Including Venture Science Fiction

Admimlty (short novel ) POUL ANDERSON 4 Eine Kleine Nachtmusik FREDERIC BROWN and CARL ONSPAUGH 58 Cartoon GAHAN WILSON 71 Books JUDITH MERRIL 72 Rake RON GOULART 78 Phoenix THEODORE L. THOMAS 88 The Ancient Last HERB LEHRMAN 91 Stand-In GREG BENFORD 93 Story of a Curse DORIS PITKIN BUCK 96 Nabonidus (verse) L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP 99 Science: Future? Tense! ISAAC ASIMOV 100 Of Time and the Yan ROGER ZELAZNY 110 Jabez O'Brien and Davy Jones' Locker ROBERT ARTHUR 113 Coming next month • • • 57 F&SF Marketplace 128 Index to Volume XXVIII 130 Cover by ]~~mes Roth (illust,.llling "Admirlllty")

Joseph W. Ferman, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER [sooc Astmotl, SCIENCE EDI'l'OJl

Ted While, ASSISTANT EDITOll Edword L. Ferman, MANAGING EDITOll Jtuiith Merril, BOOK EDITOll Robert P. Mills, CONSULTING EDITOR

Tlut Magtniru of FaJIItuy 11t1d St:ietu:e Fktitn&, Volume 19, No. l, Whole No. 169, IM'M 1965. Pllblislled ,...,.ehly by Mercwr-, Press, Itu:., at 50- a co(>y. At~tiMal sMbscripliml $5.00; $5.50 i• Cat~ada and the Pa" America" Uni0t1; $6.00 in all other CDMfllries. PMbli­ catio" office, 10 Ferry Street, Catu:ord, N. H. Edieorial aftd get1eral mail shoMld be set1t to 341 Etut 53rd St., Nl!fiJ York, N. Y. 10022. Sectn&d CIls. Below appears the fiMl novel in Poul Anderson's privateer trilogy. Though a sequel to MARQUE AND REPRISAL (Feb. 1965) and AR­ SENAL PORT (Aprill965), ADMIRALTY is a complete short novel­ deepspace adventure at its imagiMtive best. The scene: a hostile region one hundred and fifty light-years from Earth, where the dominion of man is championed by one ship and a crew with the will to fight.

