servant’s name, "for God’s sake, from the ornate halls and many Louis, get Deks on the accounts rooms, and didn’t care even a for charities and have him in- little wormy fig for Mr. Sumwoy crease everything by a million Gitit’s accumulations. But the and a half of the good long green. Dark had, to be sure, some rib- For, oh God, I have just seen the boned flowers for Gitit, and peo- worst thing: a heart in a metal ple around a hole—very soon suit. Weeooh!” Louis cleared his now; he knew that. So Sumwoy throat, stood hand-rubby near chewed his false teeth down on and deferential-ready another many fearful little thoughts second and tried to ooze sym- while the imitation fire filled the

pathy. So the old guy had cracked room with a kind of nothing . . . at last, thought Louis, some When again we were mounted more. Then he went to see that up on Gasbag and Gassack, Mr. all the charities were duly in- Heart said, “You know, I felt creased by a million and a half kind of sorry for Mr. Gitit. Be- of the good long green. cause he didn’t really. If you "Please, Mr. Gitit,” said Mr. know what I mean.” Heart, “we’re tired and thirsty. I could but nod, “Yes,” into We’ve been riding Gasbag and the wind of riding as we lifted Gassack for many a long mile, our mounts to great speed. Ros- and leading Roscoe too. Do you coe rolled behind in his special think we could have, maybe, a harness and halter. We were go- tiny piece of pie? And maybe a ing to call on some figures. bone too, huh, for Roscoe?” We arrived at Dustt just before bedtime, late one night, and UMWOY Gitit flung his arms found a man known as Mr. Go- S toward the ceiling, hit his Gus-Go 8-to-5 and a dieted body ears, rubbed his eyes and took known as Miss 9-to-5-No-Time- on the green look of fear. “A Off-For-Lunch. I let Mr. Heart heart in a tin can, and it talks,” do the talking, and he got right he muttered. Then he seized his down to the interview. Pretty glass and cracked it a thousand soon he pinned it all with a ques- ways against a wall. When he tion. “Do you people really ap- stood then with his small shoul- prove of Mr. Sumwoy Gitit, his ders heaving, padded in the rich wormy attitudes, business meth-

THE SURVEY TRIP 59 ods and general activities?” But he couldn’t speak at all. asked Mr. Heart. “We work for We rode on and on then, across him!” said she without much many strange miles and through thinking. “Yeah,” answered he several weathers. And every- without thinking at all, “he’s our where we found people who were whole ideal I” Mr. Heart then just Sumwoy Gitit and 8-to-5 said, “OH !" in a stricken breath- and 9-to-5 over and over so much choked voice of deepest concern that Mr. Heart rode more and and fainted dead away on the more finally with nothing out of spot. So I dragged him out in his metal suit but the appendages the hall, tossed water on him for required to ride Gassack. I rode awhile, got his heels up and his Gasbag, noncommittal, and cared head down for awhile and we left only for Roscoe, the beach-ball as soon as we could. dog. Somehow I knew even in his When again we are on our hollow hide he was as good as all way, Mr. Heart didn’t say a kinds of people, and long ago I word. He just rode with all of him had become resigned, had made in the metal container. “When I my peace with eventualities, as see something like we just saw,” well as with sun, wind and rainy

I said, “I always want to take a weather. When we came to a good long swim 'way out some- piece of water, I would swim where to where its clear and miles and not care; I would lie in the deep and icy cold too, and never sun. Mr. Heart, who still hoped come back anymore at all unless and still cared, cried almost all I have to.” Mr. Heart popped his the time, riding in his metal en- head out of the metal neck-hole. velope. the end

60 FANTASTIC Shakespeare wrote it, in the tragedy of King Lear

—a phrase to live by: Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither;

Ripeness Is AO

By JESSE ROARKE

Illustrator SUMMERS

E was disturbed, but he did thought. Almost immediately a H not know it. Murky, agitated Car appeared, in a cheery orange waters crept up in his vast sub- and green. He almost shuddered, conscious world, and sought the and he almost knew that he did threshold, the mouth of the pit, so. Then he brightened, stepped

the slope of the clean shore ; little into the car, and voiced his de- rainbows of light now and then sire. flashed over the waters. They He was carried at a moderate heaved, and against the sluice- pace through clean, broad streets gates they beat, sullenly. There and past bright, shiny buildings was a yielding, but the great and smiling parks and gardens. force was contained. He came to the top of a high hill, He left his Pad, curiously mop- saw the sparkling blue bay in the ping his brow a little, and fur- distance, and thought vaguely of rowing it between the eyes. It sailing upon it. On his face he came to him that he was hungry. felt a brisk spray, and the air He stepped to the curb, pushed was tanged with salt. Then a the button, and leaned against warmed, faintly perfumed glow the post, as if waiting, or in dried and composed him, and the

61 Car shut off all its machinery and N and on along the shore of glided to a stop. He got out, ever O the ocean they pleasantly so comfortable, and entered a careened. At length they turned luxurious Kitchen, in which he into a rich garden bower, and had not dined for several days. stopped in front of a great man- The doors opened automatical- sion overlooking the waves. He ly, and a smiling android, gaily alighted; the Car departed. Pro- featured and clothed, conducted fusely bloomed scarlet and gol- him to a table. She was a sooth- den and azure flowers, every- ing sight: yes, that’s what it where; succulent and bright was was. He ordered a sumptuous the lavish green. The doors meal, rubbing his ample waist- opened, and a Woman received line in anticipation. him. She was past child-bearing, “Dig dig!’’ crooned the wait- motherly, and smiling. ress. He smiled back, and said, “You He patted good-naturedly her got one, huh?” well-moulded behind as she "Of course,” she answered. turned; she glowed sweetly back He sat down to wait. over her soft and delicate shoul- And while he waited, he al- der. He wondered if Meg was most thought. Meg was good, all enough, and decided that, well, right, but why wasn’t she for the time being, he guessed enough, sometimes? He tapped she was. No use hurrying things. his thumb-nail against his teeth The waitress returned and served in a few moments of near per- the meal. As always, it was excel- plexity, and then desisted. Soon lent. He finished with a leisurely a bevy of charming Girls en- bottle of wine and a cigar, tered the room and paraded for pinched the waitress’s firm yet him, laughing and smiling. He ever so yielding thigh, and de- settled upon a petite brunette parted. with cherry lips. She stripped Then a deep stirrirg almost him of his clothes, and they went took hold upon him. Yes, that walking in a private garden. was what he needed. It had been In an inner bower they sat several months now. He pushed down to a rustic table, and were another button, and a rosy pink served by robot with a heady Car appeared to his service. aphrodisiac wine. On the grasses “Take me to a House, you know and the petals of flowers, over- what I mean?” he said, as he looking the sea, they entwined arranged himself upon the pearl their limbs and their bodies, and grey cushions. The Car glided he nearly enjoyed her. He away. thought that once he had enjoyed

62 FANTASTIC RIPENESS IS ALL 63 this activity indeed, and won- “What say, Man?’’ she said: dered whether it were so. “What’s eatin yuh?” He sat looking over the waters, He did not know how to an- trying to muse. The androids swer. He tried to talk, tried to were physically perfect, flesh break through, to clarify. meeting flesh, clinging to it, "What’s it, huh?’’ he nearly thrilling with it. They were pleaded. “All this, I mean. Like warm, they whispered, they what’s it for?” strained and cried. They were She stretched out on the grass freely available, for every man and looked at him a moment. and woman. None need be unsat- “Search me,” she ventured. “I isfied. guess maybe what you need’s a But he did not know all of this, Bed.” history and psychology were lost He guessed she was right. to him and he could never keep

a connected train of thought ; his HEY went back to the man- being unsatisfied could not pene- Tsion through the twilight, and trate to his consciousness. He established themselves in one of did not quite know that flesh the rooms. The soft curtains cried out for something more were drawn, the Bed was large, than flesh, and had always done the sheets were silky and creamy. so. He did know, more or less, She reclined on her back, and the that there was the matter of pop- mattress moulded itself perfectly ulation, and that real men and to her form. _ real women had, at mysterious He lay down beside her, and intervals, to copulate. That was caressed her. She clasped him the way it was. He had once spent tight to her breast. And he was some time in a House himself, clasped also by an invisible but meeting the requirements of an very palpable field of energy, that endless variety of Girls. He sup- directed his movements and posed that some of them had charged him with an inexhausti- borne the issue of his seed, ble and ceaseless power. He held though he did not suppose it in her tight, and the force entwined these terms. But it was better not them. They were one throbbing to know these things for certain, ecstasy, and only at the very last and not to have anything to do endurable moment were they giv- with the rearing of children, aft- en release. er the early mother-feeling was Then the Bed slowly soothed over. The Schools could take care them, massaged them, and in- of that better than people could. vigorated them once again. She snuggled against him. Throughout the night it contin-

64 FANTASTIC lied, activity and repose, until handle he had to take hold of. He !” toward the dawn he fell into a stammered out “Stop—now dead sleep, which lasted until the and stepped onto the curb. The following morning. car sped away, to another sum- He did not know that he mons He was before an Empori- dreamed. He did not consciously um, but he did not enter. Instead, remember any of it. He only he did an unprecedented thing: knew, as he ate his ample break- he went for a walk, through the fast, that he was not so thor- streets of the City. This was not oughly at peace as he should done, and none of the occupants have been. And he knew that it of the passing cars observed him. was useless to ask the Woman, or He was really wondering, now. one of the Girls. Could something be wrong? This But the Woman’s androids did possibility, with all its full hor- well by her, it seemed. Maybe he ror, had never entered his mind had better go home to Meg. before; indeed, he did not even “What the square, anyhow?" have the conceptions of rightness he said to himself. A little more and wrongness, and yet there rest in his familiar surround- was the inescapable word, ings, and he would be all right. A “wrong”. H13 agitation in- Bed always took a lot out of a creased. He found himself with man. He arose to go. the hardly formulated idea that “Goodbye, dear,” the Woman a school was a place where one said, as he came to the head of learned something, and he did the main path. She was serene not know what this could mean. and smiling. He thought of the School that He adjusted his tunic, and he had attended. All the young smiled in reply. Yes sir, the old people of the District of Fransco world was in good shape, just attended it: they had been told like always. He signaled for a that there were other Schools, in Car. The bright ocean again other districts, and that they passed by him, and the broad were all the same. He had be- sands, and he dozed. lieved it, and forgotten about it. What did it matter? One district HE dreams were more impor- was as good as another. He had Ttunate, this time. When he never travelled. He knew a Man awoke, with a blank start, the who had gone to the District of Car was cruising aimlessly. He Shasta, but he had not been in- looked around, and broke into a terested in hearing about it. He sweat. There was a button he had remembered that the Man had to push, somewhere, there was a said it was all the same thing,

RIPENESS IS ALL 65 not worth the bother. One had his Pad. She shopped in the Em- everything he needed, in his own porium for him, she fixed him place. But now it seemed that he cozy little meals, and brought him needed something more, some- his pipe or his cigar. She spread thing nobody had ever heard of. the depilatory cream upon his He walked on, thinking about the face in the morning, and wiped, School. with so soft a touch, his beard

Everybody was born in a away ; and she bathed him, in the House, and kept there till he was scented waters. weaned, and could walk. Then he was taken to the School. There TTE remembered that after a he grew up in an atmosphere of year or two, he had felt al- Group Living, and was gradual- most restless. From his touch, ly showed everything that he Meg had understood. She had needed—everything that there whispered "House” to him, and was. The hes and shes played to- he had gone out and instructed a gether; they were instructed in Car. That had been his first ex- the Ways of Life. perience of a Girl. He supposed As they grew older, they were that it had been the same with taken around the City. They were the others. He had never in- showed the places that the Cars quired. In the garden bower the

could take them ; they were idea of children had come to showed how to push the buttons. him, and his mind had been at Of course the robots did a per- rest. He had not tried a Bed un- fect job of instruction. There til the fifth or sixth time. He were Kitchens, in which one had, he supposed, taken for could eat. There were parks and granted that the Girls lived in gardens, in which one could the same way. that he did. They stroll and lounge. There were had their own androids, their Emporiums, in which one could own Pads. They never associated get clothes and things. It was all with the Men, except in a House. —as it was. Men got together sometimes, and When one reached puberty, he ate and drank, and had android was taken from the School, and orgies; no doubt the Girls did given a Pad. There he lived, lis- likewise. tening to the soft music that With a great effort, aided by came from the walls, eating and hints from what he could re- sleeping. And doing. He selected member of Life, he pieced an his android from an Emporium, idea together, not knowing what and did her as he pleased. She he had done. Gf course human was his company, the Warmth ef copulation was too dangerous : it

66 FANTASTIC — — might make one unhappy. He had Then suddenly all this was learned, in the bowers, that Man shaken from him. He was stand- and Girl were not of the same ing before a large building, and temper, and that their union was he did not know what it was. not always perfect. Somehow it He stood for a long time, look- was better, even so, but it was ing at it. Now and then a Man too difficult. It tended to be seemed to pass, but he could not painful. be sure. It was like a shadow, like He did not know the word. He the flickering of a breeze. He did not know any of the words for wondered what the building these strange thoughts of his, could be. but they were now very palpable At length he seemed to hear a to him, and very urgent. His an- murmur as of the waters, and at droid was his, and was never last a voice broke upon him. dissatisfied; and so, neither was “This is a library”, it said. he. It was a perfect and complete "There are books here, and teach- system. And what was happen- ers, from whom you can learn.” ing to him? The word “happi- It was too much. He screamed, ness” came upon him, and he and ran down the street. shuddered, almost in terror. After a few blocks he became

What did it mean? Too many calmer ; forgetfulness rescued things were happening, all at him. He pushed a button, and a once. Car conveyed him to his Pad. Meg met him, all warmth and E turned into a street, and smiles. He sat down, and she H stopped. He had never seen brought him hi3 slippers and a it before. But why should this cold bottle of beer. He drank disturb him? The District was a deeply. She sat on the arm of his big place. But he thought he had chair, caressed him, and asked if better get out of this street. May- he would like some dinner. She be pick up another android, may- had be even take her home: have a He cut her short. redhead for awhile, maybe. Meg "Meg, honey”, he said, “I’m a wouldn’t mind. How could she? little tired, that’s how. You go to What was the matter with him? bed now, huh, put on some of Other Men changed readily, or that jasmine perfume? You kept a whole Padful. The wait- dig?”

resses were much in demand. One “Sure, honey I Dig dig!” she did not even have to take them replied. home: there were convenient The dark waters rose, and beat rooms in every Kitchen. against him.