ADMIRALTY

by Poul Anderson

CoNSIDER HIS PROBLEM. THE Thus every Aleriona vessel she Phoenix region lay a hundred and took drained her strength. The fifty-odd light-years from Sol. The prize crews could not return and only human settlement in it was rendezvous, when Fox depended the· French colony planet New for survival on unpredictable roo­ Europe, circling the sun Aurore. tion through immensity. No Alerion had seized this and was news came from home. And that, rapidly building orbital defenses slowly, wore down men's spirits. which would make it impregna- The prisoners he interviewed ble. Gunnar Heim had one ship. continued to tell Heim that Earth Fox II was, indeed, a cruiser, her had not moved, that the World gravitrons capable of fantastic ac- Federation Navy was still merely celeration, her automated arma- glaring at Alerion's, out on the ment able to curtain her in laser Marches. He believed them. As energy and nuclear hellfire while the months passed, his own hope directing a fatal slash through an faded. enemy's similar defense. But she Yet he was doing tremendous was alone, a privateer commis- damage. Aurore was not so close sioned on a technicality. Her men to The Eith either. The occupiers had signed on less for loot than for of New Europe sat at the end of the sake of striking at man's old a long supply line; and they could foe. However, she could only re- not spare much bottom for this supply by selling her captures. garrison, when Earth's superior C 1965 by Poul Anderson 4 ADMmALn 5 force might strike. Heim had not clashing their glasses, until the killed anybody-he was proud of bulkheads trembled. Endre Vad­ that-but he had sent valuable asz-wanderfooted troubadour of personnel off to internment; he space, sworn brother to his cap­ had grabbed ships and material tain -leaped onto . a table. His that were sorely missed; he tied slim body poised while his fingers up an unholy number of warcraft ftew across the guitar strings. on convoy duty and the hunt for More and more of the French be­ him. In the end, Alerion sent one gan to sing with him: of the best naval minds it had, to "C'est une fleur, fleur de prai­ deal with the situation. The new­ rie, comer started arming unescorted C' est une belle Rose de Prov­ cargo carriers. ence-" Fox encountered only one such At first Heim was laughing too Q-boat. Had the human crew loudly at Jean Irribame's last joke been less carefully picked and to hear. Then the music grew, and trained, it could have been the it took him. He remembered a cer­ end of her. As it was, she reacted tain night in Bonne Chance. Sud­ smoothly to the surprise, warded denly he was there again. Roofs off everything that was cast, and peaked around the garden, black laid the enemy under her guns. under the stars, but the yellow Meroeth's captain surrendered. light from windows joined the In a way, though, he had ac­ light of Diane rising full. A small complished his purpose. None re­ wind rustled the shrubs, to mingle alized it, but Gunnar Heim's raid­ scents of rose and lily with un­ ing was at an end. named pungencies from native blooms. Madelon's hand was I trusting in his. Gravel scrunched beneath their feet as they walked Joy filled the ship, where she toward the summerhouse. And lay far outsystem with her cap­ somewhere someone was playing tive. This was more than ·another a tape, this very song drifted success. There had been humans down the warm air, earthy and aboard Meroeth, who were now loving. set free. "-Sa jolie taille ronde et gra­ The mess seethed with men. cieuse Only twenty-five privateers re­ Comme une vague souple et mained, and a dozen New Euro­ ntysterieuse." peans, in a room that had once His eyes stung. He shook his held a hundred; but they seemed head harshly. to overflow it, shouting, singing, lrribame gave him a close look. 6 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The New European was medium lrribarne laid a hand on his tall, spare of build, dark-haired, arm. "Un moment, s'il vous plait. long-headed, and clean-featured. The population of the whole plan­ He still wore the garments in et is only five hundred thousand. which he had been captured, The city people, that ynu would green tunic and trousers, soft meet, they arc much less. Perhaps boots, beret tucked in scaly leath­ I know." er belt, the uniform of a planetary "Madelon Dubois?" constabulary turned maquisard. "From Bonne Chance in ori­ Lieutenant's bars gleamed on his gin? Her father a doctor? But shoulders. yes! She married my own brother "Pourquoi cette tristesse sou­ Pierre. They live, what last I elaine?" heard." · "Eh?" Heim blinked. Between Darkness passed before Heim. the racket in here, the rustiness "Cud ske lov," he breathed: as of his French, and the fact that close to a prayer as he had come New Europe was well on the way since childhood. to evolving its own dialect, he did­ Irribarne considered him. The n't understand. captain was a huge man, two me­ "You show at once the trouble," ters in height, blockv of shoulders Irribarne said. Enough English and face, roan-haired eyes win­ speakers visited his planet, in the try blue; but on this instant he lost days, that town dwellers usu­ looked curiously helpless. "Ah, ally had some command of their this matters to you. Come, shall language. we not speak alone?" "Oh . . . nothing. A mem­ "All right. Thanks." Heim led ory. I spent several grand leaves the way to his cabin. When he on New Europe, when I was a shut the door, the noise of song Navy man. But that was-Judas, and belling chords was chopped that was twenty-one years ago." off as if they had entered another "And so you think of aliens that universe. slither through streets made emp­ Irribarne sat down and glanced ty of men. How they move softly, about the neat, compact room, like hunting panthers!" Irribarne the books, a model of a warship, scowled into his glass and drained pictures of a woman and a girl. it in a convulsive gesture. "Or "Votre famille?" he asked. perhaps you remember a girl, and "Yes. My wife's dead, though. wonder if she is dead or else hid­ Daughter's with her grandfather ing in the forests. Hein?" on Earth." Heim took his glance "Let's get refills," said Heim away from Lisa's image. At four­ brusquely. teen, she might have changed un- ADMIRALTY 7 recognizably by the time he got Okay. We were in love, when I back. If he ever did. He offered had a long leave on New Europe. one of his few remaining cigars Very innocent affair, I assure you. and began to stuff a pipe for him­ So damned innocent, in fact, that self. His fingers were not absolute­ I shied away a bit and-Anyhow, ly steady. "How is your own fam­ next time I came back she'd ily?" moved." 'Well, thank you. Of course, "Indeed so. To Chateau de St. that was a pair of weeks ago, Jacques. I thought always Pierre when my force was captured." Ir­ got her ... on the rebound? ribarne got his cigar going and Now and then she has laughed leaned back with a luxurious sigh. about the big Norwegien when Heim stayed on his feet. she was a girl. Such laughter, half "How'd that happen, anyway? happy, half sad, one always makes We've had no real chance to talk." of young memories." Irribarne's "Bad luck, I hope. We set out gaze grew stiff. "Pierre is a good to blow up a uranium mine on husband. They have four chil­ the Cote Notre Dame that the dren." Aleriona were exploiting. We Heim flushed. "Don't misunder­ found a sport submarine, for we stand me," he said around his know that the one thing those pipe. "I couldn't have married damned dryworlders do not have better than I did either. It was is submarine detection equip­ just-she was in trouble, and I ment. But the mine was better hoped I could help. Old friend­ guarded than we expected. When ship, nothing else." we surfaced to go ashore at night, He didn't believe he was lying. a shell hit. Chemical explosive on­ He had organized this expedition ly, or I would not sit here. Their out of a conviction that Earth troopers had, you say, the drop must strike back now, rather than when we swam to land. There wait for the enemy's strength to was talk about shooting us for an grow. A few other thoughts had example, or what is worse to crossed his mind, but they were squeeze information from us. But not unduly painful to bury. The the new high commander heard more so, he admitted, when he and forbid. Instead, we were go­ knew that Jocelyn Lawrie was ing to AJerion. They spoke about waiting for him; and she was a prisoner exchange." fine, handsome, altogether satis­ "I see." fying woman, no longer young, of "But you make stalls. It is news course, but then neither was he. of Madelon you wish, no?" Or Madelon. "Hell, I hate to get personal- "You have that from us all," Ir- 8 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ribarne said heartily. "Now tell course of a naval incident that got me more before we return to the out of hand. They concluded that festival. Why are you here in only no planet of corpses was worth the one ship? When does the Navy lives that revenge would cost and come?" that nothing mattered except to God help me, Heim thought, I reduce tension; they set out to ne­ wanted to spare them till tomor- gotiate a settlement that would row. give the whole Phoenix to Alerion. "I don't know," he said. France, almost alone in her an­ "Nom d'un chien!" lrribarne ger, showed Parliament that wil­ sat bolt upright. "What is it that ly-nilly, according to law Earth you say?" was at war; and France gave Slowly, Heim dragged the tale Heim letters of marque and Heim from himself: 'how an honest wish got away before he could be for peace had been tangled with stopped. But no further action fol­ cowardice and the will to believe lowed, the Deepspace Fleet lay until most of Earth's powerful re­ chained and muzzled while Par­ fused to credit the plain evidence liament wrangled, quite possibly of Alerion's intention to drive nothing except Fox's buccaneering man out of space. After the clash prevented a resumption of those at New Europe, the Federation talks lvhich to Alerion were only fell over itself in eagerness to ac­ a more effective kind of war. cept an offer of negotiation. One "Mais ... mais ... mais ranking delegate, Admiral Cynbe . . . vous-cette astronef-" Ir­ ru Taren himself, had privately ribarne checked his stutter, admitted to Heim that his govern­ caught breath, and said carefully, ment only planned to consolidate "This ship has ranged in the Au­ its gains before making the next roran System. Have you, yourself, move; but whom could Gunnar taken no proof we live?" Heim, the despised extremist wilr· "I tried," Heim said. Back and monger, get to believe that? Endre forth he paced, smoke fuming, Vadasz bummed his way home heels banging, big useless hands with an evewitness account of clasped behind his back till the what had ;eally happened-and nails stood white. "The. prisoners heard his proofs dismissed as that went home with my prizes, fraudulent. Most of those who sat they could have been interrogat­ in the seats of the mighty were so ed. Not easily; Aleriona don't re­ afraid of war that they must be­ spond like humans; but somebody lieve Alerion spoke truly in claim· could've ripped the truth from ing that New Europe had been them! I guess nobody did. accidentally depopulated in the "I also made a pass by New ADMIJlALTY 9 Europe. Not hard to do, if you're lrribame's chin sank on his quick. Most of their defense satel­ breast. "Un demi million lites still aren't equipped, and we d'hommes," he mumbled. Abrupt­ detected no warships too close to ly: "But they will die all the same. outrun. So I got photographs, nice Can one not see that? We have clear ones, showing plainly that only a few more weeks.'' only Coeur d'Yvonne was de­ 'What?" Heim bellowed. His stroved, that there never had been heart jolted him. "Is the enemy fix­ a fi~estorm across Garance. Sent ing to bum you out?" them back to Earth. I suppose they That could be done quite eas­ convinced some people, but evi­ ily, he knew in horror. A thou­ dently not the right ones. Don't sand or so megatons exploded at forget, by now a lot of political satellite height on a clear day will careers are bound up with the set a good part of a continent peace issue. And even a man who afire. Madelon! might confess he was wrong and "No, no," the colonist said. resign, if it only involved himself, "They need for themselves the re­ will hesitate to drag his party sources of the planet, in fortifying down with him. the system. A continental fire­ "Oh, I'm sure sentiment has storm or a radioactive poisoning, moved in our favor. It'd already that would make large trouble for begun to do so when I left. Not them too. But the vitamin C.'' long after, at Staum for muni­ Piece by piece, the story came tions, I met some latecomers from out. Never doubting Earth would Earth. They told me the will to hurry to their aid, the seaboard fight was becoming respectable. folk of Pays d'Espoir re_fused to But that was four months ago!" surrender and fled inland, to the He shifted his pipe, stopped his mountains and forests of the feet, and went on more evenly: Haute Garance. That nearly un­ "I can guess what the next line of mapped wilderness was as rich in argument has been for the ap­ game and edible vegetation as peasement faction. 'Yes, yes,' they North America before the white say, 'maybe the New Europeans man. With a high technology and still are alive. So isn't the most no population pressure, the peo­ important thing to rescue them? ple were wealthy; hardly a one We won't do that by war. Alerion did not own hunting, fishing, and can wipe them out any time she camping gear, as well as a flyer chooses. We have to trade their capable of going anywhere. Given planet for their lives.' That's prob­ a little camouflage and caution, ably being said in Parliament to­ fifty thousand scattered lodges and night." summer cottages were much too 10 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION many for the Aleriona to find. On its way through gums, muscles, the rare occasions when it did digestion, blood, bones. Most of­ happen, one could resort to tent ten the victim dies of something or cave or lean-to. else which he no longer has the Portable chargers, equally able strength to resist. But one way or to use sunlight, wind, or running another, he dies. water, were also standard outdoor "And they know it," lrribarne equipment, that kept up power grated. "Those devils, they know cells. Ordinary miniature trans­ our human weakness. They need ceivers maintained a communica­ only wait." He lifted one fist. "Has tions net. It did the enemy scant Earth forgotten?" good to monitor. He had come "No," Heim said. "It'd be bound with people that knew French, to occur to somebody. But Earth's but his own ossified culture had so confused ...." not allowed for provincial dialect, "Let us go there," Irribarne Louchebeme, or Basque. The bold­ said. "I myself, all my men, we est men organized raids on him, are witnesses. Can we not shame the rest staved hidden. them till they move?" With little axial tilt, New Eu­ "I don't know," Heim said in rope enjoys a mild and rainy win­ wretchedness. "\Ve can try, of ter in the temperate zone, even at course. But-maybe I'm being fairly high altitudes. It seemed paranoid-but I can still imagine that the humans could hold out the arguments. 'Nothing except indefinitely. negotiation can save you. Alerion But they were not, after all, on will not negotiate unless we make Earth. Life had arisen and evolved prompt concessions." separately here, through two or "I know damn well that once three billion years. Similar condi­ inside the Solar System, Fox won't tions led to similar chemistry. be allowed to leave again. The Most of what a man needed he law, you see; only units under the could get from native organisms. Peace Authority can have nuclear But similarity is not identity. weapons, or even weapon launch­ Some things were lacking on New ers, there. And we do. Our pos­ Europe, notably vitamin C. The session is legal now, on a techni­ escapers had packed along a sup­ cality, but it won't be when we ply of pills. Now the store was enter Federation space." very low. Alerion held the farm­ "Can you not dismantle your lands where Terrestrial plants armament?" grew, the towns where the bio­ "That'd take weeks. It's been in­ chemical factories stood. tegrated with the ship. And....,. Scurvy is a slow killer, working what difference? I tell you, your ADMIRALTY 11 appearance on Earth might cost the simple facts that the Navy has us the war. And that would set not moved and we have not been Alerion up to prepare the next ag­ recalled. gression." Heim thought of Made­ "Obviously that's an unstable lon. "Or so I believe. Could be situation. It's only kept going this wrong, I suppose." long, I'm sure, because France "No, you are right," lrribarne tied Parliament in legal knots as to said dully. whether or not there really was a "It might be the only way out. war on. The deadlock will be re­ Surrender." solved one way or another pretty "There must be another! I will soon. We want to tilt the balance not be so fanatic that women and our way. children surely die. But a risk of "Okay, one approach is for you death, against the chance to keep people to let it be known you are our homes, yes, that is something alive-let it be known beyond we all accepted when we went in­ any possible aoubt-and also to the maquis." make it plain you are not going to Heim sat down, knocked out­ surrender. You'll die before you his pipe, and turned it over and give in. The way to do that is over in his hands while he stared . . . let me think, let me think at the model of his first command. . . . yes. We've got Meroeth. Inexplicably his emotions began \Vith some repairs, she can make to shift. He felt less heavy, there the passage; or else we can make was a stirring in him, he groped another capture. We stay here, through blackness toward some though, ourselves. What we send vague, strengthening glimmer. is-not a handful of men-a hun­ "Look," he said, "let's try to rea­ dred women and children." son this through. Fox is keeping Heim's palm cracked against his the war alive by refusing to quit. knee. "There's an emotional ap­ As long as we're out here fighting, peal for you!" the people at home who think like Irribarne's eyes widened until us can argue that Alerion is being they were rimmed with white. whittled down at no cost to the "Comment? You are crazy? You taxpayer. And, ja, they can beat cannot land on Europe Neuve." the propaganda drums, make big "The space defenses aren't fat heroes of us, stir the old tribal ready yet." emotions. They haven't the politi­ "But ... no, they do have cal pull to make_ the Authority or­ some detector satellites, and war­ der the Navy to move; but they craft in orbit, and-" have enough to keep us from be­ "Oh, it's chancy," Heim agreed. ing recalled. I deduce this from He had no real sense of that. Ev- 12 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ery doubt was smothered in up­ warcraft, especially in the mo­ surging excitement. 'We'll leave ments when they crammed on de­ Fox in space, with most of your celeration to make a landing. men aboard. If we fail, she can Once down on that rough, airless snatch another prize and send surface, thev moved their boat in­ your men back in that. But I to an extinct fumarole for con­ think I have a way to get M eroeth cealment, donned space gear, and down, and up again, and stay in struck out afoot. Their trip around touch meanwhile. We'll need to the planet-facing hemisphere some computer work to make sure, was a miniature epic; let it only but I think it might pan out. If be said that they completed their not, well, you can show me how errand and got back. Rendezvous to be a guerrilla." with the ship was much too risky "Ah." lrribarne drew deeply on to attempt. They settled in ~e his cigar. "May I ask if this idea boat and waited. would seem so attractive, did it Not long after, a giant meteor­ not offer a wav to see Madelon?'' ite or dwarf asteroid struck New Heim gaped at him. Europe, burning a hole across the "Pardon," Irribarne blurted. night sky and crashing in the ''That was not badly meant. Old Ocean du Destin a few hundred friendship, as you said. I like a kilometers east of the Garance loyal man." He extended his coast. Atmospherics howled in ev­ hand. ery Aleriona detector. Heim took it and rose. "Come They faded; alerted flyers re­ on," he said rather wildlv. 'We turned to berth; the night stillness can't do anything till tomorrow. resumed. Let's get back to the party." For all but the men aboard Meroeth. III When the fifty thousand tons to which she was grappled hit the Elsewhere Fox plunged dark, outermost fringes of air, she let go every engine stilled, nothing but and dropped behind. But she ,the minimum of life support could not retreat far. Too many equipment in operation, toward kilometers per second of velocity the far side of the moon Diane. must be shed in too few kilometers It was not garrisoned, and a diam­ of distance, before ablation de­ eter of 12 7 5 kilometers makes a voured her. That meant a burst broad shield. Even so, the tender of drive forces, a blast of energies that went from her carried brave from a powerplant strained to its men. They might have been spot­ ultimate. The enemy's orbital de­ ted by some prowling Aleriona tection system was still inade- ADMIRALTY 13 quate; but it existed in part, and bellowings of turbulence, save as there were also instruments on the a thunderstorm deep in his body. ground. Nothing could hide this His cosmos shrank to a fire­ advent-except the . running, streak, his reason for being to the growing storm in the immediate need of holding this clumsy mass neighborhood of a meteorite. nose-on to the descent pattern. Radar would not pierce the ions He became a robot, executing or­ which roiled at the stone's face ders written for it by whirling and streamed back aft. Optical electrons. and infrared pickups were blind­ No: he was more. The feed­ ed. Neutrino or gravitronic detec­ back of data through senses, judg­ tors aimed and tuned with preci­ ment, will, made the whole opera­ sion might have registered some­ tion possible. But none of that took thing which was not of local ori­ place on a conscious level. There gin. But who would look for a ship wasn't time! in the midst of so much fury? Air That was as well. Live flesh impact alone, at that speed, would could not have met those demands break her hull into a thousand for more than a few seconds. The Hinders, which friction would meteorite, slowed only a little by then turn into shooting stars. the air wall through which it Unless she followed exactly be­ plunged, outraced the spaceship hind the meteorite, using its mass and hit the sea-still with such for a bumper and heat shield, its force that water had no chance to flaming tail for a cloak. splash but actually shattered. No autopilot was ever built for Meroeth was as yet several kilom­ that task. Gunnar Heim must do eters aloft, her own speed reduced it. If he veered from his narrow to something that metal could tol­ slot of partial vacuum, he would erate. The pattern tape said CUT die too quickly to know he was and Heim slammed down a dead. For gauge he had only the switch. The engine roar whirred incandescence outside, instru­ into silence. ment readings, and whatever in­ He checked his instruments. tuition was bestowed by experi­ "All's well," he said. His voice ence. For guide he had a compu­ sounded strange in his ears, only tation of where he ought to be, at slowly did he come back to him­ what velocity, at every given mo­ self, as if he had run away from ment, unreeling on tape before his his soul and it must now catch up. eyes. He merged himself with the "We're under the Bonne Chance ship, his hands made a blur on the horizon, headed southwest on just console, he did not notice the about the trajectory we were try­ waves of heat, the buffetings and ing for." 14 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FIC110N 'Whoo-oo-oo," said Vadasz in a had never understood, though, weak tone. His hair was plastered why Heim insisted on going lank to the thin high-cheeked down. face, his garments drenched. Madelon- "Bridge to engine room," Heim No, no, ridiculous. Maybe it's said. "Report." true that you never really fall out "All in order, sir," came the of love with anyone; but new voice of Diego Gonzales. "Shall loves do come, and while his wife I tum on the coolers?" lived he had rarely thought about "Well, do you like this fur­ New Europe. For that matter, his nace?" grumbled Jean Irribarne. reunion with Jocelyn Lawrie had Heat radiated from every bulk­ driven most else out of his mind. head. Fora while. "Go on," Heim decided. "If No doubt he'd only been so anyone's close enough to detect keyed up about Madelon because the anomaly, we've had it any­ of . . . he wasn't sure what. A way." He kept eyes on the console siJiy scramble after his lost youth, before him, but jerked a thumb at probably. She was middle-aged Vadasz. "Radar registering?" now, placidly married, according "No," said the Hungarian. 'We to her brother-in-law she had put appear to be quite private." on weight. He wanted to see her Those were the only men again, of course, but he need only aboard. No more were needed for instruct Meroeth's pilot to make a successful landing; and in case sure she was among the evacuees. of failure, Heim did not want to No. That won't do. Too many lose lives essential to Fox. Gonzal­ unforeseen things could happen. es was a good third engineer; Va­ I've got to be in the nucleus, per­ dasz had been a fairly competent s~ally. steward, and as a minstrel had a A new sound filled the hull, the lot to do with keeping morale keening of sundered air, deepen­ high. Still, the ship could manage ing toward a hollow boom, as the without them. One colonist suf­ ship dropped below sonic speed. ficed to guide Meroeth, and lrri­ Heim looked out the forward view­ bame had pulled rank to win that port. The ocean reached vast be­ dangerous honor. The rest must neath, phosphor-tinged waves bring their story to Earth, should and a shadow at the horizon that the present scheme miscarry. As must be one of the lies des Reves. for Heim himself-First Officer He applied the least bit of thrust David Penoyer had protested and to keep in a stable glide. been overruled. Penoyer could This was not the ideal ap­ serve quite well as captain. He proach to Haute Garance. But ADMIRALTY 15 while meteorites are plentiful, his across a civilization. But New Eu­ had had too many requirements rope has 72 percent of Earth's to meet. It must be large, yet not surface area; it is an entire world. too large to nudge into the right Coeur d'Yvonne had been almost orbit in a reasonable time; the the only outpost on any other con­ point at which Fox grappled and tinent than Pays d'Espoir, and towed must be fairly near the that city was annihilated. The planet but not dangerously near; Aleriona occupied Garance, the path after release must look where the mines and machines natural; it must terminate in an were: a mere fringe on hugeness. uninhabited region, at night. You Otherwise they must rely on couldn't scout the Auroran System scattered detector stations, roving forever, only until a halfway ac­ flyers, and the still incomplete ceptable chunk of rock was found. satellite system. His arrival being Meanwhile Meroeth could be re­ unknown to them, the odds fa­ converted: lights, temperature, vored Heim. air systems adjusted for human Nonetheless . . . careful, care­ comfort, the interior stripped of ful. plants and less understandable He started the engines again. At Aleriona symbols, the controls low power, Meroeth lumbered ripped out and a Terrestrial ver­ across the Golfe des Dragons. Di­ sion installed. The bridge had a ane hove into view, nearly full. plundered look. Heim thought, The moon was smaller than Luna briefly and irrationally, how this seen from Earth-22 minutes an­ -far more than any attack­ gular diameter-and less bright, would have struck his old antag­ but still a blue-marked tawny cor­ onist Cynbe with horror and nucopia that scattered metal wrath. shards across the water. Onward the ship fell, slower Then the mainland rose, hills and lower until the sea appeared and woods climbing swiftly to­ to rise and lick at her. Vadasz ward snowpeaks. Irribarne left his probed the sky with his instru­ gun and got on the radio in a ments, awkwardly-he had got­ harsh clatter of Basque. It would­ ten hasty training-and intently. n't do to have the French shoot His lips were half parted, as if to when they saw the great Aleriona cry, "Fire!" to Irribarne in the sin­ craft. Or, more likely, run and gle manned gun turret. But he hide. The wilderness concealed found only night, unhurried an entire headquarters base. winds and strange constellations. The land beneath grew ever It would not have been possible more rugged. Rivers ran from the to travel thus far, undetected, snows, leaped down cliffs, foamed 16 PANTAST AND SCI!.NCI FJC"nOif into steep vaDeys and were lost to and swam as fast as possible to­ sight among the groves. A bird ward land. Moonlight glimmered Bock rose in alarm when the ship on the guns of the men who stood passed over, there must be a mil­ there waiting for him. lion pairs of wings, blotting out half the sky. Vadasz whistled in IV awe. "lsten irgalmazzon! I won­ The tent was big. The trees dered how long the people could that surrounded it were taller yet. stay hidden, even alive, in the At the top of red-brown trunks, bush. But three times their num­ they fountained in branches ber could do it." whose leaves overarched -and hid "Yeh," Heim grunted. "Except the pavilion under cool sun­ for one thing." flecked shadows. Their foliage Lac aux Nuages appeared, a was that greenish gold hue the na­ wide wan sheet among darkling tive "grasses" shared, to give the trees, remotely encircled by moun­ Garance countrv its name. Wind tains whose glaciers gleamed be­ rustled them. Through the open neath the moon. Irribame relaved flap, Heim could look down arch­ instructions. Heim found the in­ ways of forest to the lake. It glit­ dicated spot, just off the north tered unrestfully, outward past shore, and lowered ship. The con­ the edge of vision. Except for cealing waters closed over him. some wooded islands, the only He heard girders groan a little, felt land seen in that direction was the an indescribable soft resistance eo white-crowned sierra. Blue with through the frame to himself, distance, the peaks jagged into a eased off power and let the hull deep blue sky. settle in ooze. When he cut the Aurore was not long up. The interior gee-field, he discovered eastern mountains were still in a the deck was canted. dusk, the western ones still faint­ His heart thuttered, but he lv flushed. Thev would remain so could only find flat words: ''Let's for a while; New Europe takes get ashore." Even in seven-tenths more than 7 5 hours to complete a of Terrestrial gravity, it was a rotation. The sun did not look somewhat comical effort to reach much different from Earth's, about the emergency escape lock with­ the same apparent size, a little out falling. When the four men less brilliant, its color more or­ were crowded inside, clothes bun­ ange than yellow. Heim had dled on their necks, he dogged found Vadasz in the dews at the inner door and cranked open dawn, watching the light play in the outer one. Water poured icily the mists that streamed over the through. He kicked to the surface lake, altogether speechless. ADMIRALTY 17 That time was ended. Colonel dealing with us after the space Robert de Vigny, once constabu­ fortifications are complete. You, lary commandant, now beret­ Captain Heim, with your profes­ crowned king of the maquis, sional eye, and Monsieur Vadasz, bridged his fingers, leaned stiffly with your poet's grasp of nonhu­ across his desk, and said, "So. You man psychology, will be with our have made the situation clear, and delegation in the guise of ordi­ we seem to have threshed out a nary colonists. Perhaps you can plan of action. Let me review what gather some useful intelligence. was decided." "Whatever the result, our rep­ Heim could just follow the resentatives will return here. swift, crisp French: ''Your priva­ "Then you summon Fox. She teer has found a way to lie unde­ makes a covering raid while Me­ tected in this vicinity, and you roeth gets aloft, and convoys her can summon her by that most ad­ to the necessary distance from mirable means you have invent­ Aurore where her Mach engines ed. We have the big transport can start her off faster than light. Meroeth. We will put some two "After that, if we are provided hundred women and children with the capsules, you continue aboard her, with supplies, to your warfare in space. If we are bring Earth a direct appeal that not, and if Fox cannot help us Earth may find hard to resist. They steal them by providing air cover, can flit in by ones and twos dur­ I will call the enemy again and ing the next few days, while my offer him an end to your priva­ men run an underwater loading teering on condition he supply us. tube to an airlock. This he is virtually sure to accept. "Meanwhile, we in the forest So ... at large cost or small, must live. So I will establish radio we will have gained time, during contact with the Aleriona and ask which we hope Earth will come to for a parley. They will doubtless help. Have I stated matters cor­ agree,· especially since their new rectly?" chief of naval operations seems to Heim nodded and got out his be a rather decent fellow. I dare­ pipe. De Vigny's nostrils dilated. say they will receive our represen­ "Tobacco?" the New European tatives already tomorrow. breathed. "One had almost for­ "We shall try to reach an agree­ gotten." ment that will leave us free. Ces­ Heim chuckled and threw the sation of guerrilla raids in ex­ pouch onto the desk. De Vigny change for vitamins-yes, they picked up a bell and rang ft. An should think that is to their ad­ aide-de-camp materialized in the vantage, for they will count on tent entrance, saluting. "Find me 18 FANTASY AND SCIENCI! FICTION a pipe," de Vigny said. "And, if unobtrusive. Now and then a fly­ the captain does not object, you er came by, as often as not weav­ may find one for yourself too." ing between tree trunks under the "At once, my colonel!" The concealing foliage. Small radars aide demateriali;zed. sat in camouflage, watching for ''Well." De Vigny unbent a tri­ the unlikely appearance of an fle. "Thanks are a poor thing, Mon­ Aleriona vessel. The engineers sieur. What can New Europe do could not install their tube to the for you?" ship before night, unless one of Heim grew conscious of Va­ the frequent fogs rose to cover dasz's half jocose, half sympathet­ their work. Men sat about yarn­ ic regard, blushed, and said ing, gambling, doing minor roughly, "I have an old friend on chores. All were eager to talk with this planet, who's now Jean lrri­ the Earthlings, but the Earthlings bame's sister-in-law. See to it that soon wearied of repeating them­ she and her family are among the selves. Toward noon, a degree of evacuees." physical tiredness set in as well. "Pierre will not go when other They had been up for a good men stay," the Basque said gently. eighteen hours. "But they shall most certainly Vadasz yawned. "Let us go come here if you wish," de Vigny back to our tent," he suggested. said. He rang for another aide. "This planet has such an incon­ "Lieutenant lrribame, why do venient rotation. You must sleep you not go with Major Legrand to away a third of the daylight and my own flyer? It has a set which be awake two-thirds of the night. can call to anywhere in the Haute But at the tent I have a flask of Garance. If you will tell the oper­ brandy, and-" ator where they are, your kin-" They were not far from it then, When that was done, he said to were crossing a meadow where Heim and Vadasz, "I shall be flame-colored blossoms nodded in most busy today, it is plain. But the golden grass. Jean lrribame let us relax until after lunch. We stepped from under the trees. have many stories to trade." "Ah, he hailed, "vous voila. I And so they did. have looked for you." When at last de Vigny must "What about?" Heim asked. dismiss them, Heim and Vadasz The lieutenant beamed. "Your were somewhat at loose ends. friends are here." He turned and There was little to see. Though called," 'Alla-o-ol" quite a few men were camped They came out into the open, around the lake, the shelters were six of them. The blood left Heim's scattered and hidden, the activity heart and flooded back. He stood ADMIRALTY 19 in a sunlit darkness that whirled. In some vague fashion he met She approached him timidly. teen-age Jacques, Cecile, and Camp clothes, faded and shape­ Yves. Madelon talked a lot, with­ less, had today been exchanged out much but friendly banalities for a dress brought along to the coming through the translations woods and somehow preserved. It of the Irribarne brothers. All the fluttered light and white around while Danielle stood quiet. But at her long-legged slenderness. Au­ parting, with promises of a real rore had bleached the primly get-together after sleep, she braided brown hair until it was smiled at him. paler than her skin; but still it Heim and Vadasz watched shone, and one lock blew free them leave, before going on them­ above the heartshaped face. selves. When the forest had closed "Madelon," he croaked. upon her, the minstrel whistled. "Gunnar." The handsome "Is that indeed the image of your plumpish woman took both his one-time sweetheart, yonder hands. "C'est si bon te voir encore. girl?'' he asked. Bienvenu.H "More or less," Heim said, hard­ "A nej-" The breath rasped ly aware that he talked to anyone into him. He pulled back his else. "There must be differences, I shoulders. "I was surprised," he suppose. Memory plays tricks." said limpingly. "Your daughter "Still, one can see what you looks so much like you." meant by-Forgive me, Gunnar "Pardon?" The woman strug­ but may I advise that you be care­ gled with long unused English. ful? There are so many years to Her husband, an older and stumble across." heavier version of Jean, interpret­ "Good Lordi" Heim exploded ed while he shook Heim's hand. angrily. "What do you take me Madelon laughed. "Oui, oui, tout for? I was startled, nothing else." le monde le dit. Quand ;'etais 'Well, if you are certain •••• jeune, peutetre. Danielle, je vou­ You see, I would not wish to-" drais que tu fasses la connais­ "Shut up. Let's find that bran­ sance de mon vieil ami Gunnar dy." Heim led the way with tre­ Heim." mendous strides. "Je suis tres honoree, Mon­ sieur." She could scarcely be v heard above the wind as it tossed the leaves and made light and Day crept toward evening. But shadow dance behind her. The life kept its own pace, which can fingers were small and cool in be a fast one in time of war. At Heim's, quickly withdrawn. sunset Heim found himself on a 20 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ness jutting into the lake, alone signs of breaking up. He wasn't with Danielle. sleepy himself, though the wine He was not sure how. There had bubbled in his head, and his body been the reunion and a meal as demanded exercise. He said some­ festive as could be managed, in thing about taking a stroll. Had the lean-to erected near the lrri­ he invited the girl along, or had barne flyer. Champagne, which she asked to come, or had Made­ he had taken care to stow aboard lon chuckling low in the way he Meroeth, flowed freelv. Stiffness remembered, sent them off to­ dissolved in it. Pres~ntly they gether with a remark about his sprawled on the grass, Vadasz's needing a guide? Everybody had guitar rang and most voices joined spoken, but between his bad his. But Heim and Madelon kept French and hammering pulse he somewhat apart, struggling to wasn't sure who had said what. talk, and her oldest daughter sat He did recall that the mother had quietly by. given them a little push toward They could not speak much of th, deeper forest, one hand to what had once been. Hcim did each. not regret that, and doubted Mad­ .:')Ong followed them a while elon did. Meeting again like this, ("Aupres de ma blonde, qu'il fait they saw how widely their ways bon, fait bon, fait bon-") but by had parted; now only a look, a the time they reached the lake­ smile, a bit of laughter could cross shore they heard simply a lap-lap the distance between. She was an of wavelets, rustle of leaves, flute utterly good person, he thought, of a bird. Aurore was going down but she was not Connie or even behind the western peaks, which Jocelyn. And, for that matter, he stood black against a cloud bank was not Pierre. all fire and gold. The same long So they contented themselves light made a molten bridge on with trading years. Hers had been the water, from the sun toward mild until the Aleriona came. him and her. But eastward fog Pierre, the engineer, built dikes was rolling, slow as the sunset, a and power stations while she built topaz wall that at the top broke their lives. Thus Heim found him­ into banners of dandelion yellow self relating the most. It came in a sky still clear with day. The natural to make the story colorful. breeze cooled his skin. His eyes kept drifting toward He saw her Clasp arms together. Danielle. "Avez vous froid, Mademoiselle?" Finally-this was where the he asked, much afraid they would real confusion began as to what have to go back. She smiled even had happened-the party showed before he took off his cloak, prob- ADMIL\LTT 21 ably at what he was doing to her HMay I ask you something, language. He threw it over her Monsieur?'' shoulders. When his hands "Ask me anybody." The one re­ brushed along her neck, he felt bellious lock of hair had gotten his sinews go taut and withdrew free again. in a hurry. "I have heard that we who go "Thank you." She had a voice to Earth do so to appeal for help. too light for English_ or Norwe­ Do you really think we will mat­ gian, which turned French into ter that much?" song. "But will you not be cold?" "Well, uh, well, we had a ne­ "No. I am fine." (Damn! Did cessity to come here. That is to fin have the meaning he want­ say, we have now made estab­ ed?) "I am-" He scratched lished communication from your around for words. "Too old and people to mine in space. So we hairy to feel the weather." can also take people like you "You are not old, Monsieur away." Captain," she said gravely. A crease of puzzlement flitted · "Hal" He crammed fists into between her brows. "But they have pockets. 'What age have you? spoken of how difficult it was to Nineteen? I have a daughter that get so big a ship down without which she-1 have a daughter a being seen. Could you not better few years less." have taken a little one?" 'Welf-" She laid a finger "You are very clever, Mademoi­ along her jaw. He thought wildly selle, but-" Before he could con­ what a delicate line that bone struct a cover-up, she touched made, over the small chin to a his arm (how lightly!) and said: gentle mouth; and, yes, her nose "You came as you did, risking tipped gaily upward, with some your life, for Mother's sake. Is £reckless dusted across the bridge. that not so?" "I know you are mv mother's age. "Uh, uh, well, naturally I But you do not look it, and what thought over her. We are old you have done is more than any friends." young man could." She smiled. "Old sweethearts, I "Thanks. Thanks. Nothing." have heard. Not all the knights "Mother was so excited when are dead, Captain. I sat with you she heard," Danielle said. "I think today, instead of joining in the Father got a little jealous. But music, because you were so beau­ now he likes you." tiful to watch." "Your father is a good man." It His heart sprang until he re­ was infuriating to be confined to alized she had been using the sec­ this first-grade vocabulary. ond person plural. He hoped the 22 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION sunset light covered the hue his a voyage on a warship- What face must have. "Mademoiselle," songs of victory we will sing, he said, "your mother and I are homeward bound!" friends. Only friends." "Well-urn- We return to "Oh, hut of course. I under­ camp now? Soon is dark." Under stand. Still, it was so good of you, the circumstances, one had better everything you ha\'e done for us." be as elaborately gentlemanly as The evening star kindled above possible. her head. "And now you will take Danielle drew the cloak tight us to Earth. I have dreamed about around her. "Yes, if you wish." He such a trip since I was a baby." wasn't sure whether that showed There was an obvious opening reluctance or not. But as she start­ to say that she was more likely to ed walking immediately, he made make Earth sit up and beg than no comment, and they spoke little vice versa, but he could onlv hulk en route. over her, trying to find a graceful The party was indeed tapering way of putting it. She sighed and off. Heim's and Danielle's return looked past him. touched off a round of goodnights. "Your men too, thev are When she gave him back his cloak, knights," she said. "They have not he dared squeeze her hand. Va­ even your reason to fight for New dasz kissed it, with a flourish. Europe. Except perhaps Monsieur On their way back through Vadasz?" leafy blue twilight, the minstrel "No, Endre has no one here," said, "Ah, you are the lucky one Heim said. "He is a troubadour." still." "He sings so wonderfully," "What do you mean?" Heim Danielle murmured. "I was lis­ snapped. tening all the time. He is a Hun­ "Taking the fair maiden off that garian?" way. What else?" "By birth. Now he has no "For God's sake!" Heim growled. home." Endre, you're a right buck, "We just wanted to stretch our but this is getting to be too much legs. I don't have to rob cradles about you. "I have-have­ yet." When you to arrive on Earth, "Are you quite honest, Gun­ you and your family use my home. nar?- No, wait, please don't tie I come when I can and take you me in a knot. At least, not in a in my ship." granny knot. It is only that Mlle. She clapped her hands. "Oh, Irribarne is attractive. Do you wonderful!" she caroled. ''Your mind if I see her?" daughter and I, we shall become "What the blaze have I got to such good friends. And afterward, say about that?" Heim retorted ADMIRALTY 23 out of his anger. "But listen, she's the shore, the lake was a somehow the daughter of a friend of mine, bright sable, each little wave and these colonial French have a tipped with moonfire. The snow­ medieval notion of what's proper. peaks stood hoar beneath a uni­ Follow me?" verse of stars. He remembered the "Indeed. No more need be said." time on Staum when he had tried Vadasz whistled merrilv the rest to pick out Achernar; tonight he of the way. Once in his sleeping could do so with surety, for it bag, he drowsed off at once. Heim burned great in this sky. His tri­ had a good deal more trouble do­ umph, just about when Danielle ingso. was being born-"Vous n'etes pas Perhaps for that reason, he 'VieNx, Monsieur le Capitaine." woke late and found himself alone He stripped, left the beam on in the tent. Probably Diego was to mark the spot, and waded out. helping de Vigny's sappers and The water was cold, but he needed Endre had wandered off-wher­ less willpower than usual to take ever. It was not practical for the plunge when it was waist guerrillas to keep a regular mess, deep. For a time he threshed and the campstove, under a single about, warming himself, then dim light, showed that breakfast struck out with long quiet strokes. had been prepared. Heim fixed his Moonlight rippled in his wake. own, coffee, wildfowl, and a de­ The fluid slid over his skin like a frosted chunk of the old and truly girl's fingers. French bread which is not for Things are looking up, he tender gums. Afterward he thought with a growing gladness. washed, depilated the stubble on We really do have a good chance his face, shrugged into some to rescue this planet. And if part clothes and went outside. of the price is that I stop raiding No word for me, evidently. If -why, I'll be on Earth too. any comes, it'll keep. I feel rest­ Did it sing within him, or had less. How about a swim? He a bird called from the nest ahead? grabbed a towel and started off. No. Birds don't chord on twelve Diane was up. Such light as strings. Heim grinned and swam came through the leaves made the forward as softly as he was able. forest a shifting bewilderment of Endre's adrenal glands would black and white, where his flash­ benefit from a clammy hand laid beam bobbed lonely. The air had on him from behind and a shouted warmed and cleared. He heard "Boo!" summery noises, whistles, chirps, The song grew stronger. croaks, Butters, none of them quite "Roslein, Roslein, Roslein rot, like home. Wheu he emerged on Roslein llUf der Heiden." 24 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION As it ended, Heim saw Vadasz Ved Cud- His brain went in seated on a log, silhouetted against rage to the tongue of his child­ the sky. He was not alone. hood. By God, if he does anything Her voice came clear through -I I'm not too old to break a the night. "Oh, c'est beau. Je man's neck. n'aurais jamais cru que les alle­ What the hell business is it of mands pouvaient avoir une telle mine ?I've got Jocelyn f. . sensibilite." He stormed ashore and abraded Vadasz laughed. "Vous savez, himself dry. Clothes on, he stum­ Goethe vecut il y a long-temps. bled through the woods. There Mais pourquoi rappepler de vieilles was a bottle in the tent, not quite haines pendant une si belle nuit? empty. Nous sommes ici pour admirer, A man waited for him. He rec­ parler, et chanter, n'est-ce pas?" nized one of de Vigny's aides. Briefly, blindingly, Hcim re­ "Well?" membered himself with Jocelyn The officer sketched a salute. Lawrie, that time not long ago "I 'ave a message for yow, Mon­ when they met again after years­ sieur. The colonel 'as contact the and she told him that for her those enemy. They receive a delegation had been years wasted-and her in Bonne Chance after day 'as tone was like Danielle's now- break." "Chantez encore, je t•ous en "Okay. Goodnight." prie." "But, Monsieur-" The strings rang very softly, "I know. We have to confer. made themselves a part of night Well, I'll come when I can. We've and woods and water. Vadasz's plenty of time. It's going to be a words twined among them. Dan­ long night." Heim brushed past ielle sighed and leaned a bit the aide and closed his tent flap. closer. Heim swam away. VI No, he told himself, and once more: No. Endre isn't being a Below, the Carsac Valley rolled bastard. He asked me. broad and rich. Farmsteads could The grip on his throat did not be seen, villages, an occasional loosen. He ended his quietness factory surrounded by gardens­ and churned the water with but nowhere man, the land was steamboat violence. He's young. empty, livestock run wild, weeds I could have been her father. But reclaiming the fields. Among I junked the chance. them flowed the river, metal bright No. I'm being ridiculous. I had in the early sun. you, Connie, while you lived. When he looked out the view- ADMillALTY 25 ports of the flyer where he sat, familiarity with French to detect Heim saw his escort, four Aleriona my accent, as long as I keep my military vehicles. The intricate, mouth shut most of the time. gaily colored patterns painted on Which'll be easy enough, since them did not soften their barra­ I'm only coming along in the hope cuda outlines. Guns held aim on of picking up a little naval intelli­ the unarmed New European. We gence." could change from delegates to "Yes, yes," Navarre said impa­ prisoners in half a second, he tiently. "But be most careful about thought, and reached for his pipe. it." He leaned toward Vadasz, who "Pardon." Lieutenant Colonel had a seat in the rear. "You too, Charles· Navarre, head of the Lieutenant Gaston Girard." eight-man negotiation team, "On the contrary," the minstrel tapped his shoulder. "Best lock said, "I have to burble and chatter that away, Monsieur. We have not and perhaps irritate them some- had tobacco in the maquis for one . what. There is no other wav to longtime." probe the mood of nonhum.ans. "Damn! You're right. Sorry." But have no fear. This was all Heim got up and stuck his smok­ thought about. I am only a junior ing materials in a locker. officer, not worth much caution on "They are no fools, them." Na­ their part." He smiled tentatively varre regarded the big man care­ at Heim. "You can vouch for how fully. "Soon we land. Is anvthing good I am at being worthless, no, else wrong with vou, Captain Al­ Gunnar?" phonse Lafayette?" Heim grunted. Pain and puz­ "No, I'm sure not," Heim said zlement flickered across the Mag­ in English. "But let's go down the var's features. When first his list. My uniform's obviously friend turned cold to him, he had thrown together, but that's natural put it down to a passing bad mood. for a guerrilla. I don't look like a Now, as Heim's distantness per­ typical colonist, but they probably sisted, there was no chance-in won't notice, and if they do it this crowded, thrumming cabin­ won't surprise them." to ask what had gone wrong. "Comment?" asked another of­ The captain could almost read ficer. those thoughts. He gusted out a "Didn't you know?" Heim said. breath and returned to his own "Aleriona are bred into standard­ seat forward. l'm being stupid and ized types. From their viewpoint, petty and a son of a bitch in gen­ humans are so wildlv variable that eral, he knew. But 1 can't forget a difference in size and coloring is Danielle, this sunrise with the trivial. Nor have they got enough fog drops like jewels in her hair, 26 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION and the look she gave him when ries they served were windowless we said goodbye. Wasn't I the one prolate domes, eerily graceful for tvho'd earned it? all that they were hastily assem­ He was quite glad when the bled prefabs. Conveyors, trucks, flver started down. lifts were manmade, but the con­ · Through magnification before trols had been rebuilt for hands of it dropped under the horizon, he another shape and minds trained saw that Bonne Chance had grown to another concept of number. some in twenty years. But it was Barracks surrounded the field, still a small citv, nestled on the hundreds of buildings reaching land's seaward shoulder: a city of over the hills; from above, they soft-hued stucco walls and red tile looked like open-petaled bronze roofs, of narrow ambling streets, flowers. Missiles stood tall among suspension bridges across the Car­ them, waiting to pounce. Auxil­ sac, a market square where the iary spacecraft clustered in the cathedral fronted on outdoor stalls open. One was an armed pursuer, and outdoor cafes, docks crowded whose snout reached as high as the with \Vatercraft, and evervwhere cathedral cross. trees, Earth's green chestn~t and "It must belong to a capital poplar mingled with golden bell~­ ship in planetary orbit," Heim fleur and gracis. The bay danced decided. "And if that's the only and dazzled, the countryside such, the other warships must be rolled ablaze with wildflowers, out on patrol." enclosing the town exactly as they "I do not see how you can use had done when he wandered hand the information," Navarre said. in hand with Madelon. "A single spacecraft of the line Onlv . . . the ways were choked gives total air superiority when with dead leaves; houses stared there is nothing against it but By­ blank and blind; boats moldered ers. And our flyers are not even in the harbor; machines rusted si­ militarv." lent; the belfry rooks were dead or "Still, it's helpful to see what fled and a fauquette cruised the you're up against. You're sure their skv on lean wings, searching for whole power is concentrated prey. The last human thing that here?" stirred was the aerospace port, "Yes, quite sure. This area has twentv kilometers inland. most of our industrial facilities. And those were not men or There are garrisons elsewhere, at men's devices bustling over its certain mines and plants, as well concrete. The airships bringing as at observation posts. But our cargo had been designed by no scouts have reported those are neg­ Terrestrial engineer. The facto- ligible in themselves." ADMIRALTY Z1 "So. . . . I'd guess, then, know­ sunrays turned their scaly gar­ ing how much crowding Aleriona ments almost incandescent. will tolerate-let me think-l'd They did not draw the crooked estimate their number at around swords at their belts nor point 50,000. Surely the military does­ guns at the newcomers; they might n't amount to more than a fifth have been statues. Their officer of that. They don't need more stepped forward, making the in­ defense. Upper-type workers­ tricate gesture that signified re­ what we'd call managers, engi­ spect. He was taller than his fol­ neers, and so forth-are capable lowers, though still below average of fighting but aren't trained for human height. it. The lower-type majority have "Well are you come," he sang had combativeness bred out. So in fairly good French. "Wish you we've really only got I 0,000 Aler­ rest or refreshment?" iona to worry about. How many "No, thank you," Navarre 'said, men could you field?" slowly so the alien could follow "Easily a hundred thousand­ his dialect. Against the fluid mo­ who would be destroyed the mo­ tion that confronted him, his stiff­ ment they ventured out of the for­ ness looked merely lumpy. 'We are ests." prepared to commence discussions "I know. A rifle isn't much use at once." when you face heavy ground and "Yet first ought you be shown air weapons." Heim grimaced. your quarters. Nigh to the high The flyer touched concrete at masters of the Garden of War is the designated point and halted. prepared a place as best we Its escort remained hovering. might." The officer trilled an or­ Navarre stood up. "Sortons," he der. Several low-class workers said curtly, and led the way out appeared. They did not conform the door. at all to Earth's picture of Aler­ Twenty Aleriona of the war­ iona-their black-clad bodies rior class waited in file. Their were too heavy, features too coarse, lean, forward-slanting, long­ hair too short, fur too dull, and tailed forms were less graceful there was nothing about them of than those of the master breed; that inborn unconscious arro­ their fur lacked the silvery spar­ gance which marked the leader kle, the fair hair did not flow loose types. Yet they were not servile, but was braided under the conical nor were they stupid. A million helmets, the almost-human faces years of history, its only real were handsome rather than pos­ change the glacial movement to­ sessing the disturbing muliebrile ward an ever more unified society, beauty of an overlord. The long had fitted their very genes for this 28 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION part. If the officer was a panther vie tres serieusement," he mur­ and his soldiers watchdogs, these mured to Navarre. "Je parierais were mettlesome horses. qu'ils ne font jamais de plaisant­ In his role as aide, Vadasz eries douteuses." showed them the party's baggage. Did the enemy officer cast him They fetched it out, the officer a look of-incomprehension? whistled a note, the troopers fell ''Taisez vousz" Navarre said. in around the humans and started But Vadasz was probably right, off across the field. There was no Heim reflected. Humor springs marching; but the bodies rippled from a certain inward distortion. together like parts of one organ­ To that great oneness which was ism. Aurore struck the contact the Aleriona soul, it seemed im­ lenses which protected them from possible: literally unthinkable. its light and turned their eyes to Except . . . yes, the delegates rubies. to Earth, most especially Admiral Heim's own eyes shifted back Cvnbe, had shown Hashes of a and forth as he walked. Not many bleak wit. But they belonged to the other soldiers were in evidence. ultimate master class. It suggested Some must be off duty, perform­ a difference from the rest of their ing one of those enigmatic rites species which-He dismissed that were communion, conversa­ speculation and went back to ob­ tion, sport, and · praver to an serving as much detail as he Aleriona below the fifth level of could. mastery. Others would be at the The walk ended at a building missile sites or on air patrol. some hundred meters from the Workers and supervisors swarmed edge of the field. Its exterior was about, unloading cargo, fetching no different from the other multi­ :metal from a smelter or circuit ple curved structures surrounding parts from a factory to another it. Inside, though, the rooms had place where it would enter some clearly been stripped, the walls orbital weapon. Their machines were raw plastic and floors stained whirred, clanked, rumbled. None­ wh~re the soil of Howerbeds had theless, to a man the silence was been removed. Furniture; a bath terrifying. No shouts, no talk, no cubicle, Terrestrial-tvpe lights, jokes or curses were heard: only an plundered from houses, were ar­ occasional melodic command, a ranged with a geometric precision thin weaving of taped orchestral which the Aleriona doubtless be­ music the pad-pad of a thousand lieved was pleasing to men. "Hith­ soft feet. er shall food and drink be brought Vadasz showed his teeth in a you," the officer sang. "Have you grin of sorts. "lls considerent Ia wish to go elsewhere, those guards ADMIRALTY 29 that stand outside will accom- "The imbiac of planetary and pany. " space defense are they, with be­ "I see no communicator," Na­ low them the prime engineering varre said. operator. And then have they re­ "None there is. With the wil­ positories of information and ad­ derness dwellers make you no se­ vice," the officer replied. "Is not cret discourse. \Vithin camp, vour for you a similarity?" guards bear messages. Now must "I speak for the constabulary we open your holders-of-things government of New Europe," Na­ and make search upon your per­ varre said. "These gentlemen are sons." my own experts, advisors, and as­ Navarre reddened. "What? sistants. But whatever I agree to Monsieur, that violates every rule must be ratified by my superiors." of parley." Again the girlish face, incon­ "Here the rule is of the Great gruous on that animal body, Society. Wish you not thus, your­ showed a brief loosening that selves you may backtake to the might betoken perplexity. "Come mountains." It was hard to tell you?" the song wavered. whether or not that lilting voice 'Why not?" Navarre said. held insult, but Heim didn't think "Please gather your papers, Mes­ so. The officer was stating a fact. sieurs." His heels clacked on the "Very well," Navarre spat. "We wavout. submit under protest, and this Heim and Vadasz got to the shall be held to your account door simultaneously. The minstrel when Earth has defeated vou." bowed. "After you, my dear Al­ The Aleriona didn't bother to phonse," he said. The other man reply. Yet the frisking was oddly hesitated, unwilling. But no, you like a series of caresses. had to maintain morale. He bowed No contraband was found, back: "After you, my dear Gaston." there not being any. Most of the They kept it up for several sec­ colonists were surprised when the onds. officer told them, "Wish you thus, "Make you some ritual?" the of­ go we this now to seek the Intellect ficer asked. Masters." Heim, recalling past en­ "A most ancient one." Vadasz counters, was not. The Aleriona sauntered off side by side with overlords had always been more him. flexible than their human counter­ "Never knew I such grew in parts. With so rigid a civilization your race," the officer admitted. at their beck, they could afford it. "Well, now, let me tell you-" "Ah ••• just who are they?" Vadasz started an energetic argu­ Navarre temporized. ment. He's doing his job right 30 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION well, Heim conceded grudcrin~ly. artificial stars glittered wintry Not wanting to keep the Mag­ keen. The interior was a vague, yar in his consciousness, he moving labyrinth of trellises, looked straight ahead at the build­ bushes, and bowers. Light came ing they were approaching. In only from a fountain at the center, contrast to the rest, it lifted in a whose crimson-glowing waters single high curve, topped with a leaped five meters out of a bowl symbol resembllng an Old Chi­ car\red like an open mouth, cas­ nese ideogram. The walls were not caded down again and filled every blank bronze, but scored with comer of the jungle with their microgrooves that turned them clear splash and gurgle. Walking shiftingly, bewilderingly irides­ around it, Heim thought he heard cent. He saw now that this was the wines rustle in the murk over­ source of the music, on a scale head. unimagined by men, that breathed The conqueror lords stood bal­ across the port. anced on tails and clawed feet, No sentries were visible. An waiting. There were half a dozen Aleriona had nothing to fear from aD told. None wore any special his underlings. The wall dilated to insignia of rank, but the light admit those who neared, and flickered lovingly over metal­ closed behind them. mesh garments, lustrous hair and There was no decompression silver-sparked white fur. The an­ chamber. The occupiers must find gelic faces were in repose, the it easier to adapt themselves, per­ emerald eyes altogether steady. haps with the help of drugs. to the To them the officer genuflected heavy wet atmosphere of this and the soldiers dipped their planet. A hall sloped upward, rifles. A few words were sung. The dimly seen in the dull red light guards stepped back into darkness from a paraboloidal ceiling. The and the humans stood alone. floor was carpeted with living, One Aleriona master arched downy turf, the walls with phos­ his back and hissed. Almost in­ phorescent vines and flowers that stantly, his startlement passed. He swayed, slowly keeping time to trod forward so that his counte­ the music, and drenched the air nance came into plain view. with their odors. The humans Laughter belled from him, low drew closer together, as if for com­ and warm. fort. Ghost silent, ghost shadowy, "Thus, Captain Gunnar Heim," they went with their guards to the he crooned in Engli,sh. "Strange­ council chamber. ness, how we must ever meet. It soared in a vault whose top Remember )'OU not Cynbe ru was hidden by dusk, but where Taren?" ADMIRALTY 31 VII each the other with guns. Wh} came you to this dull soil?" So shattered was Heim's uni­ "Do you expect me to tell you?" verse that he was only dimly Heim rasped. aware of what happened. Through "We are kinfolk, you and I. the red gloom, trillings went Sorrow, that I must word break among the Aleriona. One bristled and keep you captive. Although and cried an order to the guards. your presence betokens this was Cynbe countermanded it with an never meant for a real parley." imperious gesture. Above the rack­ "It was, however. I just hap­ et of his pulse, Heim heard the pened to come along. You've no admiral murmur: "You would right to hold the New Europeans, they destroy on this now, but such at least." must not become. Truth, there can "Let us not lawsplit. We two be no release; truth alike, you are rear above such. Release I the oth­ war's honored prisoners." And ers, home take they word to your there were more songs, and at last warship. Then may she well the humans were marched back to strike. And we have only my cruis­ their quarters. But Heim re­ er Jubalcho to meet her. While she mained. knows not what has happened to Cynbe dismissed his fellow you her soul, Fox II abides. Thus chieftains and all but four guards. gain I time to recall my deep­ By then the sweat was drying on scattered strength." the man's skin, his heartbeat The breath hissed between slowed, the first total despair Heim's teeth. Cynbe swung about. thrust down beneath an iron His eyes probed like fire weapons. watchfulness. He folded his arms "What bethink vou ?" and waited. "'Nothing!" Heim barked franti­ The Aleriona lord prowled to cally. the fountain, which silhouetted It raced within him: He be­ him as if against liquid flames. lieves I took Fox down. Well, For a while he played with a blos­ that's natural. Not knowing about soming vine. The sole noises were our meteorite gimmick, he'd as­ music, water, and unseen circling Slime that only a very small or a wings. It was long before he in­ very fast craft could sneak past toned, softly and not looking at his guard. And why should I the man: come in a tender? Fox on the sur­ "Hither fared I to have in face could do terrific damage, charge the hunt for you the hunt­ missile this base and strike at his er. Glad was my hope that we flagship from a toadhole posi­ might meet in space and love tion. 32 FANTAST AND SCI!.NCZ FICTION I don't know what good it is off in English the orbital elements having him misinformed but­ and present positions. pkzy by ear, boy, pkzy by ear. You "Hence have I sent my race­ haven't got anything left except brothers to summon them," the your rusty old 'Wits. Aleronia went on. "At highest Cynbe studied him a while. acceleration positive and nega­ •Not long dare I wait to act," he tive, Savaidh takes orbit around mused. "And far are my ships." Europe Neuve in eighteen hours, Heim forced a jeering note: lnisant in twentv-three. I think "The practical limit of a maser not the Foxfolk will dread for you beam is about twenty million kilo­ thus soon. With three warcraft meters. After that, if nothing else, aloft, this entire planet do we the position error for a ship gets scan. Let your ship make the least too big. And there's no way to lock of little moves, and destruction onto an accelerating vessel till shall thunder upon her unstoppa­ she's so close that you might as ble. Although truth, when ready well use an ordinary 'caster. Her for smiting we shall send detector coordinates change too fast, with craft all places and seek her lair." too many unpredictables like me­ His tone had not been one of teorite dodging. So how many threat. It grew still milder: "This units have you got on known or­ do I tell you in my thin hoping bits within twenty million kilo­ you yield her. Gallant was that meters?" ship, unfitting her death where "Insult me not," Cynbe asked the stars cannot see." quietly. He stalked to the wall, Heim pinched his lips together brushed aside a curtain of flowers and shook his head. and punched the keys of an info­ "What may I offer you for sur­ trieve. It chattered and extruded render," Cynbe asked in sadness, a printout. He brooded over the "unless maychance you will take symbols. "lnisant the cruiser and my love?" Savaidh the lancer can we reach. 'What the devil!" Heim ex­ All ignorant must the others wheel claimed. their way, until one by one they "We are so much alone, you return on slow schedule and find and I," Cynbe sang. For the first only battle's ashes." time scorn touched his voice, as "What are the factors for those he jerked his tail in the direction two?" Heim inquired. Mostly he of the warriors who stood, blank­ was holding at bay the blood-col­ faced and uncomprehending, half ored stillness. It jarred him-not hidden in the twilight. "Think too much to jam the numbers into you I am kin to that?" his memory-when Cynbe read He glided closer. The illumin• ADMIRALTY 33 tion played over shining locks and You're trying to hound us out of disconcertingly fair countenance. space." His great eyes lingered on the ''Thus must we. Sense, reason, man. "Old is Alerion," he chanted, logic, are what save instruments "old, old. Long-lived are the red of most ancient instinct? If races dwarf stars, and late appears life less powerful than we change, in so feeble a radiance. Once we that makes nothing more than pul­ had come to being, our species, on lulation among insects. But you, a planet of seas vanished, rivers you come in ten or twenty thou­ shrunk to trickles in desert, a sand years, one flick of time, come word niggard of air, water, metal, from the caves, bear weapons life-uncountable ages lingered to shake planets as is home a we in savagehood. Ah, slow was stone war-ax, you beswarm these the machine with coming to us. stars and your dreams reach at the What you did in centuries, we did whole cosmos. That can we not in tens upon thousands of years; endure! Instinct feels doom in this and when it was done, a million becoming one mere little enclave, years a-fled, one society alone en­ given over helpless to the wild dured, swallowed every other, and mercy of those who bestride the the machine's might gave it upon galaxy. Would you, could you us a grip not to be broken. Star­ trust a race grown strong that ward fared the Wanderers, vast­ feeds on living brains? No more is minded the Intellects, yet were Alerion able to trust a race with­ but ripples over the still deep of a out bounds to its hope. Back to civilization eternity-rooted. Earth your own planets must you be lives for goals, Alerion for change­ cast, maychance back to your lessness. Understand you that, caves or your dust." Gunnar Heim? Feel you how ul­ Heim shook the soft touch timate the winter you are?" loose, clenched his fists and "I-you mean-" Cynbe's fin­ growled: "You admit this, and gers stroked like a breath across still talk about being friends?" the human's wrist. He felt the Cynbe confronted him square­ hair stir beneath them, and groped ly, but sang with less than steadi­ for a handhold in a world sudden­ ness: "Until now said I 'we' for all ly tilting. "Well, uh, it's been Alerion. Sure is that not truth. For theorized. That is, some people when first plain was your menace, believe you're just reacting be­ plain too was that those bred stiff­ case we threaten your stability. minded, each for a one element of But it doesn't make sense. We the Great Society, must go down could reach an accommodation, if before you who are not bound and all you want is to be let alone.. fear not newness. Mine was the 34 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION master type created that it might from you of your knowledge and think and act as humans and so plans, but never. Think you are a overmatch them." His hands smote war captive, and no harm that you together. "Lonely, lonely!" share an awareness with your cap­ Heim looked upon him in his tor, who would be your friend." beauty and desolation, and found My God, it leaped in Heim. no words. The sounds about him came Fiercely the Aleriona asked: through as if across a barrier of "Guess you not how I must feel great distance or of fever. Give me alone, I who think more Earth­ some time and . • . and I could man than any save those few cre­ use him. ated like me? Know you not that "Recall," Cynbe urged, "my glory there was to be on Earth, to might on Alerion stands high. lock with minds that had also no Well can I someday make a wall horizon, drown in your books and for the race that bred you, and so music and too much alive eye­ spare them that which is extinc­ arts? Barren are we, the Intellect tion." Masters of the Garden of War; Not Sheer reflex. I won't. I none may descend from us for can't. troubling of Alerion's peace; yet Cynbe held out one hand. were we given the forces of life, "Clasp this, as once you did," he that our will and fury rear tall as begged. "Give me oath you will yours, and when we meet, those seek no escape nor warning to forces bind us through rites they your breedmates. Then no guard knew who stood at Thermopylae. shall there be for you; freely as But . . . when you seized me, myself shall you betread our camps Gunnar Heim, that once you ran­ and ships." somed your daughter with me "No!" Heim roared aloud. • . . afterward saw I that too was Cynbe recoiled. His teeth a rite." gleamed forth. "Little the honor Heim took a backward step. you show to me," he whispered. Coldness ran down his spine and "I can't give you a parole," out into every nerve end. Heim said. Whatever you do, Cynbe laughed. The sound was don't turn him flat against you. glorious to hear. "Let me not There may be a chance here some­ frighten you, Star Fox captain. I where. Better dead, trying for a offer only that which you will break, than-Something flashed take." Very gently: "Friendship? across his brain. It was gone be­ Talk? Together-faring? I ask you fore he knew what it was. His never betrayal of your people. consciousness twisted about and Well might I order a wresting went in a pursuit that made the ADMIRALTY 35 sweat and heart-banging take over Heim did not let go at once. "But his body again. I can't surrender to you, even Somehow, though every muscle verbally," he said. "I guess my own was tight and the room had taken instincts won't let me." on an aspect of nightmare, he said "No, now, often have men-" dryly: "What'd be the use? I credit "I tell you, this isn't something you with not being an idiot. that can be put in words. I can't You'd have an eye kept on me­ really feel what you said, about now wouldn't you?" humans being naturally horrible Where a man might have been to Aleriona. No more can you feel angered, Cynbe relaxed and what I'm getting at. But you did chuckled. "Truth, at the least un­ give me some rough idea. Maybe I til Fox II be slain. Although after­ could give you an idea of . . . ward, when better we know each well, what it's like to be a man the other-" whose people have lost their Heim captured the thought that homes." had run from him. Recognizing it "I listen." was like a blow. He couldn't stop "But I'd have to show you. The to weigh chances, they were prob­ symbols, the-You haven't any re­ ably altogether forlorn and he ligion as humans understand it, would probably get himself killed. you Aleronia, have you? That's bne Let's try the thing out, at least. item among many. If I showed There's no commitment right you some things you could see and away. If it's obviously not going to touch, and tried to explain what work, then I just won't make the they stand for, maybe- Well, attempt. how about it? Shall we take a run He ran a dry tongue over dry to Bonne Chance?" lips, husked, and said, "I couldn't Cynbe withdrew a step. give you a parole anyway, at any Abruptly he had gone catlike. time. You don't really think like a Heim mocked him with a chop­ human, Cynbe, or you'd know ping gesture. "Oh, so you're scared why." I'll try some stunt? Bring guards, Membranes dimmed those eyes. of course. Or don't bother, if you The golden head drooped. "But don't dare." He half turned. "I'd always in your history was honor better get back to my own sort." and admiration among enemies," "You play on me," Cynbe cried. the music protested. "Nah. I say to hell with you, "Oh, yes, that. Look, I'm glad nothing else. The trouble is, you to shake your hand." Oddly, it don't know what you've done on was no lie, and when the four this planeL You aren't capable of slim fingers coiled around his knowing.• 36 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "A111an I" Heim wasn't sure how eyeballs evolved beneath a red much was wrath in that explosion coal of a sun. and how much was something Vadasz waited with his guards. else. "I take your challenge. Go we He looked small, hunched and de­ this now." feated. "Gunnar," he said dully, A wave of weakness passed "what's this?" through Heim. Whew! So I did Heim explained. For a moment read his psychology right. Endre the Hungarian was puzzled. Then couldn't do better. The added hope lit in his visage. "Whatever thought came with returning your idea is, Gunnar, I am with strength. "Good," he accepted you," he said, and masked out ex­ shakily. "Because I am anxious pression. for you to realize as much as pos­ Half a dozen troopers took sible. As you yourself said, you places at the rear of the vehicle. could be a powerful influence for Cynbe assumed the controls. "Put helping Earth, if the war goes us down in the square," Heim against us. Or if your side loses­ suggseted, "and we'll stroll that could happen, you know; our around." Navy's superior to yours, if only "Strange are your ways,'' Cynbe we can muster the guts to use it­ cantillated. "We thought you were in that case, I'd have some voice in probed and understood, your what's to be done about Alerion. weakness and shortsightenedness Let's take Vadasz along. You re­ in our hands, but then Fox II de­ member him, I'm sure." parted. And now-" ''Ye-e-es. Him did I gain tell in "Your problem is, sir, that your party, though scant seemed Aleriona of any given class, except he to matter. Why wish you him?" no doubt your own, are stereo­ "He's better with words than I types," Vadasz said. "Every hu­ am. He could probably make it man is a law to hinself." clearer to you." He speaks Ger­ Cynbe made no reply. The flyer man, and I do a little. Cynbe took off. knaws English, French, doubtless It landed minutes later. The some Spanish-but German? party debarked. The admiral shrugged and gave Silence dwelt under an enor­ an order. One soldier saluted and mous sky. Fallen leaves covered went out ahead of the others, who the pavement and overflowed a accompanied the leaders- dry fountain. A storm had battered -down the hall, into the the market booths, toppled cafe morning, across the field to a mil­ tables and chairs, ripped the gay itary flyer. Cynbe stopped once, little umbrellas. Only the cathe­ that he might slip contacts over dral rose firm. Cynbe moved to- ADMIRALTY 37 ward it. "No," Heim said, "let's The riparian esplanade came make that the end of the tour." in sight. Beyond its rail, the Car­ He started in the direction of sac ran wide and murmurous to­ the river. Rubbish rustled from ward the bay. Sunlight flared off his boots, echoes flung emptily that surface, a trumpet call made back from walls. "Can't you see visible. what's wrong?" he asked. "Men Now! Heim thought. The blood lived here." roared in him. "One of our poets "Hence-driven are they," Cynbe said what I mean," he spoke slow­ answered. "Terrible to me Aleri­ ly. "Wenn wir sind an der Fluss ona is an empty city. And yet, gekommen, und im Falls wir die Gunnar Heim, was this a . . . a Moglichkeit sehen, dann wereden dayfly. Have you such rage that wir ausspringen und nach dem the less than a century is for­ Hafen Schwimmen." saken?" He dared not look to see how "It was going to grow," Vadasz Vadasz reacted. Dimly he heard said. Cynbe ask, in a bemused way, Cynbe made an ugly face. "What token those words?" A small huddle of bones lay on With absolute coolness, Vadasz the sidewalk. Heim pointed. told him, "Man who is man does ''That was somebody's pet dog," he not surrender the hope of his loins said. "It wondered where its gods unless manhood has died within." had gone, and waited for them, Good lad{ Heim cheered. But and finally starved to death. Your most of his consciousness crawled doing." with the guns at his back. "Flesh do you eat,.. Cynbe re­ They started west along the torted. embankment. "Still apprehend I A door creaked, swinging back not," Cynbe sang. "Also Aleriona and forth in the breeze off the wa­ make their lives for those lives ter. Most of the house's furniture that are to come. What differ­ could still be seen inside, dusty ence?" and rain-beaten. Near the thresh­ Heim didn't believe he could old sprawled the remnants of a hide his purpose much longer. So rag doll. Heim felt tears bite his let it be this moment that he acted eyes. -the chance did not look too bad Cynbe touched his hand. 'Well -let him at worst be shattered remember I what are your chil­ into darkness and the end of fear. dren to you," he crooned. He stopped and leaned on the Heim continued with long rail "The difference," he said, strides. "Humans live mostly for "you can find in the same man's their children," Vadasz said. words. lch werde diesen Wesen 38 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION in das Wasser sturzen. Dann gone. Water poured past, a cool springen wir beide. It's, uh, it's and heavy fo-rce that tumbled him hard to translate. But look down over and over. One off-two off­ here." he struck upward with arms and Vadasz joined the:rq. Glee legs. His lungs felt near bursting. quirked his lips, a tiny bit, but he Puff by grudged puff, he let out declared gravely: "The poem air. His mind began to wobble. comes from a saying of Hera­ Here goes, he thought, a breath or cleitus. 'No man bathes twice in a firebeam. He stuck out as little the same river.'" of his face as he could, gasped, "That have I read.'' Cynbe saw only the embankment, and shuddered. "Seldom was thus went below again to swim. dreadful a thought." Thrice more he did likewise, "You see?" Heim laid a hand on before he guessed he had come far his shoulder and urged him fOI'­ enough to risk looking for Va­ ward, until he also stood bent over dasz. He shook the wetness from the rail. His gaze was forced to hair and eyes and continued in an the flowing surface, and held there Australian crawl. Above the tint­ as if hypnotized. ''Here's a basic ed concrete that enclosed the river, human symbol for you," Heim trees trapped sunlight in green and said. "A river, bound to the sea, gold. A few roofpeaks showed, oth­ bound to flood a whole country­ erwise his ceiling was the sky, in­ side if you dam it .. Motion, power, finitely blue. destiny, time itself." Before long Vadasz's head "Had we known such on Aler­ popped into sight. Heim waved at ion-" Cynbe whispered. "Our him and threshed on until he was world raised naked rock.'' under a bridge. It gave some pro­ Heim closed fingers on his neck. tection from searchers. He grabbed The man's free hand slapped a pier and trod water. The min­ down on the rail. A surge of arm strel caught up and panted. and shoulder cast him and Cynbe "Karhoztatas, Gunnar, you go across. They struck the current to­ as if the devil himself were after gether. you!" "Isn't he? Though it helps a VIII lot that the Aleriona don't see so well here. Contacts stop down the His boots dragged him under. brightness for them, but Aurore Letting the Aleriona go, he writhed doesn't emit as much of the near about and clawed at the fasten­ infrared that they're most sensi­ ings. The light changed from tive to as The Eith does." Heim green to brown and then was found it calming to speak academ- ADMIRALTY 39 ically. It changed him from a could and holed up in town. Still, hunted animal to a military tacti­ we want to get out of here as fast cian. "Just the same, we'd better as possible, so let's find a boat in stay down as much as we can. working order." And stay separate, too. You know "There you must choose. I am a the old Quai des Coquillages-it's landlubber by heritage." still there? Okay, I'll meet you 'Well, I never got along with underneath it. If one of us waits horses, so honors are even." Heirn an hour, let him assume the other risked climbing onto the wharf for bought a farm." an overview. He picked a good­ Since Vadasz looked more ex­ looking pleasure craft, a submersi­ hausted than himself, Heim start­ ble hydrofoil, and trotted to her. ed first. He didn't hurry, mostly he Once below, she'd be undetect­ let the current bear him along, able by any equipment the Aleri­ and reached the riverrnouth in onahad. good shape: so good that the sheer "Can we get inside?" the min­ wonder of his escape got to him. strel asked from the water. He spent his time beneath the "Ja, she's not locked. Yachts­ dock simply admiring light-spar­ men trust each other." Heirn on­ kles on water, the rake of masts, slipped the lines, pulled the can· the fluid chill enclosing his skin, opy back, and extended an arm to the roughness of the bollard he help Vadasz up on deck. They held, the chuckle against hulls tumbled into the cabin and closed and their many vivid colors. His the glasite. "Now, you check the mood had just begun to ravel radio while I have a look at the away in worry (Damn, I should've engine." told Endre what I know) when A year's neglect had not much the Magyar arrived. hurt the vessel. In fact, the sun 'Will they not seek us here had charged her accumulators to first?" Vadasz asked. maximum. Her bottom was foul, "M-rn, I doubt it," Heim said. but that could be lived with. Ex­ ''Don't forget, they're from a dry citement surged in Heim. "My planet. The idea of using water original idea was to find a corn· for anything but drinking doesn't rnunicator somewhere in town, come natural to them; you notice get word to camp, and then skulk they've left all these facilities un­ about hoping we wouldn't be touched, though coastwise trans­ tracked down and wouldn't port would be a handy supple­ starve," he said. "But now-hell, ment to their air freighters. Their we might get back in person! It'll first assumption ought to be that at least be harder for the enemy to we went ashore as soon as we pick up our message and send a 40 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION rover bomb after the source, if "I didn't," he confessed. "The we're at sea. Let's go." idea sort of grew. Cynbe was eager The motor chugged. The boat to ... be friends or whatever. I slid from land. Vadasz peered talked him into visiting Bonne anxiously out the dome. "Why are Chance, in the hope something they not after us in full cry?" might turn up that I could use for a "I told you how come. They break. It occurred to me that prob­ haven't yet guessed we'd try this ably none of his gang could swim, way. Also, they must be disorgan· so the riverside looked like the best ized as a bawdyhouse on Monday place. I asked to have you along morning, after what I did to Cyn· because we could use German un­ be." Nonetheless, Heim was glad der their noses. Also, having two to leave obstacles behind and sub­ of us doubled the odds that one merge. He went to the greatest would get away." admissible depth, set the pilot for Vadasz's deference cracked in a a southeasterly course, and began grin. "That was the most awful peeling off his wet clothes. Schweindeutsch I have yet heard. Vadasz regarded him with awe. You are no linguist." "Gunnar," he said, in a tone sug­ Memory struck at Heim. "No," gesting he was not far from tears, he said harshly. Trying to keep his "I will make a ballad about this, hapiness a while, he went on fast: and it will not be good enough, "We were there when I thought if but still they will sing it a thou­ I could pitch Cynbe in the drink, sand years hence. Because your his guards would go all out to name will live that long." save him, rather than run along "Aw, shucks, Endre. Don't the bank shooting at us. If you make my ears bum." can't swim yourself, you've got a "No, I must say what's true. tough job rescuing another non­ How ever did you conceive it?" swimmer.'' Heim turned up the heater to "Do you think he drowned?" dry himself. The ocean around­ "Well, one can always hope," murky green, with now and then a Heim said, less callously than he curiously shaped fish ·darting by sounded. "I wouldn't be surprised -would dissipate infrared radia­ if they lost at least a couple of war­ tion. He had an enormous sense of riors fishing him out. But we've homecoming, as if again he were a likely not seen the last of him. boy on the seas of Gea. For the Even if he did drown, they can time being, it overrode everything probably get him to a revival ma­ else. The frailty and incomplete­ chine before brain decay sets in.