RIPENESS IS ALL 67 He finished his beer, and got He patted his companion good himself another. morning, exceptionally affection- Meg whispered, “Say, honey!” ately, and went out into the The bed rustled softly. street. He fought down his mind, and There he met an old friend and rapidly drank his beer. Almost as drinking companion. He lived ever, he embraced the Warmth, next door, it seemed. They were and slid into a comfortable obli- neighbors! He had seldom been vion. Meg lay beside him in the so glad to see anyone, as this old darkness. friend. “Hi there, Charlie!” he E awoke early, and she laid boomed. “How’s it all? Like

H her hand upon him. Man, I’m glad to see you ! What’s Abruptly, he squirmed away. it, huh?” “Don’t do that!” His voice was Then he waited, with an ex- loud. “It’s no good, all that stuff! pectant grin. He waited a con- !” Something’s—wrong siderable time after Charlie had He jumped out of bed, and be- sauntered past him and ridden gan rapidly to put on his clothes. off in a Car. Meg lay still for a moment. Then it came to him. Her circuits were not built for “He didn’t see me! Like as if such things. There was nothing I wasn’t here! Yeah!” wrong, and nothing registered. He hurried down the street, Then the cheery morning music and did not think of a Car at all. started out of the wall, soothing He slowed his pace, and walked and bright, and she began to for a leag time. Nobody saw hum with it. She arose, went him. He tried to think. The ef- lightly to her dressing, freshly fort wh too much, and his mind and aweetly tripped into the was a steamed blank, and almost kitchen. pained him. This street: it “Scrambled eggs, honey?" she seemed familiar. Yes, he had asked, in the most caressive of gone cruising here, several times. tones. He began very nearly to regret He had all but forgotten his his deficiency of memory. Wasn’t outburst. there a nice park, up here a little “Yeh, sure honey”, he an- way? He quickened his pace, per- swered. spiring freely. It was right here He ate copiously, and drank —no, it couldn’t be! Not that several cups of black coffee. again! He couldn’t be invisible “Fine day!” he said, belching to other people! There couldn’t his appreciation. be things all around him that he

68 FANTASTIC couldn’t seel It wasn’t right! terest in it. He wanted to know, What did that word mean? He whatever this might mean. He fainted. paused in front of a door. It When he came to, the library opened, and he entered and eased was still there. He staggered to himself into a chair. his feet, and stood still a mo- “You must begin with the al- ment, gazing. There was some- phabet”, the voice began. “This thing cut in the stone over the is the letter A.” large front doors. Why would It flashed upon the screen. He anybody cut something like that copied it on the plate before him. in the stone? It didn’t make Over and over again he copied sense. It wasn’t comfy at all. the letter, and heard its name Then, in the back of his brain, repeated. He was on the way a little light burst, and he heard the words, “All men by nature T TE remained for weeks, for desire to know.” 1 A months, in the library. His There it was again. Hadn’t he room was comfortable, his meals dreamed it? What was this were tasty and well balanced. He “know”? It wasn’t eating or lost weight, he gained continu- drinking or doing or anything. ally an alert, aware sense of well- Then there floated into his pul- being and purpose. He was de- sating areas this “Aristotle”. veloping a mind, and beginning No dig at all. But he knew that to know. it was the inscription in the Throughout the day he studied stone, and he walked up the consciously, or received hypnotic broad front walk and entered the instruction; during the night, doors, which opened automati- while his sleep was more keen cally for him. and more restful than ever be- He walked over the marble fore, the instruction continued. floor. Out of the corner of his eye He learned many things. He be- he seemed almost to discern an came aware of who Aristotle occasional dim figure hurrying was, and what he had done. He past. He walked up two flights of developed an acquaintance with stairs, seemingly alone, and yet all the great men and cultures of seemingly surrounded. It was the lost lands of Europa. He strange, and it was perfectly nat- learned that he lived on the west ural. He had never felt so alive coast of Ameru, and that this before. Not even in a Bed had he coast was one large City; he felt himself so much of a Man. learned that the once large conti- And he did not think about do- nent had dwindled greatly in the ing. He had not the slightest in- disasters, that the ocean waves

RIPENESS IS ALL 69 now poured over the great plains, was! Nobody knowing, or caring and all to the eastward. He felt about anything really impor- occasionally a longing to see the tant; nobody seeing anything. mountains, and the further wa- And certainly they did not see

ters. him : but he saw them very clear- He learned and throve. He be- ly. And how much was there, still gan to see other figures more dis- to be seen, all around him? And tinctly: once in the corridor he what was it, what did it mean? met a Man face to face, and they He had to get out, he had to find smiled and bowed to each other. an answer. It had been a small Man, with a He pushed the nearest button, funny beard, and very bright and slid into the suave black Car eyes. It had not been like any- that noiselessly approached. He body he had ever seen in the had never seen a black Car be- City. But suddenly he knew that fore. He wondered if his eyes he was not like anybody in the were still playing tricks upon City, and that it could no longer him, if he would ever see any- be his home. The shock of the thing aright. Then he dismissed fact that the City was not every- it from his mind. thing, that there was existence, “Take me out of the City”, he and desirable existence, outside said. of it, came to him strongly; but There was a slight hesitation; now he was ready for it. When then they were moving, slowly the tumult was over, his mind and quietly, in a northeasterly was at last born, and he was a direction. human being, ready to aim for high goals, and to co-operate TT was a long ride, past all the with destiny. 1 familiar features of the City, That night much of a strange multiplied many fold. At length nature, called “Sunrise”, came to the Car shuddered slightly, and him, and strange names, faces, the virtue seemed to go out of it and disciplines were vaguely in a gentle rush; it stopped, ut- lodged within him. He awoke terly still, and the silent door with a most definite feeling of slid open with an eloquent final- readiness, and with his breakfast ity. He got out, and the Car he knew, beyond doubt, that seemed to hasten away as from “When the disciple is ready, the an undesired doom. Master appears.” But his weird was upon him; When he had finished eating, he thought so, in the transfixing he left the library, and walked in old terms ; and he turned and be- thought. How dismal everything held an open field, with moun-

70 FANTASTIC tains in the distance. And it For a long time he walked, per- came to him that he had ridden spiring freely, then puffing, limp- this way before, and seen nothing and laboring. It was ing but City all around him. He hot, with no breezes from the sea. thought then of enigmatic things An occasional rill was refreshing, that he had heard and read in the and a glade was cooling : the library : of how certain Tibetans leaves rustled gently in the now rendered themselves invisible, or and then quickened air, and the at least passed unseen, by shield- birds were sweet with song. But ing their thought waves—by giv- there was no sign of human life. ing out no handle for perception At length he sat down on a fallen to grasp. So had this landscape log, and rested. hidden itself, it seemed : shielded He sat long, thinking and doz- itself from desecration. ing. The sun was low in the sky Or perhaps there were beings, when he arose, and followed some perhaps there was existence, that prompting to a ridge not too gave continual indication, bris- greatly in the distance. He had tled with handles, as it were : but come without provision of any handles that could not be grasped kind, and with no fear for his or made use of by an organ- welfare: he would see. The ism insufficiently developed. It ground seemed soft enough, if he seemed more of a truism, the had to sleep there; he took off more he thought of it. his shoes and socks, and enjoyed But it did not seem to matter, the cool grass. on this bright new day. He dis- He walked on toward the missed the question and stepped ridge, slowly and confidently, his forward, into the yielding grass. shoes and socks in his hand. He What a great thing it was to had not eaten for many hours, have a mind, to feel alive on such but he did not seem hungry. a day ! He tried to remember Food was not the tremendously how dim, how crippled he had important thing that it used to

been ; it seemed impossible. be. He thought of his old esuri- Could he have been only one poor, ence, and smiled. Whatever his flickering candle, he who now god was, it was not his belly, it blazed with the light of a hun- was not his body at all. He still dred, or a thousand? Could he had enough flab to live on for have rattled on one cylinder, he some time without inconvenience, who now moved smoothly and and it would be better to live on noiselessly on sixteen or twenty? it, than to keep stuffing himself. It was too marvelous for words, There were no women either, and or for thoughts. no androids. They were tiresome,

RIPENESS IS ALL 71 and tiring, things. He sighed al- lated, and deadened. I was just a most with contentment. young girl, then. I felt charged with the grandeur of God, as

OON he crossed the ridge, and Hopkins put it, and I had to get S saw the smiling farmland in out. I’ve seen a lot of God’s the valley not far below. This grandeur, and a lot of His bless- was where the old food supplies ing, through a long life. It’s had come from: this had been been good, here in the real the life of all but a few, for many world. centuries. There was a great “But it’s no use chattering”, peace over it all. With a sense as she continued. “That doesn’t of treading on hallowed ground, really express or communicate he descended steadily, and soon anything. Nature has got a big- came upon a large and rambling ger and better voice than any of wooden house, unpainted, and us, and the best thing to do is comfortable. Really comfortable, just to listen for it. I hope you’ll in a human way, not in the sham stay with us awhile. The longer way of the City. There was an the better. We like to help people elderly woman on the porch, who’ve just escaped. But I still serenely rocking. As he ap- talk too much. Supper’ll be ready proached, she smiled. pretty soon, and I have to go “Welcome, stranger!” she said. tend to it for a few minutes. Just

“Come on up and rest awhile.” you sit there and be calm : listen He was glad of the invitation, for the still voices." and he mounted the generous He was glad to do so, and glad- and solid steps with his shoes der still to see the men of the and socks still in his hand. He family returning from the fields. sat down and redonned them, un- There were three of them, tall der her friendly smile. and strong, real human beings, “It feels good, doesn’t it?" she healthy and alive, and little asserted. “The real earth, under marked by unprofitable care. real feet. Maybe you read the They had a faith, it seemed, a poet Hopkins before you got out. communion, a divine assurance, I did, right at the last. One poem more or less fulfilled. has always stuck with me, and especially this one line of it: HE older man, the father, Twelcomed him again, and they Neither can feet feel, being shod. were soon seated at the supper table. He noticed that the men I wanted to feel things; I was ate heartily, and had yet not an tired of being shod, and insu- ounce of excess flesh. He rued his

72 FANTASTIC own bulk, and ate but sparingly, countless cycles of diversified only out of politeness. But food sameness ; he was rather a flower had never tasted so good before. that faded with a season, a leaf The two sons were already ap- that would soon fall. He was like proaching middle age, and were a single wave of the vast ocean, still unmarried. This occasioned and like that wave he must for- their mother some concern. But, ever be moving on, questioning. as she said, they didn’t seem to care, and God or nature could ND so he left the farm very take care of these things better A early one morning, and walked than people could. There was no north, as he could tell by the use straining. stars. They would not be sur- "And there aren’t so many prised, and it was better this young women around”, she way, without farewells. They mused. "There aren’t many peo- would know that, for him, they ple. Whatever love-making there had served their purpose, and may be, there’s very little breed- would be glad. And so he walked ing. It’s like the City, in that re- north, before sunrise. For this spect. It seems this just isn’t a direction he was conscious of no very good world these days, com- particular reason; but he felt it paratively speaking, and people to be as good as any other. are being held back till it gets He passed a farm or two, better. There seems to be a sort skirting them carefully, and of a cloud over everything. I breakfasted on the sunrise alone. don’t know. Anyway, we’re con- It was so beautiful, thus break- tented. At least we have our ing, rose and golden, over the minds and hearts, and our pa- hills. He remembered the last tience.” poet that he had read, before his He stayed a week, a month: deliverance: the great Sidney into the natural influences he Lanier. “The Georgia gold mine”, vigorously and gratefully he thought facetiously; and was plunged. He helped with the farm at once sorry, for his shallow- work, and grew lean and hard, ness. No more would successive and mentally as well as physi- suns blaze upon the soft south- cally strong. He stayed on, ern beauty. The warm blue At- through the winter. lantic waves rolled over the home Then, with the spring, his own of this poet-prophet; whose fertile ground began to burst promise, he fervently hoped, was and ache, and he was no longer not yet drowned. He also would satisfied. He was not nature it- be Lit with the Sun. He stretched self, to endure unmoved the out his arms to the streaming

RIPENESS IS ALL 73 gold, and then walked on vigor- most part quite attractive. He ously, with a new purpose not yet found himself speculating briefly defined. on the fierce joy of their dalli- ance in these invigorating wilds. E was getting into ruggeder Then his attention was abruptly H country, and the going was drawn ahead, and he was forced more difficult. But yet he felt no to his knees before one who was inclination to break his fast, or obviously the leader. to slacken his pace. The air was He was in his middle years, fresh, and good. He climbed and bore a long flaxen beard and around the spur of a hill, and leonine mane of hair; his eyes found himself entering a wild were large, and of a piercing but valley; with no sign of human softly reassuring green. He sat, habitation. There was a small still and lordly, and surveyed his stream close by, rippling down captive. from the solitudes. He went to it, At length: “Arise!” and knelt to drink. He obeyed, and stood calmly. As he arose, two ropes de- The leader continued, “Thou scended upon him, from opposite art doubtless but lately from the sides, and his arms were firmly City, of abhorred name. Thou art pinioned. He looked around, and but little acquainted with the us- saw two bearded young men, of ages of life. Do not speak! I not unprepossessing aspect. Each know ’tis true." wore tight-fitting clothing and a peaked hat with a long feather, E paused for a while, then and was armed with knife and H went on with ruminative au- sword. One of them motioned thority. into the valley. “Know that thou hast come “Come on, thou varlet!” he into the hands of the Knights of said. Eld”, he said. “As our name im- They proceeded, and were plies, and indeed our visible de- soon immersed in the rippling limitations proclaim, we are no and jutting hills. cut-throats, or vulgar brawlers. Near the head of the valley, Thou art safe here. and up a hollow to the side, they “But thou art not one of us. came to an expansive and well Though thou art healthy and populated clearing. Many men, strong, and might well prove a bearded and heavily armed, were formidable adversary, thou tak- lounging about, dressed fanci- est no delight in combat. Do I fully, but for action. There were speak sooth? Proclaim!” women also, sturdy and for the He proclaimed that it was

74 FANTASTIC sooth indeed ; with the silent res- “Thou shalt wander without ervation that, if the combat were guide, and no one of us shall sufficiently noble, and profound, take, in any case, further heed of and really, fundamentally neces- thee. Go with our respect. And sary—but his thoughts were cut may it be that thou fallest not short. into the hands of those ruder “Then thou hast no place here, and less magnanimous, like as unless perchance thou comest for the Snakes, perdie, dr the Moun- succour, or for sanctuary." tain Lions. Thou hast been hon- His answer being negative, the orably received, and thou art !" leader continued: warned. Begone “Know that our life is combat. There be many bands, against R left with as much alacrity whom we strive. We have made H as he thought became him, good escape from the emasculate and continued on his way. For life of yon City, and we have the remainder of the day he wan- vowed not to let the spirit of dered, without attempting to fix gentle manhood perish. The ele- a course, or to avoid anything ments strive together, and yet that might come to him. He was the strife is co-operative: and so lost in thought, with a great should it be with men. sense of well-being that he felt “I like thee,” he continued, that nothing could overcome. with a smile. “Say if thou wilt As the shadows of evening be- stay with us, and learn our ways. gan to lengthen, and the first There is much that we can rede stars to shine, he found himself thee, and the benefit will be mu- ascending the side of a small but tual, and I trust great.” respectably rugged mountain. He was briefly tempted, but By the time of total darkness, he still, clearly and promptly, he de- had reached the top, and seated clined. The leader frowned himself beneath a redwood tree. slightly, and was silent. Then He began to feel hungry, but not the imperious tones rang out: faint, and with a slight effort of “Thou art strong! And thou his will the hunger passed away. shalt be stronger, if ought of He sank into a revery, he sat still ours can aid to the achievement and thought and contemplated of this result, so much to be de- through the long night hours. sired. The cool dews came upon him, “Then hearken well. Thy food and the light winds were whis- shall be taken from thee.” pering in the pale first light, and His knapsack was ripped rude- he was undisturbed. ly from his back. He remained on the mountain

RIPENESS IS ALL 75 for three days, eating nothing, cally, on the faint breezes. And and not thinking of food. He felt the weariness and the weakness the opposing forces of life with- came to him also, strongly, the in, through and around him. The exhaustion of his great efforts of harmonious, continually pulsing the past several days. He lost tension of existence became in consciousness, and sank in a a manner clear to him, its great seemingly almost boneless heap necessity indubitable. He knew to the side of the mountain. that the battle of opposites, the He awoke the following morn- co-operative strife of elements, ing in a small hut, secluded, in abilities, tendencies, must be the shade of a large tree and be- fought within himself; he fore- side a stream. A spare old man, saw no gain from the struggle’s with a slight beard and twinkling objectification, or its transferral eyes, nodded to him. to his associations with others. "Smells good, does it?” he He would have peaceful, pro- asked. foundly and highly aspiring, It smelled very good, and it adequate companions, or he looked better when the old man would remain alone. brought him an ample breakfast, During the fourth night, just well prepared. He ate slowly, sa- before the dawn, he saw a shim- voring each mouthful. mering light over a higher crest “If you don’t know where you in the distance. For an instant it are,” said the old man, “this is seemed to become a finger, point- a community of artists. We don’t ing; and then it faded. He arose, always get along very well to- light but unfaint from fasting, gether,” he smiled, “but usually and set out for the indicated we’re minding our own business mountain. He encountered no anyway and it’s to ; good ex- other person along the way. change ideas and insights now and then, and see each other's T was in the late afternoon work. And we co-operate too, es- I that he arrived. It was a large pecially on the stage produc- and beautiful valley, into which tions, like Noh plays, or Wagner, he slowly descended. It was or something contemporary. I thickly populated, and filled with can introduce you to a young a seething, a tremendous activ- man who has written some very ity. Waves of immense, ardent powerful and apt music for the energy enveloped him, compound Aeschylean choruses.” of great joy and great despair; “I’m a poet myself,” he con- heart-ravishing music, barely tinued, “and a dramatist now audible, came to him, spasmodi- and then. I’m pretty modest and

76 FANTASTIC easy-going, compared to most of achieved a bird that seemed al- the people here, but I have my most ready to fly from the paper. moments, and I’ve done some Another was painting a melt- pretty good things in my life. ingly beautiful portrait of his

I’ll probably show you some later mistress, with flowers in her on. It’s a good thing for you I’m hair.

in a silent period just now : if the “When we get back, I’ll show old touch had been on my lyre, you a real picture,” the old poet

I’d never have noticed you ; or if said. “It’s called Vasuki. He’s the I had, I’d not have attended to king of the snakes, according to you. But come on, you look the Hindus. I don’t know much

healthy enough : let me show you about the man who did it, except around.” that he’s got the most wonderful He arose to dress, and the old eyes I ever saw. I tried to do him man looked him over with frank justice in a sonnet once, but I admiration. failed. He just appeared one day, “You’re a fine figure,” he said. and then disappeared one day, “And the beard does you justice: and that’s all anyone seems to or you do justice to the beard. know. Two of our best young You’re like one of the old Bibli- painters went out to look for him cal patriarchs. Or like my idea over a year ago, and they haven’t of them, anyway; which may be returned.” far enough from the truth.” There were musical concerts, They left the hut, and walked operas and plays. There were pot- beside the stream into the main ters at their wheels, and sculp- valley. tors with their chisels and their clay. Every art seemed repre- HEY passed an occasional sented. Tdistracted figure, who paid “In that hut over there,” said them no heed. Painters were nu- the poet, “lives one of the great- merous: one of them, burly and est musical geniuses the world covered with paint, had ostenta- has ever known. Better even tiously affixed his canvas to a than Beethoven, I think. Maybe rock wall, and was facing away you’ll have a chance to meet him, from all the beauties of the if he turns sociable while you’re scenery: with furious strokes he here. I trust you’ll be here for a was nearing the completion of long time. Maybe you'll stay for his vivid abstraction. One sat good? You seem to have the cross-legged, quite self-con- mark in your forehead.” tained, and with a few strokes of He stayed for several months. the brush, black on white. He luxuriated in the splendor

RIPENESS IS ALL 77 and the beauty of this dedicated artists, and those he considered life. Great artistry of sound and the profoundest and the surest, word, color and form, filled him: were not permanent residents but never to overflowing, and here. They came and went, with never, fully, to satisfaction. He a light as of far peaks in their grew weary of the continual eyes. Like the painter of Vasuki, reaching out, the perpetual feed- which was truly a marvelous pic- ing upon dreams. He shared the ture, instinct with a spirit that raptures and the torments of the made most other productions artists, he felt powerfully and seem like mere daubs of paint. saw deeply, more than ever be- He felt that that man knew fore: but something was lacking. something, and that he did not The occasional flashes of insight learn it here, that he did not were not enough, and the labor, learn it as a painter at all. There the aspiration, was heart-break- must be other places, or another ing. What he sought was still be- place, in which art and the art- yond, beyond art itself, beyond ists were mature. He had had all possible creation. And yet, it enough of this unquiet, the must be attainable. greatest ecstasies of which obviously fell below the peace and the E aspired to poetry, he tried assurance that called to him. He H to give a voice to his aspira- was weary of this perpetual tion and his need. But it was not straining with materials and in him. And what if it had been? methods inadequate to the task. Why should he write verses to And so, reluctantly, he left the complain that he was not Lit artists, and continued his pil- with the Sun? He thought brief- grimage. As he departed, a sym- ly of the Twentieth Century poe- phony orchestra was performing try that he had read, the poetry Mozart’s Requiem, and this per- of the Dark Ages, and shuddered fect artistry, serene and soaring, at the thought of adding to that dedicated to the very Source, store. He would never attempt and, it seemed, instinct with expression again, until he knew something of its light, comprised something to express. But when a fitting and a reassuring fare- the time came, perhaps it would well. flow from him in such a golden As the dying strains played stream as he remembered from upon him, he was filled again the great masters. Perhaps the with the ravishing verses of Sid- poet had not read too mistakenly ney Lanier. Out of the high the sign in his forehead. beauty, these words mingled He noticed that some of the clearly with his consciousness:

78 FANTASTIC !

0 long ago the billow-flow of He replied that it was, and sense that he was a seeker of wisdom, Aroused by passion’s windy and hoped one day to prove to be vehemence a lover of it—after he had found Upbore me out of depths to it. heights intense, The philospher smiled, and But not to thee, Nirvana. continued, "Perhaps it is best to It was so true, and so much be- be a lover of the search; per- yond him! The meaning was haps, indeed, the search itself is

never clear, and yet, against it, the greatest wisdom. This used all else was a deeper darkness. to be considered a platitude,” he But it called him, and that was laughed, “when education was sufficient. He must continue, pa- more wide-spread in the world. tiently, on the way. But I have never found anything bright and brand new that HE walk was pleasant, and matches it. I do not want to be Tthe evergreens were soughing one of those who ‘give to dust gently, as he passed. Midway in that is a little gilt more laud the afternoon he sat down by a than gilt o’erdusted’. How about convenient spring, and ate quick- you?” ly a light meal. As he was rest- He smiled agreement. He was ing, a man came through the beginning somewhat to like this trees before him: balding and man: but still he could not re- rather stout, and apparently ap- spect him, either as an embodi- proaching the end of middle age. ment of wisdom or as a seeker of He did not know whether he it. His mind seemed only clever, cared to talk with this man. But and rather lazy and complacent he had little choice, for he hailed with its cleverness: it seemed him with a sort of good-natured quite incapable of any really camaraderie, and came and sat deep probing, or high flight. This beside him. was not his idea of a philosopher. “You may consider me a phi- The object of this scrutiny losopher," the man announced; seemed somewhat to sense its im- “that is, in the fine old sense, a port, and to shrug it off. lover of wisdom. I don’t think "I could tell it at a glance,” he that will frighten you away," he said. “You’re one of the most in- chuckled. “I think I can see that telligent men I’ve ever seen es- you agree with Socrates: that cape from that monstrosity of a you consider an unexamined life City. Let me congratulate you to be a life that is not worth liv- It’s a terrible thing to live like ing. Is this correct?” that.

RIPENESS IS ALL 79 —

“One immense mechanized more. That is, there aren’t any mass ! One big idiot’s delight, seasons—just hints of them. But full of nothing but idiots, or maybe you know that by now. morons at best. Everybody “hap- Ah—yes. I guessed as much. py”: food, shelter and sex all You look like a man that has taken care of, and real human been out long enough to—well, contact at a minimum: a true to look like a man. earthly paradise. A paradise for "I wonder how it will end? morons, that is, for people who The birth-rate’s way down, and really prefer to live worse than seems to continue decreasing, hogs. God bless the dear technol- even in the country. Maybe the ogists, who keep it going: they race is gradually dying out : evo- as stupid as the majority, of lution getting rid of an unfit course, just morons with a little species. But I wouldn’t expect it mechanical know-how, as the to be so gentle about it. phrase was. And bless whatever “The more I think about it, the powers there are, for the library, better I see what an infinite escape! and the chance to amount I’ve got to learn. An- "I don’t know how it came other platitude: Newton picking about, but there’s something be- up pebbles on the sea-shore. May- hind it. Just before the poor lit- be the craze for sheer novelty is tle fools could blow themselves one of the things that made this up, the Disasters hit them: and mess. I don’t know. But I think while they were still trauma- that there is such a thing as tized, this system began to take truth, and that it doesn’t adapt It’s fine thing, care of them. a I itself to conditions: conditions guess, for those that aren’t capa- have to adapt themselves to it. ble of a life worth living. And for Do you agree? Yes, I thought so. those that are, too: it seems to I think I’ll have to be heading take hold of them at just the back to the library in a few days. right time. It seems that it gives I’ve seen enough this trek. everyone just what he is best “There seems to be a guardian fitted for, and then lets him go. angel, somehow, if you believe in that. The explanation’s probably T never really let go of me a purely natural one. But people I or got rid of me. I alternate, come out and live as they like to, from city to country: read my- with no hindrance, and they self to a standstill, and then prosper. They do a little simple travel awhile. It’s always pleas- farming, and always have bump- ant, up here. It’s like the coast: er crops. The weather and the the seasons don’t change any- wild animals never hurt them,

80 FANTASTIC and they never hurt each other. HE philosopher smiled toler-

The ones that like to fight do it, Tantly. but only with swords and knives, “You have found that the and nobody ever seems to get physical is deadly,” he replied. killed. All the literature and art "And you do not appear to be a of the world is preserved, for man who enjoys emotional

those that want it : as many drunkenness. What is it you

copies as demanded. Sometimes I want?” bring copies of books with me. It “Perhaps if I knew, I would helps, to read them out here. Na- have it. I suppose it might be ture’s a lot vaster and more won- called the spiritual, if there is a

derful than we know. word for it. But I know that it is “Everything seems to be taken calling me. If you care to come care of. Nobody lives in want or with me, perhaps I can begin to fear anymore. Except,” he smiled explain.” ruefully, "want of understand- The philosopher almost ing, and fear of death. But we laughed outright. can take things philosophically, "No thank you”, he said. "I do to use an old popular expres- not care to take refuge in any sion.” vague mysticism. What I know The philosopher paused I want really to know, intelligi- awhile, thinking, observing his bly and clearly. I am no dream- perplexing companion. He could er.” not make him out. Presently he “Are they irKesponsible returned to his long-standing dreamers, who are behind these provisional solution for all prob- historically unparalleled phe- lems. nomena? Surely there must be “Well, why don’t you come someone there. You have seemed back to the library with me? to think so yourself.” Tramping around out here is all The philosopher smiled right for a while, it relaxes you wryly, a little sheepishly. and keeps you in touch with “Sages in the mountains, eh? things; but meanwhile, time Yes, I’ll admit having sought flies. Shall we go?” them. But they do not seem to “I think not," the bearded pa- want me to find them, and I am triarch replied. “The usefulness going back to the library to fol- of books is all but exhausted for low some leads that I have me. And even the greatest and thought up for myself. fullest truth, set down in a book, "I do not care to let my mind I think must be inadequate. It’s abdicate its high position,” he not an intellectual thing I seek.” concluded, with a slight sneer.

RIPENESS IS ALL 81 ;

“Goodbye, then. I wish you he continued, “and be properly well." trained.” "And so do I wish you,” re- He stood up, restlessly. His joined the philosopher, with an last day among the artists was attempt at mocking irony, as he tumbling piecemeal upon him. arose. "Goodbye, my friend.” Was it Shakespeare that the He began briskly down the theatrical group had been per- path, stopped, and called back, forming? Yes, King Lear! Such ‘T hear that there is an island magnificent art, and so futile. He rising, in the Pacific : maybe you paced about sadly, trying to re- can find some wise mermaids out member a certain line—yes, this there!” was it: He laughed maliciously, and Men must endure strode quickly out of sight. Their going hence, even as their coming hither ND so the abused budding Ripeness is all. A mystic was left alone, as he And that's true, too, he sighed desired it. with old Gloucester. And surely "Goethe was right,” he he was ripe now, if he was ever

thought to himself ; “men are all going to be. He was balanced in too predominantly wont to scorn the midst of his various tenden- what they do not understand. cies, and one-pointed for a great Goethe himself illustrated the drive, a penetration to the tendency very well. depths. He would know himself “There are so many things truly, as infinitely more than that cannot be understood by the that which comes and goes, and ordinary intellectual-emotional- shines but briefly in the dark- sensible mind, no matter how ness. clever it may be, or how brilliant He stood listening, and gazing and vigorous, and broad and into the distance. Yes! The call deep and strong. It lacks too was clear now, and there would much : it is not self-existent, and be no further stopping along the self-sustaining. And the things way. He strode out strongly, and that it cannot understand are cut due east, heading for the the only things of real, undying really high mountains, and the importance. farther shore. “May I soon find my teacher," THE END

When answering an advertisement be sure to say you saw it in FANTASTIC

82 By KAREN ANDERSON

Because this is a masculine world, the author

of this fairytale is usually identified as the

wife of Foul Anderson. But a few more incisive

cameos of fantasy such as this, and Mr. Anderson

may come to be identified as Karen’s husband.