­ De¥ of his triumph could be seen Still, while he's out of commission, later; let him now savor it. things are apt to be rather muddled ADMIRALTY 41 for the enemy. Not that the or­ They'll have air patrols with high­ ganization can't operate smoothly gain detectors sweeping the whole without him. But for a while it'll planet. So there goes de Vigny's lack direction, as far as you and I nice hidey-hole at Lac aux Nuages. are concerned, anyhow. That's the For that matter, with three ships time we'll use to put well out to sea this close to her position, Fox her­ and call de Vigny." self is in mortal danger. "Why . . . yes, surely they can "You blithering, self-centered send a fast flyer to our rescue." Va­ rockheadl Did you think I was dasz leaned back with a cat-out­ risking death just so we could es­ side-canary smile. "La belle Dan­ cape? What the muck have we got ielle is going to see me even before to do with anything? Our people she expected. Dare I say, before have got to be warned!" she hoped?" With a growl, he turned to the Anger sheeted in Heim. "Dog inertial navigator panel. No, they your hatch, you clotbrain!" he weren't very far out yet. But maybe snarled. "This is no picnic. We'll he should surface anyway, take his be lucky to head off disaster." chances, to cry what he knew at "What-what-" Color left this instant. Vadasz's cheeks. He winced away The boat pulsed around him. from the big man. "Gunnar, did I The heater whirred and threw say-" waves of warmth across his hide. "Li6ten." Heim slammed a fist There was a smell of oil in the air. on the arm of his seat. "Our ama­ Outside the ports, vision was teur try at espionage blew up the quickly blocked-as he had been whole shebang. Have you forgotten blocked, thwarted, resisted and the mission was to negotiate tel'IIls evaded at every turn. "Those ships to keep our people from starving? will be here inside an Earth day," That's been dimmed. Maybe some­ he said. "Fox better make for outer thing can be done later, but right space, the rest of us for the woods." now we're only concerned with "Gunnar-" Vadasz began. staying alive. Our plan for evacu­ "Oh, be quieti" . ating refugees is out the airlock The minstrel flushed and raised too. Cynbe jumped to the conclu­ his voice. "No. I don't know what sion that Fox herself is on this I have done to be insulted by you, planet. He's recalled a lancer and and if you haven't the decency to a cruiser to supplement his flag­ tell me, that must be your affair. ship. Between them, those three But I have something to tell you, can detect Meroeth raising mass, Captain. We can't contact Fox in and clobber her. It won't do us any time." good to leave her doggo, either. "Huh?" Heim whirled. 42 fANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTJON "Think for a moment. Diego has Mere pleasant company. I thought his big maser set erected near the you felt the same." lake. But morning is well along, "I doubt that you do," Heim and Diane is nearly full. It set for grunted. "Never mind. We've big· the Haute Garance hours ago. It ger game to hunt. Look, I happen won't rise again for, I guess, thirty to know what the orbits and start· hours." ing positions of those ships were. "Satan . . • i . . . helvede," Cynbe saw no reason not to tell me Heim choked. Strength drained when I asked-! suppose uncon· from him. He felt the ache in his sciously I was going on the old 8esh and knew he had begun to military principle of grabbing ev· grow old. ery piece of data that comes by, After a time in which he merely whether or not you think you'll stared, Vadasz said to him, tim­ ever use it. Well I also know their idly: "You are too much a man to classes, which means I know their let this beat you. If you think it so capabilities. From that, we can important, well, perhaps we can pretty well compute their trajecto­ get Meroeth aloft. Her own com­ ries. They can be pinpointed at municator can reach the moon. any given time-close enough for The enemy satellites will detect combat purposes, but not close her, and the cruiser close in. But enough for their ground base to she is lost anyway, you inform me, beam them any warning. Okay, so and she can surrender. We only that's one advantage we've got, need three or four men to do it. I however small. What else?" will be one of them." He began to pace, two steps to Lightning-struck, Heim sprang the cabin's end, two steps back, fist to his feet. His head bashed the beating palm and jaw muscles canopy. He looked up and saw a standing in knots. Vadasz drew circle of sunlight, blinding on the himself aside. Once more the eat's ocean surface, above him. grin touched his mouth. He knew "Are you hurt?" Vadasz asked. Gunnar Heim in that mood. "By heaven-and hell-and "Listen." The captain ham­ everything in between." Heim of­ mered out the scheme as he spoke. fered his hand. "Endre, I've been "Meroeth's a big transport. So she's worse than a bastard. I've been a got powerful engines. In spite of middle-aged adolescent. Will you her size and clumsiness, she can forgive me?" move like a hellbat when empty. Vadasz gripped hard. Percep­ She can't escape three ships on tion flickered in his eyes. "Oh, so," patrol orbit. But at the moment he murmured. "The young lady. there's only one, Cynbe's personal ••• Gunnar, she's nothing to me. Jubalcho. I don't know her orbit, 43 but the probabilities favor her be­ ably on to it by now. • • • Hm. ing well away at any given time We'll frame something equivocal, that Meroeth lifts. She could pur­ as far as the enemy's concerned. sue, sure, and get so close that He needn't know it's us calling Meroeth can't outrun a missile. from a sub. Let him assume it's a But she ain't gonna-I hope-be­ maquisard in a flyer. We can iden­ cause Cynbe knows that wherever tify ourselves by references to in­ I am, Fox isn't likely very distant, cidents in camp. and he's got to protect his base 'We'll tell de Vigny to start against Fox till his reinforcements lightening the spaceship as much arrive. Or if the distance is great as possible. No harm in that, since enough, he'll assume the transport the Aleriona know we do have a is our cruiser, and take no chances! ship on the planet. It'll confirm for "So . . . okay . . . given good them that she must be in the Haute piloting, Meroeth has an excellent Garance, but that's the first place probability of making a clean get­ they'd look anyhow." Heim tugged away. She can Bash a message to his chin. "Now ... unfortu­ Fox. But then-what? If Fox only nately, I can't send any more than takes us aboard, we're back exactly that without tipping my hand. where we started. No, we're worse We'll have to deliver the real mes­ off, because the New Europeans ~age in person. So we'D submerge have run low on morale and losing right after you finish calling and their contact with us could well head for a rendezvous point where push them right into quitting the a flyer is to pick us up. How can fight. So-wait-let me think­ we identify that, and not have the Yes!" Heim bellowed. "Why not? enemy there with a brass band and Endre, we'll go for broke!" the keys to the city?" The minstrel shouted his an­ "Hm-m-m. Let me see a map." swer. Vadasz unrolled a chart from the Heim reined in his own eager­ pilot's drawer. "Our radius is not ness. "The faster we move, the bet­ large, if we are to be met soon. ter," he said. "We'll call HQ at the Ergo-Yes. I will tell them . . • lake immediately. Do you know so-and-so many kilometers due east Basque, or any other language the of I! place-" he blushed, pointing Aleriona don't that somebody on to Fleurville, a ways inland and de Vigny's staff does?" down the Cote Notre Dame­ "I fear not. And a broadcast, "where Danielle Irribarne told such as we must make, will doubt­ Endre Vadasz there is a grotto they less be monitored. I can use should visit. That was shortlv be­ Louchebeme, if that will help." fore moonset. We, urn, sat on a "It might, though they're prob- platform high in a tree and-" 44 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Heim ignored the hurt and have to try those popguns on a real, laughed. "Okay, lav« boy. Let me functioning warship, we're dead. compute where we can be in that "Stand by to lift," he called. coordinate system." Clumsy in his spacesuit, he moved Vadasz frowned. "We make hands across the board. risks, acting in this haste," he said. The lake frothed. Waves swept "First we surface, or at least lie up its beaches. A sighing went awash, and broadcast a strong sig­ among the trees, and Meroeth rose nal so near the enemy base." from below. Briefly her great form "It won't take long. \Ve'll be blotted out the sun, where it down again before they can send a crawled toward noon, and animals flyer. I admit one might be passing fled down wilderness trails. Then, right over us this minute, but prob­ with steadily mounting velocity, ably not." she flung skyward. The cloven air ''Still, a New European vessel made a continuous thunderclap. has to meet us. No matter if it goes Danielle and Madelon Irribarne fast and takes the long way around put hands to tormented ears. When over a big empty land, it is in day­ the shape was gone from sight, light and skirting a dragon's nest. they returned to each other's arms. And likewise for the return trip "Radar, report!" Heim called with us." through drone and shiver. "I know." Heim didn't look up "Negative," Vadas:z said. from the chart on his knees. 'We Higher and higher the ship could do it safer by taking more climbed. The world below dwin­ time. But then we'd be too late for dled, humped into a curve, turned anything. We're stuck in this orbit, fleecy with clouds and blue with Endre, no matter how close we oceans. The sky went dark, the have to skim the sun." stars blazed forth. "Signal received on the common IX band," Vadasz said. "They must have spotted us. Shall I answer?" "Bridge to stations, report." "Hell, no," Heim said. "All I "Engine okay," said Diego Gon­ want is her position and vector." zales. The hollow volume of Meroeth "Radio and main radar okay," trapped sound, bounced echoes said Endre Vadasz. about, until a booming rolled from "Gun Turret One okay and hun­ stem to stern and port to starboard. gry," said Jean lrribarne. The colo­ It throbbed in Heims skull. His nists in the other emplacements open faceplate rattled. added a wolfish chorus. "Can't find her, Vadasz told Easy, lads, Heim thought. lf we him. "She must be far off." .ADMIRALTY 45 But she found us. Well, she has skeletal head out for a look at the professional detector operators. universe. A tight beam of coherent I've got to make do with whatever radio waves speared from it. was in camp. No time to recruit There were uncertainties. Diane better-trained people. was orbiting approximately 200,- · We should be so distant that 000 kilometers on the other side of she'd have to chase us for some New Europe, and Meroeth was ways to get inside the velocity dif­ widening that gulf with ever-in­ ferential of her missiles. And she creasing speed. But the computer should decide her duty is to stay and the engine it controlled put. If I've guessed wrong on ei­ were sophisticated; the beam had ther of those, we've hoisted our last enough dispersion to cover a fairly glass. Heim tasted blood, hot and large circle by the time it reached bitter, and realized he had caught the target area; it had enough total his tongue between his teeth. He energy that its amplitude then was swore, wiped his face, and drove still above noise level. the ship. Small, bestrewn with meteoric Outward and outward. New dust, in appearance another boul­ Europe grew smaller among the der among thousands on the slope crowding suns. Diane rose slowly of a certain crater wall, an instru­ to view. "Captain to radio room. ment planted by the men from the Forget about everything else. Lock boat sat waiting. The signal ar­ that maser and cut me in on the rived. The instrument-an ordi­ circuit." Heim reached for racked nary microwave relay, such as ev­ instruments and navigational ta­ ery spaceship carries by the score, bles. "I'll have the figures for you with a solar battery-amplified the by the time you're warmed up." signal and bounced it in another If we aren't destroyed first. tight beam to another object high Please . . . let me live that long. on a jagged peak. That one ad­ I don't ask for more. Please, Fox dressed its next fellow; and so on has got to be told. He reeled off a around the jagged desert face of string of numbers. the moon. Not many passings were In his shack, among banked needed. The man's-height horizon meters that stared at him like troD on Diane is about three kilometers, eyes, Vadasz punched keys. He much greater from a motmtaintop, was no expert, but the comsys­ and the last relay only had to be a tem computer had been prepro­ little ways into that hemisphere grammed for him; he need merely which never sees New Europe. feed in the data and punch the di­ Thence the beam leaped sky· rective "Now. • A turret opened to ward. Some 29,000 kilometers airlessness. A transceiver thrust its from the center of Diane, to Fox ll. 46 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The problem had been: how ever before needed to have a war­ could a spaceship lurk near a hos­ ship on call, unbeknownst to an tile planet from which detectors enemy who occupied the ground probed and around which warcraft where he himself meant to be. spun? If she went free-fall, every Heim thought it would become a system throttled down to the bare textbook classic, if he lived to brag minimum, her neutrino emission about it. would not register above the cosmic "Meroeth to Fox II," he intoned. background. But optical, infrared, "Meroeth to Fox II. Now hear this and radar eyes would still be sure and record. Record. Captain Heim to find her. Unless she interposed to Acting Captain Penoyer, stand the moon between herself and the by for orders." planet. . . . No. She dared not There could be no reply, except land and sit there naked to anyone to Lac aux Nuages. The system, who chanced close when the far simple and hastily built, had been hemisphere was daylit. She could conceived in the belief that he not assume an orbit around the sat­ would summon his men from ellite, for she would move into there. If anything was heisenberg view. She could not assume a con­ at the other end, he wouldn't know centric orbit around New Europe till too late. He spoke into dark­ itself, for she would revolve more ness. slowly and thus drop from behind "Because of unexpected devel· her shield- opments, we've been forced to lift Or would she?" directly, without passengers. It Not necessarily! In any two­ doesn't seem as if we're being pur· body system there are two Lagran· sued. But we have extremely im­ gian points where the secondary's portant intelligence, and on that gravitation combines with the pri· basis a new plan. mary's in such a way that a small "First: we know there is only object put there will remain in one capital ship in orbit around place, on a straight line between New Europe. All but two others the larger bodies. It is not stable; are scattered beyond recall, and eventually the object will be per­ not due back for quite some time. turbed out of its resting spot; but The sentry vessel is the enemy Rag­ "eventually" is remote in biologi· ship Jubalcho, a cruiser. I don't cal time. Fox put herself in the know the exact class-see if you more distant Lagrangian point and can find her in Jane's-but she's orbited in the moon-disc's effort· doubtless only somewhat superior less concealment. to Fox. The maneuver had never been "Second: the enemy learned we tried before. But then, no one had were on the planet and recalled ADMiltALTY 47 the two vessels in reach. They are calculated position and orbit will presently accelerating toward New be approximately as follows: Europe. The first should already Again a string of numbers. "If I'm have commenced deceleration. a casualty, proceed at discretion. That is tile lancer Savaidh. The But bear in mind that New Europe other is the cruiser lnisant. Check will be guarded by only one them out too; but I think they are cruiser! ordinary Aleriona ships of their re­ Heim sucked air into his lungs. spective classes. The ballistic data It was hot and had an electric are approximately es follows-" smell. "Repeating message," he He recited the figures. said. And at the end of the third "Now, third: the enemy proba­ time: "The primary relay point bly believes Meroeth is Fox. We seems to be going under Diane's scrambled with so much distance horizon, on our present course. I'll between that contrary identifica­ have to sign off. Gunnar Heim to tion would have been difficult or Dave Penoyer and the men of Fox impossible, and also we took him 11-good hunting. Over and out. by surprise. So I think that as far Then he sat in his seat, looked as he knows, Fox is getting away to the stars in the direction of Sol, while the getting is good. But he and wondered how Lisa his daugh­ cannot communicate with the ter was doing. other ships till they are near the Increment by increment, Mero­ planet, and he doubtless wants eth piled on velocity. It didn't them on hand anyway. seem long-though much desul­ "Accordingly we have a chance tory conversation had passed to take them piecemeal. Now hear through the intercom-before the this. Pay no attention to the moment came to reverse and slow lancer. Meroeth can deal with down. They mustn't have a suspi­ her; or if I fail she's no major cious vector when they . encoun­ threat to you. Moreover, nuclear tered Savaidh. explosions in space would be de­ Heim went to the saloon for a tected and alert the enemy. Stay snack. He found Vadasz ·there, put, Fox, and plot an interception with a short redhaired colonist for lnisant. She won't be looking who slurped at his cup as if he had for you. Relative velocity will be newly come off a Martian desert. high. If you play your cards right, "Ah, mon Capitaine, n the _latter you have an excellent p~obablity said cheerily, "je n'avais p11s bu de of putting a missile in her while cafe depuis un sacre long temps. warding off anything she has time Merci beaucoupl" to throw. "You may not thank me in a "After that, come get me. My while," Heim said. FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Vadasz cocked his head. "You Meroeth spoke, not in any voice --shouldn't look so grim, Gun-sir," but in the wailing radio pattern he chided. "Everybody else is which Naval Intelligence had long downright cocky." known was regulation for Alerion. "Tired, I guess." Heim slumped Surely the lancer captain (was onto the Aleriona settle. this his first command?) ordered 'Til fix you up. A grand Danois an attempt at communication. of a sandwich, hm?" Vadasz There was no reply. The gap bounced out. When he returned closed. Relative speed was slight with the food, he had his guitar by spaceship standards; but Sa­ slung over his back. He sat down vaidh grew swiftly before Heim's on the table, swinging his legs, and eyes. began to chord and sing: Unwarned, the Aleriona had no "There was a rich man and he reason to doubt this was one of lived in Jerusalem. their own vessels. The transport Glory, hallelujah, hi-ro-de- was headed toward the Mach rung!-" limit; not directly for The Eith, The memory came back. A grin but then, none of them did lest the tugged at Heim's lips. Presently he raider from Earth be able to pre­ was beating time; toward the end, dict their courses. Something had he joined in the choruses. That's gone wrong. Her communications the way! Who says we can't take must be out. Probably her radio of­ them? He returned to the bridge ficer had cobbled together a set with a stride of youth. barely able to cry, "S 0 S!" The And time fled. And battle sta­ trouble was clearly not with her tions were sounded. And Savaidh engines, since she was under appeared in the viewports. power. What, then? Breakdown of The hands that had built her radiation screening? Air renewal? were not human. But the tool was Thermostats? Interior gee field? for the same job, under the same There were so many possibilities. laws of physics, as Earth's own Life was so terribly frail, here lancers. Small, slim, leopard-spot­ where life was never meant to be. ted for camouflage and thermal Or . . . since the probability of control, leopard deadly and beau­ her passing near the warship by tiful, the ship was so much like his chance, in astronomical immen­ old Star Fox that Heim's hand sity, was vanishingly small . . . paused. Is it right to kill her this did she bear an urgent message? way? A legitimate ruse of war. Yes. Something that, for some reason, He punched the intercom. "Bridge could not be transmitted in the to radio. Bridge to radio. Begin normal way? The shadow of Fox II distress signal." lay long and cold across Alerion. ADMIL\LTY "Close spacesuits," Heim or­ ites; the larger stones, which are dered. "Stand by." He clashed his rare, she can detect and escape; own faceplate shut and lost him­ nothing can protect from nuclear self in the task of piloting. Two weapons, when once they have horrors nibbled at the edge of con­ struck home. Meroeth's impact sciousness. The lesser one, because speed was not great, but her mass least likely, was that the other cap­ was. Through and through Sa­ tain would grow suspicious and vaidh she sheared. Her own hull have him blasted. The worst was gave way. Air puffed out in a frosty that Savaidh would continue her cloud, quickly lost to the light­ rush to Cynbe's help. He could not years. Torn frameworks wrapped match accelerations with a lancer. about each other. Locked in a stag's Needles wavered before his embrace, the ruined ships tumbled eyes. Radar-vectors-impulse­ on a lunatic orbit. Aurore Oared Savaidh swung about and maneu­ radiance across their guts; the stars vered for rendezvous. looked on without pity. Heim cut drive to a whisper. "Prepare to repel boardersr' Now the ships were on nearly par­ Heim didn't know if his cry had ~llel tracks, the lancer decelerating been transmitted through his hel­ heavily while the transport ran al­ met jack to the others. Likely not. most free. Now they were motion­ Circuits were ripped asunder. The less with respect to each other, fusion reaction in the power gen­ with a kilometer of vacuum be­ erator had guttered out: Darkness, tween. Now the lancer moved with weightlessness, airlessness flowed infinite delicacy toward the larger through the ship. It didn't matter. vessel. His men knew what to do. He un­ Now Heim rammed down an did his harness by feel and groped emergency lever. At fuD sidewise aft to the gun turret he had chosea. thrust, Meroeth hurtled to her des­ for himself. tiny. Most of the Aleriona crew must There was no time to dodge, no be dead. Some might survive, iD time to shoot. The ships crashed spacesuits or sealed compartments. together. That shock roared If they could find a gun still work­ through plates and ribs, ripped able and bring it to bear, they'd metal apart, hurled unharnessed shoot. Otherwise they'd try for Aleriona to their decks or against hand-to-hand combat. Untrained their bulkheads with bone-crack­ for space, the New Europeans ing violence. couldn't withstand that. A spaceship is not thickly ar­ The controls of Heim's laser had mored, even for war. She can with­ their own built-in illuminadOD. stand the impact of micrometeor- Wheels, levers, indicators glowed 50 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION· like watchlires. He peered along halo on the hehnet. One survivor, the barrel, out the cracked glasite, at least, bravely striving to­ past wreckage where shadows slid Helm got him in the sights and weirdly as the system rotated; he fired. Vapor rushed from the suppressed the slight nausea due pierced body. It drifted off into Coriolis force, forgot the frosty space. "I hated to do that," Heim glory of constellations, and looked muttered to the dead one. "But for his enemy. you could have been carry.Ung It came to him, a flicker across something nasty, you know." tautness, that he had brought yet His shot had given him away. another tactic to space warfare: A beam probed at his turret. He ramming. But that wasn't new. It crouched behind the shield. In­ went back ages, to when men first tolerable brightness gnawed centi­ adventured past sight of land. meters away from him. Then more Olaf Tryggvason, . on the blood­ bolts struck. The enemy laser reddened deck of the Long Ser­ winked out. "Good man!" Heim pent. gasped. "Whoever you are I" No. To hell with that. His busi­ The fight did not last long. No nes was here and now: to stay doubt the Aleriona, if any were alive till Fox picked him up. left, had decided to hole up and Which wouldn't be for a long see what happened. But it was time. necessary to remain on guard. A weapon spat. He saw only In the dreamlike state of free the reflection of its beam off steel, fall, muscles did not protest con­ and squinted till the dazzle finement. Heim let his thoughts passed. One for our side. I hope. drift where they would. Earth, A heavy vibration passed through Usa, Jocelyn ... New Europe, the hull and his body. An explo­ Danielle . . . there really was­ sion? He wasn't sure. The Aleri­ n't much in a man's life that mat­ ona might be wild enough to an­ tered. But those few things mat­ nihilate him, along with them­ tered terribly. selves, by touching off a nuclear Hours passed. warhead. The chances were It was anticlimax when Fox's against it, since they'd need tools lean shape closed in. Not that that would be hard to find in that Heim didn't cheer-so she had mess out yonder. But- won!-but rendezvous was tricky; \Vell, war was mostly waiting. and then he had to make his way A spacesuited figure crawled through darkness and ruin until over a girder. The silhouette was he found an exit; and then signal black and unhuman against the with his helmet radio to bring a stars, save where sunlight made a tender into safe jumping distance; ADMIRALTY 51 and then come aboard and get a "Sure. There are no other de­ shot to counl!eract the effects of fenses worth mentioning. We can the radiation he had taken while knock out their grotmd-based mis­ unscreened in space; and then siles from space. Then we give air transfer to the cruiser- support to the colonists, who're The shouts and backslappings, already preparing a march on the bear hugs and bear dances, seemed seaboard. You know as well as I unreal in his weariness. Not even do, no atmospheric flyer ever made his victory felt important. He was has a fish's chance on Friday mainly pleased that a good dozen against a nuclear-armed space­ Aleriona were alive and had sur· ship. If the Aleriona don't sur­ rendered. "You took Inisant?" he render, we'll simply swat them asked Penoyer. out of the sky, and then go to work "Oh, my, yes. Wizard cum on their ground troops. But I ew:· spiff! One pass, and she was a pect they will give in. They're not cloud of isotopes. What next, sir?" stupid. And . . . then we've got "Well-" Heim rubbed sandy hostages." eyes. ''Your barrage will have been "But-the rest of their Beet-" detected from New Europe. Now, "Uh-huh. One by one, over a when lnisant is overdue, the en· period of weeks or months, they'D emy must realize who lost. He come in. Fox should be able to may have guessed you went after bushwhack them. Also, we'll have Savaidh next, and be attempting the New Europeans hard at work, an interception. But it's most like· finishing the space defenses. Evi­ ly that he's stayed pretty close to dently there isn't much left to do base. Even if he hasn't, he'll surely there. Once that job's completed, come back there. Do you think we the planet's nearly impregnable, can beat Jubalchor' whatever happens to us. Penoyer scowled. "That's a "Somewhere along the line, pitchup, sir. According -to avail· probably rather soon, another able data, she has more teeth, transport ship will come in, all though we've more acceleration. unsuspecting. We'll nobble her I've computed several tactical pat· and send off a load of New Euro­ terns which give us about an even peans as originaUy planned. chance. But should we risk it?" When Earth hears they're not only "I think so," Heim said. "If we not dead, not only at the point of get smeared, well, let's admit that defeat, but standing space siege our side won't have lost much. On and doing a crackling hell of a job the other hand, if we win we've at it ... why, if Earth doesn't got New Europe. move then, I resign from the hu· "Sir?" man race." 52 FANTASY AND SCIENCE. FICTION Heim straightened. "I'm no you,. my brother. Let come what damned hero, Dave." he 6.nished. that time-flow brings that you are "Mainly I want to get home to the terrible enough to live with pipe and slippers. But don't you I thank you for this day." think a chance like this is worth "Goodbye," Heim said; and taking?" thought, a little surprised, Why, Penoyer's nostrils Bared. "By that means "God be with you." ... by Jove," he stammered, "Captain of mine," Cynbe sang, "Yes." "fare you well." ''Very good. Make course for The radio beams cut out. Dark New Europe and call me if any­ and silent, the two ships moved thing happens." toward their meeting place. Heim stumbled to his cabiit and toppled into sleep. X Vadasz's hand shook him awake. "Gunnar! Contact's made A hundred kilometers north of -with Jubalcho-we'll rendez­ Bonne Chance, on a high and vous inside half an hour." lovely headland where meadows Nothing remained of tiredness, and woods ran wind-rippled fear, doubt, nor even anger. Heim down to the sea, was a house which went to the bridge with more life had been made a gift of honor. running through his veins than Rear Admiral Moshe Peretz, ever since Connie departed. Stars commanding blastship Jupiter, filled the viewports, so big and Deepspace Fleet of Earth's World bright in the crystal dark that it Federation, set his borrowed flyer seemed he could reach out and down on the landing strip and touch them. The ship murmured went out. A fresh breeze swayed and pulsed. His men stood by the nearby garden, clouds scud­ their weapons; he could almost ded white, sunlight speared be­ sense their oneness with him and tween them to dance on a restless with her. He took his place of ocean. He walked slowly, a short command, and it was utterly right man, very erect in his uniform, that Cynbe's voice should ring with combat ribbons on his breast from the speaker. that freed him to admire a view or "Stm Fox captain, greet I you a blossom. again? Mightily have we striven. Gunnar Heim came out towel­ You refuse not battle this now?" come him, also in uniform: but "No," said Heim. 'We're com­ his was different, gray tunic, a red ing in. Try and stop us." ·stripe down the trousers, a fleur­ The laughter of unfallen Luci­ de-lys on the collar. He towered fer replied. ''Truth. And I thank over his guest, bent down a face ADMIRALTY 53 that had known much sun of late, ''Haven't your men been well grinned in delight and engulfed treated?" Heim asked. the other man's hand in one huge "Yes, certainly." Peretz sliced paw. "Hey, Moshe, it's good to see the air with his hand, as if chop­ you again! How many years?'' ping at a neck. "Every liberty "Hello," Peretz said. party has been wined and dined Heim released him, stung and till it could hardly stagger back to surprised. "Uh . . . anything the tender. But . . • I issued wrong?" those passes most reluctantly, "I am all right, thank you. This only because I did not want to is a nice home you have." make a bad situation worse. After "Well, I like it. WaRt to see the all-when we find this planet grounds before we go in?" ringed with defense machines­ "If you wish." machines which are not going to Heim stood for a moment be­ be decommissioned-when a ship fore he sighed and said, "Okay, of the World Federation is told Moshe. Obviously you accepted how near she may come-what do my dinner invitation for more you expect a Navy man to think?" reasons than to jaw with your old Heim bit his lip. "Ja. That was Academy classmate. Want to dis­ a mistake, ordering you around. I cuss 'em now? There'll be some argued against it in council, but others coming pretty soon." they outvoted me. I give you my Peretz regarded him closely, oath no insult was intended, not out of brown eyes that were also by anyone. The majority feeling pained, and said, "Yes, let us get was simply that we'd better ex­ it over with." press our sovereignty at the outset. They started walking across the Once the precedent has been ac­ lawn. "Look at the matter from cepted, we'll relax." my side," Peretz said. "Thanks to "But why?" His rage Bickered to you, Earth went into action. We death, leaving Peretz no more than beat the Aleriona decisively in the hurt and bewildered. "This fan· Marches, and now they have sued tastic declaration of independ­ for peace. Wonderful. I was ence . . . what kind of armed proud to know you. I pulled every forces have you? Your fleet can't wire in sight so that I could com­ amount to more than your own old mand the ship that went officially privateer and perhaps a few Aleri· to see how New Europe is doing, ona prizes. Otherwise there is just how Earth can help reconstruct, the constabulary. What strength what sort of memorial we should can half a million people muster?" raise for the dead of both planets "Are you threatening us, -because victory was not cheap." Mosher" Heim asked gently. 54 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "What?" Peretz jarred to a stop Heim shrugged. "To a certain and gaped. "What do you mean?" extent, no doubt. The Conference "Is Earth going to reconquer us? of Chateau de St. Jacques was one You could, of course. It'd be monstrous emotional scene, be­ bloody and expensive, but you lieve me. The plebiscite was over­ could." whelmingly in favor of independ­ "No-no-did the occupation ence. But there were better rea­ driv-e everyone here paranoid?" sons than a feeling of having been Heim shook his head. "On the let down in an hour of need. contrary, we relv on Earth's good Those are the ones that'll last." . will and sense. We expect you to "De Vigny tried to convince protest, but we know you won't use me," Peretz snorted. force. Not when· your planet and "Well, let me try in less elegant ours have shed blood together." language. What is the Federa­ "But . . . see here. If vou tion? Something holy, or an in­ want national status, well, that strument for a purpose? We think concerns mainly yourselves and it's a plain old instrument, and the French government. But you that it can't serve its purpose out say you are leaving the whole here." Federation!" "Gunnar, Gunnar, have you "We are," Heim answered. forgotten all history? Do you "Juridically, at least. We hope to know what a breakup would make mutually beneficial treaties mean?" with Earth as a whole, and we'll 'War," Heim nodded. "But the always stand in a special relation­ Federation isn't going to die. With ship to France. In fact, President all its faults, it's proved itself too de Vigny thinks France won't ob­ good for Earth to scrap. Earth's a ject at all, will let us go with her single planet, though. You can or­ blessings." bit it in ninety minutes. The na­ "M-m-m .•• I am afraid he tions have got to unify, or they'll is right," said Peretz grimlv. He kill each other." His gaze swept began walking again, stiff-gaited. the horizon. "Here we have more "France is still rather cool toward room." the Federation. She won't leave it "But-" herself, but she will be glad to "The universe is too big for any have you do so for her, as long as one pattern. No man can under­ French interests are not damaqed." stand or control it, let alone a "She'll get over her grudge," government. The proof is right at Heim predicted. hand. We had to trick and tease "Yes, in time. Did you break and browbeat the Federation into loose for the same cause?" doing what we could see, with our ADMIRALTY 55 own eyes, was necessary-because keeping our ship at arm's length." it didn't see. It wasn't able to see. "You have my personal apolo­ If a man is going to live through­ gies," Heim said low. out the galaxy, he's got to be free to "All right!" Peretz thrust out his take his own roads, the ones his hand, features crinkled with direct experience shows him are abrupt laughter. "Accepted and best for his circumstances. And forgotten, you damned old square­ that way, won't the race realize all head." its potential? Is there any other His trouble lifted from Heim, way we can, than by trying every­ too. "Great!" he exclaimed. "Come thing out, everywhere?" Heim on inside and we'll bqckle down clapped Peretz's back. "I know. to getting drunk. Lord, how much You're afraid of interstellar wars yarning we've got to catch up onl" in the future, if planets are sover­ They entered the living room eign. Don't worry. It's ridiculous. and settled themselves. A maid What do entire, self-sufficient, curtsied. "What'll you have?" isolated worlds have to fight Heim asked. "Some items of food about?" are still in short supply, and of "We just finished an interstellar course machinery's scarce, which war," Peretz said. is why I employ so many live "Uh-huh. What brought it on? servants. But these Frenchmen Somebody who wasn't willing to built big wine cellars." let the human race develop as it "Brandy and soda, thanks," should. Moshe, instead of trying Peretz said. to freeze ourselves into one shape, "Me too. We are out of Scotch instead of staying small be­ on New Europe. Uh ... will cause we're scared of losing con­ there be cargoes from Earth soon?" trol, let's work out something dif­ Peretz nodded. "Some are al­ ferent. Let's find how many kinds ready on the way. Parliament will of society, human and nonhuman, scream when I report what you can get along without a police­ have done, and there will be talk man's gun pointed at them. I don't of an embargo, but you know that think there is any limit." won't come to anything. If we are­ "Well-• Peretz shook his head. n't going to fight, to hold you 'Maybe. I hope you are right. Be­ against your will, it is senseless to cause you have committed us, antagonize you with annoyances." blast you." He spoke without ani­ ''Which bears out what I said." mosity. Heim put the drink orders into After a minute: "I must confess French. I felt better when President de "Please, don't argue any more. Vigny apologized officially for I told you I have accepted your 56 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION fait accompli." Peretz leaned for­ prospect the other planets and ward. "But may I ask something, asteroids in this system; and start Gunnar? I see why New Europe a merchant spaceship yard; and­ did what it did. But you yourself shucks, I can't begin to tell you -You could have come home, how much there is. I can't wait to been a world hero, and a billion­ become a private citizen again." aire with your prize money. In­ "But you do wait," Peretz said. stead you take citizenship here­ Heim looked .out a window at well, blaze, they are nice people, sea and sun and sky. ''Well," he but they aren't yours!" said, "it's worth some sacrifice. "They are now," Heim said There's more involved than this quietly. world. We're laying the founda­ He took out his pipe and tions of-" he hunted for words­ tamped it full. His words ran on, "admiralty. Man's, throughout the almost of themselves: universe." "Mixed motives, as usual. I had The maid came in with her to stay till the war was over. There tray. Heim welcomed her not only was a lot of fighting, and after­ for refreshment, but as an excuse ward somebody must mount to change the subject. He wasn't guard. And . • . well . . . I'd much of a talker on serious mat­ been lonely on Earth. Here I ters. A man did what he must; found a common purpose with a that sufficed. lot of absolutely first-class men. The girl ducked her head. "Un And a whole new world, elbow voleur s'approche, Monsieur,• she room, infinite possibilities. It reported. dawned on me one day, when I "Good," Heim said. "'That11 be was feeling homesick-what was Endre Vadasz and his wife. You11 I homesick for? To go back and like them, Moshe. These days he's rot among my dollars? giving his Magyar genes full rein "So now, instead, I'm New Eu­ on a I 0,000-hectare ranch in the rope's minister of space and the Bordes Valley-but he's still one navy. We're short of hands, train­ solar flare of a singer. You may ing, equipment, everything; you already have heard his ballad name it and we probably haven't about Admiral Cynbe." got it. But I can see us grow, day "No. About who?" by day. And that'smydoingl" A brief bleakness crossed He struck fire and puffed. "Not Heim's eyes. "I'll tell you later. that I intend to stay in govern­ Someone Endre and I both ment any longer than necessary," thought should be remembered. • he went on. "I want to experi­ He raised his glass. "Siuzal. • ment with pelagic farming; and "Shalom." ADMIRALTY 57 Both men got up when the Va­ commanded yourself as you did a daszes entered. "Bienvenu, n Heim ship-with discipline, reason­ said, shook his friend's hand with ableness, and spirit-and thus gladness and kissed Danielle's. By yoa came to port. By the time he now he'd learned how to do that fulfilled his promise to stand god­ with authority. father to her firstborn, why, his It was a surprise, he thought as feelings toward her would be he looked at her, how fast a cer­ downright avuncular. tain wound was healing. Life isn't No, he realized with a sudden a fairy tale; the knight who kills quickening of blood, it wouldn't the dragon doesn't necessarily get even take that long. The war was the princess. So what? Who'd over. He could send for Lisa. He want to live in a cosmos less rich had little doubt that Jocelyn and various than the real one? You would come along.