HE EDGE of the world is was different from looking Tfenced off stoutly enough, but through the fence, and when he the fence isn’t made that will moved it was slowly. He eased stop a boy. Johnny tossed his himself to the ground where a pack and coil of rope over it and corner of rock rose clear of the started climbing. The top three thick larkspur and lay on his strands were barbed wire. He belly, the stone hard and cool un- caught his shirt as he went over, der his chin, and looked down. and had to stop for a moment to The granite cliff curved away ease himself off. Then he dropped out of sight, and he couldn’t see lightly to the grass on the other if it had a foot. He saw only end- side. less blue, beyond, below, and on The pack had landed in a clump both sides. Clouds passed slowly. of white clover. A cloud of dis- Directly beneath him there turbed bees hung above, and he was a ledge covered with long snatched it away quickly lest they grass where clusters of stars should notice the honeycomb in- bloomed on tall, slender stalks. side. He uncoiled his rope and found For a minute he stood still, a stout beech tree not too close to looking out over the edge. This the edge. Doubling the rope

83 around the bole, he tied one end Away to the left, the cliff fell around his waist, slung the pack back in a wide crescent, and near- on his back, and belayed himself ly opposite him a river tumbled down the cliff. Pebbles clattered, over the edge. A pool on a ledge saxifrage brushed his arms and beneath caught most of the wa- tickled his ears; once he groped ter, and there were hippogriffs for a hold with his face in a patch drinking. One side of the broad of rustling ferns. pool was notched. The overflow The climb was hard, but not fell sheer in a white plume blown too much. Less than half an hour sideways by the wind. later he was stretched out on the As the sun grew hotter, the grass with stars nodding about hippogriffs began to settle and him. They had a sharp, gingery browse on the islands that float- smell. He lay in the cool shadow ed past. Not far below, he no- of the world’s edge for a while, ticed, a dozen or so stood drow- eating apples and honeycomb sily on an island that was float- from his pack. When he was fin- ing through the cliff’s shadow ished he licked the honey off his toward his ledge. It would pass fingers and threw the apple cores directly below him. over, watching them fall into the With a sudden resolution, blue. Johnny jerked his rope down Little islands floated along, from the tree above and tied the rocking gently in air eddies. Sun- end to a projecting knob on the light flashed on glossy leaves of cliff. Slinging on his pack again, buakes growing there. When an he slid over the edge and down istend drifted into the shadow of the rope. the cliff, the blossoming stars The island was already pass- •hone out. Beyond the shadows, ing. The end of the rope trailed deep in the light-filled gulf, he through the gram. He slithered saw the bippogriffs at play. down and cut a piece off his line. It was barely long enough aft- HIRE were dozens of them, er he had tied a noose in the end. Tfrisking and cavorting in the He looked around at the hippo- air. He gazed at them full of won- griffs. They had shied away der. They pretended to fight, when he dropped onto the is- stooped at one another, soared land, but now they stood still, off in long spirals to stoop and watching him warily. soar and stoop again. One flashed Johnny started to take an ap- by him, a golden palomino that ple out of his pack, then changed shone like polished wood. The his mind and took a piece of wind whistled in its wings. honeycomb. He broke off one cor-

84 FANTASTIC ner and tossed it toward them. piebald hippogriff wheeled away, They fluttered their wings and but returned almost at once and

backed off a few steps, then stood ate it. Johnny tossed a third piece still again. only a few yards from where he Johnny sat down to wait. They was sitting. were mostly chestnuts and It was bigger than the others, blacks, and some had white and the hippogriff had to bite it stockings. One was piebald. That in two. When the hippogriff was the one which, after a while, bent its head to take the rest began edging closer to where the Johnny was on his feet instantly, honeycomb had fallen. Johnny swinging his lariat. He dropped sat very still. the noose over the hippogriff’s head. For a moment the animal he piebald sniffed at the honey- was too startled to do anything; Tcomb, then jerked up its head then Johnny was on its back, to watch him suspiciously. He clinging tight. didn’t move. After a moment it The piebald hippogriff leaped took the honeycomb. into the air, and Johnny clamped When he threw another bit, the his legs about convulsed muscles.

THE PIEBALD HIPPOGRIFF 85 Pinions whipped against his knuckles. Another kick, and an- knees and wind blasted his eyes. other. Johnny dragged at the

The world tilted ; they were rush- rope. ing downward. His knees pressed The tense wings flailed, caught the sockets of the enormous air, and brought the hippogriff wings. upright again. The rope slack- The distant ramparts of the ened and he heard huge gasps. world swung madly, and he Sunlight was hot on him again seemed to fall upward, away and a drop of sweat crawled down from the sun that suddenly his temple. It tickled. He loos- glared under the hippogriff’s tal- ened one hand to dab at the an- ons. He forced his knees under noyance. A new twist sent him the roots of the beating wings sliding and he grabbed the rope. and dug heels into prickling hair. The tickle continued until he A sob caught his breath and he nearly screamed. He no longer clenched his teeth. dared let go. Another tickle de- The universe righted itself veloped beside the first. He about him for a moment and he scrubbed his face against the

pulled breath into his lungs. coarse fibre of the rope ; the relief Then they plunged again. Wind was like a world conquered. searched under his shirt. Once he Then they glided in a steady looked down. After that he kept spiral that carried them upward his eyes on the flutter of the with scarcely a feather’s motion. feather-mane. When the next plunge came Johnny was ready for it and JOLT sent him sliding back- leaned back until the hippogriff A ward. He clutched the rope arched its neck, trying to free it- with slippery fingers. The wings self from the pressure on its missed a beat and the hippogriff windpipe. Half choked, it glided shook its head as the rope mo- again, and Johnny gave it breath. mentarily checked its breath. It They landed on one of the little tried to fly straight up, lost way, islands. The hippogriff drooped and fell stiff-winged. The long its head and wings, trembling. muscles stretched under him as He took another piece of honey- it arched its back, then bunched comb from his pack and tossed when it kicked straight out be- it to the ground where the hippo- hind. The violence loosened his griff could reach it easily. While knees and he trembled with fa- it ate he stroked it and talked to tigue, but he wound the rope it. When he dismounted the hip- around his wrists and pressed pogriff took honeycomb from his his forehead against whitened hand. He stroked its neck,

86 FANTASTIC breathing the sweet warm feath- air. He threw his arms about the ery smell, and laughed aloud great flat-muscled neck and when it snuffled the back of his pressed his face against the neck. warm feathers, with a faint Tying the rope into a sort of sense of embarassment at feeling hackamore, he mounted again tears in his eyes. and rode the hippogriff to the “Good old Patch," he said, and pool below the thunder and cold got his pack. He shared the spray of the waterfall. He took last piece of honeycomb with his care that it did not drink too hippogriff and watched the sun much. When he ate some apples sink still further. The clouds for his lunch, the hippogriff ate were turning red. the cores. "Let’s go see those clouds,” Afterward he rode to one of Johnny said. He mounted the the drifting islands and let his piebald hippogriff and they flew mount graze. For a while he kept off, up through the golden air to by its side, making much of it. the sunset clouds. There they With his fingers, he combed out stopped and Johnny dismounted the soft flowing plumes of its on the highest cloud of all, stood mane, and examined its hoofs there as it turned slowly gray, and the sickle-like talons of the and looked into dimming depths. forelegs. He saw how the smooth When he turned to look at the feathers on its forequarters be- world, he saw only a wide smudge came finer and finer until he of darkness spread in the dis- could scarcely see where the hair tance. on the hindquarters began. Deli- The cloud they were standing cate feathers covered its head. on turned silver. Johnny glanced The island glided further and" up and saw the moon, a crescent further away from the cliffs, and shore far above. he watched the waterfall dwindle He ate an apple and gave one away to a streak and disappear. to his hippogriff. While he After a while he fell asleep. chewed he gazed back at the world. When he finished his ap- E woke with a start, suddenly ple, he was about to toss the core H cold: the setting sun was to the hippogriff, but stopped below his island. The feathery himself and carefully took out odor was still on his hands. He the seeds first. With the seeds in looked around for the hippogriff his pocket, he mounted again. and saw it sniffing at his pack. He took a deep breath. “Come When it saw him move, it trot- on, Patch,” he said. “Let’s home- ted up to him with an expectant stead the moon.” the end

THE PIEBALD HIPPOGRIFF 87

Change of Heart

By GEORGE WHITLEY

Illustrator ADKINS

Was the castaway mad from his days of suffering?

Or was his weird tale of vengeful monsters of the

deep a warning to the world?

NCE, during the Second have made us much happier, es- O World War, I depth charged pecially since we knew that a a whale. convoy not very far ahead of us Those of us who served in the had been badly mauled by a wolf fast (but not fast enough) well pack. But we were not lacking in armed (but not well armed armament. We mounted a six enough) independently sailing inch gun, a twelve pounder, eight merchant ships were apt to suf- Oerlikons, half a dozen light fer from itchy trigger fingers, machine guns and our full quota were liable to shoot first and to of assorted rocket weapons. In ask questions afterwards. smugly in their racks right aft, This was such an occasion. three depth charges. We were homeward bound, It was my forenoon watch. running north and east from I was nervously pacing the Bermuda to Liverpool. It was a bridge, checking the alteration of typical Western Ocean morning course every time that the bell of —not too cold, for we were in the the zig-zag clock in the wheel- Gulf Stream and the following house sounded, making sure that half gale was south westerly. the Oerlikon gunners in the There was a penetrating, unpleas- bridge wings were keeping an ef- ant drizzle that threatened to ficient leok-out. With my own turn to fog at any moment. We binoculars I scanned the heaving had no radar, neither were we greyness ahead and astern, to equipped with asdic. The posses- port and to starboard. sion of either instrument would And then I saw it, fine on the

89 port bow, a long dark shape that the bridge, to the telegraph. broke surface briefly in a smoth- I jerked the handle to Let Go. er of foam, that was crossing The bell jangled as the pointer our bows and heading out to came round to acknowledge starboard. It was, perhaps, half the order. a mile distant. The port Oerlikon “Submarine?” asked the Cap- gunner saw it too; his weapon tain tersely. hammered suddenly and shock- “Yes, sir. She was right ahead ingly, sending a stream of twen- when I picked her up. I tried to ty millimetre tracer shells hosing ram, but she must have dived.” out over the waves. I ran for the We stared aft, at the turbu- wheelhouse shouting to the lence of our wake. And then there helmsman. “Starboard a little! was more than the disturbance Starboard five degrees! Steady!” created by our racing screws. We I pushed up the plunger switch saw the surface of the sea boil that actuated the alarm bells, and break before we felt the then twirled the calling handle hammer blow of the underwater of the sound-powered telephone. explosion. We saw a geyser of "Six inch!” I snapped. white water—and lifted on it, “Six inch here, sir." twisting and turning, the great !” "Arm and set depth charges body. The enormous head, the The six inch guns crew would fluked tail, made recognition in- have closed up by now; there stantaneous. would be somebody to attend to The broken thing fell back in- the telephone while the gunner to the violently disturbed water, on watch set the charges. There remaining afloat for a few sec- would be somebody to stand by onds. The sea around it was red the docking telegraph, which with blood. could be used for warlike pur- Then—but it was a long time poses as well as for its original ago—I felt sorry for that whale. function, a means of rapid com- Now . . . munication when berthing the ship. I made a mental computa- HE war was over, and then tion, felt rather than reasoned Tthere was the Cold War, and that at our speed we should be, there was the Korean War, and now, right over the submarine. there were the various revolu- I was dimly aware that the other tions and the suppressions of officers were on the bridge, that revolutions—but we, in the Mer- the Old Man was standing at my chant Navy, soon forgot all that elbow. He did not interfere, but we had ever learned about guns followed me out to the wing of and gunnery, very soon lost the

90 FANTASTIC feeling of naked defenseless- gave me hell because I hadn’t ness that at first afflicted us seen a blasted porpoise playing !” when we ventured out of port about the bows without as much as a light ma- So my not very taut—but quite chine gun mounted about the happy—ship was in mid-Paciflc, decks. Our status hadn’t a little artificial satellite falling changed. We were still civilians down the long orbit between the —but we were no longer civilians Gulf of Panama and Auckland. expecting to be shot at and (After all, a Great Circle track equipped with the wherewithal could be classed as a surface or- for shooting back. bit.) There was the sky, usually Time passed, with its pas- cloudless, above us, there was the sage came the usual promotions blue, empty sea all around us. until, not so long ago, I found There was the familiar, pleasant myself Master of one of the Com- ship’s routine—the routine that pany’s smaller and older vessels, on a long voyage seems to be outward bound from the U.K. to built around meal times and deck New Zealand via the Panama golf times and gin times. There Canal. was a well stocked ship’s library, Frankly, once the initial wor- supplemented by the books that ries were behind me I was en- I had brought with me. There joying the voyage. I had no in- was the novel—the novel—that tention of running “a taut ship” I was going to write some time —that phrase, in fact, has al- when I felt strong enough; at ways rather repelled me. A happy the moment, however, I was en- ship is not necessarily an inef- joying the laziness after years ficient one; the so called taut of a more or less strenuous life ship very often is just that. My as Chief Officer far too much to officers were capable and no lazi- be able to drive myself to break er than the generality of certi- out my portable typewriter and ficated personnel. As long as supply of paper. things got done I let them do And then, one fine afternoon, them in their own way. My at- I was awakened from my after- titude, I admit, has rather noon sleep by the buzzing of the changed of late. I am apt to be telephone. extremely fussy about an effi- I took the instrument from its cient look-out. Recently I over- rest, said drowsily and irritably, heard my disgruntled Third "Captain here.” Mate complaining to the Second "Second Officer, sir. I’ve sight- Mate at the watch relief, “The ed something ahead and a little Old Man’s getting worse. He to starboard. Looks like a raft.”

CHANGE OF HEART 91 “I’ll be right up,” I told him. would obviously have been un- able to climb a pilot ladder. But T FOUND him on the starboard I wasn’t sufficiently sure of my A wing of the bridge, his binoc- abilities as a ship handler; it ulars focussed on the distant ob- would have been a cruel irony to ject. I brought my own to bear. crush or overset the flimsy craft It was a raft all right—a rough- and to kill the man at the very ly constructed affair with a mast moment of rescue. from which a tattered rag de- So I stopped the ship about a pended limply. There was a man quarter of a mile from the raft sprawled at the foot of the mast. and lowered and sent away the I thought that I saw him move. motor boat, under the Chief Of- I depressed the lever of the au- ficer. The Mate handled the boat tomatic whistle control, heard well, laid it alongside the rough the deep, organ note go booming platform and then sent two A.B.s out over the gently undulant wa- to help the man aboard. They ter. The man heard it too. He had to lift him, to carry him, to tried to stagger to his feet, man- pass him over the gunwales into aged to get to his knees. He the lifeboat. One of them re- clung to the mast with one boarded, the other one remained hand, waved feebly with the oth- on the raft for a minute or so, er. Then he collapsed. searching the small area. He Meanwhile, my Second Mate found nothing—I could see the had not been idle. I had been gesture that he made with his faintly conscious of the shrilling empty hands—and then rejoined of his pocket whistle as he called his mates. the stand-by man of the watch. I went down to the boat deck Shortly afterwards I realized when the lifeboat returned. I that the Chief Officer was stand- looked down into the boat as it ing behind me, waiting for or- was rehoisted. The castaway ders, and that the Bo’s’n was looked more dead than alive. He waiting behind him. was bearded, shaggy, emaciated, There was no need to give any deeply sunburned. He was naked orders really. It was just a nice, but for a ragged pair of shorts. uncomplicated rescue job, with A jolt as the gunwale of the boat weather conditions more in our fouled a plate edge seemed to favor than otherwise. I could stir him into consciousness. He have brought the ship right started up, looked around wildly. alongside the raft and sent a man The Mate put out a hand to re- down with a gantline to make strain him. He seized the fast around the castaway—he Mate’s hand in his own two olaws, 92 FANTASTIC — — hung on to it desperately. The average ship’s officer can manage sight could have been ludicrous as well as the average G.P. —but it was somehow frighten- rather better, perhaps, as he has ing. a deeper understanding of the The boat was brought up to psychology of merchant seamen. fishplate level and then the winch The Mate, I found, was coping was stopped. The castaway was quite well. He had put the man lifted and passed inboard into one of the hospital bunks. "Light as a Weedin’ fewer, ’e is,” He had smeared the cracked lips I heard one of the A.B.s say and the cracked skin of the upper and then strapped into the wait- face and body with petroleum ing stretcher. The glaring eyes jelly. He was holding a cup of in the dark brown face—the face hot, sweet tea from which the that was little more than dry castaway, propped up with pil- skin stretched over a skull lows, was sipping slowly. He found mine. “Captain?” he was saying soothingly, “You can croaked. tell your story later. You must “Yes. I am the Captain.” get your strength back first

"Must . . . Must tell you. ” Must warn . The man jerked his head vio- “In a little while,” I told him. lently so that the tea slopped “Now,” he whispered demand- over the Mate’s hand and over ingly. “Now.” the white bed linen. He cried and already his voice was strong- UT I had other things to at- er, was less of a croak—“But this B tend to. I ignored his plead- is important. You must be ings, went back to the bridge warned. You have radio. You where I waited until the boat must warn the world!” had been swung inboard and se- Pirates ? I wondered. Russian cured. I gave the orders that put submarines on the prowl? Little an end to the interruption to our green men from flying saucers? voyage. Then, with the ship “Let him talk,” I said. once again on her course and He turned to stare at me. "Yes, with the engines turning at full Captain. I’ll talk. And you will speed, I left the bridge to the of- listen. You must listen. You ficer of the watch and went down must. You must!" His voice had to the hospital. risen to a scream. We carried no doctor that “Yes,” I said soothingly. "I’ll trip, but it didn’t really matter. listen.” Given the Medical Guide and a I listened—and this is what I well stocked medicine chest the heard.

CHANGE OF HEART 93 —

'T’HERE were six of us (he out to starboard. Clarry got up

said) . There were six of us, to look. I looked too. I thought and we were bumming around at first that the broken water the islands, picking up the odd was indication of a reef—then parcel of cargo, the occasional saw that it was a school of dol- deck passenger. She had been a phins. Nothing unusual, perhaps smallish patrol craft during the —but this was unusual. There war, and then she’d been convert- was a whale among them. A big ed into a fishing boat, with re- fellow. A sperm whale, by the frigeration, so we could always looks of him. catch and later sell fish when They were heading our way. there was nothing else offering. I didn’t worry, neither did the Jimmy Larsen—he’d been in the others. Porpoises are friendly Navy—was our navigator, and brutes. They like to show off their Pete Rnsso was the engineer, superior turn of speed, like to and Bill and Clarry and Des and make rings around even fast myself just lent a hand as and ships. And the poor little Sue when required. It was a good Darling wasn’t a fast ship. She enough life while it lasted. may have been, when the Navy But it didn’t last. had her, but she wasn’t now. We were making a passage She was Jimmy’s girl friend in

from . . . from . . . Honolulu, Sue Darling. Yes, that Sorry, I wasn’t the navigator, was her name. You’d better tell and I could never remember the her, Captain. But break it gent- names of those islands. But it ly to her if you can. She was a was a French island, a small one, good kid, and she thought the and we had this cargo of govern- world of Jimmy. ment stores. And it doesn’t mat- They were heading our way ter much where we were taking and then, as I had known they it to, because we never got there. would, they altered course be- It was a fine morning when it fore they hit us, half of them happened. I was at the wheel. passing astern, the others pass- Bill and Clarry were sunbaking ing ahead. But the whale didn’t on the foredeck, Pete was in the alter course. He was a big brute. engineroom, Des and Jimmy There must have been damn’ were sleeping. I was damn’ near- nearly a hundred tons of him, ly asleep myself, but I was keep- and he was doing a good twelve ing the lubber’s line steady knots. enough on the course. He hit us at speed, right I heard Bill call out, saw him amidships, and that was the end get to his feet. He was pointing, of Sue Darling. She was a wood-

94 FANTASTIC — en ship, and she was old, and she wasn’t. I was frightened. It was just fell to pieces at the impact. . . . uncanny. The diesels must have gone Anyhow, there the four of us straight down when the bottom were—Bill, Clarry, Des and my- fell out of her, taking Pete Rus- self. The four non-specialists. so with them. We never saw any- We were seamen by courtesy thing of him. I did glimpse only. We were no more than pen- Jimmy briefly before he went pushers who had heard the call down. He must have been dead of the islands, who had found a there was a lot of blood. Some- nomadic life in a rickety little thing must have hit him, must island tramp preferable to an ex- have smashed his skull in. Des istence chained to an office desk. got out of it all right—not that But we were none of us much it did him much good in the end. good at doing things—which, I shall never forget the absurd perhaps, was just as well. But look of amazement on his face the porpoises weren’t to know as he woke up to find himself that. struggling in the water. There were no oars in the dinghy. They had fallen out, and HE porpoises were all around were drifting with the wreckage Tus, buffeting us with their of the ship. We argued among sleek bodies, making odd grunt- ourselves about it, tried to de- ing noises. At first I thought cide which one of us was going that they were attacking us. But to swim from the boat to bring they weren’t. They were herding them back. But none of us was us to where the dinghy that had keen on going over the side. That been lashed to the ship’s cabin water was too . . . too crowded. top was floating, bottom up. And And for the same reason we it seemed—I thought at the time weren’t keen on using our hands that I was going mad—that those as paddles until we recovered the grunting noises were some sort oars. Suddenly we had become of speech, that they were talking very frightened of the sea and among themselves and trying to of everything that moved within tell us something. it They helped us to right the The porpoises settled the ar- dinghy. Yes, Captain, they helped gument. They surrounded the us. And one of them surfaced boat—to port, to starboard, as- under me and gave me a boost tern. I was afraid that the pres- as I was trying to struggle over sure of their bodies would push the gunwale. I should have been in the planking. They got under grateful to the brute, but I way—and we got under way with CHANGE OF HEART 95 — them. I don’t know what speed It wasn’t much of an island, as we were making—but it was a we were to discover when we got respectable one. We were soaked around to exploring it the next by the water slopping in over the day. There were a few palm bows and the low sides. trees—but either they weren’t We traveled—towed or pushed coconut palms or coconuts were- by the porpoises—all that day, n’t in season. There was some and all of the following night. We low scrub. And that was all. travelled all the next day as well, But I'm getting ahead of my- and the day after that. When, in self. We staggered up the beach, the late afternoon, we saw the as I have said, and then, after island, a blue smudge on the far we had got some of our strength horizon, we were in a sorry back, we began to feel thirsty. state. It was Clarry who had But there wasn’t any water—we kept us going. He had read a lot. never found any then, neither He was one of those people who did we find any later. Clarry reads anything and everything. suggested that we dig—which It was Clarry who told us to keep we did, with our bare hands. The our bodies immersed in the sea trickle of moisture that oozed water—there was plenty of that through into the holes—after a —so that our skins could absorb long, long time—was salt. Clar- the moisture. It was Clarry who ry said that we should pull the told us to tear buttons from the boat well up on to the beach so shorts that were all that we had that it would net drift away dur- in the way of clothing, and to ing the night ; it seemed that we suck them. It was Clarry who should not be able to stay on the told us about the old legends con- island, there was nothing there cerning porpoises or dolphins to support life. that have saved the lives of ship- But the boat was gone. There wrecked sailors. was no sign of it. But he never convinced me And then we saw a commotion that those porpoises were really out to sea. It was light enough friendly. the full moon had risen as the sun had set—and we could see T was just on sunset that our the flurry of white water, the I dinghy grounded on the leaping bodies. It was the por- sandy beach of the island. It poises back again—and this time wasn’t much of an island—al- they were driving before them a though we were glad enough to shoal of mullet. They chased tumble out of the boat and to those fish right up on to the stagger up on to the dry land. sand where they flopped—ener-

96 FANTASTIC — — getically at first, then more and HE porpoises came back at more feebly. Tmid-morning—about forty of “Water,” said Clarry. them. There was great splash- “Food,” croaked Des. "Food ing and confusion as they if you don’t mind eating raw fish. pushed something up on to the But where is the water ?” sand. We ran down to examine "In the fish,” said Clarry. “In it. It was a tangled mass of the flesh of the fish. You always wreckage—steel wreckage. What have to take salt with fried fish, paint that remained on it was don’t you? The body fluids are grey. It may have come from a practically pure fresh water.” surface ship, it may have come These body fluids were fresh from a submarine. None of us water all right—but far from knew enough about ships to be pure, very far from pure. Raw able to hazard a guess. fish is so very much fishier than Another school of the brutes cooked fish. There was food, and drove in from the horizon. They there was water, and we got the Were pushing more wreckage revolting mess down somehow, but floating wreckage this time. tearing the still living bodies to There were shattered timbers pieces with our fingers and some of them old and barnacle teeth, spitting out scale and encrusted, some of them compar- bone and . . . and other things. atively new. There were planks And that was the first night that could have come from the on the island. Sue Darling, from her dinghy. We slept well enough. Come to Led by Clarry we waded into the that, we slept surprisingly well. shallows, dragged the wood well When we woke up at sunrise we inshore. It seemed that the sea made ear exploration of the tiny beasts had presented us to the island, found nothing that would wherewithal to construct a raft. raise ear hopes. But we were (But why had they taken and alive, and that was something. broken up the dinghy?) And then Clarry set us to build- Then all but one of the por- ing a pile of brush for a signal poises retired to seaward. He fire. How we were going to light cruised up and down in the shal- it—in the unlikely event of our low water, pointing with his sighting a passing ship or air- beak first of all at the steel craft—nobody was quite sure, wreckage, then at the timber. not even Clarry. It’s one thing He grunted and he whistled. It reading about making fire by seemed that there was a note of friction—getting the necessary exasperation in the sounds that technique isn’t so easy. he was making.

CHANGE OF HEART 97 —

Eventually he dived at last. generations. And now there’s "He wanted something,’’ said been another mutation, another

Bill. "He wanted to tell us some- jump ahead . . thing. What did he want to tell “Hogwash,” said Des, but his us?’’ voice failed to carry conviction. “But he’s only an animal,” ob- While Clarry talked and we jected Des. listened the porpoises returned. “What are we?” asked Clarry. We became aware that a half He said softly, "The history of dozen of them were pushing Man is the history of the tool- something else through the making, fire-using animal . . . shallows. It was a large slab of What must it be like to be intel- slatelike rock. There were ligent—as intelligent as Man, scratchings on its smooth sur- perhaps—but to have no hands, face. At first they made no sense no tools, no fire?” at all as we studied them after “Rubbish,” said Des. “Those we had pulled the slab ashore. things aren’t intelligent.” Human artists see things differ- “Their brains are as heavy as ently from each other and such ours, and as convoluted. Nobody differences are obvious enough in is sure just how intelligent they the finished paintings. An essen- are. They are at least as intelli- tially alien but intelligent being .” gent as dogs. At least . . He will see things differently from a stared out to sea, looked worried. man. “But there could have been And then, quite suddenly, changes, mutations. Radiation is those pictures made sense. There supposed to be one of the causes was a fire—depicted by curly of mutation—if not the cause lines—about which stood vague- and there must be large volumes ly manlike figures. There were of radio-active water in the Pa- those same manlike figures en- cific after the various Bomb engaged upon some sort of work, tests. And all the Cetacea—the hitting something with ham- whales and the porpoises—must mers. And then there was a por- be genetically unstable. Think of poise—the shape of that was it—not too long ago, geologically more easily recognizable—and speaking, their ancestors were then there was a swordfish. But bearlike mammals, living on dry it wasn’t a swordfish. It was a land. They returned to the sea porpoise and it was wearing a and must have been able to sort of harness from which the adapt themselves to the new sword projected ahead of it. conditions—or the old condi- Clarry—he was quick on the tions?—rapidly, in a very few uptake—started to laugh. He

98 FANTASTIC —I spluttered, ''The damned things —was getting impatient, was want us to .turn armorer. They cruising up and down snorting want us to fit them out—for indignantly. Clarry tried to tell war!” him that we were handicapped Well, that was what they by having no fire; he pointed to wanted. the sun, he pointed to the diminished pile of timber, and then he HEY kept us fed—and I nev- shook his head violently. Wheth- Ter want to eat fish again! er or not he got the message and as long as they saw us across I don’t know. working they seemed to be satis- And then the raft was finished. fied. Oh, we never did get around We launched it that night. There to making fire—although it was no moon, and the sea was would have been a pity to have quiet, undisturbed by splashings burned the timber that we were or snortings. We all clambered supposed to use for firewood. We aboard the flimsy contraption had other ideas about that tim- somehow and the current took us ber. out and away. We knew that our We used stones for tools at attempt at escape was almost first—there was a rocky outcrop certain death—but we were crazy at the center of the island—and enough to consider death supe- managed to knock conveniently rior to serfdom to lower animals. shaped hunks of iron from the But were we so crazy? jagged wreckage of the subma- And were those animals so rine or whatever it was. And very much lower? with these crude hammers we Lower or not—they found us. knocked the nails out of the tim- They found us at noon, when bers—and knocked the same our spirits were at a low ebb, nails back in again as we con- when we were looking back with structed the raft. We were cun- regret to the scanty shade af- ning enough to do this inshore, forded by those few poor palms, well out of the reach of prying when we would have sold our eyes. (At times I thought that souls for a trickle of the fishy the seabirds had become intelli- water, that we had found so re- gent too, would report what we volting, down our throats. were doing to our captors.) And They found us at noon—and I, those of us who stayed on the I must confess, was glad to see beach put up an impression of them. When they pushed us back busyness. Towards the end, how- to the island I would be a good ever, the leader of the school— boy, I decided. I would try to suppose you could call him that make a fire. I would try to make CHANGE OF HEART 99 one of the sword and harness af- he didn’t feel those teeth that fairs that they wanted. I would chipped him in two. try to turn swords out in dozen I don’t know why they left me. lots. Perhaps they thought that there They found us—and the others were only three men on the raft. found them. Perhaps they were so well fed that they just didn’t bother me. HEY came sweeping in at But, quite suddenly, they were Tforty knots or so from the gone—and the sea was empty south’ard, great, vicious brutes, but for the floating fragments in appearance not unlike the east. (The air wasn’t empty; creatures milling about our raft the birds were feeding well.) but bigger, much bigger, black, And that’s all. That’s all as with white bellies and with great far as I’m concerned, Captain. dorsal fins. They may have been When we get to port I’m leaving

what Clarry called mutants ; they this ship, and I’m going as far may have been killer whales. inland as I can get, and I never Whatever they were—they were want to see the sea again. It’s up killers. They drove in like a to you, now. You must get the charge of marine cavalry, heavy messages out—for your sake, as cavalry, and as they smashed well as everybody else's. You through the squadrons of our aren’t safe. Those things—as we captors the water was reddened found out—can control whales. with blood. They turned, charged Think of it—think of a hundred again. ton whale sent to mash himself And again. in your screws and then, while And then one of them nudged you’re drifting, helpless, a dozen the raft. Des was the first to go, or so of the brutes charging to slide, screaming, into the against the plating of your side. bloody water. His screams You’re not safe. ceased abruptly. Then Bill went Nobody’s safe.

as the raft was almost capsized, You must warn . . . and then Clarry and I were You must ... fighting for the mast, for a firm grip on the shaky pole that # * » could mean salvation. I’m glad about one thing. Clarry was un- E’S passed out," said the conscious when he went over- H Mate. “He excited himself board. I felt like a murderer too much.” when I hit him as hard as I did I looked at the sleeping man. — I am a murderer—but at least there was nothing, I hoped,

100 FANTASTIC wrong with him beyond exhaus- man at frequent intervals, and tion and the effects of prolonged each time he had been sleeping. exposure. His breathing seemed But I was working on it when I natural enough. heard the weird whistlings and “What did you make of it?” I snortings drifting in through my asked. open port. The Mate put his finger to his I went out on to the lower forehead, made a circling mo- bridge. tion. “Round the bend, sir. It was a brightly moonlit Round the bend. Probably his night, and I could see that the raft was chivvied by porpoises. sea around us was alive with But all this talk of mutants and porpoises, with sleek, leaping such—why, it’s straight out of forms that matched our seven- science fiction!” teen knots with ease. Suddenly I “So are artificial satellites and felt afraid, found myself scan- rockets to the Moon,” I told him. ning the ocean for the tell-tale "They’re different,” he said. spout that would betray the "Detail the cadets to stand a presence of a whale. watch in the hospital,” I ordered. There was a shout from aft. "And arrange for the watch- I heard a youthful voice cry- keeping officers to look in when ing, “Stop him! Stop him!” they come off watch.” I ran down the ladder, then to the after end of the boat deck. I WENT back to my quarters saw the castaway standing on I and started to draft a radio the bulwarks, shaking his fists, message. A warning? No—not hurling imprecations at the yet. I had no desire to expose my- things in the sea. Then the ship self to the ridicule showered upon lurched and he overbalanced. He such master mariners as observe kicked at the ship’s side as he sea serpents and then are unwise fell, so he hit the water well clear enough to report it. “Picked up of the suction of the screws. It survivor from island trader Sue should have been easy enough to Darling." That would do. That pick him up again—especially would have to do for the time since the cadet who had been on being. hospital watch threw him a life- But a full report would have buoy. to be made. It should have been, but . . . I was still working on that They say that porpoises will report after dinner. It had not never attack a man in the water. been continuous work—I had These porpoises could never have gone down to look at the rescued heard of the saying. They made

CHANGE OF HEART 101 a quicker and messier job of their victim than EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS a school of starving sharks would have BACK IN PRINT! done.