A longer version of this novelet (also incorporating Marque and Re­ prisal; Feb. 1965 and Arsenal Port, April, 1965) will be published by Doubleday &: Co. under the title The Star Fox.

COMING NEXT MONTH

ROGUE DRAGON a complete byAvram short novel Davidson

A colorful and actionful blend of science fiction and fantasy. The time is the distant future. Earth has survived only as a great hunting preserve, with the most popular and dangerous game in the galaxy-dragon! Don't miss the July issue-on sale June 1. Frederic Brown, whose mastery of the short Btory form makes w regret that his name has not turned up in these pages more often, here coUaborates with Carl Onspaugh in the Ingenious and startling story of Dooley Hanks-musician, linguist, .eeker of the Sound . • • killer.

EINE·KLEINE

NACHT~IJSIK

by Fredric Brown and Carl Onspaugh

Hxs NAMB wAs DooLBY HANKS nearest city big enough to let him and he was One of Us, by which I find another gig. mean that he was partly a paranoi­ He didn't know what The Sound ac, partly a schizophrenic, and would be like, but he knew that mostly a nut with a strong idee fixe, he'd know it when he heard it. an obsession. His obsession was Three times he'd thought he'd that someday he'd find The Sound found it. Once, in Australia, the that he'd been looking for all his first time he'd heard a bull-roarer. life, or at least all of his life since Once, in Calcutta, in the sound of he had acquired a clarinet in his a musette played by a fakir to teens and learned how to play it. charm a cobra. And once, west of Truth to tell, he was only an av­ Nairobi, in the blending of a hy­ erage musician, but the clarinet ena's laughter with the voice of a was his rod and his staff, and it lion. But the bull-roarer, on second was the broomstick that enabled hearing, was just a noise; the mu­ him to travel over the face of Earth, sette, when he'd bought it from the on all the continents, seeking The fakir and had taken it home, had Sound. He'd play a gig here and a turned out to be only a crude in­ gig there and then, when he was strument with little range and not ahead by a few dollars or pounds even a chromatic scale; the jungle or drachmas or rubles, he'd take a sounds had resolved themselves walking tour until his money start­ finally into simple lion and hyena ed to run out, then start for the sounds. 58 BINE ltLEINB MACHTMUSIK 59 Actually Dooley Hanks had a hunch was that strong. That trem­ great and rare talent that could blingly strong. Like the verge of have meant much more to him than madness, and suddenly he knew his clarinet, a gift of tongues. He that he would go mad if he did not knew dozens of languages and find it soon. Maybe he was a little spoke them all fluently and idio­ mad already. matically. A few weeks in any He stared over moonlit water. country was enough for him to pick And suddenly something disrupted up the language and speak it like its surface, Bashed silently white a native. But he had never tried to in the moonlight and was gone cash in on this talent, and never again. Dooley stared at the spot. would. Mediocre player though he A fish? There had been no sound, was, the clarinet was his love. no splash. A hand? The hand of a Currently, the language he had mermaid swum upstream from the just mastered was German, picked North Sea beckoning him? Come up playing with a combo in a in, the water's fine? (But it would­ nightclub in Hanover, West Ger­ n't be; it would be cold.) Some su­ many, and the money in his pock­ pernatural water sprite? A dis­ et was in marks. Now at the end placed Rhine Maiden in the Wes­ of a day of hiking, augmented by er? one long lift in a Volkswagen, he But was it ·really a sign? Dooley, stood in moonlight on the banks of shivering now at what he was the Weser River. Wearing his hik­ thinking, stood at the Weser's edge ing clothes and with his good and imagined how it would be clothes in a haversack on his back. . . . wading out slowly from the His clarinet case in his hand; he bank, letting his emotions create always carried it so, never trusting the tune for the clarinet, tilting his it to suitcase, when he used one, or head back as the water became to haversack when he was hiking. deeper so that the instrument Driven by a demon, and feeling would stick out of the water after suddenly an excitement that must he, Dooley, was under it, the bell be, that could only be, a hunch, a of the clarinet last to submerge. feeling that at long last he was real­ And the sound, whatever sound ly about to find The Sound. He was there was, being made by the bub­ trembling a little; he'd never had bling water closing over them. Over the hunch this strongly before, not him first and then the clarinet. He even with the lions and the hvenas, recalled the cliched allegation, and that had been the closest. which he had previously viewed But where? Here, in the water? with iconoclastic contempt but now Or in the next town? Surely no far­ felt almost ready to accept, that a ther than the next town. The drowning person was treated to a 60 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION swift viewing Gf his entire life as A fog was rolling in. He got well it flashed before his eyes in a arand into the town. It was an old town finale to living. What a mad mon­ with dark, narrow streets and an­ tage that would be! What an in­ cient buildings. The fog curled in spiration for the final gurglings of from the river like a giant serpent the clarinet. What a frantic blend­ hugging the street at first, then ing of the whole of his wild, sweet­ swelling and rising slowly to blot ly sad, tortured existence, just as and blur his vision. But through it, his straining lungs expelled their across a cobbled street, he saw a final gasp into a final note and in­ lighted hotel sign. The place looked haled the cold, dark water. A shud­ inexpensive and that was what he der of breathless anticipation wanted. He took a room and carried coursed through Dooley Hanks' his haversack up to it. He hesitated body as his fingers trembled with whether to change to his good suit, the catch on the battered case. and decided not to. He wouldn't But no, he told himself. Who be looking for an engagement to­ would hear? Who would know? It night; tomorrow would be time for was important that someone hear. that. But he'd carry his clarinet, Otherwise his quest, his discovery, of course. He might find a place to his entire life would be in vain. meet other musicians, maybe be What good was The Sound if it asked to sit in with them. brought him death and not immor­ At the desk on his way out he tality? asked for directions toward the cen­ A blind alley. Another blind al­ ter of town, the lively spots. Out­ ley. Perhaps the next town. Yes, side, he started in the direction in­ the next town. His hunch was com­ dicated, but the streets were so ing back now. How had he been so crooked, the fog so thick, that he foolish as to think of drowning? was lost within a few blocks. So he To find The Sound, he'd kill if he wandered on aimlessly and in an­ had to-but not himself. other few blocks found himself in Feeling as one who had had a a somehow eerie neighborhood. Un­ narrow escape, he turned and nerved, for a panicked moment he walked away from the river, back started to walk fast to get through to the road that paralleled it, and as quickly as he could, but then he started walking into the next town, stopped short as he suddenly be­ rapidly because it was still early came aware of music in the air-a evening and he'd have plenty of weird, haunting whisper of music time, after checking in at a hotel that, after he had listened to it a to get rid of his haversack, to ex­ long moment, drew him along the plore the town a while befere they dark street in search of its source. rolled up the sidewalks. It seemed to be a single instrument EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK 61 playing, a reed instrument that him answer that question. He put didn't sound exactly like a clarinet his hand on the latch and it opened or exactly like an oboe. It grew to his touch and he stepped inside. louder, then faded again. He looked The music reached out and em­ in vain for a light, a movement, braced him tenderly. The place was some clue to its birthplace. He a wine cellar. At the far end of a turned to retrace his steps, walking large room there were three huge on tiptoe now, and the music grew wine tuns with spigots. There were louder again. A few more steps tables and people, men and wom­ and again it faded and Dooley re­ en both, seated at them. All with traced those few steps and paused wine glasses. to scan the somber, brooding build­ The musician was in a far cor­ ings. There was no light behind any ner of the room, sitting on a high window. But the music was all stool. The room was almost as thick around him now and-could it be with smoke as the street had been coming up from below? Up from thick with fog and Dooley's eyes under the sidewalk? weren't any too good anyway; from He ~ook a step toward the build­ that distance he couldn't tell what ing, and saw what he had not seen the musician's instrument was. before. Parallel to the build­ He closed the door behind him, ing front, open and unprotected by and weaved his way through the ta­ a railing, a Right of worn stone steps bles, looking for an empty one as led downward. And at the bottom close to the musician as possible. He of them, a yellow crack of light out­ found one not too far away and sat lined three sides of a door. From at it. He began to study the instru­ behind that door came the music. ment with his eyes as well as his And, he could now hear, voices in ears. It looked familiar. He'd seen conversation. one like it or almost like it some­ He descended the steps cau­ where, but where? tiously and hesitated before the "Ja, mein Herr?" It was whis­ door, wondering whether he should pered close to his ear, and he knock or simply open it and walk turned. A fat little waiter in lieder­ in. Was it, despite the fact that he hosen stood at his elbow. "Zinfail­ had not seen a sign anywhere, a del. Burgundy. Riesling." public place? One so well known Dooley knew nothing about to its habitues that no sign was wines and cared less, but he named needed? Or perhaps a private par­ one of the three, in a whisper. And ty where he would be an intruder? as the waiter tiptoed away, he put He decided to let the question a little pile of marks on the table of whether the door would or would so he wouldn•t have to interrupt not tum out to be locked against himself when the wine came. 62 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Then he studied the instrument identical to this one except that it again, trying for the moment not had been light wood instead of to listen to it, so he could concen­ dark. And later there'd been a book trate on where he'd once seen some­ about ancient instruments in his thing like it. It was about the high school library and he'd read it. length of his clarinet, with a It had said-Good God, it had said slightly larger, more flaring, bell. that the hautboy had a coarse tone It was made-all in one piece, as in the lower register and was shrill far as he could tell-of some dark on the high notes! A flat lie, if this rich wood somewhere in color be­ instrument was typical. It was tween dark walnut and mahogany, smooth as honey throughout its highly polished. It had finger holes range; it had a rich full-bodied and only three keys, two at the bot­ tone infinitely more pleasing than tom to extend the range downward the thin reediness of an oboe. Bet­ by two semitones, and a thumb-op­ ter even than a clarinet; only in its erated one at the top that would be lower, or chalumeau, register could an octave key. a clarinet even approach it. He closed his eyes, and would And Dooley Hanks knew beyond have closed his ears had they op­ certainty that he had to have an in­ erated that way, to concentrate on strument like that, and that he remembering where he'd seen would have one, no matter what something very like it. Where? he had to pay or do to get it. It came to him gradually. A mu­ And with that decision irrevoc­ seum, somewhere. Probably in ably made, and with the music still New York because he'd been born caressing him like a woman and ex­ and raised there, hadn't left there citing him as no woman had ever until he was twenty-four, and this excited him, Dooley opened his was longer ago than that, like when eyes. And since his head had tilted he was still in his teens. There had forward while he had concentrated, been a room or several rooms of the first thing he saw was the vary glass cases displaying ancient and large goblet of red wine that had medieval musical instruments; vi­ been placed in front of him. He olas da gamba and violas d'amor, picked it up and, looking over it, sackbuts and Panpipes and managed to catch the musician's shawms, lutes and tambours and eye; Dooley raised the glass in a fifes. And one glass case had held silent toast and downed the wine only hautboys, precursors of the in a single draught. modern oboe. And this instrument, When he lowered his head after the one to which he was listening drinking he studied the musician. now in thrall was a hautboy. Yes, The man was tall but thin and there'd been a three-keyed version, frail looking, his age indetermin- EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK 63 ate. He was somewhat seedy in ap­ Music? Yes, it was music, but pearance; his threadbare coat did not any kind of music he'd ever not match his unpressed trousers heard before. Or it was a blend of and a garish red and yellow striped all kinds of music, ancient and muffier hung loosely around his modern, jazz and classical, a mas­ scrawny neck, which had a promi­ terful blend of opposites, sweet and nent Adam's apple that bobbed ev­ bitter, ice and fire, soft breezes and ery time he took a breath to pla-y. raging hurricanes, love and hate. His touseled hair needed cutting, Again when he opened his eyes his face was thin and pinched, and a filled glass was in front of him. his eyes so light a blue that they This time he sipped slowly at it. looked faded. Only his fingers bore The music stopped and again he the mark of a master musician; long joined in the hearty applause. This and slim and gracefully tapered, time the musician got down from they danced nimbly in time with the stool and acknowledged the ap­ the wondrous music they shaped. plause with a jerky little bow, and Then with a final skirl of high then, tucking his instrument under notes that startled Dooley because his arm, he walked rapidly across they went at least half an octave the room-unfortunately not pass­ above what he'd thought was ing near Dooley's table-with an the instrument's top range and still awkward forward-leaning gait. had the rich resonance of the lower Dooley turned his head to follow register, the music stopped. with his eyes. The musician sat There was a few seconds of what down at a very small table, a table seemed almost stunned silence, and for one since it had only one chair, then applause started and grew. against the opposite wall. Dooley Dooley went with it, and his palms considered taking his own chair started to smart with pain. The mu­ over, but decided against it. Ap­ SICian, staring straight ahead, parently the guy wanted to sit alone didn't seem to notice. And after less or he wouldn't have taken that par­ than thirty seconds he again raised ticular table. the instrument to his mouth and Dooley looked around till he the applause died suddenly, with caught the little waiter's eye and the first note he played. signaled to him. When he came, Dooley felt a gentle touch on Dooley asked him to take a glass of his shoulder and looked around. wine to the musician, and also to The fat little waiter was back. This ask the man if he would care to join time he didn't even whisper, just him at Dooley's table, to tell him raised his eyebrows. When he'd left that Dooley too was a musician and with the empty glass, Dooley again would like to get to know him. gave full attention to the music. "I don't think he will," the wa!- 64 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ter told him. "People have tried it gather our friend turned down by before and he has always politely invitation," he said. "May I ask refused. As for tlle wine, it is not what his name is?" necessary; several times an evening "Otto, mein Herr." we pass a hat for him. Someone is "How long has he been playing starting to do so now, and you may here?" Dooley asked. contribute that way if you wish." "Oh, just tonight. He travels "I wish," Dooley told him. "But around. Tonight is the first we've take him the wine and give him my seen him in almost a yeaT. When message anyway, please." he comes, it's just for one night and "] a, mezn. H err. " we let him play and pass the hat The waiter collected a mark in far him. Ordinarily we don't have advance and then went to one of music here." the three tuns and drew a glass of Dooley frowned. He'd have to wine. Dooley, watching, saw the make sure, then, to make contact waiter put the glass on the musi­ tonight. He asked, "How soon will cian's table and, talking, pointed he play again?" toward Dooley. So there would be "Oh, no more tonight. A minute no mistake, Dooley stood and made ago, just as I was bringing your a slight bow in their direction. wine, I saw him leave. \Ve may not The musician stood also and see him again for a long ..." bowed back, slightly more deeply But Dooley had grabbed his clar­ and from the waist. But then he inet case and was running on a turned back to his table and sat twisting course between tables. down again and Dooley knew his Through the door without even first advance had been declined. bothering to close it, and up the Well, there'd be other chances, and stone steps to the sidewalk. The other evenings. He sat back down fog was less thick now, except in again and took another sip of his patches. All he could hear for a mo­ wine. ment were sounds from the wine The hat came, "for the musi­ cellar, then blessedly someone cian," passed by a stolid red-faced pulled shut the door he'd left open burgher, and Dooley, seeing no and in the silence that f~llowed he large bills in it and not wishing to thought, for a second, that he could make himself conspicuous, added hear footsteps to his right, the di­ a few marks from his little pile on rection from which he had come. the table. He had nothing to lose, so he A few minutes later he got a ran that way. There was a twist in chance to signal for more wine and the street and then a comer. He when it was brought he held the stopped and listened again, and­ little waiter in conversation. "I that way, he thought he heard the l!INE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK 65 steps again and ran toward them. sition as the car passed so close that After half a block he could see a it sent out rushing fingers of air figure ahead, too far to recognize to tug as his clothing. Dooley but thank God tall and thin; it must raised his head in time to see the be the musician. And past the fig­ red eyes of its tail lights vanishing ure, dimly through the fog he could into the fog a block down the street. see lights and hear traffic noises. Dooley listened to the drumming This must be the turn he had roll of his heart in his ears as he missed in trying to follow the hotel rolled aside to free the musician clerk's directions for finding the and both men got slowly to their bright lights district. feet. He closed the distance to a quar­ "Was it close?" ter of a block, opened his mouth Dooley nodded, breathing with to call out to the figure ahead and difficulty. found that he was too winded to The musician had taken his in­ call. He dropped from a run to a strument from under his coat and walk. No danger of losing the man was examining it. "Not broken," he now that he was this close to him. said. But Dooley, realizing that his Getting his breath back, he closed own hands were empty, whirled the distance between them more around to look for his clarinet case. slowly. And saw it. He must have dropped He was only a few paces be­ it when he raised his hands to push hind the man-and, thank God, it the musician. A wheel of the car was the musician-and was must have run over it lengthwise lengthening his strides to come up for it was completely flattened. The alongside him and speak when the case and every section of the clari­ man stepped down the curb and net were splintered, useless junk. started diagonally across the street. He fingered it a moment and then Just as a speeding car, with what walked over and dropped it into the must have been a drunken driver, gutter. turned the corner behind them, The musician came and stood lurched momentarily, then righted beside him. "A pity," he said soft­ itself on a course bearinl! strai2ht ly. "The loss of an instrument is down on the unsuspecting musi­ like the loss of a friend." cian. In sudden reAP.x action Doo­ An idea was coming to Dooley, lev dashed into the street and so he didn't answer, but managed pushed the musician from the path to look sadder than he felt. The loss of the car. The impetus of Doo1ev's of the clarinet was a blow in the charge sent him crashing down on poeketbook, but not an irrevocable top of the musician and he snrawl­ one. He had enough to buy a used, ed breathlessly in this shielding po- not-so-hot one to start out with and 66 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION he'd have to work harder and spend then used a small pocket flashlight less for a while until he could get to guide them up a wide but on­ a really good one like the one he'd carpeted staircase. The house, he just lost. Three hundred it had cost explained on the way, was unoc­ him. Dollars, not marks. Right cupied and soon to be torn down, now, though, he was much much so there was no electricity. But the more interested in getting the Ger­ owner had given him a key and man musician's hautboy, or one permission to use it while the house just like it. Three hundred dollars, still·stood; there were a few pieces not marks, was peanuts to what of furniture and he got by. He he'd give for that. And if the old liked being in a house all by him­ boy felt responsible and offered ... hour without bothering anyone. "It was my fault," the musician He opened the door of a room said. "For not looking. I wish I and went in. Dooley waited in the could afford to offer to buy you a doorway until the musician had new-It was a clarinet, was it not?" lighted an oil lamp on the dresset, "Yes," Dooley said, trying to and then followed him in. Besides sound like a man on the brink of the dresser there were only a despair instead of one on the brink straight chair, a rocker, and a sin­ of the greatest discovery of his life. gle bed. "'Well, what's kaput is kaput. Shall "Sit down, Dooley," the musi­ we go somewhere for a drink and cian told him. "You'll find the bed have a wake?" more comfortable than the straight "My room," said the musician. chair. If I'm going to play for us, "I have brandy there. And we'll I'd like the rocker." He was taking have privacy so I can play a tune two glasses and a bottle out of the or two I do not play in public. Since top drawer of the dresser. you too are a musician." He chuck­ Dooley could hardly restrain led. "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, eh? himself from asking permission A little nightmusic-but my own, right away to try the hautboy him­ not Mozart's." self, but felt it would be wiser to Dooley managed to conceal his wait. He sat down on the bed. elation and to nod as though he The musician handed Dooley a didn't care much. Okay. My name's huge glass of brandy, then got his Dooley." in his other hand, went to the rock­ The musician held out his hand. er. He raised the glass. To music, "Call me Otto, Dooley." Dooley." It wasn't far, just a block down "To a little nightmusic," said the next side street. The musician Dooley. He drank off a goodly sip, turned in at an old, dark house. He and it burned like fire, but it was opened the door with a key and good brandy. Then he could wait EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK 67 no longer. "Otto, mind if I look at ing you a new clarinet," the musi­ that instrument of yours? It's a cian said. "Tonight, let us forget hautboy, isn't it?" it. And forget your wish for a haut­ "A hautboy, yes. Not many boy, even your wish to play this would recognize it, even musicians. one-yes, I know you asked only But I'm sorry, Dooley. I can't let to touch and handle, but could you you handle it. Or play it, if you hold it in your hands without want­ were going to ask that, too. I'm sor­ ing to put it to your lips? Let us ry, but that's the way it is, my drink some more and then I will friend." play for us. Prosit!" Dooley nodded and tried not to They drank again. The musi­ look glum. The night is young, he cian asked Dooley to tell something told himself. Meanwhile, he might about himself, and Dooley did. Al­ as well find out as much as he most everything about himself .ex­ could. cept what mattered most-his ob­ "Is it-your instrument, I session and the fact that he would mean, a real one? I mean, a medie­ kill for it if there was no other way. val one? Or a modern reproduc­ But there was no hurry. The tion?" worst that could happen, Dooley "I made it myself, by hand. A thought, was that he might drink labor of love. But, my friend, stay too much and fall asleep before ac­ with clarinet, I advise you. Espe­ complishing his purpose-but if cially do not suggest I try to make he fell asleep here, there'd be the you one like this; I could not. I morning. Maybe the morning have not worked with tools for would be better in any case; Doo­ many years. I would find my skill ley was a little drunk already. is gone." They drank some more. The mu­ Dooley leaned forward. "Where sician had opened a second bottle. could I find one even something Finally he said, "I play now," like yours?" and played. And again, as at the The musician shrugged. "Most wine cellar, it was ice and fire, love are in museums. You might find a and hate, sweet and bitter. Dooley few collections of ancient instru­ lay back on the bed with his head ments in private hands, and buy against the wall and closed his eyes one at an exorbitant price-and to listen. you might even find it still playa­ After a while the music paused ble. But, my friend, be wise and aud the musician asked, "Dooley, stay with your clarinet." are you asleep?" Dooley could not say what he "No," said Dooley. was thinking, and didn't speak. "If you do sleep, it's all right. "Tomorrow we talk about find- I can sleep in this rocker. I often 68 PANTAST AND SCIENCE PICTION do. So you needn't try to stay gentle tap-tap at the door. Dream~ awake. But meanwhile-Dooley, ily, Dooley turned his head toward outside of letting you try the in· the door and opened his eyes. The strument yourself, and this I can· door swung open and girls poured not do, is there anything I can do into the room and surrounded him, for you that would make this night engulfing him in their physical more happy for you?" warmth and softness, and their ex­ "Do for me?" Dooley tried to col· otic perfumes. Dooley gazed and lect his thoughts. reached in blissful disbelief, and "Yes. Some small token of my then suspended the disbelief; if gratitude. What would you like this was illusion, let it be illusion, most right now?" if he was dreaming, let him stay "A girl," Dooley murmured asleep. sleepily. There were brown-eyed bru· The musician chuckled. "Blond, nettes, black-eyed blondes and brunette or titian?" green-eyed redheads. And blue· "All kinds," Dooley answered eyed brunettes, green-eyed blondes airly. "A whole roomful." He and brown-eyed redheads. They laughed giddily at his own absurd­ were all sizes from petite to statu­ ity. "Bring 'em on, Otto." esque and they were all beautiful. The musician started to play A roomful of them. again. But a different tune this Somehow the oil lamp seemed time, one that was lilting but sen­ to dim itself without going out, and sual. So beautiful that it hurt, and the _music, growing wilder now, Dooley for a moment thought seemed to come from somewhere fiercely, "Damn him, he's playing else, as though the musicians were my instrument; he owes it to me elsewhere and Dooley alone in the for the clarinet." And almost he room with the girls, and Dooley decided not to wait till morning, thought that was considerate of the to get up now and- musician. Soon he was romping But before he could move, he be­ with the girls in reckless abandon, came aware of another sound some· sampling here and there like a small where, over or under the music. It boy in a -candy store. Or like a seemed to come from outside, from Roman at an orgy, but the Romans the sidewalk below, and it was a never had it so good, nor the gods rapid click-click-clickety-click for on Mount Olympus. all the world like the sound of At last, wonderfully exhausted, high heels, and then it was closer, he lay back on the bed and, still and it was the sound of heels, many surrounded by fragrant girl-flesh, heels, on the wood of the uncarpet· he slept. ed staircase-and then there was a And woke, suddenly and com· EINE KLEINE NACH'I'MUSilt 69 pletely and soberly, he knew not to warrant extradition. He would how long later. But the room was claim Otto had given the instru· cold now; perhaps that was what meat to him to replace the clarinet had awakened him. He opened his he'd lost saving Otto's life. He'd eyes and saw that he was alone on have no proof of that, but they'd the bed and that the lamp was have no proof to the contrary. again (or still?) burning brightly Quickly and quietly he got off holding back the darkness that the bed and stood before the sleep­ pressed against the window panes. ing man. It would be easy, for the And the musician was there too, means were at hand. The scarf, al­ sound asleep in the rocking chair. ready around the thin neck, the The instrument was gripped in ends crossed once and ready to his both his hands and that red and hands. Dooley took them, and yellow striped muffler was still pulled hard. At the same moment around his scrawny neck. His head he put a knee on the hautboy in the was tilted backward against the musician's lap, so it could not fall rocker's back. to the floor. It was easy. The musi­ Had it really happened, the cian must have heen older and girls? Or had the music put him to more frail than Dooley had sleep so he'd dreamed it, having thought. His struggles were feeble made the suggestion to his own and he died quickly. subconscious when he'd made a Dooley felt fer a heartbeat to ridiculous and impossible request make sure, and then picked up the of the musician. instrument. Held it, at long last. But that didn't matter. All that He trembled, not with reaction mattered was that the hautboy was at having killed, but with eagerness and that now was the time for him at actually holding what he held. to take it. But did he have to kill When would it be safe for him to to get it? Yes, if he simply stole it try it? Not back at his hotel in the from the sleeping man he'd never middle of the night, waking other stand a chance of getting out of guests. Germany with it. Otto knew his No, here and now, in this aban­ right name, as it was on his passport doned house, would be his best and and they'd be waiting for him at the safest chance. Here and now, but border. Whereas if he killed, the softly and ready to quit right away body -left behind in an abandoned if the instrument made with the house-might not be found for squeaks and squeals so easy to pro­ weeks, not until he was safe back duce on an as yet unmastered in· in America. By then any evidence strument. But he had an ineffable against him, even his possession of feeling that it wouldn't happen the instrument, would be too thin that way. 70 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICnON He looked down and saw and a roomful of girls had come. felt that his fingers had fallen nat­ The tune wouldn't come to him, urally into position over the finger­ but instead he found himself play­ holes and keys. He watched them ing a strange tune, one he'd never start, seemingly of their own voli­ heard before, but one that he knew tion, a little finger-dance. He instinctively belonged to this won­ made them stop moving and won­ derful instrument. It was a calling, deringly put the instrument to his beckoning melody-as the girl mu­ lips and breathed into it softly. And sic had been, but somehow sinister out came, softly, a clear, pure mid­ instead of sensual. dle register tone, as rich and vi­ And then, as he played on, over brant as any Otto had played. or under the music he heard an­ Cautiously, he raised a finger and other sound. Not this time a click­ then another and found himself click of high heels but a scraping, starting a diatonic scale. And then scrabbling sound, as of thousands made himself forget his fingers and of tiny clawed feet. just think the rest of the scale and And then he saw as well as heard let his fingers take over and they them as they suddenly poured out did, every tone pure. He let him­ of many holes in the woodwork self think a scale in another key and that he had not before noticed, and it played itself, and then an arpeg­ ran and jumped upon the bed and gio or two. The instrument was upon him. And as he found him­ his in both senses. He owned it self fighting them, suddenly the and he could play it. bits and pieces fell into place and He decided that he might as by an effort that was to be the last well make himself comfortable, one of his life, Dooley tore the ac­ and went to the bed, lay back cursed instrument from his mouth, across it with his head and shoul­ and opened his mouth to scream. ders braced against the wall behind But they were all around and over it, as he had lain while listening him now-great ones, small ones, to Otto play. And put the instru­ lean ones, brawny ones. . . . And ment to his lips and played, this before he could scream out of his time not caring about volume; if opened mouth the largest black rat, any neighbors were awake and the one who led them, leaped up heard, they'd think it was Otto. · and closed his needle-sharp teeth He played, and a thousand into the end of Dooley's tongue and thoughts blended; again blended held on, and the scream aborning opposites became sadly gay tunes. gurgled into silence. He tried to remember the tune Ot­ And The Sound of feasting to had played that had brought the lasted far into the night in Hame­ girls, or had made him dream that lin town ...... "Titank God!"

71 BOOKS

WE ARE NOT ALONE, Walter sum­ counted in it. At the very least, it van, McGraw-Hill, $6.95; 291 poses a challenging reply to the pp., plus bibliographies and index. interminable query: "But isn't sci­ ence overtaking science fiction?" Sometimes it's hard to tell who's ''Yes indeed. And science fic­ doing the chasing. tion is taking over science." And if this seems a strange way Mr. Sullivan opens with an ac­ to open a discussion of a serious count of the formation of an ex­ non-fiction book by one of the na­ clusive society known as The Or­ tion's leading science writers­ der of the Dolphin. believe me, it is as appropriate as In November, 1961, the most the Fortean title, which is to say: august scientific body in the verymuch (and agreeably) so. United States convened a meet­ This extraordinary, detailed, ing at the National Radio As­ documented, factQal narrative is tronomy Observatory in Green an account of the most exciting Bank, West Virginia. While it spy-and-suspense, chase-and-pur· was not held in secret, in the of­ suit adventure ever undertaken by ficial sense, every effort was sober, industrious, learned, re­ made to avoid publicity be­ spected, and respectable men. It cause of the sensational nature is also, if not exactly science fic­ of the question to be discussed. tion, still outstandingly the best The subject was Intelligent book of science-fictional work Extraterrestrial Life. (both as an imaginative exercise, The eleven men present were and as absorbing drama) reviewed world-famous scientists in a vari­ here this month, and probably for ety of fields: physics, astronomy, many months before and after. biochemistry, communications. But I was not really thinking They were there at the request of about the content of the book when the Space Science Board of the I started that way. It was the fact National Academy of Sciences. It of the existence of the book I had was this group that constituted it­ in mind-and the more astonish­ self "The Order of the Dolphin." ing existence of the pursuit re- Why they did so-why they were BOOKS 73 there-what has happened since not, conceivably, materialize com­ -what is likely to happen-all pletely in our own lifetimes . • . these things are Mr. Sullivan's yet filled with glory, because the story, and I do not intend to tell very fact that the movie had been any of it here. But there are two made somehow guaranteed that the things I do want to tell- dream had 'caught,' that it would Some of the chapter headings, materialize, some day. in the candid hope they will hook I will, I guess, watch the Ge­ you: Where to Look, Visitors from mini launching on television, but Space, Can They Visit Us? Is it will not have the same excite­ There Intelligent Life on Earth? ment or impact for me that the Celestial Syntax. movie did. It will be only another And something of the effect the part of the implementation of the book had on me: dream, which had indeed 'caught,' Fifteen years ago, or close to it, and has been slowly fulfilling it­ I was privileged to watch a special self over the years since. preview of the movie, Destination But for me at least, space itself, Moon, shown on the Planetarium the physical objectives, are only dome at the Museum of Natural curtain openers. It is not so much History. I do mean "privileged," what, but whom we will find that because (along with about half keeps me looking way out there. the total audience), I had not ex­ And once again, I find myself actly been invited; I was just bare­ sighing, because it will probably ly able to get hold of a press card take too, too long-and exultant and convince the folks at the door because Mr. Sullivan proclaims that I belonged. that WE ARE NOT ALONE-and As I said, I was not the only means it, and says here, loud and ardent fan there that day; the clear, why he means it, and why audience in the round room, necks the "Dolphins" do too. bent back to watch the show pro­ jected on an artificial sky, was WJUTE Loros, John Hersey, Knopf, largely composed of people to $6.95, 683 pp. whom the drama was a dream externalized. We watched the I am, in common with a great vivid scenes set outside the ship many other readers, an admirer of in empty space-watched them John Hersey. Unlike many of the at a perspective that lent breath­ others, I thought THE CHILD BUY­ taking realism to the illusion ER by a far cry his best book to -and left, sighing, because we date. It is disappointing to have knew that what we had seen to continue to feel so, after read­ come to life that afternoon ~uld ing WHITE LOTUS, And since I 74 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTIOM am much more of a science fiction white underground movement be­ fan than a Hersey enthusiast, it is tween the militant activists and downright painful to have to say, the proponents of passive resist­ of his first all-out science fiction ance. novel, that it is a dull book. Most The background of all this is distressing of all, its faults are China of (I infer) about the typical of the novice in the field, 1920's. I assume the Chinese and of the amateur propagandist background is entirely authentic ... yet Mr. Hersey is a writer of -and suggest this is one of the stature and experience, who has serious flaws in the novel. World previously handled a marginally supremacy would surely have af­ science fictional book magnificent­ fected the Chinese personality and ly, and who has in his other writ­ way of life as profoundly in an­ ings, repeatedly provc;!n himself a other direction as (and this Mr. highly skilled, effective, and re­ Hersey did understand) American strained pl'opagandist. subjugation changed the personal­ WHITE LOTUS is a lengthy ity and culture of the White Lotus parable of slavery and racial con­ herself. flict, set in an alternate probabil­ Perhaps the greatest problem is ity timestream where white Amer­ just that it is, as I said, a lengthy ica has long been subject to slave parable. It is not, in the usual sci­ raids by the dominant yellow race. ence-fiction sense, a projection, The story is told, in first person, but a simple transformation, East by a young woman leader in the to West, white to yellow, black to passive resistance movement of white. At 68 pages it might have the whites in China. It covers a been great. 6 8 3 was far too many. period of what I'd estimate to be Nor was the choice of narrative at most twenty years, from the technique a wise one; parables are time of the capture of a fourteen­ seldom best told from a subjective year-old girl in a raid on her Ari­ viewpoint; and a young girl's sub­ zona village, through the con­ jective view does not appear to be frontation of the Chinese authori­ Hersey's strong point in any case. ties by White Lotus, symbol of the Philip Dick did it better three white civil rights movement. In years ago, in THB MAN IN THB the course of the book, the girl, HIGH CASTLE. White Lotus, lives through the ex­ perience of slavery, the impact of 'I1IE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER the abolitionist movement, the ELDRITCH, Philip K. Dick, Double­ trading of slavery for freedom-in­ day, $4.95; 278 pp. prejudice, the beginning of egali­ tarianism, and the struggle in the Philip Dick did it better three BOOKS 75 years ago, in THE MAN IN TBB some time go back to this one, pub­ HIGH CASTLE. lication notwithstanding, and fin­ I don't mean, this time, that his ish writing it. new book is similar in theme or treatment. Rather, that I wish it SUNBURST, Phyllis Gotlieb; Gold were more so, at least in charac­ Medal, 40¢, 160 pp. terizations and structure. Phil Dick is, one might say, the At thirteen, the only world best writer s-f has produced, on Shandy Johnson knows is the in­ every third Tuesday. In between grown, progressively degenerate, times, he ranges wildly from un­ society of the walled and guarded forgiveable carelessness to crafts­ town of Sorrel Park. Cut off from manlike high competence. In the the world by an atomic accident case of PALMER ELDRITCH, I in 1994, the city has now been would guess he did his thinking isolated for a full generation, con­ on those odd Tuesdays, or rather taining a secret the government is on one of them, and the actual determined to keep hidden, and writing in every possible minute plagued with the atmosphere of before another Good Tuesday fear and superstition emanating came on him. from the triply-guarded strong­ Here is a riotous profusion of hold inside the city: the Dump. ideas, enough for a dozen novels, In the Dump are the children or one really good one; but the whose existence must never be stuff is unsorted, frequently in­ known: the mutants whose power­ completed, seldom even clearly ful psi talents pose a constant stated. The style is alternately threat to progress-as-usual in the dream-slow-surreal and fast-ac­ great outside world. And with tion-pulp. Thematically, he at them, inside, are a cross-section of least approaches, and sometimes non-psis, guards, teachers, re­ stops to consider, virtually every searchers, with a wide range of current crucial issue: drug addic­ attitudes toward the mutants. tion, sexual mores, over-popula­ Shandy has no psi powers; she tion, the economic structure of has lived, so far, in the dinginess society, the nature of the religious and poverty of the town proper. experience, parapsychology, the Now, suddenly, the Dumper spy evolution of man-you name it, comes for her. Inside the Dump, you'll find it. three new worlds open up to her: The book, with all this, is in­ the civilization of outside, repre­ evitably colorful, provocative, and sented by a scientist; the anarchy (frustratingly) readable. I wish I of the mutants; and her own self, thought it possible that D.i-k might with its unique "talent.• 76 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION New twists on a very old theme from the skies.) Davidson does it -certainly. So were Wilmar no worse, I suppose, than many Shiras' OPENING DOORS and Zen­ of s-f's enduring hacks (and some na Henderson's PEOPLE. If this at least of its now-brightest book falls short of full comparison names) used to do in the old with those, it is still a quietly ef­ Planet and Amazing. But space­ fective, warmly convincing first sailors' swearings and sweatings novel by a writer whose scant and lecherous lootings are not handful of published stories has among the things he has seen or already taught me to watch for her heard-or, it would seem, even byline. dreamed. I doubt if anyone has­ not like this. MUTINY IN SPACE, Avram David­ They might better have called son; Pyramid, 50¢, 159 pp. it AYESHA GOES TO THE STARS.

Avram Davidson is a master of THE REASSEMBLED MAN, Herbert D. the short story form. He has an ear Kastle, Gold Medal, 45¢; 192 pp. for dialogue and an eye for detail unsurpassed in this field, and not A Walter Mitty type hero is re­ too often equalled outside it. With built to superior physical specs by this, he has a rarer skill-pre­ meddling experimental extrater­ cision: the ability to convey in restrial observers, and given a brief (sometimes exquisite) strength, endurance, appearance, phrase, by intonation, connota­ sexuality, beyond his wildest tion, linguistic induction, what dreams. wordier and less finely attuned A powerful concept is reduced writers may need paragraphs or to a plot gimmick by pedestrian pages of detail and denotation to handling, and given an underde­ accomplish. What he has once veloped, oversexed, pulp-paced, heard or seen, or even dreamed, slick-glib treatment, well inside he can, it seems, evoke unfailingly the author's proven capabilities. in the sharp polished prose of his It also seems to have a moral: short stories. it is best to be only a little bit bet­ ·Unfortunately, MUTINY IN ter; being the best is too much. On SPACE is a novel-and worse yet, the way to this conclusion, how­ one of the currently popular ever, there are any number of in­ swords-and-spacery variety. (The teresting concepts and intriguing Barbarians of the Spaceways neo­ notions tossed out (and away)­ historical thing, full of great oaths as for instance, that super-energy and bloody slashings, nubile entails super-hunger. A good book priestesses and lustful conquerors for commuters and tired-night BOOKS 77 reading-you can drift off and exceJlent package, which includes finish the thoughts for yourself. a detailed and intriguing dictiGn­ ary of the constellations. BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM, Ches· ley Bonestell and Willy Ley, LIFE AND DEATH OF THE SUN, Jolm Viking, $6.50; 93 pp., plus ap­ Rublowsky, Basic Books, $4.50, pendix, bibliography, index, and 129 pp. plus glossary, biographies. foreword by Wernher von Braun. Do not under any circumstances Third in the series of Bonestell­ confuse this book with the excel­ Ley astronautical pre-chartings, lent, informative, and readable this has the usual relaxed, infor­ text of similar title by George Ga­ mative, and stimulating text by mow. The jacket on this one claims Willy Ley, and fourteen full-color the book will appeal to everything paintings by Bonestell, most of from "bright junior high school which seemed to me to be just a students" to "students af astron­ bit usual also. In general, the star omy at college." I doubt it. photographs from Palomar and Mt. The sun makes the wind blow Wilson were more effective for and the rain fall. Its rays make me, this time round. In particu­ the grass grow green. • • • lar, my favorite among the Bone­ Certainly the sun, blazing in stells here, a delicate sparkles-on­ the noon sky, is an impressive black-velvet painting of the Milky sight . ... In the following Way galaxy, comes a close second chapters we shall find out • • • to the phenomenal California In­ But do not despair. The book is stitute of Technology color photo not all bad. It has some good. It of the Ring Nebula in Lyra­ has a glossary and a biographical which alone would be worth the dictionary. These are useful. price of the book, if Viking had If, as seems probable, it should not reduced the size to 7 x 10.5 go into paperback, any price up to this time. 50¢ would be reasonable for the As it is, the illustrations are sake of the appendices. only the most striking part of an -JUDITH MERRIL

EDITOR'S NOTE Reader reaction on the book review column is always welcome and often influential. Ill her last two columns Miss Merril has written an essay in depth on three books only (May 1965), and (above) has commented more concisely on a greater number of books. Which do you prefer? Any other comments ... suggestions'? Address: Book Review Editor, Fantasy Br: Science Fiction, 347 E. 53 St., New York, N. Y. 10022. Our favorite stand-up comic, Woody Allen, tells about the escape of a dozen chain-gang prisonet's who slip past the guards by posing as an immense charm bracelet. For some truly startling effects of a similar nature, you will want to start immediately this further (CHAMELEON, Sept. 1964) adventure of Ben ]olson of the Cha­ meleon Corps.

RAKE

by Ron Goulart

THE LUNGED STUN ROD MISSED ran for it. He had to leap up first, and tipped over the barmaid. Beer to avoid one stun rod and then suds washed across the nearwood hunch almost into the wall to flooring and the android barmaid avoid another. slithered on its back, sputtering. Blocking a blow with his at­ On top of the long dining table tache case }olson backed up the Ben }olson spun and jumped curving staircase. "You guys better again. Two of the Monitors cir­ quit now or it gives trouble." cled the table, both lunging. The "Surrender, Waycross," said a black attache case locked to his Monitor. "This isn't doing your wrist madty }olson slightly lopsid­ academic standing any good." ed and he didn't quite land as "Down with the Unyoke Move­ he'd planned. He hunkered and ment," shouted the second Moni­ one of the grey cloaked Monitors tor, pressing upward toward }ol­ sailed over him and clattered into son. the deep simulated fireplace. "You mentioned that before," That left only three of Dean }olson said, getting out of the way Riding's men to dodge~ The few of another blow. "I'm warning you. patrons of the little tavern near the Go away and don't bother me." space port had huddled against the "You 'Yent too far this time, small bar. All the thumping had Waycross," said the first Monitor. done something to the andy bar­ "This summons from the Dean's of­ tender and he kept drawing tank­ fice is not to be ignored." He al­ ards of green ale and setting them most got Jonson's foot. up. }olson spotted a stairway and }olson put his fingers on the 78 RAK.B 79 snap of the attache case and said, and the signs dropped. }olson "Remember. You wouldn't listen.'' worked his way foreward. The He started to open it. horsemen passed and the signs came up. The student he was A little over a day before Ben meeting was not involved with }olson of the Chameleon Corps Unyoke, or with much of any­ had arrived here on the planet thing academic. He was the most­ Taragon. He'd been sent on a spe­ ly hell-raising son of a Barnum cial mission by the Political Es­ ambassador named Waycross. His pionage Office on Barnum, the father called him a rake and a pro­ planet that ruled all the planets Oigate. So did the Political Es­ in the Barnum System. pionage Office. They had a use for Step one had been a rendezvous, young Waycross. }olson was going in his own person, at a coffee and to impersonate him for the next gaming house near sprawling, twenty four hours. / pseudo-ivied Taragon University. Unyoke lmmediatelyl the sign The windows of the low ceil­ that masked booth 8 read. }ol­ inged smoke-blurred coffee house son pushed it aside and found Mi­ were leaded shards of bottle glass. guel Waycross holding its stick. Fragmented blotches of colored "You, Waycross?" afternoon sunlight filled the Waycross was about twenty, tal­ place. }olson, loosening the coat ler and leaner than }olson. He seam on his bland civilian suit, wore his dark hair short with the moved through the clutter of stu­ exaggerated widow's peak most of dents toward booth 8. the Taragon men students seemed Tankards clicked all around. to favor. 'Well," said the student, The ivory counters of Venusian apparently recogmzmg }olson bingo clacked from a curtain hid­ from the briefing PEO's agent had den back room. The word Unyoke given him, "I've had a change of blocked }olson's progress. It was on heart, sir." a placard, the first of a line of six "Oh, so?" }olson eyed the plump that had just been raised by a group young man who was sitting across of students. from Waycross stirring a jar of There had been trouble at Tar­ paint with a brush tip. agon Ulliversity for several weeks "This is Stu Marks," said Mi­ now. The Student Unyoke Move­ guel Waycross. "He's been my best ment was demanding concessions and closest friend since a week from Dean Riding. }olson had ago Monday." been sleep briefed on all that but "You mean," said }olson, easing it was not a major concern of his. onto the bench next to him, "you've Horses were heard approaching jomed the Unyoke Movement.'' 80 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Yes,'' said Waycross, with an place I know and write away. eyes down grin. "I know you were Meanwhile my identity will ease expecting nothing but a rakehell, your access to the campus. Okay?" sir. I'm dedicated and motivated "I'll go there with you and you now." can fill me in on the small details "A cause,'' pointed out Marks, of the set up at Taragon Univer­ "does that for you." His widow's sity." peak wasn't affixed properly and it Waycross nodded. ''You're see­ snapped up. He slapped it back in ing Professor Nibblett two hours place. from now, aren't you?" }olson narrowed his eyes, turned "Yes,'' said }olson. "How'd you again to Waycross. "So now?" know that?" "Stu," said Waycross. "Let me "Oh, what with dad's reputa· talk to this guy alone." tion. Your POE man told me most "Okay." Marks rose. To }olson everything." He studied }olson. he said, "That's the first conserva­ "You must be over thirty." tive suit I've seen that I've liked in "Thirty-two." a long time." His own outfit was ''Yet you can change yourself orange, fringed with green. right into an exact replica of me." After Marks had been sucked It had taken the Chameleon into the crowd Waycross said, "It's Corps twelve years to condition like being reborn, Lt. }olson. I'm him for this kind of job. 'With no really up to here in worthwhile ac· trouble." tivity." "I guess you're proud." "Don't tell me you're even at­ }olson, when CC didn't call on tending classes?" him for urgent assignments, ran a "No time for that," said Way· wholesale pottery business. "Let's cross. "Listen, Lt. }olson, I'm still go, huh?" He eased out of the willing to co-operate with PEO. booth. Afterall, I owe it to my dad. I More hoofbeats sounded. This have some speeches to write. See, time the mounts drew up outside Walter R. Scamper himself, the the coffee house. grand old man of all the Unyoke "Oops,'' said Waycross. "Dean Movements is arriving at the space Riding's Monitors are making a port tomorrow night. I've been checkup. Come on." He guided picked to make the welcoming Jolson toward the gaming rooms. speech." He grinned and then let "Back way." it fade. ''You will be finished with In a moment Jolson and Way­ my identity by then?" cross and some twenty student ag­ ''Yes,'' said }olson. itators and gamesters were running "Good. Then I'll hole up at a dewn a yellow brick alley. RAU 81 The espionage people hadn't picked up a pair of spiked gloves. briefed Jolson about any of this. "I must say I liked you better when you were a harmless drunken sot The permanent autumn leaves and hellbent rake." were programmed to drift down The gloves flew at }olson and when the campanile struck the he stepped aside, letting them clat­ hour. Jolson ducked to avoid a big ter on the gravel. "Could we make one and turned down a gravel path another appointment, sir?" that led toward the Science Com­ "An appointment missed allows plex. He was now an exact physi­ me other recourse," said the man. cal duplicate of Miguel Waycross, He was tugging on spiked gloves wearing a borrowed lemon yellow of his own. ''You know the rules of coat and sky blue ruffie-ankled the Dean's office. First a summons, pants. then a reprimand, then the field of The Political Espionage Office, honor." and they ran CC, felt it would be Yes, Waycross was looking more more efficient if Professor Nib­ and more like an unwise selection. blett were contacted by someone "Oh, really?" Jolson dropped to one in the guise of a student. Way­ knee and picked up the gloves. cross' father had probably sat "Well, okay, sir." This was obvi­ in on either a planning or a pre­ ously Dean Riding. planning conference. Jolson, as an Riding had his gloves on and artificial breeze fluttered his an­ he went into a crouch. "Let us kles, yearned for the pottery busi­ proceed, Waycross. I'm burning ness. Once the Chamelon Corps for satisfaction." He skittered got you, though, you were always across the synthetic grass and on call. landed one footed in front of "Ah ha," shouted a sharp nasal Jolson. voice. "Isn't this really an ideological Jolson halted and turned. This conflict?" said }olson. The second stretch of path was passing glove was not going on right. His through a grove of real trees. Over thumb kept slipping into the mid­ on a rococo iron work bench a dle finger slot. middle-aged man, long and lank, Dean Riding snarled and feint­ was sneering at him. "Sir?" said ed with a mailed left. "I refuse to Jolson. upgrade the Unyoke Movement by The man, whose straight black calling it ideological." He jabbed hair was parted in the middle, a right into ]olson's stomach. fluffed his moustache. ''You ig­ "Oof," said Jolson, bicycling. nored my summons for a chat, "Set up card tables on faculty Waycross." From the bench he grounds, will you?" cried the Dean, 82 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION slashing Jplson's cheek. "Hand out ed stomach. "Afterall, the keynote leaftets during lectures." Another of the Nibblett Project is doing cut. "Demand equal time on the things right out in the open. So educational channel. I'll teach you that antiBarnum forces won't there's no equality around here, wonder about any hush-hush. upstart." Come in. Political Espionage 'Well," said }olson, not liking wanted to call my work Project to bleed. He suddenly caused him­ Upgrade or Taragon Doomsday self to shrink several inches. This but I insisted on simply the Nib­ threw Dean Riding's next swing blett Project. I like to see my name off. Then }olson sidestepped and on things. Your name again?" elongated his right arm to about "Ben }olson," he said, following triple its length. He snapped it out the professor across a large empty like a whip and let it wind and class room. The door slid shut be­ tighten around the Dean's throat. hind them. The mailed fist slammed into Rid­ "That over there," said the pro­ ing's temple at the end of its spin. fessor, "is an oldfashioned black­ Riding collapsed. }olson unwound board. I write assignments on it his arm and retracted it, started with something they used to call running. chalk." He moved through the A few students had come up shadowy clusters of chairs to the during the fight's final phase. They big blackboard and picked up two applauded now, then scattered. erasers. Slamming them against two preselected spots he said, Professor Nibblett's round "Watch now." ringed eyes squinted behind the The blackboard quivered and Judas hole in the lab door. "I'd then rolled away. There was a cor­ feel safer with a password," he ridor behind it. said. His voice was throaty, break­ "Step over the eraser trough," ing occasionally into a falsetto. said Nibblett, doing that. "Liberte, egalite, fraternite," Beyond the corridor was a door said }olson. "Is that okay?" PEO locked with a ten finger whorl lock. hadn't given him any passwords Beyond that a small laboratory. or numbers on this assignment. "I When they were shut in the pro­ think the Dean may be after me. fessor said, "Now then. I have most May I come in?" of them at my home to be packed. The window shut and the blue You will pick them up there to­ door slid open. "I shouldn't ask for morrow evening at five. Is that all­ passwords, should I?" said Nib­ right?" blett. He was a medium sized man His ship didn't leave tUI ten. with curly grey hair and a round- "Yes." RAKE 83 "You'll come as Waycross.'" now, but in the long run we save "About that," said }olson. "Way­ millions of lives." cross' status seems to have changed "Pro-Barnum lives." in the past week." He told Nib­ "That's the side we happen to be blett about Unyoke and Dean Rid­ on." Nibblett caught the rabbit by ing's attack. the ears and dropped it on a bl~k "I never involve myself in po­ topped table. The open container litics, on a student level," said the stayed on a white metal table sev­ professor. "However, I'm too busy eral feet away. 'Watch now. At­ to think about new faces. I'm con­ tention. Forward march." ditioned to your being Waycross. Little black dots began pouring Please don't cross me up at this over the lip of the container. They stage. Be Waycross, come at five marched in pairs down the leg of tomorrow. You know my home ad­ the white table. dress?" "Attack the rabbit," ordered "They briefed me, yes." Nibblett, clapping his hands. Behind a small blackboard The dots trooped across the buff there was a wall safe. "I like hid­ flooring and up the leg of the black ing things behind these old black­ topped table. The rabbit hopped boards," said Professor Nibblett. to the edge. Then shot off and in­ "I've kept a sample of them here." to a comer of the room. Calmly He drew a small transparent con­ the little dots marched down to tainer out of the safe. It looked the table and then broke into two like something potato salad had Hanks and surrounded the agitat· come in. "It elates me that I'll ed rabbit. soon be fondly referred to as the "Charge," cried Nibblett. father of upgraded germ warfare." The dots surged ahead, "And your wife will become the swarmed over the spotted animal. mother of upgraded germ war­ The rabbit cried out once, then fare." toppled back. In under thirty sec­ "No, I'll take all the credit," onds it was dead and glowing said Nibblett, unliding the con­ faintly green. tainer. "Watch how they work. Oh, "Retreat to your container," or­ wait. I need a rabbit. Hand me dered the smiling professor. When one. From those cribs there." the giant germs had marched home }olson selected a piebald one. he closed them in and put the con­ "Do you have to kill him? I'll take tainer again in the wall safe. your word." "That's how they work." "A demonstration's not a dem­ "Intelligent germs?" said }olson. onstration without it," explained "Smart enough to drill, do the the professor. "We kill a rabbit manual of arms if need be and 84 FANTASY AND SCIBNCB FICTION carry out simple commands. They Manor hotel, which made the vis­ can't be counteracted in any way it of Professor Gurney Tishamin­ at the moment." He paused and go the next day unsettling from his head bobbed. "Warfare takes a the start. step ahead today. Or rather four Tishamingo, who was the big and a half weeks ago when my six wide guy who'd eyed Jolson yes­ years of work cubninated in suc­ terday in the Science Complex, cess." showed up at the door a half hour }olson moved so he wouldn't before Jolson was to leave for Nib­ have to look at the dead rabbit. blett's home. "How do I transport them back to Jolson was using his own ap­ Barnum?" pearance now but it still upset "They like to go on trips. I'll him to have Tishamingo open deliver you six containers of them with, "Ben Jolson ?" tomorrow and verbally give you in­ "Who are you?" Jolson asked, structions to pass on to PEO." He not moving away from the door. shrugged and lines jiggled under ''I'm with the University. Pro­ his eyes. "You can carry them in an fessor Gurney Tishamingo, De­ attache case." partment of Agricultural Psychia­ "Will they obey me?" try." "They are conditioned to obey "All our plants are in good men­ any Pro-Barnum authority." tal health." Jolson began to close "They can tell who's pro and the door. who's anti?" "It's about the Nibblett Proj­ "Loyalty wasn't that hard a ect," Tishamingo whispered. thing to program into them." There was a growing lack of se­ }olson left in a few moments. curity on this mission. "Yes?" He had to remain Waycross in the "Inside I'll explain." corridors of the lab complex be­ Jolson let the big man in and cause a heavy set wide young pro­ made the mistake of turning his fessor was looking at him funny back for an instant. His view from and took to following him through the glass wall of the room was dot­ two levels. ted with stars of pain. Gurney When Jolson had shook free of Tishamingo had jabbed a needle the possible tail he put his hands into his left buttock. "Some expla­ up to his face and changed to a nation," said Jolson, toppling over. less controversial face than Way­ He was paralyzed now, going rig­ cross'. id. "Nothing permanent," said the Nobody was supposed to lmow professor. "You Chamelon Corps }olson was staying at the Urban boys are tricky. That shot11 keep RAKE 85 you as is for several hours. Long Tishamingo had intended. ]olson's enough for us to get the stuff from system, after all the years the old Nibblett." Chameleon Corps had worked on Jolson couldn't respond. it, tended to be unpredictable like The wide Tishamingo hoisted that. him up on the bed. "No use tying A makeshift platform stood you. You CC boys can slither out near the dome shaped restaurant of bonds like snakes." He punched closest to the gate. Three hundred ]olson's shoulder in a comradely or so bright clad students were cir­ fashion. "I notice that puzzled ex­ cled around it already. Against the pression frozen on your face. Nev­ night Jolson saw that the ship that er trust those Political Espionage must have brought Walter R. boys for current reports on the lay Scamper was unloading its pas­ of the political land. What you sengers. don't know, Jolson, is that today Just climbing up on the simu­ Ambassador Waycross has bolted lated wood platform was Miguel and gone over to the Anti-Barnum Waycross, in a formal orange pull­ side. The side I'm on. This whole over and buff knickers. thing with his son was a set up so Jolson was tired of round about we, the Anti-Barnum boys, could action. He ducked into a thick get those smart little germs with a clump of decorative brush. minimum of trouble." 'We have the right,'' Waycross' It had long ago seemed like too amplified voice was saying, "to much trouble to Jolson. put up card tables wherever we choose. Academic life isn't all Mounted police were galloping studies and duels. No." toward the spaceport. It was aft­ Jolson , shucked his clothes, er eight now, a sharp chill night. shook himself once and turned in­ Jolson was still a little stiff in to a gigantic black eagle.. He the joints. He'd confirmed the Rapped up into the night. He rose snatch. Professor Nibblett had high and circled. handed over the germs to the real "There is nothing as important," Waycross, thinking he was Jolson, continued Waycross, "as the right promptly at five. to hand out leaflets. Right?" If young Waycross was really Jolson swooped and caught up going to welcome Walter R. Waycross in his talons. He flew to Scamper at the space port there a more remote gathering of trees might be a chance to catch him and shrubs back of the space port and get the germs back. and dropped Waycross from a The paralyzing drug hadn't height sufficient to stun him. knocked him out for as long as He landed next to the groggy 86 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION student and changed back to him­ }olson swore and dived back in­ self. He took Waycross' clothes to the tavern. and put them on. So now he was half way up the Waycross woke up, shivered, stairs. "I'd advise you guys to back and said, "I thought you Chame­ off," he told the Monitors. 'The leon Corps guys were in favor of only weapon I've got is unfortu­ free speech." nately pretty deadly." He hesi­ "I'm against spies and guys who tated. Turned and ran on up­ give me unsolicited shots in the stairs. He ducked into a half open ass," said }olson. "Where are the door, hoping they wouldn't make damn germs?" him use the trained germs. "No," said Waycross. Jolson crossed the half empty "I'll drop you again. From store room and shoved up a win­ higher up." dow. He put the attache case han­ "When you put it that way," dle in his mouth and jumped out said Waycross. "My friend Marks on a slanted roof. Behind him three has the stuff. He's waiting near Monitors dived into the store here, at the Cock 'N Bull Tavern. room. I was going to take a flight out He catwalked a gable and at ten. But I had to welcome old ducked behind a chimney. He got Walter R. Scamper." He frowned. the student outfit off and switched "You spoiled that pretty well" back to the eagle. The bandcuil "Sure," §(lid }olson. He knocked slipped off his wing tip but he had Waycross out with a right to the the case in his big beak. He rose chin and rolled him under a row up before the first Monitor reached of yellow rose bushes. He shook his the chimney. head and changed his appearance. Back at the spaceport the rally As Waycross again he headed for had turned into a riot. Jolson re­ the Cock 'N Bull. trieved his clothes from behind the brush and, becoming himself, He found Stu Marks well quickly clicked the germ case to enough and got the attache case. his wrist. The black case even had a hand­ In his coat pocket was a ticket cuff set up and }olson decided to on the ten o'clock flight to Bar­ hook it to his wrist. As he was num. He used it. stepping out of the tavern four of Because of the trouble the ship Dean Riding's mounted Monitors took off a half hour late. In the reined up in front of the place. cocktail lounge after the space "Not at the rally, eh, Way­ ship had risen a thin freckled man cross?" cried one, drawing a next to Jolson at the small bar put sword-like stun rod. down his glass and asked, "What RAKB 87 do you think about this student to a more comfortable position on Unyoke Movement?" his lap. "Hell," he said. "I never }olson shifted the case of germs think anymore."

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PHOENIX by Theodore L. Thomas

A CAREFUL LOOK AT THE PLAN· keeps Jupiter from behaving like ets Jupiter and ·Saturn has turned the sun is that its mass isn't great up some interesting possibilities. enough to initiate internal nu­ For instance, the composition of clear reactions. Jupiter is such that the tempera­ A recent estimate of Jupiter's ture at the b~se of its atmosphere composition calls for ammonia, may be a red-hot 2,000 degrees ice, and water in the topmost Kelvin instead of the deep-freeze cloud layers. Deeper, there is temperatur.e usually assumed. Ex­ liquid hydrogen, then solid hy­ planations of the features of J upi­ drogen, then metallic hydrogen. ter and Saturn may be of help in And at the core are the rocky sili­ explaining the origin of the solar cates and metallic elements. That system itself. core may prove interesting. The ·sun and the planets prob­ Ahhough it has been suggested ably condensed from a cloud of that heat from the sun has boiled dust and gas. The cloud con­ away the hydrogen atmospheres tained about 2 percent heavy ele­ of the close, inner planets, it ap­ ments, about 20 percent helium, parently has not been suggested the rest hydrogen. Just how the that all the planets are substan­ cloud condensed to form th.e sun tially alike at their cores. It may and planets is not yet known. not be due to accident that Mer­ Evidence is increasing that the cury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are giant planets are really very much much the same size. Most of their like the sun, save for size. When volatiles and some of their solids the mean density of Earth is tak­ have been distilled away. The en to be one, that of Jupiter is blaze of heat from the early sun 0.24, aRd that of the sun is 0.25. may have been insufficient to It now appears that Jupiter is reach Jupiter and those beyond, made up mostly of huge amounts and may have been just right to of hydrogen along with the usual shatter by thermal shock the plan­ helium, and some ammonia and et that once lay between Mars and methane. The only factor that Jupiter. 88 PHOENIX 89 The original, condensing dust runaway satellite. The sun's heat cloud may have coaleseed sym­ boiled away the volatiles on the metrically after all, producing near, inner planets. eight planets of essentially the Take a Jupiter, bathe it in fire, same size, Pluto probably being a and you get an Earth.

EDITOR'S NOTE Reader comment on The Science Springboard series is welcomed. Criti­ cism and suggestions regarding topics, length, approach, etc., may be sent to Mr. Thomas c/o F&SF, 347 East 53 St., New York, N.Y. 10022

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------·····----Mercury Press, Inc., 347 East 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 F-6 Send me The Magazine of FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. I enclose 0 $5.00 for one year 0 $9.00 for two years. 0 $12.50 for three years Name .••••••••••••••.•..••...... •••••••••••••••••••• Address .••.•..•••••••...... ••...... •...... • City . • • • • • • • . • . . . • • • • • • . . State ...... • . . . . . • . . Zip # ...... SHORT-STORY CONTEST WINNERS Introduction

Herb Lehrman, first, and Greg Benford, second, win prizes and publication in F&:SF's contest (Dec. 1964) for the best short story based on From Two Universes, a poem which noted that no narrative I had seen combined the Univac and the· Unicorn. Though the ingredients of the two prize-winning selections were pre-set, treatments differ delightfully; one tragic-emotional, one witty-naughty. The emerald pastures where Mr. Lehrman places a machine not meant for dreaming enhance our pleasure in Mr. Benford's en­ vironment, which is rapidly turning into myth, open house parties and all. The giddy and knowing dialogue involving a very feminine unicorn not averse to a pick-up, contrasts with the bitter lamentation of a mighty stallion on the death of lovers. My own simple statement has been carried into major themes while the world of the Unicorn is taken on its own basis or, conversely, the unrealities of maddest fantasy invade a San Francisco walk-up. Both authors have the ability to make a reader suspend his disbelief while a proto-computer takes center stage with unforseen results. It sets the reader wondering what might happen if a matador like the late Manolete found himself facing a winged bull of Assyria. Where will we be if mermaids, whose adventures with submarine volcanoes are unrecorded, demand Red Cross help for disaster areas? Puck-we know from an informed source-girdled the earth in slight­ ly over half an hour; suppose Puck deviled the latest Tiros into orbit racing. But back to the contest: Purely technically both authors have achieved tours de force in condensing so much into 1000 words each-paradox, irony, pro­ phetic vision, destruction and salvation. This is quite a feat whether or not we relish what is saved. This contest, open only to non-professionals, suggests the pleasure in store for the rest of us when Mr. Lehrman and Mr. Benford really begin to sell. Meawhile turn to their highly individual confrontations of Univac and Unicom. -DOIWI PlTIUl'f Bva~~:

90 THE ANCIENT LAST

by Herb Lehrman

HE WAS THE LAST OF HIS LINE castaway from the Universe of and they put him out to pasture man, which somehow had come in an emerald field where the into this world of magic to lay in youngers, streamlined and geneti­ the center of the field. It was a cally sleek, could come to watch cruel snub, a reminder he too was and know what real power was. It old and like the machine near use­ was there all right, muscles rip­ less. pling beneath massive shoulders. "What are you?" asked the an­ And that solid, proud, Ohl so­ cient greybeard, overcome with the proud, head with the twisted horn curiosity that had borne him that reached for the sky; scarred, through the ages. 'Who are you to cracked with age, blunted by time defile my sanctuary?" and battle, it was still a thing of ''Yak, Yak, that's a busted Uni­ magic in a universe of wonder. vac." The young bucks sneered in He cantered there on the green; unison, thumbing their golden the last of the great Unicorns and horn-nubs at the old one's stupid­ ran across the turf to show there ity. was still spring in his legs and He tossed his head and made as power in that deep milky chest. if to rush them. His rheumy old And tiring on occasion, with the eyes flashed fire and that gray weariness immortals sometimes blunt horn lowered, whistling in feel, he would sit and remember the cold blue air. And they ran the maidens, the wishes fulfilled before the power, the force still and an age when his name was a there. clarion of virility. He turned then, cantering Near the ancient fields of his proudly back to the machine. "I universe, a little to the right of too know what it means to be dis­ where he slept, the young bucks, carded. Cast away! . . . I'll stalwarts all, during the blackness show them there's stuff still left in of one long night left a thing to both of us." And having known all mock him. It was a machine, rust­ the knowledge of man, having ed and broken, its circuits no bent his shoulders before a mil­ longer what they had been. A lennia of wishe$ the old Unicorn 91 92 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION set to, to make the Univac whole "Ah, it is a sad thing then. For again. memory is not enough. It's the He labored day. He labored dream which counts. The dream night, changing ·a wire here, that one is still young, still beau­ weaving a gold strand there, com­ tiful, still filled with life." manding a crystal to warp, a re­ "It must be wonderful," said lay to snap. But for all his craft Univac. "I wish I could dream and work and sweat-no matter with you my dearest friend." And how he made it gleam and hiss the with a sudden surge of never-be­ fact was plain. The Univac was a fore-felt current its circuits all dolt, a lesser thing of logic which overloaded and it melted into a could not conceive of beauty. pile of slag. "The trouble is, you have no The oldest Unicorn first grew heart," the old Unicorn said one old then; his horn became heavy, day, tiring of asking his new his neck bowed and the youngers friend questions to which he al­ no longer came· to mock him. In­ ready knew the answers. "You have stead they came to revere him, to no juice, no loins to feel the pow­ pay homage to his cracked voice, er of life." his senile wisdom. Finally one "There is beauty in the perfec­ day as the old one lay warming his tion of logic, in an equation with sore withers in the sun the strong­ balance, in a question answered," est of the young came upon him. replied . the machine, using his "Old one," he said, "tell me, did new gift of speech laboriously. "Of the machine die of stupidity?" this other thing, of this I know "No," was the answer. "It died nothing, being only a machine." of something only the very old, the "Live then," the old one said discarded die of. The very thing making his voice magic. "Live which will some day claim you and then and know what means the claim me when even I grow too slow cloud a man can bring to a old to bear the pain and the woman's eye, the feel of rain, the burden of my memories." thrill of battles won." "What is that?" said the young­ Alas, no magic, no spell could er. breach the ranks of solid-state de­ "You gambol with the maidens vices, and the machine stood mute­ and give it a name," said the old ly, devoid of desire. "What is it one. "But what I call by that name you wish?" it said finally. "What is something else again." And see­ do you want of me? A memory? ing the brightness burning in the A dream? I have the first but the younger; feeling the budding-hold second lives in a different realm, vigor and strong life, he knew he forever hidden, denied to me." too must finally give way. THE ANCIENT LAST 93 The smaller golden beast sat si­ hood, wiser than most. So wise in­ lent. He knew truth when he faced deed, he did not need to hear the it, and there in the twilight of old one's final, almost bitter words. an emerald field he came to man- "Like I, it died of love."

HERB LEHRMAN writes that he has a BA plus a couple af years at a mid_dle-western grad school "where I discovered that the eggcream is not a universal drink and that ice in a plain chocolate soda can make you gag. Am a young 35, single (but still with ambitions) and have a variety of interests not the least af which is trailing a surf rod up and down Long Island beaches in search of the sometimes elusive striped. bass."

STA.lVII-IN

by Gre~ Benford

WHEN I GOT TO THE PARTY THE The girl went away with an un· unicorn was talking to a girl in discovered poet .and there was a ballet tights and the liquor was al­ bearded character giving a politi· ready gone. cal harange in the comer, so I Never throw an open house par­ talked to the one in costume. ty in San Francisco. It's a town "Pretty nice," I said, trying to full of people who like to drink look down its throat and see who and talk talk talk, and the only was inside. Are unicorns sup­ ones that give parties are maso­ posed to have tonsils? This one did. chists who like trampled rugs and . "Thank you," she said. A depleted refrigerators. husky, deep voice. "I have it Not that I'm not one of them. brushed twice a day." I'm a man who likes people, work, "What?" responsibility, the whole bit. "My coat, of course, silly." She That's why I put on parties every gave a demure little whinny, un­ once in a while-without a few deniably feminine. For the first of us the social life of the city time I noticed that the coat was a would fall apart. Occasionally I soft, warm gold, only slightly think it's people like me who car. lighter than the funny little hom ry the world on their shoulders. in the middle of her forehead. 94 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "You mean this isn't a costume? "It's a matter of necessity," she Your coat is real?" said, settling into a strange ham­ As it developed, not only wa6 mock-like affair of cloth and she a unicorn, and real, but a good wrought iron. conversationalist, too. I won't "Human beings are always make the obvious remark about the thinking up things they can't have, people you meet at parties-my or think exist somewhere else. It's motto is just accept everything, a habit they have, although I must don't try to figure out the situation, say I don't quite understand it. and see what develops. Still, uni­ Seems like a waste of time." corns don't tum up every day. I looked at a carefully mani­ "I thought you were extinct." cured hoof and tried to pay atten­ "Oh no," she batted golden eye­ tion. lashes at me. "Technically, we "So you draw us in. From alter­ never existed, so we couldn't be­ nate universes, I suppose you come extinct." would say, although it's not ex­ "Then how . • . ?" actly that. Once we're here we "It's one of those proverbial long can't get out. Your race doesn't un­ stories. If you have the time . . ." derstand what it's doing, but A hint, of course, almost clas­ there's no way we can stop you." sic in its form. I never thought "We?'" I'd get one from something that "Oh, I'm not really like this," looked literally like a horse, she gestured at the glistening gol­ though. den body. "It's the form I'm forced I looked around. A lot of new to take. By this." and old faces were mingling with She pressed a button on a side each other, with the standard par­ table and the wall at the other end ty types. The Quarreling Couple of the room slid aside. It was one were trying not to make a scene, long panel of dully blinking lights there was the Symbolic Negro and and spinning magnetic tapes. A The Girl Who'll Have Hysterics worn panel near the top had the Later. And as I said, no drinks. name UNIVAC almost scratched Nothing particularly to hold me. out. "Yours or mine?" "UNIVAC? That was disman­ tled long ago." Hers was an ordinary walk-up "True. We have to make do with a few tacked-on pretensions. with what we can, and some of the The smell of money hung over the old parts are easier to get. It's interior, though, and I had to more than a computer-it synthe­ wade through inch-thick rugs to sizes the chemicals I live on, keeps reach the couch. this body functioning and gives STAND-IN 95 me my instructions. I'm just in "So that's why I wanted to talk training now, before I work." to you. We've never been very "But why?" healthy, and there aren't many of "Because you and your vivid im­ us left." aginations-the worst in the gal­ "Yes," the machine droned into axy-have drawn us all into your the conversation, "there are a num­ fantasies, right out of our own ber of vacancies." lives. The emotional pull is too "And our people-we have a strong, so we have to go along. It's compulsion, we must complete a strain, though, and my people these legends of yours. Do you un­ don't last very long. There have derstand?" been four unicorns before me, and I nodded. we've had dozens of those Norse "Little Orphan Annie is open," Gods-they're terrible on one's UNIVAC said. "Beowulf needs re­ health, with all that throwing placement. King Lear, James lightning around. Even a compar­ Bond, Hegel's Absolute Will •••" atively civilized character, like "And Atlas," she said. Sherlock Holmes and his mor­ So you can see how I got this phine, can wear us down." job. The machine must have been Like I said, I'm one of those peo­ listening, because it clatt.ered its ple who carry the world on their tapes eagerly in agreement. shoulders.

GREG BENFORD luis been active in amateur jounealism of one sort or another for some time, has lived in various regions of the world and, enjoyed them all. He is 24 years old, and is currently studying for hisi PhD (in Physics) at the University of California, San Dtego.

CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS? .The Magazine of FANTASY and SCIENCE FICTION will follow you anywhere providing you let us know six weeks in advance. Please be sure to give us your old address as well as the new one, and add 'the ZIP number. (If convenient, send the address label from the wrapper of the next copy of F&SF you receive.) Subscription Service MERCURY PUBLICATIONS 347 East 53 Street New York, N.Y. 10021 Doris Buck herewith oDers an excellent science-fictional demonatration that •Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, I Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

STORY OF A CURSE

by Doris Pitkin Buclc

"BuT YOU CANNOT LEAVE ME. "But you swore, by our gods and You swore, you swore, you swore by the gods of earth, to stay with -" Malia was on the verge of me forever. Yet now you make tears as she clutched the child to ready to go. You meant nothing." her. The child's earthborn, earth­ "Look, Malia, I meant every bred father had never seen her word while I said them. But a weep, not even in the pains of mood doesn't last forever. And I labor. He patted her shoulder in never swore by the gods of earth, what he meant to be kindliness. because we don't have any. My Malia controlled herself. "Lord, men and I are in tune with earth, you have taught me the legends of more than most. We think of her your planet. That is a tie almost as as our mother, but not like a special sacred as our child. I would not goddess. We know she's matter­ have listened had I not thought of organic and inorganic. She'll draw you as my husband." us back because -" He broke off. "Oh come, come," he said. "I can't explain, not to a savage." "You were as eager in the laliac "But my lord, in some way I cave as I was. I never saw anybody must have failed you." freer." "No. No. You're a nice enough She knelt at his feet, their son girl." Suddenly he looked at her in the bend of her arm. "But Lord, quite seriously. "You mean that's had I been different, how could what people, the elders, your fam­ you have known our marriage ily-that's what they'll think; that would be fertile?" you failed me?" "Well, if that's the custom here, She nodded in tears. She that's the custom. You'll find all kissed his hand and the child's kinds of customs if space ships hand, which was like his, not hers. land from other planets." She clung to him, pleading mutely. 96 STORY OP A ctntSE fJ} "I wish I could take you with our own changeful earth. That's me. I do wish it. But it's not pos­ the way earth is. That's the way sible. Everything on ·the ship is we are." designed for twelve men. You'd He spun on his heel. kill my crew, breathing their air, He did not even see her stare eating their food-Oh, I don't with altered eyes at the bastard, have to go on. Even you can see." while she mouthed what its father "Lord, lord -" said. "There isn't any use in ... this. I ought not to have come back for The spaceship found a planet a goodbye. But you were somebody covered with traces of an ice age, a bit special, and -" but now temperate. The shy girls She had sprung to her feet, her were like earthgirls except for their hot tears turning to hotter anger. gold-green hair that had the per­ "But why, father of my child? fume of drying hay. It pleased all Why-" the voyagers, especially their cap­ "Because I'm from earth and tain, who had memories to drown, everyone from earth must have but the changefulness in their change. It's that simple." earth-nourished blood drove them She looked her bewilderment. on. "But Malia, the crew and I, we They found planets that were aren't the same. Time brings flame and steam, like earth in its changes. You can count on that." younger days. They found planets He began to speak uneasily be­ that were gutted tombs. Some cause she frightened him, the way worlds had nothing but plains and she echoed his words silently with wild plain-creatures, which they her 'lips and made motions with caught and rode, till a longing for her fingers. "Change is part of our mountains such as the ranges of rhythm." earth drove them on once more. Her mouth still moved. He let They sailed in archipelagos where her have it. the shores were green with forests "I'm fed up-do you under­ like tourmalines, and all the stand what I mean when I say I'm beaches were strewn with agate. fed up? I'm tired of the fruits that But one green archipelago can be are always ripe, and the lakes that very like another; and they re­ are never chilly and never rough. membered that earth had her In­ Just for half an hour, I'd like a dies, and her arctic seas with is­ breeze that isn't perfumed. My lands that never grew warm. They men feel the way I do. So we're remembered wave-circled peaks of on to the next planet, even though rock; and bars of sand, some of one we know it won't be as lovely as hue, some of another. 98 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Then the captain heard mur­ They answered that they all murs. His men yearned for their were. mother, who was fair as everything Each hour seemed unending they had seen, but had many a while they disposed of the rations fairness more. they would no longer need. Their His crew sighed a little, for they instruments had grown decrepit; knew that the laws of time for voy­ but soon they would have no use agers were different from the laws for them, and from long practice of time on one rotating body. They they could make planet-landing as were older than when they had left sailors go through surf to a shore. their system, but they were still The lenses of their viewing instru­ strong men. On earth their sweet­ ments were fogged and all but use­ hearts would be-They were not less. This made some angry, for sure. Dead perhaps. No man can they yearned to see the varied have everything, and they had earth, but their captain told them wandered their fill. she would be all the more glorious when she burst on their sight, They came at last to their own close at hand. system, where it was well to go They came down in their ten­ more slowly. They passed dark der and the men groaned with dis­ Pluto and saw the sun as a faint appointment, for they hovered point of light, without warmth. over an inhospitable region of rock They knew Saturn by its rings. On and worn-down hills, scarred with Jupiter the red spot was larger and cracks and furrows. By the cap­ glowed more vividly; they thought tain's reckoning those hills should they made out incandescent cliffs have been the snowpeaks and for­ that might or might not have been ested slopes of the Himalayas. He there before. They could not be frowned, then ordered their course sure, for a massive atmosphere is set along a great circle. full of tricks. They skirted the Presently one man said, "Where asteroids and Mars. is the sea?'' Slowly it came tf> them that the Earth greeted them, shining oceans of earth were dry. Age was like a star. They sang as they came upon their mother's body as it near their mother, who had formed must have been for many a year them as they were. Had they been while they wandered. She had no religious, they would have prayed. life-giving scarf of atmosphere. "If I were a woman," the cap­ She was merely a desert of rock tain said, "you'd see me in tears. and dust, like her still circling But I am stronger than any wom- moon. an." The captain cursed. Tears STOR.Y OP A CURSB 99 streamed down his cheeks, for he ferent planet. But someone blocked had counted on the unending him before he could hear a man cycles of his earth-mother. Some­ say: Time brings changes. You times he half remembered a dif- can count on that.