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103 — DOUBLE or NOTHING

By JACK SHARKEY

The mind quails before certain contemplations?

The existence of infinity, for instance.

Or finity, for that matter.

Or 50,000 batches of cornflakes dumped from the sky.

DON’T know why I listen to Well, take the last thing we I Artie Lindstrom. Maybe it’s worked on. (He usually includes because at times (though cer- me in his plans because, while tainly not—I hope—on as perma- he’s the better cooker-upper of nent a basis as Artie) I’m as these gadgets, I’ve got the knack screwy as he is. At least, I keep for building them. Artie can’t letting myself get sucked into his seem to slip a radio tube into its plans, every time he’s discovered socket without shattering the the "invention that will change glass, twist a screwdriver with- the world". He discovers it quite out gouging pieces out of his bit something new every time. thumb, nor even solder an elec- a ; And, Artie having a natural me- trical connection without need- chanical aptitude that would ing skin-grafts for the hole he probably rate as point-nine-nine- usually burns in his hand.) ad-infinitum on a scale where So we’re a team, Artie and me. one-point-oh was perfection, all He does the planning, I do the his inventions work. Except constructing. Like, as I men-

104 tioned, the last thing we worked on. He invented it; I built it. A cap-remover (like for jars and ketchup bottles). But not just a clamp-plus-handle, like most of the same gadgets. Nope, this was electronic, worked on a tight- beam radio-wave, plus something to do with the expansion coeffi- cients of the metals making up the caps, so that, from anyplace in line-of-sight of her home, the housewife could shove a stud, and come home to find all the caps un-

lllusfrafor ADKINS screwed on her kitchen shelves, tie’s patent, made a few little ad- and the contents ready for get- justments on his cap-twister, and ting at. It did, I’ll admit, have a the next thing the Martians knew, nice name: The Teletwist. all their airlocks were busily un- Except, where’s the point in screwing themselves with noth- unscrewing caps unless you’re ing outside them except hungry physically present to make use of vacuum. It was also the last the contents of the jars? I men- thing the Martians knew. tioned this to Artie when I was So Artie’s ideas seem to have building the thing, but he said, their uses, all right. Only, for “Wait and see. It’ll be a novelty, some reason, Artie never thinks like hula hoops a couple of dec- of the proper application for his ades back. Novelties always catch latest newfound principle. That on.” neat little disintegrator pistol carried by the footsoldiers in the ELL, he was wrong. When Three Day War (with Venus; re- Wwe finally found a manufac- member Venus?) was a varia- turer softheaded enough to mass- tion on a cute little battery-pow- produce a few thousand of the ered device of Artie’s, of which gadgets, total sales for the en- the original function had been to tire country amounted to seven- rid one’s house of roaches. teen. Of course, the price was At any rate—at a damned good

kind of prohibitive : Thirteen-fif- rate, in fact—the government al- ty per Teletwist. Why would a ways ended up paying Artie (and housewife lay that kind of money me, as his partner-confederate- on the line when she’d already, cohort) an anything-but-modest for a two-buck license, gotten a fee for his patents. We weren’t in husband who could be relied upon the millionaire class, yet, but nei- (well, most of the time) to do the ther were we very far out of it. same thing for her? And we were much better off Not, of course, that we didn’t than any millionaires, since Ar- finally make money on the thing. tie had persuaded the govern- It was just about that time, you'll ment to let us, in lieu of payment remember, that the Imperial for another patent of his (for his Martian Fleet decided that the Nixsal; the thing that was sup- third planet from Sol was get- posed to convert sea-water into ting a bit too powerful, and they something drinkable, and did: started orbiting our planet with Gin.), be tax-free for the rest of ultimatums. And while they were our lives. waiting for our answer, our gov- (It was quite a concession for ernment quietly purchased Ar- the government to make. But

106 FANTASTIC ! then, the government-produced “Those,” he said, his tone hurt “George Washington Gin” is as it always was when I inadver- quite a concession in itself.) tently belittled his draftmanship, So I guess you could say I keep "are flywheels.” listening to Artie Lindstrom be- "Cone-shaped flywheels ?” I cause of the financial rewards. I said. “Why, for pete’s sake?” must admit they’re nice. And it’s “Only,” he said, with specious kind of adventurous, when I'm casualness, “in order to develop working on Artie’s latest brain- a centrifugal thrust that runs in storm, to let myself wonder what a straight line!"— —since I generally scrap Artie’s "A centr ” I said, then sat prognosis for the gadget’s future back from the drawings, blink- —the damned thing will actually ing. “That’s impossible, Artie.” be used for. “And why should it be?” he Or, at least, it was kind of ad- persisted. “Picture an umbrella, venturous, until Artie started in with the fabric removed. Now on his scheme of three weeks twirl the handle on its axis. What ago : a workable anti-gravity ma- do the ribs do?” chine. And now, I’m feeling my “I suppose they splay out into first tremors of regret that I ever a circle?” hooked up with the guy. Because “Right,” he exulted. “And if —Well, it happened like this: they impeded from splaying out? If, instead of separate ribs, we T looks great,” I said, lifting have a hollow, bottomless cone of I my face from the blueprint, metal? Where does the force and nodding across the work- go?” bench at Artie. “But what the I thought it over, then said, hell does it do?” with deliberation, “In all direc- Artie shoved a shock of dust- tions, Artie. One part shoving colored hair back off his broad, up-to-the-right, one part up-to- dull pink forehead, and jabbed the-left, like that.” excitedly with a grimy forefin- “Sure,” he said, his face fail- ger at the diagram. “Can’t you ing to fight a mischievous grin. tell, Burt? What does this look “And since none of them move, like!” where does the resultant force My eyes returned to the congo?” glomeration of sketchy cones be- I shrugged, “Straight up, I neath his flailing finger, and guess—” Then my ears tuned in I said, as truthfully as possi- belatedly on what I’d said, and a ble, “A pine forest on a lumpy moment later I squeaked, “Artie hill." Straight up!”

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 107 ”

E nodded eagerly. “Or, of dreamer; a scientist is an ob- H course, straight east, server. An inventor tries to make straight west, or whichever way a result he wants happen a ; the ferrule of this here theoreti- scientist tries to tell the inventor cal umbrella was pointed at the that the result cannot be time the twirling began. The achieved.” point is, we can generate pure “Please. Artie. Don’t tell me force in any direction. What do about the bee again.” you think? Can you build it?” But Artie told me about the “It’d be child’s play. In fact, bumblebee, and how there were Artie, it's too damned simple to still some scientists who insisted, be believed! What’s the hitch? according to the principles of Why hasn’t anyone tried it be- aerodynamics, that it was not fore now?" constructed properly to enable it "Who knows?" he said, his to fly. And about how men of this blue eyes dancing. “Maybe no short-sighted ilk were still scoff- one ever thought of it before. ing at the ancient alchemist’s You could sit down and twist a talk of the Philosopher’s Stone paper clip out of a hunk of soft for transmuting metals, even wire, couldn’t you? Easy as pie. though transmutation of metals But someone had to invent the was being done every day in thing, first. All the great inven- atomic piles. And how he’d the- tions have been simple. Look at orized that there was once a gen- the wheel.” uine Philosopher’s Stone, prob- “Okay, okay,” I said, since I’d ably a hunk of pure U-235, that been sold on his gadget the mo- someone had managed to make, ment I pictured that umbrella which might explain why so moving ferruleward like a whirl- many alchemists (lacking, un- ing arrow. "Still, it looks like fortunately, any knowledge of you’re getting something for heavy radiations or Geiger coun- nothing. A kind of by-your-own- ters) sort of died off in their .” bootstraps maneuver . . quest for the stone. “An inventor,” said Artie, quoting his favorite self-coined T was nearly lunchtime when aphorism, “must never think like I he finished his spiel, and I was a scientist!” kicking myself in my short- “But— I said, more to stem memoried brain for having let the tide I expected than to really him get onto the subject, when make a coherent objection. abruptly the joyous glow behind “An inventor," he went dream- his eyes damped its sparkle —a bit. ily onward, “is essentially a “There is one little hitch

108 FANTASTIC “I thought it looked too easy," He had me, there. "So you I sighed, waiting for the clinker. want I should build it anyhow, "Don’t tell me it has to be made just on the off-chance that it out of pure Gallium, which has won't follow the rules of physical the regrettable tendency to liqui- logic, and will decide to generate fy at about thirty degrees centi- a force above and beyond its own grade? Or perhaps of the most gravitic drag?” elusive of its eleven isotopes?” “That’s it,” he said happily. “No, no, nothing like that,” he "And even if it only manages to murmured almost distractedly. negate its own weight, we’ll have “It’s the force-per-gram part an easier time ironing the bugs that’s weak.” out of a model than we would out “Don’t tell me,” I said unhap- of a diagram. After all, who’d pily, “that this thing’ll only gen- have figured that beyond Mach /, erate enough force to lift itself?” all the lift-surfaces on a plane A feeble ghost of his erstwhile work in reverse? grin rode breifly across his lips. It wasn’t, I had to admit, any- “That’s the way it works out on thing that an inventor could have paper,” he said. reasonably theorized at the out- “Which means," I realized set ... So I locked myself in aloud, "that it’s commercially the lab for a week, and built his useless, because what’s the good gadget, while he spent his time of an anti-gravity machine that pacing through his fourteen- can’t lift anything except itself! room mansion across the way It falls into the class of lifeboats from the lab building (the "way” that float up to the gunwales in being the flat grassy region on the water while still empty. Fun Artie’s estate that housed his to watch, but impossible to use. swimming pool, private heliport, Hell, Artie, if that’s the setup, and movie theatre), trying to then this thing wouldn’t be any coin a nifty name for the thing. more help to a space-aiming gov- We both finished in a dead heat. ernment than an aborigine’s boomerang; it flies beautifully, T UNLOCKED the door of the but not if the aborigine tries to A lab, blinked hard against the go with it." sting of warm yellow sunlight “However,” he said, a bit more after a week of cool blue fluores- brightly, “Fve been wrong on pa- cents, and just as I wheezed, per before. Remember the bum- "Got it,” Artie was counterpoint- blebee, Burt! That theory still ing with, “We’ll call it The holds up on paper. But the bee Vuaa!” (He made four syllables still flies.” out of it.)

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 109 ” ”

“The Oo-oo-c/i-ah ?” I glot- “Dust,” I said. "There’s al- taled. “In honor of the fiftieth ways a little dust settling out of state, or what? I know ‘aa’ is a the air. It doesn’t weigh much, type of lava, but what the hell’s but it made the machine weigh at ‘uu’, besides the noise a man least what the dust-weight makes getting into an overheated equalled, and down it went. Slow bath?” and easy, but down.” “ Artie pouted. ‘Uuaa’ is ini- Artie looked at the gadget, sit- tials. For ‘Up, up, and away!’ I ting and whistling on the floor of thought it was pretty good.” the lab, then turned a bleak-but- I shook my head. “Why feed still-hopeful glance my way. free fodder to the telecomics? I “Maybe—If we could make a guy can hear them now, doing mono- take on a cone-shape, and whirled logues about people getting beri- him— beri flying from Walla Walla to “Sure,” I muttered. “Bend

Pago Pago on their Uuaas . . over, grab his ankles, and fly “So what would you call it!” anywhere in the world, with his he grunted. torso and legs pivoting wildly “A bust,” I sighed, left-thumb- around his peaked behind.” I ing over my shoulder at the lab. shook my head. “Besides the “It sits and twirls and whistles a manifestly undignified posturing little, but that’s about the size of involved, we have to consider the

it, Artie.” other effects; like having his eye- He spanieled with his eyes, balls fly out.” basset-hounded with his mouth, “If—If we had a bunch of men and orangutaned with his cheeks, lie in a circle around a kind of then said, with dim hope, “Did Maypole-thing, each guy clutch- you weigh it? Maybe if you ing the ankles of the next one — ft, weighed it • • • “Oh, it lost, all right,” I ad- “Maybe they’d be weightless, mitted. “When I connected the but they still wouldn’t go up,” I batteries, the needle on the scale said. “Unless they could be dropped down to zero, and towed, somehow. And by the stopped there. And I found that I time they landed, they’d be too could lift the machine into the nauseous to be of any use for at air, and it’d stay where it was least three days. Always assum- put, just whistling and whirling ing, of course, that the weak- its cones. But then it started to wristed member of the sick cir- settle.” I beckoned him back in- clet didn’t lose his grip, and have side. them end up playing mid-air “Settle? Why?” Artie asked. crack-the-whip before they fell.”

110 FANTASTIC “So all right, it’s got a couple gravity-drag to fight, being that of bugs!” said Artie. “But the much farther from the Earth. principle’s sound, right?" The effect will be cumulative. The “Well—Yeah, there you got higher it gets, the more outward me, Artie. The thing cancels thrust it’ll generate. Then noth- .” weight, anyhow . . ing’ll stop it!” “Swell. So we work from “You could be right,” I ad- there,” He rubbed his hands to- mitted, hammering out helix aft- gether joyously. “And who er helix on an electric anvil (an-

knows what we’ll come up with.” other gadget of Artie’s ; the self- "We never do, that’s for sure,” heating anvil (The Thermovil) I mumbled. had begun life as a small inspira- But Artie just shrugged. “I tion in Artie’s mind for a porta- like surprises,” he said. ble toaster). It was just after sunset when HE end of the day—me work- we figured the welds were cool Ting, Artie inventing—found enough so we could test it. Onto us with some new embellish- the scale it went again, I flicked ments for the machine. Where it the toggle, and we stood back to was originally a sort of humped watch the needle as the cones metal box (the engine went in- picked up speed. Along with the side the hump) studded with original whistling sound made toothbrush-bristle rows of coun- by the cones we began to detect a ter-revolving cones (lest elemen- shriller noise, one which abrupt- tary torque send the machine ly became a genuine pain in the swinging the other way, and ear. As Artie and I became some- thus destroy the thrust-effect of what busy with screaming (the the cones), it now had an addi- only thing we could think of on tional feature: A helical flange the spur of the moment to coun- around each cone. teract the terrible waves of noise “You see,” Artie explained, assaulting our tympana), it was while I was torching them to or- all at once much easier to see the der from plate metal, “the helices needle of the scale dropping to- will provide lift as the cones ward zero, as the glass disc fac- revolve.” ing the dial dissolved into gritty “Only in the atmosphere of the powder, along with the glass planet,” I said. panes in every window in the “Sure, I know. But by the time lab, the house, the heliport, and the outer limits of the air are the movie theatre. (Not to men- reached, the machine, with the tion those of a few farmhouses a same mass-thrust, will have less couple of miles down the high-

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 111 ” way, but we didn’t find that out hole or two in it is bound to make till their lawyers showed up with a calculated noise) was of the bills for damages.) proper number of vibrations to Sure enough, though, the intermesh with the compression/ thing lifted. Up it bobbed, like a rarefaction phases of the sounds metal dirigible with agonizing made by the other flanges, a veri- gas pains, shrieking louder by table sphere of silence would be the second. When the plaster thereby created, since there’d be started to trickle and flake from no room for any sound waves to the walls, and the fillings in my pass through the already crowd- teeth rose to a temperature just ed atmosphere about the ma- short of incandescence, I decided chine. it was time to cancel this phase “It’ll make less noise than a of the experiment, and, with very mouse in sneakers drooling on a little regret, I flung a blanket- blotter!” enthused Artie, when I like canvas tarpaulin up and over had it rigged again, and ready to the ascending machine before it go. started using its helices to screw “Still,” I said uncertainly, into the ceiling. The cones bit “whether we hear it or not, all into the tarpaulin, tangled, that soundwave-energy has to do jammed, and the machine—mer- something, Artie. If it turns ul- cifully noiseless, now—crashed trasonic, we may suddenly find back onto the scale, and lost a lot ourselves in a showerbath of of symmetry and a couple of riv- free electrons and even worse ets. subatomic particles from dis- “What’s Plan C?" I said to rupted air molecules. Or the lab Artie. might turn molten on us. Or— “Quiet!” he said, either be- “Oh, turn it on, Burt!” said cause I’d interrupted his think- Artie. “That’s just a chance we ing or because that was our next have to take.” goal. “Don’t see why we have to take it ...” I groused, but I’m as HE next four days were spent curious as the next man, so I Tin the arduous and quite turned it on. (I could have ar- tricky business of reaming ranged to do it by remote con- acoustically spaced holes along trol, except for two pressing de- the flanges. Artie’s theory was terrents : One—At a remote that if we simply (“simply” was point of control, I wouldn’t be his word, not mine) fix£d it so able to watch what, if anything, that the sound made by each the machine did, and Two—Who flange (anything whirly with a knows where the safe spot is

112 FANTASTIC where sound-waves are con- “All I said was ‘Use a firm !’ cerned? With some sonic forces, hitch " I pleaded, trying to you’re safer the nearer you get shove his shins off my floor- to the source.) So, like I said, I pinned biceps. turned it on. Artie stared at me, then rocked Silence. Beautiful, blissful, si- off my prostrate body, convulsed lence. There before us twirled in a fit of laughter. “Say it si- the rows of shiny cones, lifting lently in front of a mirror, some- slowly into the air, and there was time,” he choked out. Before I nothing to hear at all. Beside me, had time to see what he was talk- Artie’s lips moved, but I couldn’t ing about, I smelled smoke, catch a syllable. This time above and beyond that engen- around, we’d looped a rope dered by the scorched insulation. through a few metal grommets I ran to the door, and opened it in the base of the machine, and to observe the last glowing, as it rose, Artie slipped the trail- crackling timbers of the house, ing ends under his arms from the theatre, and the heliport van- behind, and proceeded to lash it ish into hot orange sparks, in the across his chest, to test the grip of a dandy ring of fire that thing’s lift-power. As he fum- —in a seventy-yard path—had bled with the knot, I shouted at burned up everything in a sixty- him, “Use a firm hitch!” five to hundred-thirty-five yard radius of the lab. OTHING came out, but Artie “I told you those sound-waves N wasn’t a bad lip-reader. He had to do something,” I said. scowled, and his lips made a "Ready to give up?” “ What ?!” motion, so I repeated But Artie was already staring my caution. Next thing I knew, at the debris around the scale he was taking a poke at me, and and making swift notes on a

I, to fend him off, ended up memo pad . . . wrestling on the floor with him, while the untended machine T looks awfully damned com- burred its way into the ceiling, I plex—” I hedged, eight days until the engine overheated and later, looking at the repaired, re- burned away the electrical in- furbished, and amended gadget sulation on the wires, and the on the table. “Remember, Artie, machine, plus a good two feet the more parts to an invention, square of lab-ceiling, once more the more things can go wrong descended to demolish the scale. with it. In geometric progres- “ .” —your language!” Artie was sion . . snarling, as sound returned. “Unh-uh,” he shook his head.

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 113 ”

“Not the more parts, Burt. The waves have of setting up the reg- more moving parts. All we’ve ular pulse-beat necessary to fa- done is added a parabolic sound- tigue the metal in the tube, reflector, to force all the waves okay?” the cones make down through a “Yeah, sure, Artie, it’s okay, tube in the middle of the ma- but—Cornflakes ?’’ chines And we’ve insulated the "I take it your objections are tube to keep extraneous vibra- less scientific than they are es- tion from shattering it with thetic?” he inquired. super-induced metal fatigue.” “Well, something like that,” I “Yeah,” I said, “but about that admitted. “I mean, aw—For insulation, Artie— pete’s sake, Artie! The patent “You got a better idea?” he office'll laugh at us. They’ll start snapped. “We tried rubber; it referring us to the copyright charred and flaked away. We people, as inventors of cook- tried plastics; they bubbled, books !” melted, extruded, or burned. We “Maybe not,” he said philo- tried metal and mineral honey- sophically. “The thing still may

combs ; they distorted, incan- not work, you know.” desced, fused or vaporized. Cer- “Well, there’s one bright spot, amic materials shattered. Fab- anyhow!" I agreed, fiddling with rics tore, or petrified and cracked. the starting switch. “So okay, All the regular things failed us. I’m game if you are.” So what’s wrong with trying “Let ’er rip,” he pontificated, something new?” and I flicked the switch. “Nothing, Artie, nothing. But —Cornflakes ?” T worked beautifully. Not even “Well, we sogged ’em down I a faint hum. The only way we good with water, right? And could tell it was working was they’ve still got enough inter- from the needle on the—rebuilt stices between the particles to again—scale, as it dropped lazily act as sound-baffles, right? And down to the zero mark. Our ears by the time they get good and didn’t sting, no glass went dust- hot and dry, they’ll cook onto the ing into crystalline powder, and metal, right? (Ask anyone who a quick peek through the door ever tried to clean a pot after showed no ring of fire surround- scorching cereal just how hard ing the lab. they’ll stick!) And even when “We may just have done it !” I most of them flake away, the ran- said, hopefully, as the silver- dom distribution of char will cir- nosed machine began to float up- cumvent any chance the sound- ward (We hadn’t had to mount

114 FANTASTIC — the parabolic reflector in the po- We stood and looked down at sition of a nose-cone, but it made them : A bowl of cornflakes and a the thing look neater, somehow.) silver spoon. It seemed a little torpid in its “How— ?” I said, but Artie ascent, but that could be credited was already figuring it out, to the extra weight of the reflec- aloud. tor and cornflakes, not to men- “It’s the sound-waves,” he tion the fact that the helices had said. “At ultrasonic, molecule- to suck all their air in under the disrupting vibrations, they’re lip of the silvery nose-cone be- doing just what that Philoso- fore they could thrust properly. pher’s Stone was supposed to: But its rise was steady. Six inch- Transmuting. Somehow, we did- es, ten inches n’t clean out the reflector suffi- Then, at precisely one foot in ciently, and some of the traces of height, something unexpected our other trial insulations re- happened. Under the base of the mained inside. The ceramics machine, where the sound-heated formed the bowl, the metals air was at its most torrid, a formed the spoon, the cornflakes shimmering disc-like thing be- formed the cornflakesl” gan to materialize, and warp, and “But,” I said logically (or as hollow out slightly, and beside it, logically as could be expected un- a glinting metal rod-thing flat- der the circumstances), “what tened at one end, then the flat about the rubber, or the fab- end went concave in the center rics?” and kind of oval about the perimeter, and something brown- RTIE’S face lit up, and he ish and shreddy plopped and A nodded toward the machine, hissed into the now-very-concave still hovering at one foot above disc-like thing. the scale. In its wake, amid the “Artie— !” I said, uneasily, distorting turbulence of the but by then, he, too, had recog- sound-tortured air, two more ob- nized the objects for what they jects were materializing: a neat- were. ly folded damask napkin, and a “Burt—” he said excitedly. small rubber toothpick. As they “Do you realize what we’ve done? dropped down to join their prede- We’ve invented a synthetieizer!” cessors, the machine gave a satis-

Even as he was saying it, the fied shake, and rose steadily to objects completed their mid-air the two-foot level. I was scrib- materialization (time: five sec- bling frantically in my notebook: onds, start to finish), and clat- Bowl + cereal + spoon: 5 sec- tered and clinked onto the scale. onds. Lag: 10 seconds. Napkin

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 115 " — + toothpick: 8 seconds. Total "Artie ” I said, as three synthesizing time: 18 seconds. toothpick-napkin combinations Allowance for rise of machine joined the shattered remains of per foot: 2 seconds. triple bowl-cereal-spoon disasters “Burt— !” Artie yelled joy- from the one-yard mark over ously, just as I completed the the scale, “that is not the prob- last item, “Look at that, will lem I had in mind." !” you? "Oh?” he said, as four shim- I looked, and had my first pre- mering discs began to coalesce sentiment of disaster. At two and shape themselves. “What, feet, the machine was busily fab- then?” ricating—out of the air mole- “It's not that I don’t appreci- cules themselves, for all I knew ate the side-effect benefits of free —two bowls, two spoons, and cornflake dinners,” I said, speak- two bowlfuls of cereal. ing carefully and somberly, to “Hey, Artie—” I began, but he hold his attention. “But isn’t it was too busy figuring out this going to put a crimp in our anti- latest development. gravity machine sales? Even at a “It’s the altimeter," he said. mere mile in height, it means “We had it gauged by the foot, that the spot beneath it is due but it’s taking the numerical for a deluge of five-thousand-two- calibrations as a kind of output- hundred-eighty bowls of corn- quota, instead!" flakes. Not to mention all those “Look, Artie,” I interrupted, toothpicks, napkins and spoons!” as twin napkins and toothpicks Artie’s face went grave. “Not dropped down beside the new to mention the five-thousand-two- bowls on the table where the hundred-seventy-nine of the scale lay. “We’re going to have a same that the spot beneath would little problem— get from the gadget when it was “You’re telling me!” he sighed, just one foot short of the mile!” unhappily. “All those damned “Of course,” I said, calculating random factors ! How many rapidly as the five-foot mark pro- times did the machine have to be duced a neat quintet of every- repaired after each faulty test! thing, a quintet which crashed What thickness of ceramics, or noisily onto the ten lookalikes be- fabric, or rubber, or metal re- low it as the machine bobbed si- mained! What was the precise lently to the six-foot mark, “we distribution and dampness of have one interesting thing in each of those soggy cornflakes I our favor: the time element.” Hell, Burt, we may be forever try- “How so?” said Artie, craning ing to make a duplicate of this!” over my shoulder to try and read

116 FANTASTIC my lousy calligraphics on the vent) that seems to form a ver- pad. tical angle of thirty degrees.” “In other words,” said Artie, ELL,” I said, pointing to “each new formation comes in a Weach notation in turn, ‘the spot beneath this cone where it’s first batch, bowl-to-toothpick, possible for the new formations took twenty seconds, if we in- to materialize side-by-side, clude the time-lapse while the right?” When I nodded, he said, machine was ascending to the “Fine. But so what?” one-foot mark.” “It means that each new ma- "Uh-huh,” he nodded. "I see. terialization occurs at a steadily So?” increasing height, but one “So the second batch took dou- which—” I calculated briefly on “ ble. Forty seconds. Not only did the pad —is never greater than it require thirty-six seconds for two-thirds the height of the ma- the formation of the stuff, it took chine itself." the machine twice as many sec- Artie looked blank. “Thank onds to reach the two-foot you very kindly for the math mark.” lesson,” he said finally, “but I "I get it,” he said. “So I sup- still don’t see what you are driv- pose it took three times the base ing at, Burt. How does this pre- number for the third batch?” sent a problem?” “Right. A full minute. And the I pointed toward the un-re- materialization of the objects is paired hole in the lab ceiling, —Boy, that's noisy!” I inter- where the machine, after duti- rupted myself as batch number fully disgorging the number- “ six came smashing down. —al- seven load, was slowly heading. ways at a point where the ob- “It means that unless we grab jects fit into a theoretical conical that thing before it gets too section below the machine.” much higher, the whole damn “How’s that again?” said planet’ll be up to its ears in Artie. cornflakes. And the one-third “Well, bowl number one machine-height gap between ar- formed just below the exhaust tifacts and machine means that vent of the central cylinder. we can’t even use the mounding Bowls two and three, or—if you products to climb on and get it. prefer—bowl-batch two, formed We’d always be too low, and an about six inches lower, edge to increasing too-low at that!” edge, at the cross-section of an “Are you trying to say, in your imaginary cone (whose rather roundabout mathematical way, truncated apex is the exhaust let’s grab that thing, fast?”