NABONIDUS While grubbing in the sand at Tell es-Sa'id I met a ghost, in antique raiment clad, Who said: "How goes the dig, my foreign friend? I, too, dug here when I in flesh was penned, For relics, though my courtiers thought me mad­ A king was I; my name was Nabuna'id. "Last suzerain of Babylon was I, The ruler of the wide world's greatest town, Where merchants cried their wares in voices shrill, And learned seers nightly sought the will Of gods-till Persian Cyrus trod us down­ From ziggurats that pierced the starry sky. "Behind its mighty, moated, triple wall · And Ishtar's azure, dragon-guarded gate, My city seethed with men of every kind: With lord and lady, hawker, harlot, hind, With potter, priest, and officer of state, With smith and soldier, bol'Cer, thief, and thrall. "And now they're dust, as are the stately fanes Of Bab-ilu, for so the stars decreed; And scattered are the contents of my crypt Of written bricks, in Sumer's ancient script. But tell me, man with trousers like a Mede, In your far distant day, if, spuming gains HOf yellow gold, soft flesh, and power fell, A man seek knowledge, do they still make game Of him and cry: '0 fool'?" "Sometimes," I said. "I thought as much." The phantom of the dead Dissolved in dust. His parting sigh became The desert breeze that whispered round the tell. -L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP SCIENCE 0

FUTURE? TENSE!

by Isaac Asimov

0N THE WHOLE, THERE ARE two ways of looking at a science-fiction writer. One way is to consider him a nut. ("How are the little green men these days, Isaac?" "Been to the Moon lately, Ike, old boy?") The other way is to consider him a keen-eyed viewer of the future. ("And what will the vacuum cleaner of the 21st Century be like, Dr. Asimov?" "What sort of thing will be replacing television, Professor?") Of the two, I suppose I prefer the former. It is, after all, quite easy to be a nut. I can do it on short notice anytime and anywhere, from faculty teas to science fiction conventions. Predicting the future is a great deal more difficult, particularly on the terms usually set by those questioning you. What the questioners are invariably interested in are precise gadgetary details and that is exactly what I cannot give them. You can well imagine, then, that when asked to address a sedate group, or write an article for a particularly staid periodical, the subject I least like to discuss is "The Future as I See it." You can also well imagine that the subject I am asked to discuss, almost invariably, is-all right, you guessed it. So I refuse! At least, I usually refuse. Unfortunately, although I am staunch and gimlet-eyed in my convictions and would far sooner die than compromise my pz:inciples, I have a weak point. I'm just an eent­ sy-weentsy bit susceptible to flattery. Consequently, when the New York Times called, shortly after the New York World's Fair opened, and asked that I visit the Fair at their expense and write an article for them on what the world would be like fifty years or so in the future, I hesitated some, then agreed. After all, I intended to visit the Fair anyway, and I expected to have 100 PUTUllE? TENSE I 101 a howling good time (and I did) and besides it was flattering to have the Times ask me and-

Well, anyway, I wrote the article and it appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine Section on August 16, 1964 (just in case all you Gentle Readers intend to make a mad dash for the library to read it). Promptly, though, I paid the price of having swerved from my way of life, for the day after the article appeared, I got another flattering request to do a similar article for someone else. Then I received an­ other flattering request to go on one of these conversation-type radio spots to answer telephoned questions from listeners ("Quick predictions on any subject off the top of your head, Dr. Asimov") and so on. Nat­ urally, I had to continue to accept flattering requests. Yet if I don't make a tremendous effort to wrench loose, I may be tabbed for life as a keen-eyed infallible peerer into the future and the gentle joys of nut-dom may be forever withdrawn from me. Perhaps I can lift the spell by using my rostrum here to describe my vieiv of the predictive aspects of science fiction. Then people, get­ ting the True View of it all, may stop asking me to play the uncongenial role of prophet. To the outsider (that is, to the dweller beyond the pale, to whom the term "science fiction" conjures up fuzzy vistas of Flash Gordon and of Monsters from the Black Lagoon) the one serious aspect of science fiction is that it predicts things; and by this they usually mean that it predicts specific things. The outsider, aware that science-fiction writers wrote about atomic power decades before the Bomb was invented, imagines that those writers painstakingly described the theory of uranium fission. Or, know­ ing that science-fiction writers have discussed trips to the Moon, im­ agines that those writers carefully included blueprints of three-stage rockets. The fact is, however, the science-fiction writers are invariably vague. The mere fact that I talk about positronic robots and say they are guided by the Three Laws of Robotics has no actual predictive value from the engineering standpoint. Imagine, for instance, a discussion between an interviewer (Q) and myself (A). Q. What is a positronic robot, sir? A. One with a positronic brain. Q. And what is a positronic brain? A. One in which positronic shifts take the place of the electronic shifts in the living human brain. 102 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Q. But why should positronics be superior to electronics for the pur-­ pose? A. I don't know. Q. How do you keep your positrons from combining with electrons and forming a flood of energy that will melt down the robot into a puddle of metal. A. I haven't the vaguest notion. Q. For that matter, how do you translate positronic flows into the "Three Laws of Robotics." A. Beatsme. I'm not ashamed of this. In writing my robot stories it is not my intention to describe robot-engineering in detail. It was merely my in­ tention to describe a society in which advanced robots were common and to try to work out possible resulting consequences. My focus was not on the specifics at all, but on generality.,

Of course, a specific prediction may come true, but when it does, I am willing to bet that in virtually every case there is some extenuating circumstance that makes the prediction a non-prediction after all. l can cite an example from among my own stories but before I do that and proceed to antagonize all and sundry by seeriling to hold myself up as a model, I wish to describe a case in which I fell lamen­ tably and laughably short of predictive accuracy. I once wrote a short story entitled "Everest" in which I explained man's failure to climb Mt. Everest by saying that its peak was occu­ pied by a Martian observation party and that the Abominable Snowmen were really-yes, you guessed it. I sold that story on April 7, 1953 and Mt. Everest was successfully climbed, with no signs of Martians, on May 20, 1953. (The story was published a half-year later anyway.) Now I can safely pass on to something that sounds like an accurate prediction. In my story "Super-Neutron" I have one character ask an­ other if he remembers "the first atomic power plants of a hundred and seventy years ago and how they operated?'' "I believe" came the answer "that they used the classical uranium fission method for power. They bombarded uranium with slow neutrons and split it up into masurium, barium, gamma rays and more neutrons, thus establishing a cyclic process." When I read this passage to people, nothing happens-until I show them that the issue of the magazine in which the story appeared is dated September 1941 and tell them it hit the stands in July 1941 FUTURE? TENSE! 103 and that the story was written in December 1940. This was two years before the first self-sustaining nuclear reactor was built and twelve years before the first nuclear power plant designed to produce electrici­ ty for civilian use was built. To be sure, I wasn't able to predict that element number 43 was only called "masurium" temporarily, through a false-alarm discovery, and that when the element was really discovered it came to be called "tech­ netium." In fact, it had been really discovered a couple of years before the story was written, but the new name given it had not yet reached me. Then, too, I didn't quite have the brains to say "chain reaction" instead of "cyclic process." Even so, is it not an amazing prediction? Nonsense! It wasn't prediction at all. The story was written one year after uranium fission was discovered and announced. Once the announcement had been made, all talk about nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants was merely self-evident elabo­ ration. In early 1944, Cleve Cartmill's story "Deadline" appeared. It de­ scribed. the consequences of using an atomic bomb in such graphic correctness (a full year and a quarter before the first bomb was explod­ ed at Alamogordo) that the FBI was alerted. And even that was not true prediction, but merely the self-evident elaboration of a known discovery. My thesis is, in short, that it is not the details that are predicted; not the specific engineering points; not the gadgets; not the gimmicks. All predictions of that sort are either non-predictions or fortuitous' strokes of luck and are, in any case, unimportant. The broad vague brush with which the science-fiction writer sketch­ es the future is particularly suitable for the broad vague movements of social reaction. The science-fiction writer is concerned with the wide sweeps of history, not the minutiae of gadgetry. Let me give you an example of what I considered the greatest piece of true prediction ever to have appeared in any science-fiction story. That story is "Solution Unsatisfactory" by Robert Heinlein (under his pseudonym of Anson MacDonald). It appeared in early 1941, over half a year before Pearl Harbor, and at a time when Hitler was at the high-noon of his conquests. The story dealt with the end of World War II and it was wrong in many details. For instance, Heinlein did not manage to foresee Pearl Harbor and so the United States, in the story, remained at peace. He did, however, foresee that the United States would organize a 104 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION huge research program to develop a nuclear weapon. To be sure, it was­ n't an atomic bomb that Heinlein had them invent but "atomic dust." (In a way, he skipped the Bomb and went on to fallout.) Since Pearl Harbor had never happened (in the story), the atomic weapon was not used on Japanese cities, but on German ones. It ended the war and other nations (notably the Soviet Union) were kept from disturbing the peace further by the mere existence of the bomb in American hands. But now, what was to be done with the weapon? The narrator of the story felt gleefully (even before the weapon had been used) that with this power in American hands, world peace would be enforced and the millennium would arrive in the form of a "Pax Americana." But the hero of the story thinks otherwise. He says (and I hope Hein­ lein doesn't mind my quoting two paragraphs): "Hmmm-1 wish it were that easy. But it won't remain our secret; you can count on that. It doesn't matter how successfully we guard it; all that anyone needs is the hint given by the dust itself and then it is just a matter of time until some other nation develops a technique to produce it. You can't stop brains from working, John; the reinvention of the method is a mathematical certainty, once they know what it is they are looking for. And uranium is a common enough substance, widely distributed over the globe-don't forget that! "It's like this: Once the secret is out-and it will be out if we ever use the stuff!-the whole world will be comparable to a room full of men, each armed with a loaded .45. They can't get out of the room and each one is dependent on the good will of every other one to stay alive. All offense and no defense. See what I mean?" What to do then? Consider Heinlein's title again: "Solution Unsatis­ factory." The point is that Heinlein predicted the nuclear stalemate that ex­ ists today, before the nuclear age had been opened. A full seven years after Heinlein had made his prediction, most American policy-makers still lulled themselves to sleep with the thought that we had a monopoly in the secret of the nuclear bomb that would last for generations be­ cause we alone had something called ''Yankee know-how." Not only is the nuclear stalemate harder to predict than the bomb; it is the nuclear stalemate that is the important prediction. Think how much easier it was to produce the Bomb than it is proving to produce a safe way out of the nuclear stalemate. Think, therefore, how useful it would have been for policymakers to have spent some time think­ ing of the consequences of the Bomb and not merely of the Bomb. PUTURE? TENSE.! 105

Science fiction performs its most useful function, then, not in pre~ dieting gadgets, but in predicting social consequences. In its task of predicting social consequences, it could be a tremendous force for hu~ man betterment. Let me try to make this point even clearer by considering a hypothet~ ical case. Pretend it is the year 1880 and that the autom_obile is the exciting gadget of the future that is being visualized by all science fiction writers. What kind of a story do you suppose might have been written, in 1880, around an automobile of the then~future? The automobile might have been viewed simply as a gadget. The story can be filled with all sorts of scientific gobbledy~gook describing the workings of the automobile. There could be the excitement of a last~minute failure in the framistan and the hero can be described as ingeniously designing a liebestraum out of an old baby~carriage at the last minute and cleverly hooking it to the bispallator in such a way as to mutonate the karrogel. (Of course, that's nonsense, but I can name you a number of stories written in' that precise style, except that I won't because the authors are large~fisted, evil~tempered men.) Another way is to view the automobile as a mere adjunct to adven~ tore. Anything you can do on a horse you can do in an automobile, so you write a Western and go through it, crossing out "horse" and writing in "car." You could then write, for instance: "The automobile came thunder~ ing down the stretch, its mighty tires pounding, and its tail~assembly switching furiously .from side to side, while its Oaring foam~Oecked air­ intake seemed rimmed with oil." Then, when the car has finally per~ formed its task of rescuing the girl and confounding the bad guys, it sticks its fuel hose into a can of gasoline and quietly fuels itself. Of course, I'm being satirical, but I wonder how far removed from reality that is. I'm willing to bet that lots of would~be science~fiction writers start stories as follows: "The space~ship skidded to a halt five million miles outside Venus, its brak~linings scorched and squealing." The only reason we don't see such stories is that editors see them first. Obviously, writing a scienc~fiction story in which an automobile is nothing more than a gadget, or merely a super~horse, is a waste of time. Oh, it may make an honest dollar for the writer and it may give the reader an hour's honest amusement, but where is its importance? It has "predicted the automobile", yes, but predicting the mere existence of the automobile is nothing. 106 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION What about the effect of the automobile on society and on people? After all it is people that interest people. For instance, suppose you consider the automobile as an object turned out by the millions for the use of anyone who cares to buy one (You are still in 1880, remember!) Imagine a whole population placed on wheels. Won't cities spread out since no one will have to live immediately next to his place of his business? He can live twenty miles away yet go scooting in each morning and out each evening. In short, won't cities be suburbanized while their centers fall into decay? And if you have millions of cars, won't you have to crisscross the na­ tion with highways? And how will that affect vacation habits? And status-seeking? And the railroads? And if youngsters can drive off somewhere in cars, how will that affect the status of youth? Of sex? Of women? You may think, of course, that it is easy to look back on the pre­ automobile age from the present and talk about what must come. And I must admit that I take a backseat to no one in the unerring clarity of my hindsight. But foresight is not completely impossible, either. Back in 1901, H. G. Wells, with the automobile age merely beginning, wrote a book entitled "Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought" in which, among other things, he described the modern motor-age with astonishing accuracy. Very well, then, you are going to write a science-fiction story in 1880 about the automobile and you are going to do something less trivial than merely to predict the automobile. You are going to pick your plot out of the fascinating changes the automobile is going to bring to society. What's more, you'll pick one of the few changes that even H. G. Wells didn't anticipate. Let's start- You have your motorized society. Every head of a fam­ ily has a car; some have two. Every morning several hundred thousand cars enter the city from its ring of suburbs; every evening several hun­ dred thousand cars return. The city becomes a giant organism, inhaling cars every morning, exhaling cars every evening. Very good so far. Now we have our hero-ordinary chap, clean-cut, wife, two children, sense of humor, excellent driver. He's being in­ haled by the city. There he is, moving along into the city with many, many other cars; all moving in; all converging- Aha! And when all the cars get into the city, where do they go? That's it! That's it! There's the title of the story: "Make Room!" The FUTURE? TENSE! 107 contents? A delightful satire about our hero spending all day looking for a parking spot and, in the process, meeting traffic jams, taxi-drivers, traffic cops, trucks, parking meters, filled garages, fire hydrants, etc. etc. A delightful satire, that is, in 1880. In 1965, it would bear more of the nature of stark, realistic tragedy. Consider now:- If such a story had actually been written in 1880 and had caught on thoroughly enough to have interested policy-makers, would it not have been just barely possible that city-growth from 1880 on might have been directed with an eventual motor-civilization in mind? Think of it, oh, those of you who live in northeastern cities such as New York or Boston which have been cleverly designed for nothing more elaborate than the push-cart and tell me what reward would be sufficient for the writer who had performed such a service. Do you see, then, that the important prediction is not the automobile, but the parking problem; not radio, but the soap-opera; not the income tax but the expense account; not the Bomb but the nuclear stalemate? Not the action, in short, but the reaction?

Of course, to expect the men of 1880 to have planned cities for an eventual motorized society is perhaps to expect too much of human nature. I wonder, though, if to expect the equivalent today may not be expecting barely enough. For a century now, we've been watching social changes take place at an ever-increasing pace and have been watching ourselves being caught flat-footed, with consequences of ever-increasing dislocation. By now, we've learned to expect change, even drastic change, and we are resigning ourselves to the necessity of anticipating, of planning in advance. The very existence and popularity of science fiction is an indication of how the inevitability of change is coming to be accepted. And one of the functions of science fiction is to make the fact of change less unpalatable to the average human being. No matter how much the general populace ignored science fiction and laughed at it, they could not remain completely unaware of its contents. Some of its subject matter seeped into the general conscious­ ness, even if only by way of greatly diluted and distorted comic strips. For that reason the coming of nuclear weapons, of missiles, of man­ made satellites did not meet with the psychological resistance they might have once. 108 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Well, then, enough of the past. We're in the present and the task of the science-fiction writer lies in considering the future-the real future of 1965, not the hind-sight one of 1880. We are in the midst of at least four sets of first-class revolutionary changes, each of which is following a clear and inevitable path. What will the reaction be to each of these sets of changes? The first and most frightening is the "population explosion" and sci­ ence fiction has considered that in a number of ways. I can think of a number of stories set against the background of a drastically over­ populated Earth. "The Caves of Steel" is an example from among my own stories and another is "Gravy Planet" ("Space Merchants") by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. The most savage and effective story of this sort (at least, in my opin­ ion) was Frederick Pohl's "The Census Takers" in which population was held at a desirable level by the simple device of taking a world -census every ten years and shooting every thirteenth individual count­ ed.--Or fifteenth, or ninth, or whatever fraction was estimated as being required. This is "anti-prediction" if I may coin a term. Fred Pohl obviously didn't think this was going to happen. He knew-we all know-that such a solution is unthinkable. But the anti-prediction of an impossibility has its uses, too. By its sheer shock-value it may force people who are only too prone to solve the insoluble by ignoring it to stop and think. All right, we don't shoot the surplus at random. What alternative, then, is there? . Another revolutionary change is the "automation explosion." That, of course, involves the rapid arrival of a world equivalent to that famil­ iar science-fiction situation in which all manual labor and much of the mental labor is done by robots. What happens to mankind in that case? Karl Capek took up that problem in "R.U.R." as long ago as 1921. A more recent example is Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands-" What kind of a world will we live in, anyway, when meaningful work becomes a luxury available only to the few; when boredom be­ comes a world-wide disease. Can times become even more neurotic than they are now? Well, read "Coming Attraction" by Fritz Leiber on our neurotic future. A third revolutionary change is the "information explosion," for sci­ entific discoveries are coming so thickly and quickly that the human mind has become htcapable of grasping, in full depth, more than an extremely narrow specialty. My own attempt in this direction was a story called "Dead Hand" PUTUR.E? TENSE! 109 in which I postulated the existence of professional science writers who winnowed out the scientific work of others and then wrote papers that were concise and clear. They served, furthermore, as the bridge across the specialties, with the broad, cross-disciplinary (if superficial) knowledge. A fourth major change is the "freedom explosion," the emergence of the erstwhile colonies, the revolution of the "natives"-and the con­ comitant civil rights movement within the United States. Science-fiction writers have not, perhaps, worked at this as thor­ oughly as upon the others. Ray Bradbury had an excellent story called, if memory serves me, 'Way in the Middle of the Air" about the effect upon the United States of a mass migration of Negroes to Mars. I, myself, somewhat more realistically, viewed the emergence of an in­ dependent Africa in my story "The Evitable Conflict'' (published in 1950, by the way, well before the fact). Then, too, in my novel, ''The Currents of Space" I dealt-but not very explicitly, I must admit­ with the rol~ of the Negro in the colonization of the Galaxy.

Anyway, these are some of the major changes we are facing, each one of which will suffice to disrupt the world we know, before a single generation has passed. If the disruption is to be kept from turning into disintegration, we must make intelligent guesses as to where we're go­ ing and act upon them now. It is the function of the science-fiction writer (aside from earning a living and pleasing his readers) to make those guesses, and that makes him the most important servant (in my opinion) that humanity now possesses. To be sure, the science-fiction writer is no longer the only one mak­ ing such guesses. Matters have progressed to the point where various government agencies, research institutions and industrial concerns are desperately trying to peer into the clouded crystal ball. But it's my per­ sonal guess that nearly every man in government or industry who is so engaged was at one time or another a science-fiction reader. -So now look what fve done. I started the article with the inten­ tion of complaining about having to write these difficult articles of prediction and I end by convincing myself I ought to write more of them. Apparently, I wasn't able to predict the end of this article when I beganit. · So much for my predictive ability. After staring as if hypnotized at a letter from our County Clerk stamped Jury Service Supports Law And Order And The Ameri­ can Way Of Life, we turned, rather slowly, to our customary labors, which include writing introductions for stories: Lo, this one on top the pile. Suppose there are only two men left, of whom one is not even a man, and a work is brought into fudgementP Who, then, the judge; and who the jury? Or is there not-and isn't there always?-at least one Imponderable?

OF TIME AND THE VAN

by Roger Zelazny

THE LAST YAN ON MARS SAT "So was mine." alone in a room. He was silent for a long time. There was a knock on the door. "The atmosphere," he said, fi- HCome in," he threeked. nally. "It must have oxidized the fuel-somehow.'' The Earthman looked about, "Of course." squinting into the dimness. The Yan waited patiently. ''Hello?" Finally, the man spoke again. "I am here," threeked the Yan, "Could you-would you-help moving toward him. me?" The Earthman pressed back "How?" asked the Yan. against the door, making little "I need shovels. I need helP­ noises deep in his throat. to dig three graves." "You're real!" he decided. There was blood on the man's "I am a Yan," replied the other, arm. "and you are a man, late of the "How is it that you lived?" 1a te green star. .. ' "I left the ship immediately, to "Yes, late-very late ... There see if the air was breathable. I were two expeditions ..." crossed a little hill. Something hit "Unfortunate," answered the me on the shoulder. There was a Yan. "Both ships were destroyed bright flash . . . A noise . . . My when they landed." wife and children . . ." The man covered his face. "I will get shovels," threeked no OF TIME AND THE YAN Ill the Yan. "I will be glad to bury bodies from the smouldering rub­ more Earthmen." ble. He dragged and carried them to the gravesides. The Yan sleeched across the The Yan watched. field, beside the dripping man. He crossed the anns over the The sky was a blizzard of dancing chests and lowered them into the motes; they obscured the stars, holes. stretching like a gossamer curtain "Yan, please help me to cover from horizon to dark horizon. them." "For two months your world The Yan threw dirt in their has stopped the sunlight and the faces. light of the stars. Will it ever dis­ "It is done," said the Earthman. sipate?" "No!" threeked the Yan. "I don't know." The Earthman looked at him, a "Why did you come here?" new darkness behind his bloodshot "I knew it was going to hap­ gaze. He fumbled at his belt. pen," said the man. "I was an offi­ "No, Yan. Not me. Not me!" cer at the 'Base. I stole the ship, "Yes, Earthman, you." took my family ..." "Why? What would you gain "You deserted?" by killing me?" "To save their lives." "I do not understand 'gain'. "I see," answered the Yan. Why not kill you? You are all that "Shall we dig -their graves here?" remains of Earth, but a silver net The man nodded. He did not in the sky.-And I am the last. look at the ship. The last Yan on Mars. I will bury He lifted pound after painful Earth here. The net will come un­ pound of the sugar-white ocean. done. Yan shall be last on Mars." The sand churned; the Yan The Earthman pointed his gun spun his double-bladed shovel like at him. a paddle wheel. "No, I'll kill you first." The sun entered the Way of The Yan threeked a laugh. Earth, like a red balloon seen "Only Time can kill a Yan." through frosted glass, and the The Earthman fired three times. Earthman looked up from his la­ The Yan threeked in merriment. bors. The man fired his remaining "Yan, Yan, you are making a cartridges. mistake," he wheezed. "You are "Now you will get into the hole, digging four graves." and I will take your life away." "I am not making a mistake," The Earthman made small answered the Yan. noises. The man fetched the charred "Get into your grave!" 112 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Unwillingly, his legs· moved. Gathering his strength, the man Involuntarily, he stepped into the leaped from the hole and seized hole and turned his head upwards. the shovel. He smashed the Yan's "Good-bye, Earth," threeked the head. Yan. A dark, sticky fluid drenched "Wait!" cried the man. "Give the blade. me a moment, please-to pray!" The Yan lay still. "I do not know 'pray'," threeked The Earthman pushed him into the Yan. ''Do it and I will watch, the hole, then covered him over. if it does not take you long." He planted the shovel in the The man bowed his head. He ground and staggered back toward rested his hands on the lip of the the dwelling-place. excavation. "You were right," he muttered. "Are you finished?" asked the '1t only took time." Yan. The Way of Earth flamed above "Yes," answered the man, him. straightening, his fists clenched. Once more, he looked up at the Yan. The last man on Mars sat alone Then he threw two handfuls of in the gloom. sand into all his violet eyes. There was a knock on the door. The Yan threeked in anger and "There is no time," came the sleeched back. threek.

CONVENTION TIME The 18th Annual West Coast Science Fantasy Conference will be held at the Edgewater Inn, Long Beach, California, over the July 4th week­ end. Events will include: a costume ball, art show, movies and slides, auction, speeches and informal talks. The convention committee fur­ ther promises a relaxed, friendly convention and good weather. Guest of honor will be Frank Herbert. Membership is $1.00 (checks payable to Rick Sneary). Address: Westercon XVIII, 5571 Belgrave Ave., Garden Grove, California.

The 23rd World Science Fiction Convention will be held this year in London, from August 27 to August 30. More details in a later issue. Man htu been mclined to look up rather than down in his quest for new frontiers. However, we are confident that the wealth of the 601 of this planet that lies beneath the seas, the fact that the bottom of the Pacific Ocean covers an area much greater than the surface of the moon-we are sure that these things are not being overlooked by the Authorities, and, in time, man may be making his home somewhere in liquid space. But until that damp day, the sea will fascinate us as one of the few remaining sources of romance, mystery, and rich legend. Robert Arthur's contribution appears below-an enchanting nautical fantasy-of golden voiced 1 mermaids, of ]abez O'Brien with the soul of a dreamer, who chart1 · the bottom of the sea quite by accident, and finds, of course, Daoy! ]ones' locker.

JABEZ O'BRIEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKER

by Robert Arthur

SOME PEOPLE WILL SAY THAT born. His father and his father's this story should start with J abez father before him had been fisher­ O'Brien rowing his dory at mid­ men, and so on back as long as night, oars muffied, into that there bad been O'Brien's, And as patch of fog to meet the most won­ long as there had been fish, like drous adventure ever to befall a as not. seagoing man. But if the story The Jabez part of him was sol­ starts there, bow are you to know id, rock-ribbed New England, who Jabez O'Brien was, and what practical and industrious. But the he was up to, anyway? O'Brien side of him was Irish. No, it isn't practical. So, beg­ And at Jabez' birth on Fish Is­ ging your pardon, I'll start with land, which lies off the coast of Jabez himself and work up to the Maine, some passing spirit with adventure in its own good time. a sense of mischief must have Jabez O'Brien was a fisherman been present. Perhaps it was a 113 114 JIANTASY AND SCIEN'CB PJcnoN leprechaun, blown off course and him that in this twentieth cen­ seeking passage back to Ireland. tury, though the sea was still Whatever it was, it gave Jabez the large, mysterious, and dangerous, soul of a dreamer. too much romance had gone out The result was that as he grew of life. Jabez couldn't help sigh­ up the Jabez part and the O'Brien ing over the days when the fabu­ part of him just didn't pull oar lous Sir Francis Drake became together. On the sea of life J abez the first Englishman to sail went first one way, then the oth­ around the whole world, and then er, and looked likely to wind up later helped whip the mighty no place. Spanish Armada when it came to When he put his mind to it, invade England in the year 15 88. young J abez was a welcome hand Then there was Captain Cook, on any fishing boat in New Eng­ another mighty navigator, who land waters. The trouble was, just discovered much territory in the as the Jabez part of him started to younger days of the world. get somewhere in the world­ Though of course he did get him­ such as owning his own boat­ self killed and eaten by cannibals the O'Brien part of him would is­ on one of his voyages. sue different orders. Then he'd Oh, the old days were glorious start wool-gathering and day­ times in Jabez O'Brien's imagina­ dreaming and let his boat wreck tion. Many's the day when, all itself on a reef, and almost drown inside his own mind, he sailed in­ himself. Which happened once to the unknown with Cook, fought and didn't happen twice because Spaniards with Drake, or looted he couldn't save enough for an­ gold-laden convoys with the no­ other boat. torious pirate, Blackbeard. When Jabez daydreamed, it But the result was-Well, you was about quite various matters. can imagine it easily when I tell .Sometimes he imagined that he you that the town where Jabez was wise and famous. Sometimes lived was called Fishtown by its he thought how nice it would be inhabitants, just as the island was to be wealthy and happy. Some­ called Fish Island. I'm speaking times he daydreamed he was all now of the names used by the na­ four things at the same time. tives who lived there, not the Which just shows you how im­ names on the map used by the practical he could be when he summer visitors. tried. You can see that folk who Mostly though, young Jabez called their town Fishtown · and daydreamed of things nautical, their island Fish Island would the older the better. It seemed to not have much regard for day JABEZ 0 1BIUEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKER 115 dreams about the past. So, tall whirl with when the Fisherman's and broad-shouldered though he Association held a dance in the was, their attitude toward Jabez recreation hall. But in his opinion O'Brien was a little pitying, as her mouth was too wide and her toward one affiicted with an un­ eyes set too far apart. fortunate handicap. It was plain to Jabez that he Even the girls of Fish Island must change the mind of Susan, shared . this feeling, despite his or Nancy, or Maria. And to do merry eyes and curly black hair. this, he must change his station in For girls, and this is a secret I'm life, become a man of importance telling you, are very practical on Fish Island. This he could do creatures for all their dainty looks. by becoming rich, which seemed At least the Fish Island girls were. impossible, or perhaps by becom­ And they were of no mind to walk ing famous. Which seemed equal­ to the altar with someone who, ly impossible. like as not, would start daydream­ Nevertheless, after long ing while his boat wrecked itself thought, Jabez decided on a plan and he drowned himself, leaving of action. them with no ·man in the house. He decided to catch a mer­ Jabez found this out when he maid. proposed first to Susan Chavez, the That would certainly make him most beautiful girl on the island. famous, for no man had ever actu­ Susan said no, quite promptly. ally caught a mermaid before. Then he proposed to Nancy And he could exhibit her to sum­ Lamb, the second most beautiful mer visitors and make a nice bit girl on the island. And Nancy of change doing it. Then certain­ said no also, though she made him ly Susan or Nancy, or at least wait a bit. Maria, would take a second Finally he proposed to Maria thought and change her "no" to a Wellman, the third most beautiful "yes." girl on the island. And Maria al­ J abez' plan was not as far­ so said no, though she made him fetched as you may think. There wait the longest of all. was a cove on Fish Island where a After this third rejection, Jabez mermaid was known to appear at did some hard thinking. There certain intervals. True, no one were other girls on Fish Island, had actually seen her, but daring but none of them took his fancy, seamen, most of them smugglers, though he sometimes noticed that had heard her singing in the night. Nora Farrington, whose hair was And it is well known that mer­ reddish and who had a silvery maids have beautiful singing voic· laugh, was very easy to dip and es. 116 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION One grizzled old fisherman, lad of 13, after climbing over the Jose Sebastian, swore a solemn rugged cliffs in the darkness, he oath he had not only heard the had actually heard song riding in mermaid sing, but she sang in from the cove on the ocean breeze Spanish. He had heard her one one June night. Golden-voiced foggy night during Prohibition song such as Jose Sebastian swore days when, as you may know, to. quite a bit of smuggling was done. He hadn't been able to see the At the time he had been landing mermaid-it was too dark. But he some rare wines secretly in Mer­ had heard her. He knew she had maid Cove, as it was called. On been there. hearing the singing he had left so Thinking back now with care, promptly he had lost the entire Jabez recalled that the night he cargo, which gave him a good heard the mermaid sing had been memory for the year and night it the night of his 13th birthday. had happened. He had received a thumping from So you can see why no one on his father for staying out so late, Fish Island doubted that a mer­ which had also helped fix the date maid really came to Mermaid in his mind. Cove to sing. At least sometimes. Now a sudden idea came to Because the older fisherman had Jabez. After a hurried visit to see calculated, putting together all old Jose Sebastian, he pulled some the reports they could come by, ancient nautical almanacs down that she did not appear more than from his shelves. With growing once every ten years. excitement he checked off certain Mermaid Cove was inaccessible dates. When he finished, he was and dangerous, even for smug­ breathing hard. glers. Landward, rugged cliffs He had heard the mermaid sing made it almost · unapproachable. just thirty years to the exact night Seaward, reefs made it impossible after Jose Sebastian had. And put­ to enter except at high tide in a ting together all the evidence, small boat. Sudden squalls blew Jabez now felt quite certain that up there on the slightest provoca­ the mermaid appeared in Mermaid tion, and without notice. It was a Cove only on the night of June good place to stay away from, and 15, in every tenth year. the men of Fish Island, being sen­ But what made his pulse pound sible, stayed away from it. hardest was the realization that I'm not speaking of Jabez his own 2 3rd birthday came on O'Brien, now, of course. June 15th, one week off. It would Jabez had visited Mermaid mark ten years exactly from the Cove more than once. And as a night on which he himself had JABEZ O'BRIEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKER 117 first heard the song of the mer­ the patch of fog the moon showed, maid. According to all logic, she not a mermaid seated on a rock, would be there again in a week, but a vessel peacefully at anchor. and if he were there also, with the And the vessel was a Spanish gal­ proper kind of net, he could cap­ leon of a type that he knew had ture her. T~at was how simple it not sailed the seas for two centu­ was. ries or more. (Now at this point I should Yet there it rode, sails furled, tell you that Jabez' thinking was all in darkness, the sound of a fine and clear. He had indeed woman singing coming down to stumbled on something no one him from the broad windows of else had. yet puzzled out. But not the captain's cabin aft. And be­ having full information he missed neath the sound of song he heard the truth of it by a trifle. The other voices, men's voices, murmur­ truth was even more wonderful ing, together with a clicking sound than he thought. But to learn ex­ he could have sworn was the roll actly what it was, read on.) of dice on a wooden deck. At all events, there J abez was at Jabez, forgetting what he had midnight of June 15th, rowing in­ come for, gave a cry of astonish­ to Mermaid Co've in a borrowed ment. Then his dory hit the side dory by the light of a three-quarter of the great Spanish galleon. He moon. On the seat beside him was expected a violent shock but in­ a large net which he mended with stead the dory went right into the nylon fish line until it was strong anchored ship as if it had been enough to hold a walrus, much made of-well, not quite of mist, less a delicate mermaid. His oars but perhaps of whipped cream. were muffled, he breathed softly, In another moment Jabez O'Bri­ and he rowed with utmost quiet en, his mind spinning, was inside toward a large patch of fog which the ship, in among holds and cab­ sat, most suspiciously, just in the ins, getting fleeting glimpses of middle of the calm water of the Spanish sailors eating and drink­ cove. ing and making merry. And then As he came near it, he heard as if his cry had been a signal, the song. A woman's voice-or a mer­ ship was sinking spang on top of maid's-soared from the patch of him, plummeting toward the bot­ fog. J abez gave the dory a last pull tom, pressing him down as it went and scrambled up into the bow, even though he slid through it in taking the net in his hand. a most peculiar manner. Then the dory slid into the fog Jabez suddenly found himself itself, and Jabez eyes came close to and his dory in the captain's cabin popping from his head. For inside itself, being stared at by a Spanish 118 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION grandee in full finery with a wine depths. He wore only canvas trou­ glass in his hand. A gentleman in sers, hitched around his waist the garb of an English naval of­ with a live eel. ficer of some centuries ago stood Across the massive chest of the beside him, also holding a glass. individual laughing at him, Jabez And a beautiful young woman saw tatooed an American flag. As whose long black hair was held in the fellow chuckled, his chest mus­ place by a jeweled comb broke off cles rippled so that Old Glory singing to look at Jabez in aston­ seemed to be snapping in a half ishment and reproach. gale. In that moment Jabez at last 'Why, lad," the huge fellow realized the truth. There was no said, "you're in Davy Jones' Locker. mermaid. He had heard a ghost And I'm Davy Jones, at your serv­ singing. For the young lady and ice." the captain and the ship itself "To speak the truth," Jabez could only be ghostly forms resur­ said, sitting up, "That's what I rected from ancient times. Then, was afraid of. I knew I'd meet you before he could think further, as some day, sir, but I hoped it he stared at the phantoms and wouldn't be so soon. No offense they at him, his dory went under intended." water. Being in the act of taking "And none taken," said Davy in a deep breath of astonishment, Jones, his laughter ceasing. "To be he took in water instead. And as accurate about it, Jabez O'Brien, the sea sucked him down, all went you've arrived too early. Sixty-five black in his mind. years, four months, three weeks When at last J abez O'Brien and one day too early." opened his eyes a trifle, he said ex­ "I never was good at keeping to actly what you or I would have. a schedule," said Jabez. 'Well, at "Where am I?" he asked. least you're American. That's some "Ho!" a great voice roared. "Ho, consolation." ho!" "Why, Jabez," said Davy Jones, Jabez opened his eyes wide. "I'm not American. I'm not Eng­ Standing beside him was a some­ lish or French or Russian or Span­ what odd individual, a full eight ish or anything else. I'm Ocean, feet tall, with shoulders like the and have been since the first man limbs of an oak and legs as sturdy went out on salt water in a hollow as the mainmast of a sailing ship. log. His eyes were the green of the "I'm the Keeper of the Locker, sea where it is shallow and his ·and I receive all those who drown hair the blue of the ocean where at sea. In order to make the shod: it goes down to -unplumbed a bit less, every man sees me as JABEZ O'BlUEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKEll 119 he thinks of me. If you were a shouldn't be here at all. This is a Viking of the old days, you'd be very tricky case, young Jabez O'Bri­ seeing me with a horned helmet en, and it will take a bit of study­ on my head and a wolfskin around ing on my part. my waist." "Why," he asked, with such a "Have I drowned then?" Jabez sigh that he blew out a dozen jelly­ asked, with a natural curiosity. fish, "did you ever have to sail He looked around him with in­ smack into the ghost of the Span­ terest, for he did not feel drowned, ish galleon Princessa? And in­ not by many a nautical mile. The deed, right into the cabin of my room he was in had a rounded good friend Don Alfredo Aman­ dome of a roof many feet above dez, who went down with his ship his head. As Jabez' eyes became and crew and beautiful daughter adjusted, he saw that the room and English captive some two was a grotto in natural rock, its hundred years ago. Or was it three walls decorated with pearls by the hundred?" million, some as big as his fist. 'Then that was a ghost ship!" The light came from even larger Jabez exclaimed. "And it was a pearls, big as bowling balls, ghost girl singing. While all the spaced here and there, each one time I thought it was a mermaid I with a glowing, phosphorescent was about to catch." jellyfish on it to give off illumina­ "Mermaids!" snorted Davy Jones tion. And the huge bed he sat on 'They aren't in my department. might have been made of silk­ Only ships that sink at sea and smooth seaweed or of rare draper­ folks who go down with them or ies too long underwater. otherwise end up beneath the wa­ Without asking, Jabez knew it ters come under my jurisdiction. must be Davy Jones' own personal But when you got tangled up in bedroom. the ghost of the Princessa, Don "Have you drowned?" Davy re­ Alfredo didn't know what to do peated his words. "Now that's a with you. So he pushed your dory good question, a very good ques­ free and brought you to me, see­ tion. And right at the moment I'm ing that he was coming here any­ not prepared to say." way, to join the Gathering." "Then I'm alive?" Jabez asked, 'The Gathering?" Jabez asked, springing· to his feet. "I'm not puzzled. dead?" "Ave, the Hundred Year Gather­ "Hold on!" roared Davy Jones. ing," ·Davy told him. "I see I shall "I didn't say that. But if you're have to tell you some things most dead you're here sixty-five years men learn little by little while too soon, and if you're alive you fish nibble on them. So here's the 120 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION lay of the matter, and keep your blown onto the reefs of Mermaid ears open while I talk." Cove and sunk, on the night of And indeed, what Davy Jones June 15th in some year Davy Jones had to tell him took careful listen· could not remember. ing to understand, though when Since then her ghost had risen Davy finished, it seemed tolerably once every ten years, to lie at an· plain to Jabez. chor in the cove while the ghostly When a ship went down at sea, crew yarned and feasted and it and all aboard came under diced. The ghostly Isabella, the Davy Jones' personal custody. The captain's beautiful daughter, had whole sea bottom was his locker, used her hour to sing the songs but this spot where Jabez was, of that had soothed her father on the which Davy's bedroom was only long voyage to the New World, the tiniest part, was a most tre­ from which he had never returned. mendous hollowed-out harbor be­ And it was this scene-Isabella neath a volcanic island, was the singing, her father and Sir An· center of his domain. drew Blade listening as they drank One night every ten years, the wine-that Jabez had so rudely ghost of a sunken vessel might rise interrupted with his mermaid again and the ghosts of its crew hunting. and passengers could enjoy a sight "At least I was right that it hap­ of the world above. For an hour pened but once every ten years, on they could do as they pleased, be­ my birthday night," Jabez com· fore returning to their rest in the mented. HBut what I do not un­ waters that had claimed them. derstand, Davy Jones, is why, if it Some several hundred years be­ was a ghost ship, I did not go fore, the Spanish ship PrincesSG, straight on thrf)ugh her. For it is Don Alfredo Amandez captain, well known that ghosts are quite with his beautiful daughter and a airy and have no more body to treasure in gold aboard, had been them than a bit of fog." blown far north of his course by a To this Davy answered that at gale. Sighted by an English frig­ sea ghosts take on a greater sub· ate, he had been engaged in battle. stance out of the water from which The two ships coming alongside, they come. This answer Jabez the crews had fought savagely could understand. But he had still hand to hand until a sudden storm another question. endangered both. The English ship "This Gathering," he said. "You had cast off and sailed away to spoke of a Hundred Year Gather· England, leaving behind her cap­ ing. This is something I have nev· tain, Sir Andrew Blade, seriously er heard of before." wounded. The PriJtUSsa had been "Nor has any living mortal,• JABEZ O'BRIEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKER 121 Davy Jones answered. "Not," he pirate? There are all of them by added quickly, "that I'm admit­ way of being heroes to me·. ting you are alive. You may just "Although," he added, remem­ as well be drowned. I'm still study­ bering, "Captain Cook died ing the matter. ashore, did he not? Landing in "But as to the Gathering. Once Hawaii he was slain, and then eat­ in every hundred years every last en by cannibals. So he can't be ship and every last man or woman here." or child who has been swallowed Sir Andrew chuckled. "He's by the sea gathers here in the here. His bones were returned to heart of my Locker for a frolic. the sea, so he wound up in Davy Mayhap you have heard tell of Fid­ Jones' Locker after all. But come dler's Green, the seaman's para­ along." dise?" With that he led Jabez forth. Jabez nodded, and Davy con­ Outside, the young man found tinued, saying, "Fiddler's Green is himself in a tremendous harbor really the Hundred Year Gather­ formed, as Davy had said, beneath ing. And the ghostly spirits of men a volcanic island. He could not and ships alik~ gather here for it. guess the size of the harbor, but it Now I've given you time and too was crowded with craft of every much. Out you go to join the Gath­ kind, from every comer of the ering. Sir Andrew Blade will be world and every moment of time. your guide. Meantime I'll look in­ Within eyesight he could spot to my books to see if you are dead, Viking ships with carved dragon or alive, or quite possibly neither." prows, Roman galleys, clipper He turned to a shelf cut into ships from the China trade, bat­ the coral and took down a great, tleships both old and new, and musty volume. As if at a signal the anchored close at hand, a great elegantly dressed Englishman Jab­ gash in her prow, a steamship. ez had seen in the cabin of the He peered more closely and ghost ship entered. saw her name-Titanic. "Sir Andrew Blade, at your serv­ 'This way," said his guide. ice," he said with a bow, Jabez re­ "Captain Cook keeps to himself. sponded in a like manner. He's glum because he has no ship, "Jabez O'Brien, who may be being killed on land by the na­ man or ghost or neither," he said. tives, and not properly sunk with "If you are to be my guide, per­ his vessel." haps you can introduce me to Sir Sir Andrew led Jabez down a Francis Drake? . And Captain long wharf, and on all sides of James Cook, the great navigator, him was merriment. Sailors roast­ and Blackbeard, the equally great ed fish on spits, while others fid- 122 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION died that some might dance jigs riment and staring glumly toward and hornpipes. Here and there the harbor. were family groups picmcmg "A good day, Captain Cook," he placidly amidst the confusion. In called. "May I introduce to you the harbor was a constant coming young Jabez O'Brien, a visitor to and going of ship's boats of every the Gathering, an admirer of description, and some Jabez had yours?" never heard tell of before. Slowly, very slowly, Captain What with ghostly spirits from Cook turned. Jabez saw small a thousand lands and untold cen­ eyes peer at him keenly from be­ turies of history making the most neath bushy brows. of their freedom this once in a "He looks like a likely seaman," hundred years, Jabez walked with Captain Cook said. "Irish, I take his eyes wide and astonished. The it?'' whole cavern was filled with the "Of Irish descent, sir," Jabez greenish light, as of being under­ said politely. "We're from Maine water, which came from millions now." of phosphorescent jellyfish tucked "Maine? The Spanish Main?" here and there into the walls. And asked Cook, brows gathering to­ in some places electric eels were gether. attached to chandeliers taken "No, sir. Down East Maine." from sunken steamships, and were "I don't believe I've ever heard making them glow, with great of it," Captain Cook said shortly. bursts of light. "I didn't make landfall on any Beneath one such patch of il­ Main save the Spanish one, on my lumination, Jabez spied a group voyages." of English naval officers engaged "It's one of the newer countries, in a game of ninepins on a smooth Captain," Sir Andrew put in. "On­ section of the wharf carved from ly two hundred years old or there­ coral. abouts. Perhaps you'd care to tell "Sir Andrew:" he excJaimed. our young friend something of "Isn't that Sir Francis Drake him­ your famed trips?" self? Knocking down ninepins, "There's little to tell," Cook just as he did before he sailed out sighed. "Last voyage, the ship to smash the Spanish Armada?" sailed home. I didn't. Cook was "That it is," said his guide. the captain and the captain was "And we'll see him next. Over cooked. Young man, let me give here is Cook. We'll see if he feels you some advice. Never let your­ like speaking to you." self be eaten by cannibals. You'll He led Jabez toward a lonely regret it as long as you live." figure, sitting apart from the mer- With that he turned and re- JABEZ O'BRIEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKEil 123 sumed his gloomy stare at a har­ "perhaps Drake will give you a bor which did not hold a ship- for place on board one of ships now. him to command. Sir Andrew Some of them are shorthanded­ nudged Jabez' elbow and led him not all the crews went to Davy away. Jones' Locker. We'll ask him." "He paid you a great compli­ Well, I could go on for a long ment," he said. "He told you his time telling you of Jabez O'Brien's favorite joke. Now let us speak to adventures during that Hundred Drake. He's about finished with his Year Gathering in Davy Jones' game of bowls. In a few moments Locker. For one thing, he fought he'll be sailing out to attack the aboard an English man of war Spanish Armada." which engaged two Spanish ships "Attack the Armada!" Jabez ex­ simultaneously. And thought it claimed. "But he did that. Back in was a ghostly battle, it was fought 1588itwas." with great spirit, if you'll allow "Aye, and he'll do it again to­ me the word, and much gunfire of day," Sir Andrew said, leading a very realistic kind. Jabez toward the group of bowlers, During the battle Jabez first who were applauding a roll in was riddled by shot, then had his which Sir Francis Drake knocked hand lopped off by a cutlass, and down all nine of the pins. wound up with a cannonball go­ "You see," he went on, "it's the ing squarely through his midriff big entertainment scheduled for as well as being mishandled in this Gathering. For to a seaman a other serious ways. When the bat­ naval battle is what a mere game tle was over and he was allowed to of baseball or cricket is to a land­ reassemble himself, he was heart­ lubber. Each Gathering some great ily glad it was only playacting. ocean battle is refought here in He had lost all taste for warfare the heart of Davy Jones' locker. and never again daydreamed of Mterwards, there is feasting and the old times, of pirates and sea merrymaking. Aye, and dancing fights. too, for we have many beautiful Then came the partying, which girls with us, though not as many he enjoyed a great deal more. Sir as we sailors might wish." Andrew introduced him, formally "It's always been a dream of this time, to the Lady Isabella, mine that I could have lived in whose singing had created the leg­ the right age to fight with Drake end of the mermaid in Mermaid against the Spaniards," Jabez Cove. The Lady Isabella, looking O'Brien said. "At least, it will be at him from beneath lowered a notable thing to see." lashes, chided him for so rudely "As to that,'' said his guide, interrupting her song. But she for- 124 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION gave him enough to dance with there were only Davy and J abez him. left. Jabez would gladly have danced "All ships and crews return to the entire night-or was it more the spots where they sank," Davy than a night, for he could tell said. "There to rest until the next nothing of time?-with the Lady Gathering. Save of course for the Isabella. But from her arms he ten year intervals when each can found himself whirled into those return to the surface for an hour of other ghost girls whose fate had to see the world above again. But been to cast final anchor with you're still here, young Jabez, and Davy Jones. There were blonde to tell the truth, you're a thorny Viking lasses, and dusky South problem to me." Seas beauties, and dozens more, all ''I'm sorry to hear that," young eager to dance with him. For he Jabez answered. "It was never my was a handsome stranger, and as intention to bother you, Davy Davy Jones had not yet decided Jones." about him, he was a deal less "I know, I know. You only ghostly than the others present. wanted to capture a mermaid. Be So time for Jabez O'Brien be­ that as it may, I've studied my came confused entirely, and he books and my ledgers and I'm could recall only whirling and blowed if I can find a place to dipping and spinning, and whis­ enter you. Dead or alive, you don't pering many sweet nothings into belong here and I'm sending you willing ears. home again." Then abruptly Davy Jones was "Thank you, sir. Dead or alive, standing beside him again, blow­ sir?" ing on a great bos'un's whistle. In "That's up to you, Jabez. I'm the twinkling of an eye the ghost­ washing my hands of you. But this ly multitude. gave over merrymak­ much I'll do. You've been put to ing and each individual returned considerable inconvenience, not to his ship. The ships themselves altogether your own fault, so I'll upped anchors and moved off, Ro­ grant you a wish before sending man alleys with oars dipping, sail­ you off. If you wind up alive, you ing ships bending far over before can use it. Contrarywise, at least some ghostly breeze, steamships I'll have done my best." bellowing forth black smoke. "That sounds fair," answered In a second twinkling of an eye Jabez, already thinking hard what they were speeding toward some to request. entrance so far off Jabez could not "So ask away, Jabez. Quickly. I see it. In a moment, it seemed, have an appointment to meet a they had sailed away and gone and shipload of sailors just about to JABEZ O'BRIEN AND DAVY JONES' LOCKER 125 sign aboard with me up in the ful. Then I'll be happy. As for be­ North Sea. What would you like?" ing wise and famous, I can let "Why," said Jabez, all in one those go I expect." breath, "I'd like to be richfamous­ "Hold hard!" Davy Jones wiseandhappy." roared. "''m not finished. I've giv­ By it saying it very fast, as if it en you wealth. If you get back were all one word, he hoped it alive, you'll be famous. Now to would count as a single wish. give you wisdom. Here it is. Don't "Ho!" Davy Jones bellowed. "Ho marry the most beautiful girl on ho! Rich, famous, wise and happy, the island." all at one and the same time! Jab­ "Not marry Susan?" Jabez cried ez you rascal, even King Solomon in astonishment. "Well then, I'll couldn't manage all that. But-" marry Nancy." and he clapped a great hand on the "And here's the next round of young man's shoulder, so that Jab­ wisdom. Don't marry the second ez' knees buckled-"I'll do it. It most beautiful girl on the island." so happens I've taken a liking to "Not marry Nancy either?" Jab­ you." ez exclaimed, in still greater "Thank you, sir," Jabez said. amazement. "At least there's still "As to being rich," Davy told Maria left." him, "you remember the rock in "And here's the final wisdom. front of your little cottage, where Don't marry the third most beauti­ you sit and look at the sea and ful girl on the island." daydream when you should be out "Not Susan, or Nancy, or even doing some honest fishing?" Maria?" Jabez said, very perplex. Jabez blushed slightly, but "Excuse me for being bold and nodded. asking, Davy Jones, but where is "Under that rock are one hun­ the wisdom of that?" dred gold doubloons, hidden "Why, Jabez," Davy told him, there by a survivor of the Princessa "the most beautiful girl on any is­ when she sank on the reefs of Mer­ land will spend her time being maid Cove. They are just waiting proud of her beauty and demand­ for the rock to be overturned and ing that you notice it, and give her found." trinkets to show it off. And when "No fisherman could ask for age takes her beauty away, she'IJ more wealth than that, sir," Jabez most likely be miserable and make told him. "Being rich now I'll be you miserable too." able to marry the most beautiful "Hmm," said Jabez, who had girl on the island. Or at least the noticed in Susan a certain fond­ second most beautiful. Or at the ness for pretty earrings and other very worst the third most beauti- such gadgets. 126 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "And the second most beautiful longer and all consciousness of girl will be rueful because she's not life left him. first. She'll ask for even more gee­ But I am happy to be able to gaws and trinkets. And as for the tell you this was not quite the end third most beautiful girl-she'll for Jabez O'Brien. It is true that spend the most time of all in front he was seen to pop to the surface of her mirror, doing things to her just off the beach of Fish Island, face and hair and trying to out­ after being missing for ten mortal shine the others. And she'll want days. And his neighbors, having even more pretties to make people pulled him ashore, knew perfect­ notice her. Do you follow me, ly well anyone who has been un­ Jabez'?" der water ten days must be buried. Jabez did. It was indeed wis­ So they dug him a grave, put him dom that Davy Jones spoke. in a coffin, carried him to the "Who then shall I marry?" he churchyard, and waited solemnly asked. "How can I hope to pick while the pastor said some final the right girl out of all the girls words over him. on the island'? Polly has a sharp Jabez however, as he figured out temper and Lettie talks too much later, had just been getting his and Sally-" breath back. For at that point he "The last bit of wisdom is this," sat up. Seeing how matters lay, he said Davy. "Marry the girl who hopped out of the coffin and re­ thinks you are the handsomest fused to let them bury him. He man on the island, the girl who had to fight several of the men, thinks you are bravest and smart­ who thought he was acting in an est and finest of all. Then you can improper fashion, but when he be sure you're right. For she will had thrown three of them into the spend her time thinking of you open grave they decided that he and not of herself. Now one last was still alive after all, just as he gift for free-you shall always be claimed. able to catch exactly the fish you In order that the occasion need, no more, no less. But you should not be wasted, what with must work to do it. So be off with everyone wearing his best clothes, you!" Jabez O'Brien gave a party instead. He gave Jabez a thrust in the He paid for it with one of the gold back with his tremendous hand, doubloons, found just where Davy and Jabez went flying into the wa­ Jones had said they'd be. And dur­ ter. He struck hard and went down·, ing the dancing first Susan, then down, and still down to a depth Nancy, then Maria whispered to he could not calculate. At last he him that if he wanted to ask a cer­ could hold his final breath no tain question again, he'd get a dif- JABEZ O'BRIEN AND DAVY JONEs' LOCKER 127 ferent answer this time. But Jabez his birthday night, every tenth only looked wise and said abso­ year, to hear the ghost of the Lady lutely nothing. Isabella sing. But it so happens Nora Farrington, however, that with Nora and the children spoke differently. She confided to around, and the birthday partv him how she had wept when his they give him, and one thing and dory had been found, keel up, and another, that's one night he can him missing. And how glad she never get away. was that he was safe, him being However, there's no denying the finest and handsomest man on that he has wealth, wisdom and the island. And suddenly Jabez fame, which make him believe noticed that her mouth was but that the visit to Davy Jones' Locker generously sized, for laughter and was indeed real. Sometimes it oc­ kisses. And her green eyes were set curs to him that Davy did prom­ well apart so that she could see the ise him happiness also, but at the world clearly and still like what last moment seemed to forget she saw. Her reddish hair, he per­ about it. However, he's willing to ceived, was his favorite color. put that down as a mere oversight, So it was Nora he married. what with Davy having so much From that day on he worked hard on his mind. at being a fisherman and he al­ The truth is that having mar­ ways caught fish in just the ried just the right wife, and living amount he needed. Nora took good exactly the life he wants to live, care of his wealth, making sure it and having his work rewarded ex­ was not wasted. And Jabez was actly right, with not too much and famous through all New Emdand not too little to show for it, he's as the man who sat up in his coffin happier than any king who ever after being under water for ten lived. days-for he said nothing about But happiness is a queer thing his meeting with Davy Jones, not -when you really have it you wanting to be called a liar. don't notice it to think about. So There are times now, it is true, if Jabez O'Brien doesn't give Davy when he wonders if it all really Jones his full due it's only because happened. He could test the mat­ he's human. And will be for a long ter by visiting Mermaid Cove on time yet. ************************* « *• ; MARKET PLACE : « * •~************************ * "Weird Tales", other fantasy material. List for BOOKS-MAGAZINES stamp. Richard Minter, Draper, North Carolina. 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PORTRAIT OF DISTINCTION done from your FOREIGN EDITIONS of Fantasy and Science Fie· photograph. Charcoal $20, colored pastels $30. lion Limited offer-Send $1. for any 3 foreign Satisfaction guaranteed. John Walencik, P. 0. edition copies of F&SF (usually 50tt eoch)-French, Box 4956, Chicago, Illinois 60680. German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, or British Venture SF. Mercury Press, Box 271, Rockville SERVICES-AUTHORS Centre, N.Y. 11571.

PUBLISH your bookl Join our successful authors: WHAT OUR DREAMS MEAN. Every new experl· publicity advertising promotion, beautiful books. ence is first told to us in dreams. $1.00 pool All subjects invited. Send for free appraisal and paid. Don Grant, 35 East 35 St., N. Y. Dept. 7-H. detailed booklet. Carlton Prell (Dept, FSR) B4 Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C. 11. BEERS, PEACH BRANDY, WINES-Strongest For. BOOK PRINTING. Lowest cost. Paperbacks or mulas, $2.00. (complete brew suppHes-hydrome· hard covers. Catalog free. Adam Press, 30 West ters catalog IOt)-Re.. arch Enterprises, 29·M08 Washington, ,Chicago, Ill. 60602. Samoset Road, Wobum, Mass.

YOUR MARKET PLACE A market is people-alert, intelligent, active people. Here you can reach 180,000 people (averaging three readers per copy -60,000 paid circulation). Many of them are enthusiastic hobbyists­ collecting books, magazines, stamps, coins, model rockets, etc.-actively interested in photography, music, astronomy, painting, sculpture, elec­ tronics. H you have a product or service of merit, tell them about it The price is right: $3.00 for a minimum of ten (10) words, plus 30¢ for each additional word. Advertising Dept., Fantasy & Science Fiction 347 East 53 St., New York, N. Y. IOOJJ 129 INDEX TO VOLUME TWENTY-EIGHT-JANUARY-JUNE 1965

ANDEJLSON, KAREN: Look Up HoDGINs, RoDERIC C.: The His- (verse) ••.•.•••••..••.•• Feb. 95 tory of Doctor Frost ...... Apr. 82 AND5RSON, PoUL: Marque and JoNAS, GERALD: Imaginary Num- Reprisal (short novel) • • • • • Feb. 5 bers in a Real Garden (verse) Apr. ({! Arsenal Port (short novel) ••• Apr. 5 KAGAN, NoRMAN: The Earth Mer- Admiralty (short novel) • • . . June 4 chants (novelet) • . . • . . . • . May 4 ARTHUR, RoBERT: Jabez O'Brien KERR, WALTER H.: Illusion and Davy Jones Locker . . • • June 113 {verse) ...... •.•. Mar. 70 AsiMov, ISAAC: Begin At the Be­ Ktas, ALEX: Better Than Ever •• Mar. 71 ginning ...... • • • • • • . Jan. 43 KuRoSAKA, BoB: Those Who Can, Harmony In Heaven Feb. 81 Do .•.•.•••.•...•••.••• Jan. 73 Oh, East Is West and West Is LEHRMAN, HERB: The Ancient East ••••..••.•••••••••• Mar. 80 Last . . . . • . • . • . . . • . • . . • . June 91 The Certainty of Uncertainty • Apr. 104 LEIBER, FRITz: Four Ghosts In Eyes Do More Than See • • . • • Apr. 115 Hamlet {novelet) Jan. 98 To Tell A Chemist • • . • • • • • • May 87 MARSH, WILLARD: The Sin of Future? Tense! •...... •.••• June 100 Edna Schuster . . • • • • • • • • • Feb. 63 BEAUCLERK, JANE: Lord Moon • • Apr. 95 MERRIL, JumTH: Books . • . • . . . . Mar.- June BENFORD, GREG: Stand-In June 93 MooRE, WARD: The Mysterious BRENNAN, J. H.: Final Appeal •• Mar. 31 Milkman of Bishop Street . . Jan. 53 BRowN, FREDERic: Eine Kleine OLIVER, CHAD: End Of The Line Nachtmusik . • . • . . • • . • • . . June 58 {novelet) • • . . • . . • . . • . • • . Jan. 5 BucK, DoRIS PITKIN: Story of a ONsPAUGH, CARL: Eine Kleine Curse .•..•••..••.••.••• June 96 Nachtmusik ...... • . . . June 58 CARAVAN, TP: Blind Date .•..•. Apr. 75 OrruM, JR., BoB: Ado About CARTER, LIN: Uncollected Works Mar. 93 Nothing • ...... Mar. 90 CIARDI, JoHN: Love Letter from PANGBORN, EDGAR: Wooglebeast . Jan. 75 Mars (verse) ...... Jan. 82 RoHRER, RoBERT: Keep Them Happy ...... •.•••••• Apr. 60 CRAWFORD, DEBORAH: Short Cut SANFORD, SuE: Mrs. Pribley's Un- (verse) •..•.•.•.•...... May 67 derdog ...... • . . • . . . Feb. DAVIDSON, AvRAM: The House 68 ScHUTZ, J. W.: Maiden Voyage The Blakeneys Built ...... Jan. 87 {novelet) ...... •. Mar. 103 DE CAMP, L. SPRAGUE: Mam­ ScoTT, RoBIN: The Gritsch Sys- moths and Mastodons • . • • . May 35 tem •...... ••.•.•••••. May 48 Nabonidus (verse) ...... •.•• June 99 SHARKEY, JAcK: Essentials Only Mar. 40 DEFORD, MIRIAM ALLEN: The Ab­ SMITH, RoN: Tripsych ...... • . Mar. 65 solutely Perfect Murder • . . Feb. 96 ST. CLAIR, ERIC: Dimensional DEMMON, CALVIN: Switch ••.•. Feb. 92 Analysis And Mr. Fortescue Jan. 32 DRAKE, LEAH BoDINE: Time and THOMAS, THEODORE L.: The Bio- the Sphinx • • • • • . • . • • • • • • Feb. 77 laser ...... • • • • • • • • • • • Jan. 72 FisH, RoBERT L.: Sonny •••.••• May 76 The Placebo Effect ...... Feb. 105 GASTALDI, ERNESTo: The End of Low-Level Weather • ...... • Mar. 39 Eternity ••.••••••••••••• Mar. 60 The Ice Ages . . . • ...... Apr. 81 GoULART, RoN: Books • • • • • • • • • Jan. 83 Phoenix . . . • . . . . . • • • • • • • • • June 88 Rake ....•...... •...•..•. June 78 WILSON, GAHAN: Cartoon •••••• Apr.- June GREEN, JR., RoBERT M.: The YouNG, RoBERT F.: Dialogue in a Deadeye Dick Syndrome . • Feb. 106 21st Century Dining Room . Feb. 122 GurrRIDGE, LEN: Aunt Millicent Romance In An Eleventh-Cen- at the Races • . . • • . • • . • • • • Apr. 118 tury Recharging Station . • . May U HARRISON, HARRY: Famous First ZELAZNY, ROGER: The Doors of Words ....•••...... •.•• June 66 His Face, The Lamps of His HENDERsoN, ZENNA: No Different Mouth (novelet) • • • • • • • • • Mar. 4 Flesh (novelet) • • • • • • • • • • May 97 . Of Time and the Yan ••••••• June 110 130 CLIFTON PADIMAN, writer and editor, judge of the Book-of-the-Month Club, writes: "Each of w hal hu own apecial eocape-reading. Mine Is science fiction . To my mind Fantasy and Science Fiction regularly supplies the PEOPLE WITH finest the field has to offer in the way of short fiction.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG writes: "I believe The •·:• ._IMAGINATIO N of Fantasy and Science appeals to me because ' one finds refuge and from everyday life. We are all READ THE MAGAZINE OF little children at heart and find comfort In a dream world, and these episodes In the magazine encourage our building '• rANTASY~":- AND castles in space." .SCIENCE FICTION

BASIL DAVENPORT1 writer Stars of the entertainment world ... notQbles in and editor, judge ot the Book-of-the-Month Club, the news ... distinguished authors and editon writes: "I have been a fan -all owe much of their success to imagination. So of science fictiDn all my life, and of The Magazine of when they want relaxation or stimulation in read· Fantasy and Science Fictwn ing, they turn naturally to the finest works of for all its life. F&SF gives us some of the best writing imagination; tales of science fiction. And they in the field, and the field find such stories-xciting, fast-paced and ex· i.t one of great .(mpOrlance. ,, ceedingly well written-in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. Here they HUGO GERNSBACK, find currerot top-natchers such as Robert Hein· pioneer in science fiction. publishing, writer and editor, lein, Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon and writes: " Plus fa change, plus Isaac Asimov; plus unexpected fantasies from c'est Ia mime chose-is a French truism, lamentably writers famous in ather fields, such as Stuart accurate of much of our Palmer and Mark Van Doren. As a bonus, F&SF latter day science fiction. Not so in the cyclotronlc M agazlne has a unique record of finding stimulating new of Fantasy and Science Fiction talents-such fine writers as Mildred Clingerman, which Injects sophuticated Richard Matheson and Chad Oliver first appeared isotopes, pregnant with imagination, into many in these pages. . . . In a word, here is the best of its best narratives." of fantasy and science fiction. O RVILLE PRESCOn, literary critic and author, Book ReviPw Editor for the New at better newsstands every month York Times, writes: "People who think that their literary 50c By subscription $5.00 a year I.Q. u too high for them to enjoy the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 347 East 53 Street New York 22, N.Y. don't know what they are missing. The number of well­ written, Ingenious and enter­ taining stories it regularly publishes is astonishingly high."

BEN GRAUER, radio and television outstanding special events reporter: "Science fictiDn, I think, offers a wonderful educatinn for its readers-it ertendo their understanding to include the entire cosmo&."