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 117 “Right,” I said, glad I had tie's roadster. He did the driving, gotten through to him. “I would- I kept my eyes on my watch, tim- ’ve said as much sooner, only you ing the arrivals of each new never listen until somebody sup- load. (Formula: n x 20 = lag plies you with all the pertinent between loads in seconds) data on a crisis first.” By the time Artie discovered we were out of gas in the middle T OAD number nine banged and of a deserted country road, load splintered down into the lab, number twenty had fallen. bringing the cumulative total By the time we arrived on foot of bowl - cereal - spoon - napkin- at the nearest farmhouse, and toothpick debris up to forty-five. were ordered off the property “Come on, Burt,” said Artie. by the irate farmer who still had "We’ll have to get to the roof of bare boards on his windowless the lab. There’s a ladder up at house, and a shotgun in his the—” gnarled brown hands, load twen- He’d been going to say ty-five had fallen. “house”, but realized that there By the time we hitchhiked into wasn’t a house anymore. town and got on the phone in “Quick!” he rasped, anxiously. time to find all the governmental "We can still get there by—” He agencies had closed their offices stopped before saying “helicop- for the day, load thirty had ter”, for—similar reasons. fallen. “Burt ” he said, after a By the time we finally con- pause that allowed the total to vinced the Washington Operator rise to fifty-five with a crash. that this was a national emer- "What’ll we do?” gency that could not (though she “As usual with your inven- kept suggesting it) be handled tions,” I said, “we get on the by the ordinary Civil Defense phone and alert the government.” members (the town had a popu- “The phone,” said Burt, his lation of two hundred, and a one- face grey, “was in the house.” percent enrolment in CD. Those I felt the hue of my face match two guys wouldn’t be any more his, then. “The car,” I blurted. help than we were, ourselves.), “We’ll have to drive someplace and were able to locate Artie’s where there’s a phone!” congressional contact (he was We ran out of the lab, dodged out at a movie), load fifty had a few flying shards of pottery dropped, and I was bone-tired, that sprayed out after us from and it was (since load fifty took a load-eleven-total-sixty-six, and thousand seconds to form, load roared off down the road in Ar- one had taken twenty, and their

118 FANTASTIC ” total—one thousand twenty sec- birds in the region,— if only an onds—divided by two made an ornithologist, and average formulation-time of five "Birds?” hundred ten seconds per formu- “Eating the cornflakes,” I lation) over seven hours since said, and when he nodded in com- " that first bowl had started to ap- prehension, went on, —pretty pear, and my mind, whether I soon the word’ll get to the gov- wanted it to or not, gave me the ernment,” distressing information that by “Or,” said Artie, hopefully, now Artie’s estate was cluttered “the batteries and engine’ll wear with a numbing totality of one- out . . . Won’t they?” thousand - two - hundred - seven- “It’s a radium-powered mo- ty-five bowl-cereal-spoon-napkin- tor,” I said, as we slipped into toothpick sets. And fifty-one the coolness of a booth at the more due in seventeen minutes. rear of the bar. “The power- source will deplete itself by half HAT’S he say?” I asked in about six hundred years, may- WArtie, leaning into the phone be. Meantime, what’ll we do with booth. all those cornflakes?” “He thinks I’m drunk!” Artie The waiter came by and we or- groaned, slamming down the re- dered two beers. ceiver. "I only wish I were!” "Wait—” said Artie, gripping I gave a stoical shrug, and my sleeve. “As the machine pointed to the bright red neon reaches the upper atmosphere, lure across the street. “Don’t the sound-waves’ll thin out, just stand there wishing. Join weaken, as the medium grows me?” I started across toward the scarce.” bar. “Sure,” I said, prying my cuff "But Burt—” Artie babbled, free of his fingers, "so we only hurrying along beside me. “We get bombarded with badly made .” can’t just forget about it . . artifacts by the time the thing “We did our bit,” I said. "You gets ten miles up. But that’s told your contact, right? Well, by about fifty-thousand artifacts tomorrow morning, when the to- per foot rise, Artie, at that tal is up to over three thousand height ! No, I take that back. Fif- (I calculated five-thousand-fifty ty thousand sets! And at five sets by the time the machine items per set (if we don’t count reaches the hundred-foot mark, a the precise number of flakes per little better than twenty-eight batch of cereal), we have twenty- hours from the starting time), five thousand items per foot per !” somebody’s sure to notice all the batch, merely a rough estimate

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 119 ”

The beers came, and we or- miles away, fifty-two bowl-spoon- dered two more, the orders to napkin-toothpick-cereal combina- keep coming until we said whoa. tions, shimmering in the air as they took form, would be hard to OU know," said Artie, after miss if you were looking in the Ydraining half the bottle, “I right direction. I said as much to just had a horrible thought— Artie, but he shook his head. “Horrible above and beyond "It’s ten o’clock of a moonless the present horrors?” I said, night, Burt. They couldn’t see a horrified. damned thing, unless there were He nodded, thoughtfully. some kind of illumination— ’’ I “What happens to anything that saw by his face that he’d thought gets sucked into the machine un- of a possible source. der the lip of the reflector? Does "What?” I said. the machine just use it as more “Fireflies?” he hypothesized raw material ... Or does it weakly. start duplicating that?" “Holy hell!” I choked. "As if E got out of the booth and there weren’t too many pigeons Wjoined our waiter as he hur- !” already ried out into the street. And “There’s no room for a pigeon there, in the distant blackness of to fit under that lip,” said Artie, the skies, was a sight like a patting the back of my hand as Fourth of July celebration gone though he thought it was sooth- berserk. From the number of ing me (it wasn’t), "or any other those fireflies, I figure the first bird, for that matter. What I was one got sucked in at about the thinking of was stuff like nits fifteen mark, and possibly a few and gnats and mosquitoes and of his pals with him. “Despite everything—” said “Stop!” I shuddered, reaching Artie, softly, “it sure is beauti- for my beer and finding the bot- ful.” tle empty. I looked for the waiter, "A gorgeous sight,” I had to but he was at the front window, agree. “But—What the hell is watching a crowd that was gath- that thing in the air under the ering in the street. They were fireflies? You can just make it looking in the direction of the out in the reflected flashes. It lab. It was a few miles away, of kind of looks like the—the lab course, but that machine was—if on time, and why shouldn’t it be? Artie’s fingers sank into my —due to deliver fifty-two sets forearm. "But. It is the lab! Not just about now, and even a few the lab, but another like it! With

120 FANTASTIC — all those falling bowls and things, the wreckage of the two already enough plaster-dust and wood- on the ground!” splinters and glass-spicules “Maybe,” I said, less lacka- must’ve been sucked in to let the daisically than I’d spoken when machine make a dupl—There it we left the phone booth for the goes!” bar, “you’d better get your man A one-story building dropping in Washington, again.” from a height of around thirty “He’ll never believe I’m sober, feet onto another one-story build- now/"Artie complained. ing covered over with spoons, “Oops—Never mind, Artie,” I crunchy cereal, and broken pot- said, resignedly, looking at the tery makes much more racket latest development in the distant than can be absorbed by the sky. “He’ll get the word indirect- cushioning effect of thousands of ly, from the forest rangers.” napkins and rubber toothpicks. “Huh?” said Artie, and looked We were a few miles off, so the toward the machine. sound—when it finally got to us —was muted by distance, but it MID the sparking cloud of was still a lulu. A fireflies, fluttering corn- “And to think,” Artie mur- flakes, glinting spoons, and a mured, “that this is happening foursome of hazy, still-process- because we tried to make it noise- ing new labs, there was a new- less!” comer to the chaos. Something in “What I’m worried about,” I one of the plunging artifacts said sickly, “is that new cloud of must have rubbed something dust rising from the latest de- else the wrong

DOUBLE OR NOTHING 121 his thought-processes apparent- "Oh, yeah,” I said. “So what'll ly running parellel to mine. "So we do, now?" the new fires . . He glanced at the increasing “Will be sucked in with the holocaust on the horizon. “Pray next batch," I finished. “And for rain?" come out double-strength next time around.”— ELL, that was yesterday. “Burt ” said Artie, “What’s WToday, as I write this, the the temperature at which water government has finally gotten breaks down into free hydrogen wind of the thing, and the area and oxygen again?” is under martial law. Not that all “A little less than the melting those uniformed men standing point of iron,” I said. "Figure just out of heat-range about the about fifteen hundred degrees ever-increasing perimeter are go- Centigrade. Why ?” ing to be of much help. Maybe “I just wondered if perhaps to keep the crowds back, they’d the machine might not only dou- help, except no one in his right ble the amount of the fire, but its mind is heading any direction .” temperature as well . . but away from the mound. A I didn’t want to theorize about few trees went up in smoke dur- that. It was summer, and the air ing the blaze, too, and now, every was pretty humid, and that n-times-twenty seconds, a whole meant an awful lot of free hydro- uprooted forest is joining the gen and oxygen, all at once, ready crash. to re-combine explosively in the No one knows quite what to do heat from the flames that had about it. The best weapon we separated them in the first place, possess is Artie’s inadvertent thence to become disrupted disintegrator pistol (rememher again, thence to explode again Venus?), and ever since the

. . . The mind refuses certain Three Day War, they've been contemplations. I turned away banned. There’s a proposition up from the chaotic display in the before Congress to un-ban the distant skies, and said to Artie, things and blast the machine, of “How’s chances of the machine course, but the opposition keeps getting melted down?” putting the kibosh on things by He shook his head with great simply asking, “What if the ma- sadness. “We made it out of chine doesn’t vanish? And what damn near heat-proof metals, re- if, during the attempted shoot- member? So it wouldn’t burn up ing, it starts duplicating disin- at entry speeds from outer tegrator-beams ?” space?” The vote was negative.

122 FANTASTIC We figure it’ll take quite a few cornflakes-and-firefly dinners. years before the machine gets Not to mention the birds the beyond the point where the at- machine has started to produce mosphere stops acting as a me- since a few foolish sparrows got dium for the sound-waves. And incinerated in the blaze. that, of course, is only if the Artie figures that if enough machine isn’t duplicating the at- snow falls on the machine, it may mosphere, too. And why couldn’t weight it down and stop the it be? process. So far, that’s the only In the meantime, the avian hope we have. Meantime, it’s still population in the region is on the the middle of June. increase, thanks to all those It looks like a long summer.

THE END

COMING NEXT MONTH

A new Poul Anderson novel, Shield, is featured the June issue of FANTASTIC.

It is the story of a youngster, SKI33jL3D-S New Novel by Poul Anderson just back from the stars, who alone carries the knowledge IFANTASTIC of a weapon that can make a . tirpRIE© OF IMAGINATION brave new world—or destroy 1 1ll: STAR 'M. **-*•**>Jy IISHKUMAN (34=) an evil old one. ly I'Vibwt K The second part of June FANTASTIC'S one-two-three

punch is a long novelet by Robert F. Young, The Star

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Punch three is the Fantasy Reprint— Robert Bloch's The Past Master.

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123 According to you...

Dear Editor: the detective bit. As far as I I have read a good many de- can see—the two don’t mix. tective novels and equally appre- “Hepcats of Venus” was good

ciable numbers of sf novels over among the novelets ; but “This Is the past year and am a fan of Your Death” was strictly from both forms of literature. How- “no-wheresville.” ever, I must admit that the ap- On the short story list, I rate pearance of the name Erie Stan- “The Emphatic Man” as an sf ley Gardner is the only reason “first” in suspense. What an end- that I ever purchased the Janu- ing! In my estimation, the type ary issue of fantastic. Never- of ending that leaves a reader theless I was disappointed with “hanging,” to form his own con- “The Human Zero.” As a mys- clusions, is a noteworthy achieve- tery and detective novelet, this ment in an author’s style. My story, in my opinion, outshines compliments to Gordon Browne. some of Gardner’s “Perry Mason” Roarke’s “Atonement” was novels; but as an sf thriller, it very good also. And the ironic was a complete flop. Perhaps I twist in Dellinger’s “Rat Race” have reached this opinion be- was simply a terrific and respect- cause the story did possess that inspiring accomplishment in sci-

detective story element ; still this ence fiction writing. does not alter my opinion. How- Since this is the first time I ever, I would appreciate another have read a fantastic publica- Gardner novel to appear in fan- tion, I do not consider myself to tastic. But would like this one have the authority to judge this to be pure science fiction, without particular issue in comparison

124 with another issue. However, it opined that it “reads like some- has inspired me to buy the next thing written by a mental patient issue that appears on the stands. or a moron” all within the same And, believe me, coming from an letter, later condemned as inane anti-magazine reader like me, babbling, as it was. Mrs. Stewart that’s a compliment! gives no reason for her dislike of M. M. Marshall Bunch. 1816 Sybil Lane Then Mr. Pashow admits he Tyler, Texas liked “Fishhooks” and asks what it can mean. • We’re hoping to get another Miss Imms likens Bunch to Gardner that ivill have more fan- comic-book writers. She does not tasy emphasis; hut getting a give reasons for disliking Bunch. Gardner with no detection at all Mr. Turner writes a childishly is like finding a cherry pie with- witty letter, stating that he has out cherries. furthermore come to the conclusion that Mr. Greco is Bunch’s Dear Miss Goldsmith: grandmother, an altogether re- I would like to become in- markable feat. The general involved in the David R. Bunch sinuation is that anyone who controversy as a non-combatant. likes Bunch must be prejudiced. First, there have been no Mr. Turner gives no reasons for Bunch stories in fantastic since his dislike of Bunch. “A Small Miracle of Fishhooks Nobody gives his reason for and Straight Pins.” This, with disliking Bunch. Nobody gives ‘‘The Problem was Lubrication,” his reason for liking Bunch.

“Last Zero” and “We Regret” As for myself, I can take compose all that he has written Bunch or leave him. But his sto- in fantastic in the last year. ries are not as bad as many oth- Yet these four stories have ers fantastic prints. There has caused more argument than all been a lot of shouting back and others combined. This must sure- forth about Bunch but no one ly indicate there is something has made any intelligent state- attractive about the stories; ments on either side. fantastic has printed mediocre David J. Hildreth stories before and brought no 304 Bell Road comment. The people who have Palmyra, New Jersey written against Bunch have called that author’s— (“and I use • Maybe we ought to get a let- the term doubtfully”) —work ter from Bunch himself giving "trash, utter rot and tripe” and his views on this minor tempest?

125 !

Dear Editor: fantastic) was fresh and very

The story by Fritz Leiber in much entertaining . . . and I the February issue of fantastic, had agreed with Gold in my opinion, is one of the best Then came Dec. with its of its kind that I have ever read. “Spawn of Doom,” nothing spec- It was very similar to stories tacular but I gladly part with written by H. P. Lovecraft (a 35tf for a story of this quality high compliment). The story and interest. gives you the same chilling feel- His recent “A Silence of ing that Loveeraft’s stories do, Wings” (Feb. fantastic) but while H.P.L. gives you a was well constructed and ad- feeling of happening long ago, mirably written. Too bad it didn’t Leiber’s is frighteningly modern. rate a cover. As if it could happen to you. Let’s My point is this: If Poul An- see more stories by Leiber, espe- derson had written, say “Spawn cially about Fafhrd and the Gray of Doom” your mailbag would Mouser. have been laden with paeons of Lawrence D. Kafka praise for that same issue, but 4418 Bruner Ave. with the author’s name as it Bronx 66, N.Y. was, well ... Ken Winkes • A Mouser story coming up Arlington, Wash. in a couple of months that ex- plains his mysterious origins. • Increasing numbers of readers are praising Mr. Galouye, Dear Editor: which we think is a well-deserved I would like, in this letter, to trend. pay tribute to an author, whom, I think has been long neglected Dear Editor: by all sf readers. This author is Out of curiosity, may I ask; one Dan Galouye. out of all the manuscripts that His stories never fail to in- are sent to you by mail, how trigue me, and I consider it an many of them receive more than event when one of them is fea- a cursory glance at the first few tured in a magazine, especially pages before being .packed with FANTASTIC. a rejection slip and sent back? H. L. Gold once said that he According to one leading pub- despised stories dealing with lisher, the chances of getting a “Ugh, who discovers how to make manuscript accepted are over a fire .” or to chip flint . . but hundred to one, against. And if Galouye’s “The Trekkers” (Sept. a story were to be accepted, by

126 FANTASTIC a writer, how much would he get per word as compared with a pro- fessional science fiction writer? Bob Adolfsen 9 Prospect Ave. Sea Cliff, N.Y.

• We read every manuscript as thoroughly as is necessary to determine whether it is suitable If you’ve recently changed your ad- or plan to in the near future, for acceptance. This means from dress, be sure to notify us at once. We’ll one-third to one-half are read make the necessary changes on your virtually in full. Our price is the mailing plate, and see to it that your same to all writers, new or old, subscription continues without inter- with a bonus for special excel- ruption. Right now—print the in- lence. formation requested In the spaces

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